[mythtv-users] NAS

[Paul Catchpole]

A JM wrote:
> Anybody using NAS (FreeNAS) for a file server or does anyone have some 
> recommendations for setting up a file server on a budget with some 
> spare drives???
>
> Thanks.
>
> AJM,
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Over the last year I've gone from a proprietary RAIDZONE storage 
appliance [linux-based, 12 ATA drives] on to some new hardware based on 
a fairly old motherboard with two SATA controllers on PCI slots with 
3x500gb RAID5, booting FreeNAS via a CF-IDE adapter, to the same new 
hardware booting OpenFiler from a small ATA HD.

Raw SATA performance on FreeNAS was quicker than Openfiler, but the 
software RAID-5 didn't do so well - although YMMV. The actual reason I 
moved to OpenFiler was for better iSCSI support, as I'm using it to host 
Xen VM disks as well as Myth. Openfiler's RAID performance was quite a 
bit better than FreeNAS, for the versions I tried, although the raw disk 
perf was slightly worse.

Either would work quite well for Myth, I'd have thought.

I haven't tried using iSCSI for Myth, but I may do so at some point, as 
I get a 25-30% performance increase compared to a well-tuned NFSv3 mount.

Anyhoo, myth seems happy enough.

PC

PS: Both distros now support live-grow of RAID-5 online, although be 
prepared for it to take a few days. If you're going to build one, I've 
been really impressed with the IcyBox 5 drive SATA backplane which fits 
into 3x5.25" slots.