Content Storage Systems

Network-attached storage (NAS) is a file-level (as opposed to block-level) computer data storage server connected to a computer network providing data access to a heterogeneous group of clients. NAS is specialized for serving files either by hardware, software, or configuration. It is often designed as a computer appliance – a purpose-built specialized computer. NAS systems are networked appliances which contain one or more storage drives, often arranged into logical, redundant storage containers or RAID. Network-attached storage removes the responsibility of file serving from other servers on the network. They typically provide access to files using network file sharing protocols such as NFS, SMB, or AFP. From the mid-1990s, NAS devices began gaining popularity as a convenient method of sharing files among multiple computers. Potential benefits of dedicated network-attached storage, compared to general-purpose servers also serving files, include faster data access, easier administration, and simple configuration.........some NAS versions of drives support a command extension to allow extended error recovery to be disabled. In a non-RAID application, it may be important for a disk drive to go to great lengths to successfully read a problematic storage block, even if it takes several seconds. In an appropriately configured RAID array, a single bad block on a single drive can be recovered completely via the redundancy encoded across the RAID set. If a drive spends several seconds executing extensive retries it might cause the RAID controller to flag the drive as "down" whereas if it simply replied promptly that the block of data had a checksum error, the RAID controller would use the redundant data on the other drives to correct the error and continue without any problem. Such a "NAS" SATA hard disk drive can be used as an internal PC hard drive, without any problems or adjustments needed, as it simply supports additional options and may possibly be built to a higher quality standard (particularly if accompanied by a higher quoted MTBF figure and higher price) than a regular consumer drive.

NAS is useful for more than just general centralized storage provided to client computers in environments with large amounts of data. NAS can enable simpler and lower cost systems such as load-balancing and fault-tolerant email and web server systems by providing storage services. The potential emerging market for NAS is the consumer market where there is a large amount of multi-media data. Such consumer market appliances are now commonly available. Unlike their rackmounted counterparts, they are generally packaged in smaller from factors. The price of NAS appliances has fallen sharply in recent years, offering flexible network-based storage to the home consumer market for little more than the cost of a regular USB or FireWire external hard disk. Many of these home consumer devices are built around ARM, PowerPC or MIPS processors running an embedded Linux operating system.

We just happen to have a few of hard drives laying around which we've put to good use with a Raspberry Pi by creating our own, very cheap NAS setup. The current setup is two 4TB hard drives and one 128GB hard drive, connected to the network and accessible from anywhere using the Raspberry Pi. a Raspberry Pi. Models 1 and 2 work just fine for this application but we got a little better support from the Raspberry Pi 3. With the Pi 3, we were still limited to USB 2.0 and 100Mbps via Ethernet. However, we were able to power one external HDD with a Pi 3, while the Pi 2 Model B could not supply enough power to the same HDD. The Raspberry Pi NAS, we currently have one powered 4TB HDD, one non-powered 4TB HDD and a 128GB flash drive mounted without issue. To use a Pi 1 or 2 with this, we considered using a powered USB hub for your external drives or using a HDD that requires external power. Additionally, we used a microSD card -- 8GB is recommended -- and the OpenMediaVault OS image. Contact MEP Digital Systems for a consultation today.