Redoing cluttered server room

[Nemo]

I have a new question - hopefully it will not stray from the original topic - but anyways:

 

Here is the new task handed down to me by my boss. We have a Doctor in Philly doing clinical research for our product, my boss wants to buy a computer (dell) and he wants me to setup such that the computer in Philly will save periodically and then send it over to the computer in our office in florida. So that we can monitor the Doctor's work. - and before anyone say anything the Doctor knows that we will be setting up for this to happen as the machine he uses is our property.

 

So basically doctor write/saves work on his computer in Philly, we want to be able to see this through our computer in florida.

 

my theory on this, is for me to have his connected to our network than have his system setup to backup files to the same computer that we will be using to monitor the progress.

 

your thoughts or perhaps if someone can lead me in the right direction so i can set this up, i would gladly like this.

 

Also, the boss wants the machine we buy to have Win7 with backwards compatibility to WinXP.

 

Thank.

 

Why buy a new computer? Set the doctor's computer in Philly to FTP the files to your N4100PRO on a nightly basis. The NAS can act as an FTP server and you can use backup software like Cobian or SyncBack to automatically do this on a scheduled basis.

 

You can then access those file from any computer since they are on the NAS.

[Nytekrawlerr]

Why buy a new computer? Set the doctor's computer in Philly to FTP the files to your N4100PRO on a nightly basis. The NAS can act as an FTP server and you can use backup software like Cobian or SyncBack to automatically do this on a scheduled basis.

 

You can then access those file from any computer since they are on the NAS.

 

I was thinking about that last night; but he wants a new computer with win7 and with backwards compatibility to WinXP, I need to find out if he also wants the new computer in order to upload all of the software that the doc is using on his. I will ask, but that is a good point.

 

BTW I cant wait to read your review on the Thecus N4100Pro, as the NAS comes with driverclone 5 pro software, which by you mentioned those 2 software programs, so does this mean that basically I can put any form of software to work with the N4100pro? I am abit concerned about how the NAS is supposed to act. I want it to backup all of our data safely and securely. but at the same time will it be able to act as a FTP server as you mentioned above? and how will that affect the overall HD space available?

 

As for raid 5 array , that gives you about 3TBs of the 4TBs installed right? whereas the Raid 10 gives you only 2TBs of the 4TBs available due to the Mirroring and Striping configuration of it?

[Nemo]

I was thinking about that last night; but he wants a new computer with win7 and with backwards compatibility to WinXP, I need to find out if he also wants the new computer in order to upload all of the software that the doc is using on his. I will ask, but that is a good point.

 

BTW I cant wait to read your review on the Thecus N4100Pro, as the NAS comes with driverclone 5 pro software, which by you mentioned those 2 software programs, so does this mean that basically I can put any form of software to work with the N4100pro? I am abit concerned about how the NAS is supposed to act. I want it to backup all of our data safely and securely. but at the same time will it be able to act as a FTP server as you mentioned above? and how will that affect the overall HD space available?

 

As for raid 5 array , that gives you about 3TBs of the 4TBs installed right? whereas the Raid 10 gives you only 2TBs of the 4TBs available due to the Mirroring and Striping configuration of it?

You can run any backup software you want on the client machines machines and use the NAS as the target. Using the N400PRO as an FTP server is simply a matter of enabling that feature in the management UI, it will not affect the HD space available. Obviously any files up upload will take up space, but that's no different than sends files across the network.

 

As for the RAID arrays, you are correct - a RAID 5 array will give you a nominal 3TB of space (using 1TB drives) and a RAID 10 you lose 50% of the drive space for mirroring. If you look at the MicroNet MaxNAS review, you'll notice than RAID 5 is generally faster than RAID 10, which is not what you would expect. I haven't finished the performance tests on the N410PRO yet to see how it fares in RAID 10.

[Nytekrawlerr]

You can run any backup software you want on the client machines machines and use the NAS as the target. Using the N400PRO as an FTP server is simply a matter of enabling that feature in the management UI, it will not affect the HD space available. Obviously any files up upload will take up space, but that's no different than sends files across the network.

 

As for the RAID arrays, you are correct - a RAID 5 array will give you a nominal 3TB of space (using 1TB drives) and a RAID 10 you lose 50% of the drive space for mirroring. If you look at the MicroNet MaxNAS review, you'll notice than RAID 5 is generally faster than RAID 10, which is not what you would expect. I haven't finished the performance tests on the N410PRO yet to see how it fares in RAID 10.

 

Cool thanks for the clarifcation,

 

now also, from an equipment stand point will our machine that we use to look at the doctors equipment has to have all of the software accordingly to be able to do this. so perhaps, I will purchase a comp populate it with the appropriate software and set it up to be the only machine that has the authorization to access the files from the NAS.

 

thanks for everything this is helping out tremendously. I cant wait till we receive the NAS unit.

[Nytekrawlerr]

Ok, so update.

 

I received the 4 1TB hdds. now my boss is asking me to buy more hdds, so that he can pull the hdds after they get flashed with all the stuff and keep at his house. this sounds funny, i agree.

 

but i think I could just setup his home computer and run the NAS as an FTP server and send him the backup'd information to his home computer?

 

so NAS backup > backup image to his home VRS flashing some hdds and him taking those home. lol this is wierd. but i have to ask, to see what anyone would suggest.

 

thanks.

 

btw quote for running the hardwire dilema is 150 bucks. i need to see if anyone else can beat that price now, lol.

[Nemo]

Pulling hard drives from a RAID array in a NAS sounds like a wonderful way to render them useless - insert them back into the NAS server in the wrong order and BAM!! no more RAID array unless the NAS has disk roaming which the N4100PRO does not.

 

If he wants to take them home, buy a second N4100PRO, put it in his home and use the rSync backup feature.

[Nytekrawlerr]

yeah, but that being said, i doubt i can get him to think like that. i was hoping that i could do a cheap solution, getting him a smaller portable Harddrive and backing it up. but than again thats still pointless because you could only backup once in awhile, while he seems to want it backed up on a constant bases.

 

/sigh

 

lol, hes a strange individual and unfortunately i have to handle this situation. I will consider your thought thou. thanks nemo, once again for your suggestion/out look.

[Nytekrawlerr]

so another update, today we received the NAS unit, I am normally happy with newegg, however they seem to have cheapened their overall packaging quality. as i received the unit in its box, and not inside another (newegg logo) box like most vendors do. so, any joe schmoe could have easily opened it and handled the device without anyone ever noticing. just not my cup of tea when mechandise comes like that. anyways, i opened it up and looked at it and put it in the server room, i am not touching it and setting it up until i have the time to spend on doing that, probably next week.

 

As a side note, I have signed up at my local college for "Essentials of A+" hopefully I can get myself certified by the end of next year and be able to have my salary raised as this is a benefit to the company, having someone trained who can manage multiple aspects of the business versus a just dedicated IT department.

 

thanks

[Nemo]

Another solution would be to use a commercial online backup service which gives you the opportunity to backup and the security of knowing it's off site.

[Nytekrawlerr]

Nemo, what commercial online backup service do you recommend and how much in pricing do those go for on a monthly or yearly basis?

 

As for the NAS Unit, I took it out, took the time to look at the device and look through the quickstart guide which i found to be somewhat vague. so i went to the Thecus website and printed out their user manual for the N4100pro. I have it in a binder dedicated for the NAS unit and am reading it before i go attaching it to our router. Which brings me to the question. with the three servers I have, portalserver being the one which most of the applications are run in, or do i download the cd onto my office computer and work through the webbrowser module through that?

[Nemo]

The CD is used to install the finder service on your local PC - this helps with some very basic set up info like IP address etc and the you can access the web management interface via your browser - this can be done from anywhere on the network, you don't need to install the setup wizard on other computers. So I would install the setup wizard from the CD on your local machine, not on any of the servers.

 

On line backup services can run the a few bucks a month to hundreds of dollars a month depending on how much storage space you require, frequency and size of backups, etc. Mozy and Carbonite are two of the better know big players, and there are tons of others. I caution you to research these carefully as they tend to provide different levels of service and turnaround times. There are also so local backup providers that do a very good job as well.

[nanoprobe]

Also, i believe that we will be in major trouble if the sprinklers go off because a fire, since there is a sprinker in the server room...I have been reading several articles that suggest to make it a priority to get a different fire surpression system in the server room, any thoughts?

 

Look into a Halon system. Water and even dry chemical systems would do a lot of damage if they accidentally went off or were set off by a fire in another room. Murphy lives.

 

Or remove the sprinkler and not replace it.

 

I would very strongly advise against this. If it's a commercial building you'd probably be in violation of the local fire codes. Also, if a fire should start in the server room and there was no type of fire suppression or it had been disabled your boss could be in deep do do. JMHO