Next Project - TV

I'm thinking I may get a new LED 3-D TV that will install above the fireplace and use a video transmitter to keep the wires to a minimum.  This will give the wife more room for stuff in the living room....and I get a new TV.  Here is what I'm thinking:
Amazon

Toshiba 55WX800U 55-Inch 1080p 240 Hz Cinema Series 3D LED TV, Black

Product Features

• 55-inch 3D LED TV with full-HD 1080p resolution, 240Hz refresh rate, and 7,000,000:1 contrast ratio
• Pair with Toshiba Active Shutter 3D glasses to enjoy broadcast and Blu-ray 3D content in HD resolution
• Built-in Wi-Fi for accessing Net TV services including Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, Pandora, YouTube and many more
• Wide media support with DLNA certification and playback of several digital video, music, and image formats
• PixelPure 5G 14-bit internal digital video processor increases gradation levels for smoother, clearer images

Technical Details

• Brand Name: Toshiba
• Model: 55WX800U
• Display Technology: LED-lit
• Display Size: 55 inches
• Image Aspect Ratio: 16:9
• Weight: 88.00 pounds

Then the video transmitter needs to be good!  ASUS has always been good to me!

ASUS WiCast

ASUS WiCast EW2000 Wireless HD Video Transmitter and Receiver

 

2nd NAS

Just like me to build two at once...my first try.
The 2nd NAS will be built from a standard old desktop, Dell Dimension 2400.  It has 3 32 bit PCI ports and 512mb of memory.  It has a DVD, CR-R,  No Flopply Drive, Wireless Network Card, and a modem.  A It will just barely hold 4 drives.

As and end product, I will have to remove the DVD, CD-R, wireless card, and the modem.

I will add:

2 - 1gm memory card
1 - Addonics 4-port RAID5/JBOD SATA II PCI controller. 
4 - SAMSUNG Spinpoint F4 HD204UI 2TB 5400 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drives
1 - drive bracket
1 - Floppy Drive Bracket
2 - ide to SATA Power y splitters
4 - SATA cables
4 - 2TB Sata Drives
1 - IDE Flash Drive
1 - Compact Flash Card
2 - Drive brackets Covert 3.5 to 5.25
1 - 3COM 3C2000-T Gigabit Network Interface Card

Addonics 4-port RAID5/JBOD SATA II PCI controller

Samsung Drives

Drive Bracket

Floppy Drive Bracket

This machine will need to boot from an IDE Flash drive.  I really don't have enough room to waste on another hard drive.  Plus, I have really wanted to try out a flash drive.  So, from NewEgg I purchased:

I figure that Freenas will need about 8gb so I purchased an 16gb flash card:

3COM NIC

I already have the PC and the additional parts are starting to arrive. 

Removed the IDE Drive and Bracket.
Removed the CD-R out of the 2nd 5.25" bay.
Removed the Wireless NIC card.
Removed the Modem.

Installed:
    IDE Flash Drive
    2 GB Memory
    Sata Controller Card
    3COM NIC

Booted to BIOS.  Disabled the Floppy and the onboard NIC.  Made sure it saw all the cards and the memory.  Set the Boot Sequence to be the DVD Drive.  Everything looked good!

Now the drives!

The first SATA Drive.  I put 3.5 to 5.25 rails on the first drive and installed it in the second 5.25 bay.

The second SATA Drive. I put it in the Floppy Drive bracket and attached the bracket to the bottom of the 2nd 5.25 bay.

The third SATA Drive.  I basically put it in the standard drive bay at the bottom of the box in the bracket that previously housed the boot IDE drive.

The fourth and final SATA drive.  I used the drive brackets to connect the fourth drive to the third drive.

Then, I connected up the power and SATA cables, placed the Freenas CD in the DVD drive.  Now, it was a matter of installing Freenas and configuring it just like NAS1.

So, I ended up with:
     Dell Dimension 2400
     2 GB Memory
     1 16GB IDE Flash Drive (Boot)
     8 TB Disk Space
     1 gigabit NIC


Everything went off without a problem and I am now using NAS2!

500mp/s AV Adapters

I've installed 3 of the Trendnet TPL-401E adapters in the house.  They work great so far.  Significantly faster than the wireless network and so far, only been a month, they seem to be really solid.

One draw back is that they only have one port.  So, I installed a 5-port netgear 1gb switch with each one!

8-port in the my office with NAS systems

Started having a small problem.  I started moving large amounts of data, almost 1TB, through the AV adapters, after about 30 minutes they die.  I unplugged them, let them cool, and they came back up fine.  This happened twice before I quit trying.  Bottom line for me is, they work great with normal activity, but using an external USB drive to move large amounts of data between machines seems to be the best option.

1st NAS

I'm building my first home NAS system using Openfiler.  The box I have chosen is the Dell PowerEdge 600SC, straight from ebay!

It has 256mb memory, 4 64bit PCI slots, and 1 32bit PCI slot.

I will be installing an Adaptec AAR-2410SA card in one of the PCI-X slots.  It is a 4-port SATA card supporting RAID 0,1,5.  I haven't decided which RAID environment yet... Leaning toward RAID 0 for maximum capacity.  Then, I may build a second NAS that will be a mirror of the first NAS.  I really hate losing data!

The box also has a 1gb NIC on the motherboard and I'm adding a second 1gb NIC, HP Groadcom NC7771 PCI-X.

I'm thinking I will go with four of the 2TB Seagate Barracuda drives.

I now see from the specs on Openfiler that I need more memory.  Currently bidding on 2GB of memory!  Wish me luck!  Won!  Should be here in a few days.

The server is here.  Installed:

SATA Card

NIC Card

20GB Hard drive

Everything seemed to configure without a hitch.  I partitioned the hard drive and installed OpenFiler.  I was able to login the control console and access OpenFiler from another PC using the web interface.  I can ping both NIC's but I can only access the web interface through the NIC on the motherboard. That's strange.  Also, the fan is really loud.  Sounds like a jet plane idling on the runway!

Still waiting for:

4 - 2TB hard drives

2 - IDE power coard Y splitters

5 - SATA cables

2 - 1gb Memory cards

Ok, the problems have started.  Memory didn't fit.  I went to crucial and it listed the memory as PC2700 333mhz.  So, I went to EBAY and bought a stick, cheap.  Doesn't work.  The machine has PC2100R 133mhz memory in it.  I also looked up the support tag and the machine shows to have been built using 266mhz memory.  So, back to EBAY and I bought 4gb of PC2100R 266mhz memory.  I installed it and the machine is happy!

Next problem is the SATA array card.  The Adaptec AAR-2410SA card doesn't like the 2TB drives.  Looks to only support 1TB drives...  :(

So, I did a littler research and I ordered a new card.  Addonics 4-port RAID5/JBOD SATA II PCI controller. 

I Installed the Addonics card and it looks really good.  I setup Raid-0, creating an 8TB array, and re-installed Openfiler .  Openfiler sees the drives as 4 independent drives, so I created 4 LVM partitions, created a group volume, and allocated the 4 drives to the group.  Everything seemed to be great until I rebooted,  lost all the data, and had to re-setup the group volume to get everything working again.  I went back to bios and removed the Raid-0 array and had it stay as 4 independent drives.  Re-installed Openfiler and basically went through the same process and got the same results when I re-boot.  Everything got screwed up!

Ok, I have decided to load Freenas and see if it works better.  It installed fine and to get the 8TB to come online, I had to create a software array.  Seemed to work great, until I re-booted!  The software array stopped and won’t restart!  Freenas will allow me to setup the four 2TB drives independently and this seems to work and stay good through a reboot.  So, everything is working well, but I now have four 2TB volumes instead of one 8TB volume.  I can live with this!  J

So, I’ve ended up with:
     Dell Poweredge 600SC
     4gb Memory
     1 2GB IDE Drive (Boot)
     8TB Disk
     1 gigabit NIC
I disabled the onboard NIC.