NAS...can you daisy chain hard drives?

[Rudyard]

I am currently using a desktop as my media center/hub, but with HD video and thousands of photos the drives keep filling. Rather than trying to cram and replace drives all the time I am looking at the NAS (network attached storeage?) and hoping I can just keep adding external drives to it and stream from that. I can tuck it away somewhere and add storeage as I need it without the constraints of my case.

So not knowing much about them, can you daisy chain external USB drives (must be USB powered drives not wanting millions of power adapters)? Or do they have to contain their own drives and I would be swapping/expanding as im doing anyway?

Also to anyone who has used one, is there a lag when playing HD video or does it buffer/stutter like video over the net? Currently playing from the internal hard drive is perfect, hoping this system would be the same.

And lastly, I get the impression you can also access these things via the net, meaning if I wanted to look at a photo or video remotely I could (that would be subject to internet connection speeds obviously). Is this how it works?

Thanks for any help.

[edDV]

Firewire or SCSI disks can be chained. They will be slow. Good luck finding a NAS that supports unless mega $$$.

[Rudyard]

Firewire or SCSI disks can be chained. They will be slow. Good luck finding a NAS that supports unless mega $$$.

Bummer, so in essence a NAS offers me nothing that I dont already have.

Thanks for your help.

[aedipuss]

the zyxel and plextor nas boxes i have both have usb 2.0 ports for adding drives, the plex also has an esata port. all external drives would require their own power supply, not the usb/sata cable. the esata might be fast enough to be usable for streaming video, usb would be doubtful.

i'll probably just keep adding more nas boxes to the network rather than bare drives. the nas units have the internal drives in recoverable raid arrays. the added drives wouldn't be.

[edDV]

Firewire or SCSI disks can be chained. They will be slow. Good luck finding a NAS that supports unless mega $$$.

Bummer, so in essence a NAS offers me nothing that I dont already have.

Thanks for your help.

If you want a large NAS, then replace current drives with larger.

[aedipuss]

most are limited to 2TB drives, my nas units are all maxed out already. they were inexpensive at the time.

[edDV]

Right, my NAS does too.

If you need large disk capacity then buy a NAS with many spare slots.

[budwzr]

"Daisy chain"? Does that mean a series connection? In NAS terms, it's called striped, and striped disks are the fastest configuration AFAIK.

[jman98]

"Daisy chain"? Does that mean a series connection? In NAS terms, it's called striped, and striped disks are the fastest configuration AFAIK.

I think he is not asking about striping. I think that basically he just wants to pop new disks in as needed and have them, for lack of a better term, become "magically available". Something like just putting a new USB drive (note that he specifically asked about USB drives) where you just connect it and it is immediately usable (assuming it has been formatted).

To be blunt, I get the feeling that he is like so many people who act like if something takes 5 minutes to do then it is completely unreasonable and it is like they are being asked to give up their soul. EVERY freakin' week I copy files to a USB stick to connect to my old Western Digital media player so I can watch them. It takes about 5 minutes to copy a big file (720p) and less if they are smaller SD Divx files. I can find 5 minutes in my day to do the copy. I think he just finds the idea of doing that to be completely unreasonable so he's looking for a magical solution where he can have multi-terrabytes of data instantly available for immediate streaming. He could just buy new USB drives and pop them in and out as needed, but that doesn't give him the ability to have everything available at once and it might take a couple of minutes to disconnect a drive from a PC and reconnect to to his player and that is a task he's unwilling to do.

[p_l]

The price for these things with 4 or 6 bays or more can easily set you back a grand or more. Wouldn't it be a cost-effective alternative just to run an ordinary computer with a spacious tower and hook up 4 or 6 or 8 HDDs inside, to a motherboard that has, say, six or so SATA ports and/or an extra PCI SATA controller card?

It's a great way to repurpose your old towers. Yes, it isn't as elegant as those sleek NAS boxes, but you get an actual extra computer you can use. In one old tower, via wireless N, I've got 4 HDDs, and in another I've got another 4 (a 750GB, a 2 TB and couple of 3TB drives) plus 3 external drives (USB and eSATA). The other three machines on my home network (a combination of ethernet, wireless N and powerline) all have at least a second or third drive, and one has a series of 4 daisy-chained Firewire drives. It's too bad FireWire is becoming less common, because unlike USB and eSATA, it can be daisy-chained.

But still, I like the idea of rededicating an old tower as a networked storage box.

[budwzr]

To be blunt, I get the feeling that he is like so many people who act like if something takes 5 minutes to do then it is completely unreasonable ...

Well the title is "NAS...can you daisy chain...", so I thought he wanted to combine multiple disks as one big one. Otherwise, the disks would run in parallel, with different drive letters, and that's not a daisy chain.

The old tower idea saves money, but I don't think you can partition several drives as one.

I run Raid5 on my NAS, the slowest configuration, and I never have a problem playing media. I get 12 MBps constant bandwidth from my NAS running over an older 10/100 network. That's plenty of speed to serve up H.264 720p to a media player.

That Qnap NAS edDV showed is the NAS I really wanted a couple years back, but couldn't afford at the time. I've heard nothing but good reports from pro video editors about that one.

[aedipuss]

daisy chain is an old term referring to drives that had 2 data ports. a cable to the computer or previous drive and then a cable to the next drive.

[edDV]

Or he might mean cable loops like older SCSI or Firewire disks where each disk plugs into the next. By far the most expensive alternative.



The new Intel-Apple Thunderbolt interface does allow daisy chain but I haven't seen it yet in a NAS.
http://www.groovypost.com/howto/news/intel-thunderbolt-explained-reviewed/

Just looked and they do exist.
http://www.spanstor.com/main/products_tboltnas.html
http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/nas/nas-news/31428-promise-announces-thunderbolt-raid-storage

[budwzr]

Ummm...looks like they existed in the past. Look at the date on that.

[edDV]

Ummm...looks like they existed in the past. Look at the date on that.


[Attachment 10192 - Click to enlarge]

SCSI was it for Mac in the day, also serious servers today. Firewire also looped. But Intel's Thunderbolt is the current ACME NAS (I'll get Youu Wabbit !!).

[aedipuss]

atari 400/800 drives were daisy chained in the 70/80s.

[edDV]

atari 400/800 drives were daisy chained in the 70/80s.

Yes they were. Another example.

[Rudyard]

"Daisy chain"? Does that mean a series connection? In NAS terms, it's called striped, and striped disks are the fastest configuration AFAIK.

Sorry for the confusion, my terminology may be wrong, I thought daisy chain to mean you keep plugging one item into another creating a 'chain' of devices. Im sure when I had some firewire equipment I could plug one into another and then just the one connection into the PC.

If you need large disk capacity then buy a NAS with many spare slots.

Will check them out although if as pricey as mentioned by p_l it may make the exercise more pricey than I thought (have been looking at catalogues with $200ish versions im sure they are not the ones in the link!). Will investigate.

But still, I like the idea of rededicating an old tower as a networked storage box.

Hmm, interesting idea, I have an old box laying around. I dont necessarily need the look of the black NAS box, im planning to hide it away anyway, I just want the data available. Cheers.

I think that basically he just wants to pop new disks in as needed and have them, for lack of a better term, become "magically available". Something like just putting a new USB drive (note that he specifically asked about USB drives) where you just connect it and it is immediately usable (assuming it has been formatted).

Yes in regards to adding them as needed, not necessarily USB but assumed they would be the most likely in my idea (since there are plenty of USB powered externals). If there was some other option that would be fine. Formatting/a little prep is no problem.

To be blunt, I get the feeling that he is like so many people who act like if something takes 5 minutes to do then it is completely unreasonable and it is like they are being asked to give up their soul.

To be blunt I think your a knob with no idea what hes talking about. It is not the time I have a problem with, it is the lack of space and my current need to chuck out perfectly good drives for bigger ones as I cannot cram anymore in the case. Give up their soul? lol you could go for an oscar for your drama...

EVERY freakin' week I copy files to a USB stick to connect to my old Western Digital media player so I can watch them. It takes about 5 minutes to copy a big file (720p) and less if they are smaller SD Divx files. I can find 5 minutes in my day to do the copy.

Good for you princess, my apologies if my needs and wants differ to yours (by the sounds of your whining im certain my needs and wants in life are very different to yours!)

I think he just finds the idea of doing that to be completely unreasonable so he's looking for a magical solution where he can have multi-terrabytes of data instantly available for immediate streaming.

Nothing magical about it, its called technology. I also like the idea of streaming movies cause returning them to the DVD shop can be a pain. Cry me a river.

He could just buy new USB drives and pop them in and out as needed, but that doesn't give him the ability to have everything available at once and it might take a couple of minutes to disconnect a drive from a PC and reconnect to to his player and that is a task he's unwilling to do.

I could, but since NAS exists why would I not explore its possibilities? You seem like a very cranky old person with not much happening in their life to spend more time whining about someones simple question filled with assumptions and dramatics than simply ignoring it if you had no intrest.

You did entertain me though, thank you.

[budwzr]

Keep in mind, a NAS's transfer rate would be limited to your local network's rate.