NetGear ReadyNAS "Ultra": Anybody Using?

[PeteCress]

I'm fooling around with one of these things - with an eye to moving SageTV from a WHS box to an XP box hooked into the NAS.

In the past, I've run HD200's through a WiFi bridge over N with no problems; so I figure bandwidth is not going to be an issue.

When I try bringing up MS Office documents from the WSH box vs the same documents from the NAS, the NAS is *fast*.... much faster than from WSH... so the NAS is no dog.

But now I'm wondering about video.

I know about the 64k block thing with WHS and SageTV v6, but don't have a clue about NAS setup. ReadyNAS Ultra supports different block sizes: 4k and 16k. For now, I've gone with the 4k default. Switching would involve wiping the box and re-loading.

Seems like bigger would be better from an speed/number of physical reads perspective.

Anybody done this?

What block size did you use?

[gplasky]

Check with Stanger. He has a ReadyNAS and I believe he was recording directly to it also. SageTV 7 no longer requires the 64 k block. (Not that you can't use it. It just doesn't require it. And 64K was a SageTV 6 and previous version requirement. Not a WHS thing.) Other people use a ReadyNAS in various fashions. (not recordings but other media.)

Gerry

[stanger89]

Nope, wasn't recording to mine. And frankly these new ones are a completely different beast than my now aged X6. But even the X6 is fast enough for playing BDs, so I wouldn't think you'd have to do anything special on a Pro/Ultra.

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Nope, wasn't recording to mine. And frankly these new ones are a completely different beast than my now aged X6. But even the X6 is fast enough for playing BDs, so I wouldn't think you'd have to do anything special on a Pro/Ultra.

Well...close enough for government work.

Gerry

[Spartan]

Originally Posted by gplasky

And 64K was a SageTV 6 and previous version requirement. Not a WHS thing.)
Gerry

FWIW: I run WHS & Sage 6 and have never configured it to use 64k blocks. Works just fine.

[ToadMazter]

I previously owned a ReadyNAS NV and a ReadyNAS Duo. Both streamed BluRay bitrates to 3 extenders simultaneously with no problems. I have replaced the Infrants with a QNAP 459 Pro.

[disc]

My NV+ has been serving up high quality (>10 Mb/sec) .mkv's for over five years now. I love it (though the newer X-Raid2 looks pretty awesome.)

[PeteCress]

[QUOTE=disc;470472]though the newer X-Raid2 looks pretty awesome.../QUOTE]I just ran a couple of tests comparing a ReadyNAS Ultra 6 with X-Raid2 to my WHS box.

The WSH box has all Caviar Green drives in it - 2 tb and 1 tb mixed.

The Ultra-6 had 2 Seagate desktop drives and one Caviar Green in it - all 2 tb.

Overall throughput for the Ultra-6 was almost twice the WSH box's: 42 vs 22 MB/s.

I'm hoping to replace the WSH box with the Ultra-6 and run SageTV on my desktop machine which, for other reasons, has tb running 24-7.

The joker in the deck, of course, is that even though the WHS box is so much slower over the LAN; it's running SageTV in it's own little world so Sage has direct access to it's discs whereas Sage running on my desktop will have to go over the LAN to hit the NAS box.

[QueOnda]

I have a X6 and boy it not working for me anymore. I can't back up my computer to the readynas and stream videos to watch. I just purchased a Ultra 6 plus and should be here in a couple of weeks.

I shouldn't have a problem now. I don't think I'll be recording straight to it but using to archive and hold my media collection. Also, going to use it to backup my computers and try the constantly backup on my computers (with acronis and what ever comes with the readynas) to see if it all can work in unison.

[PeteCress]

Originally Posted by QueOnda

... just purchased a Ultra 6 plus...

What features led you to purchase the "Plus" and not just the plain Ultra-6?

[QueOnda]

If I remember.. It's because of the faster processor and dual core. It's overkill but won't need to be worrying about upgrading for a while.

[PeteCress]

Originally Posted by QueOnda

I just purchased a Ultra 6 plus and should be here in a couple of weeks.

I shouldn't have a problem now. I don't think I'll be recording straight to it but using to archive and hold my media collection. Also, going to use it to backup my computers and try the constantly backup on my computers (with acronis and what ever comes with the readynas) to see if it all can work in unison.

I finally made the cutover to my Ultra-6 today. Dual redundancy.

Data migration was *much* more time consuming that I ever dreamed. I'm keeping the WSH box as a sort of weekly-updated mirror to supplement the daily "Data" backups.

So far, it's noticibly faster/snappier when opening files, but slower when SageTV opens a movie or recording. Never used to get the little twirley thing unless something was wrong - like too many file copies going on. Now it's SOP for maybe 2-3 seconds.

I thought I was going tb tight for space and was about to move RecordedTV to the Sage box. But space came out pretty well and I'm going to leave RecordedTV on the NAS until I see a reason to try moving it.

I'm not in love with the twirley... but it's not that bad... something I can get used to.