Server for mac and windows machines?

[David Anderson]

I'm needing to purchase a server to make most , if not all, of my images available to me anytime, anywhere. Presumably via FTP. I travel a lot & need to acess & work on images from the road.
So...I've looked at the LaCie, the Buffalo, and did an online configuration of a Dell server. The Dell had lots of goobleldygook which I didn't understand, or probably need, BUT it offered LOTS of storage capacity & the option of future expansion. At a price upwards of $3000, and it required me to run some sort of Windows server software and purchase some sort of client access licenses. Do I need all this crap just to store & have online access to my files?
OTOH, the Buffalo & the LaCie seem much more simple, straightforward & much cheaper. But I'm concerned about Peter's comment that simply running drives such as these is risky, and it's much safer to use a dedicated "computer" type server.
Any help is much appreciated.

Don,
My earlier suggestion of a Network Attached Storage (NAS) solution was based on my assumption that this is cost effective compared with a traditional full-function server. I have no practical experience of NAS, so Peter's cautionary remarks should be given due consideration.  However, even if there are some issues with this technology, it need not mean that it is the wrong way to go. If you have already addressed the need for secure backup in a proper manner without depending on the NAS, then any risk would only affect the remote accessibility of your images. Losing your images for ever would be a disaster but perhaps you can live with a less than 100% guarantee of them being available remotely via the internet.

One of the reasons why a NAS device is cheaper than a traditional server is that it contains a cut-down server operating system tailored to specific NAS requirements and not much else. Normal Windows server software costs far more than desktop versions of Windows. All the big storage vendors sell NAS solutions to blue chip companies so there is nothing wrong with the idea in principle.

If you are worried about power consumption (as indeed you should be), then just check the specs of a full-function server versus a NAS device. I suspect that NAS will be a clear winner on this point.

David


 

[arossphoto]

At a price upwards of $3000, and it required me to run some sort of Windows server software and purchase some sort of client access licenses. Do I need all this crap just to store & have online access to my files?

I'm no expert at this stuff, but from what I've been reading you can build a very good server for a small office with any version of Windows or even free versions of Linux such as Ubuntu. For basic file serving needs I don't think there is any need for the kinds of servers you've been looking at, or dedicated Windows Server software.

I'm still trying to decide what to do, but I'm leaning toward a basic Windows machine with a few removable drive bays installed, so I can quickly swap backups, etc. I've been looking at some of the Asus motherboards and they seem to have very good power-saving functions, even on a network. The advantage of this over a NAS is you also have a fully funtioning computer to use if necessary.

I may be wrong, but I can't see anyway to do something similar with a Mac as a server. The G5 towers have no eternal drive bays that would accept removable drive trays, so you would also have the added expense, power consumption, and space requirements of a big drive box.

Andrew

[peterkrogh]

Andrew,
While the drive box is a bit of a hassle, you get some advantages.

Independent power supply
Independant cooling
Easier to swap (A generic PC with swap bays is as easy, if it can be hot-swapped)

It's also bigger, possibly, and an additional expense.

A late-model G4 could work with internals, but it is a pain to swap, and taxes the poser supply.

If your collection could fit on one or two 750GB drives, then a new PowerMac can handle that internally (4 bays total).

peter

[arossphoto]

While the drive box is a bit of a hassle, you get some advantages.

[snip]

If your collection could fit on one or two 750GB drives, then a new PowerMac can handle that internally (4 bays total).

Thanks for your reply Peter. Another hassle for me is there are very few sources for drive boxes here in Canada. In fact, I can't find any here in Toronto, and it's the largest city in the country!

Internal drives in a Mac sounds like a pain, because I'd like to have the option to swap back-up drives in and out easily.

So what do you think about using a Windows machine running XP as a server if your main workstations are Macs? I'm a Windows user now, but I want my next machine to be a Mac. So setting up a Windows server would also make more sense to me now.

Thanks again,

Andrew

[peterkrogh]

Andrew,
Wish I could comment usefully on the Windows server question.  Maybe Beardy or someone else who is cross-platform could make an informed comment.

I don't want to promote smuggling, but getting a something from the US does not seem like it would be that hard for someone in Toronto...

Peter

[arossphoto]

I don't want to promote smuggling, but getting a something from the US does not seem like it would be that hard for someone in Toronto...

I've certainly considered mail order, but many of the suppliers I contacted do not ship to Canada. Any of those that did ship here charged a lot for shipping, not to mention exorbitant brokerage fees if it's shipped by ground, so it's just not cost effective. There would also be no warranty support here, so if I ever have a problem I'd be out of luck unless I want to pay more shipping costs. I suppose I could take a road trip and spend a day or two driving to get one, but that hardly seems cost effective either and wouldn't help with the warranty issues.

So I'd prefer to build a system with readily available parts if I can.

Cheers,

Andrew

[DonShreve]

Andrew (& others)-
Thank you for all the useful suggestions. I'm leaning toward the option of making the server as a self-sustained Windows XP computer on a network, with at least 4 swappable drive bays, holding 500 or 750GB drives.
I wonder if there's a way to make this machine "sleep" until it receives an incoming signal, say from my hotel room in Florida or Texas, or from my workstation across the room, then spin up whichever drives are needed, then go back to sleep after a period of inactivity.

As an aside- I'm certainly no computer expert, but I've decided to build myself a new workstation computer, so I may as well build the "server" at the same time. Building these seems simpler than the implementing DAM stuff, or getting
 all the machines talking to each other & available on a network or from the internet.

[arossphoto]

I just came across this Storage Tower on addonics.com that is available with a JBOD USB 2.0 adapter so you can connect up to four drives with a single USB cable. I occurred to me that this just might work with the new Apple Airport Extreme's drive sharing feature called AirPort Disk. This feature "turns any external USB hard drive into a shared drive. Simply connect the drive to the USB port on the back of your AirPort Extreme and — voila — all the documents, videos, photos, and other files on the drive instantly become available to anyone on the secure network, Mac and PC alike."

If this would work it would be a very easy way to set up a file sharing network, without the expense of a dedicated server. I have emailed Addonics support, but I was wondering if anybody here was familiar with their products. They seem to offer a lot of great stuff and they ship to Canada!

I've been talking to Addonics about using their the Storage Tower with Apple's Airport Extreme, and they have actually taken some time to research and test this further with the help of Apple engineers. Here's their response, which is posted with their permission:

"We finally tested the Airport Extreme on the latest Mac OS X 10.4.8 and
10.4.10, it works great with the JBOD USB 2.0 Adapter. I worked with an
Apple engineer at their Development Center in Cupertino, CA yesterday, the
driver set and compatibility used by the Airport Extreme is identical to a
standard Mac system, so pretty much any USB device we connected was able to
detect. We tested both with using the 4 drives connected through the JBOD
USB 2.0 Adapter individually, as well as combined into 2 larger volumes, and
even 1 single larger volume. Later we set up a workgroup for the Airport,
and we were able to see all the drives from the NAS through Windows as well."

This sounds very encouraging and I think this would be a great way to set up a high-volume, cross-platform, network storage device, without any operating systems, formatting issues, etc.  It's probably too slow for working drives, but it should be fine for archives and backups and I think I will order one soon.

Cheers,

Andrew
P.S. I am in no way related to any of these companies.

[peterkrogh]

Andrew,
This sounds slow to me, compared to to a wired gigabit ethernet network.  Not sure how the airport compares in speed.
Peter

[arossphoto]

I agree that the speed would not be comparable to a wired gigabit ethernet network, but it would be much cheaper and easier to set up if you can live with the slower speeds.

Andrew

[arossphoto]

Andrew,
This sounds slow to me, compared to to a wired gigabit ethernet network.  Not sure how the airport compares in speed.
Peter

Apple has announced that the Airport Extreme will now have gigabit ethernet ports. So this now a much faster option.

http://www.macworld.com/news/2007/08/08/airport/index.php