[dba-Tech] Building a network storage device

JWColby jwcolby at colbyconsulting.com
Fri Feb 9 04:57:06 CST 2007


You are using NASLite?

The BIOD might have a "wake on lan" setting.  I have never really understood
what that does for you precisely. 

One thing I would recommend is to see if you can boot off a USB thumb drive.
If so, then you could place the NASLite out on a thumb drive, plug it in, ad
boot from that.  It would be almost instantaneous for a system as small as
NASLit appears to be, which would allow "wake on lan" to actually be useful,
although even then the storage drives would have to spin up before the
storage could be used.  I have no clue how long that takes, although I do
know that for a large raid like I am doing, they stagger the drives spinup
so that the drives don't all come up at once, in order to take it easy on
the system power supply.

Thanks Lembit, keep us informed on how it is working.

John W. Colby
Colby Consulting
www.ColbyConsulting.com

-----Original Message-----
From: dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
[mailto:dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Lembit Soobik
Sent: Friday, February 09, 2007 5:45 AM
To: Discussion of Hardware and Software issues
Subject: Re: [dba-Tech] Building a network storage device

thanks Bryan and John
for the discussion.
I have done it yesterday and it worked like a charm.

the question i have now is
how can I start that PC via LAN, and is there a way to shut it down when the
UPS tells to shut down?

Lembit

----- Original Message -----
From: "Bryan Carbonnell" <carbonnb at gmail.com>
To: "Discussion of Hardware and Software issues" 
<dba-tech at databaseadvisors.com>
Sent: Wednesday, February 07, 2007 7:14 PM
Subject: Re: [dba-Tech] Building a network storage device


> On 2/7/07, JWColby <jwcolby at colbyconsulting.com> wrote:
>> >Have  a read of the docs, all 8 pages, and that should give you a good 
>> >idea
>> how little you really need to know.
>>
>> Isn't that what Microsoft tells Joe user about Microsoft Access?
>
> Point taken, but I dont' work for MS ;-)
>
>> >NASLite doesn't have web admin, but it does have web status monitoring.
>>
>> Hmmm... What status?  Is this a Linux thing?  Or the drive stuff?
>
> Drive stuff. The drive space, the drive health if they are SMART aware
> devices, etc. and server status/info.
>
> The NASLite-SMB Info share offers the following status information pages:
> . Server ? Provides information about server network settings, lists
> recent server users and displays the server (Samba) configuration
> file.
> . System ? Displays information about the server OS, uptime, load,
> CPU, memory, fixed disk drive usage and network interface status.
> . Disk-X - Displays Disk X initialization messages, hardware
> description and S.M.A.R.T. status information if applicable. Disk 1 is
> the primary (master) fixed disk
> . SYS Log ? Displays the current system messages log file.
> . SMB Log ? Displays the current SMB/CIFS Server (smbd) log file.
> . NMB Log - Displays the current NetBIOS Name Server (nmbd) log file.
> . About ? Contains general NASLite-SMB information.
>
> Here is a link to typical (their words not mine) status pages:
> http://www.serverelements.com/info/NASLite-1/Server.htm
>
>> >Yes, that's command line but it is still done remotely.
>>
>> And here we are learning Linux command line stuff.
>
> Nope. I wrote that wrong. It's a text based menu. No fancy point and
> click GUI. Its all done with the keyboard, via telnet or in front of
> the actual PC.
>
>> Bryan, I am not saying that NASLite won't do what I need.  What I want to
>> know before I get in there is that I will NEVER have to go do Linux stuff
>> for this thing.  Not finding a driver for a video card or the raid card 
>> or
>> the NIC, nothing!  If I ever have to do any Linux stuff then I just lost
>> whatever benefit I might have gained by using it in the first place, and
>> since I know absolutely NOTHING about Linux, I could be in trouble in a
>> hurry.
>
> Nope. AFAICT, you will NEVER have to learn Linux. Never, ever, ever
> with NASLite. It will either work out of the box with your hardware or
> it won't. Period. EOD.
>
> If it doesn't, you will need to find another solution. If it does,
> then you wont' need to upgrade anything. Now having said that, if you
> change hardware then the new hardware may not work. Just like any
> other hardware upgrade with (pick your favourite OS here)
>
>> I just have visions of weekends lost 6 months down the road because of 
>> (put
>> your favorite unexplained circumstance here).  XP isn't beautiful, and it
>> isn't problem free, but it is a known quantity which counts for 
>> something.
>> OTOH I have played the XP "where is the share that is supposed to be 
>> there"
>> game so I know quite well that it isn't all roses on the XP side of the
>> house either.
>
> I can't say that you won't have that experience. But it won't be
> because of having to upgrade drivers or things like that. Like I said,
> it'll either work, and then you're off to the races, or it won't and
> you'll need to find another solution.
>
>> It sounds appealing, that is for sure.
>
> I guess the best way to tell for sure is to try it, in a non-critical
> environment/role.
>
> It may be for you, it may not. All I can say is that it sounds like it
> will fit the bill for what you need, and I have used it myself in the
> past and it worked for what I was doing.
>
> -- 
> Bryan Carbonnell - carbonnb at gmail.com
> Life's journey is not to arrive at the grave safely in a well
> preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, totally worn out,
> shouting "What a great ride!"
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