What are you using your NAS for?

[trizc]

Just want to get an idea of usage of what people use their NAS for

I use FreeNAS at home.
No real reason for me to use ZFS, but it seems like amazing technology that standard raid can't do. Especially sparked my interest since I lost a lot of data to corruption. Also lets me use random brands, speeds, and different form factors 2.5/3.5" in the same array without problems.

I use my NAS for:
Backup images of my household's computers
Movies/Shows for plex
ISO's for OS reinstallation.
ThinApp creations
and soon will be used for an ESXi data store

Soon I want to donate space via maidsafe. Check it out, decentralized storage:
http://maidsafe.net/

 

[TeeJayHoward]

Main array: 7x3TB, RaidZ2
Applications - Any .ISO files, portable executables, etc. I generally install from here, and keep this folder up to date. 306GB.
Documents - Old homework, receipts, code snippets, and any .PDF files go in here. 45GB.
Downloads - All of my machines download straight to the NAS. I flush this folder out every so often. 1GB.
Music - All the music I've collected throughout the ages. 76GB.
Other - I really should just rename this folder "Backups". Every time I do a format/reinstall on a family member's computer, I back it up first. I also store a copy of my VMs here. 723GB.
Pictures - Photos I took, or I thought were cool. 15GB.
Sites - Web sites I built. The code is light, storage-wise, but the graphics? Not so much. 5.7GB.
Video - The bulk of my storage. 5.9TB Anime, 3.7TB (and growing) BluRay/DVD .ISOs. 1.5TB TV shows. I'm slowly copying my media collection over to the NAS. Unfortunately, I've flat run out of space. Debating deleting all of my anime, but it took me years to collect it. Wife won't let me buy more HDDs yet, either.
VMs - This is a Samsung 840 Pro SSD I've got shared out via NFS. It's where my VMs reside. I back it up whenever I feel like it to the "Other" folder.

Total: A bit over 12TB.

My NAS is backed up via rsync nightly to a VM which has another 13TB of storage (6x3TB RaidZ). My super-important files are additionally duplicated via a USB HDD I keep at my mom's, and much of it is in my email as well. I used to use CDs, until I tried to restore once. Bleh. Optical is dead to me.

 

[ashman]

Which one? Lol

Movies NAS: Synology 2413+ with 12x3TB WD RED configured in SHR2 mode, 27TB useable currently sitting at 19.09TB used.

TV NAS: Qnap TS639 with 6xSeagate 3TB drives configured in RAID5, 13,745.98TB useable currently sitting at 7.8TB used.

Backup NAS: Synology 413j with 4x2TB HItatchi drives in RAID 5, 5.6TB useable, currently sitting at 1.58TB used.

Photo Backup NAS:Thecus N4100Pro with 4x2TB WD Green drives configured in RAID 5, 5.5TB useable currently sitting at 1.7TB used.

Old NAS: ReadyNAS NV 4x1TB drives in RAID 5 with 2.7TB useable, currently sitting at 1.8TB used.

The ReadyNas has to be 5 plus years old but it keeps going, awfully slow, but it works. The Thecus is by far the most temperamental NAS to work with in terms of shares in any OS. My QNap and Snynology's have been stars, love them.

 

[uOpt]

All my data is still on the primary machine. The network thing is backup, with snapshots.

I might change to a more flexible scheme in the future. Namely, scratch data on the primary machine will probably move to the backup storage server. The advantage would be that as I need more space for snapshots or snapshot accidents I can just drop some of the scratch data.

 

[ric614]

I've been searching around a step-by-step instruction on how to configure my machines to download directly to my NAS box. Will you teach me how to do this?

BTW, Im using bittorent and utorrent.

Thanks.

Main array: 7x3TB, RaidZ2
Applications - Any .ISO files, portable executables, etc. I generally install from here, and keep this folder up to date. 306GB.
Documents - Old homework, receipts, code snippets, and any .PDF files go in here. 45GB.
Downloads - All of my machines download straight to the NAS. I flush this folder out every so often. 1GB.
Music - All the music I've collected throughout the ages. 76GB.
Other - I really should just rename this folder "Backups". Every time I do a format/reinstall on a family member's computer, I back it up first. I also store a copy of my VMs here. 723GB.
Pictures - Photos I took, or I thought were cool. 15GB.
Sites - Web sites I built. The code is light, storage-wise, but the graphics? Not so much. 5.7GB.
Video - The bulk of my storage. 5.9TB Anime, 3.7TB (and growing) BluRay/DVD .ISOs. 1.5TB TV shows. I'm slowly copying my media collection over to the NAS. Unfortunately, I've flat run out of space. Debating deleting all of my anime, but it took me years to collect it. Wife won't let me buy more HDDs yet, either.
VMs - This is a Samsung 840 Pro SSD I've got shared out via NFS. It's where my VMs reside. I back it up whenever I feel like it to the "Other" folder.

Total: A bit over 12TB.

My NAS is backed up via rsync nightly to a VM which has another 13TB of storage (6x3TB RaidZ). My super-important files are additionally duplicated via a USB HDD I keep at my mom's, and much of it is in my email as well. I used to use CDs, until I tried to restore once. Bleh. Optical is dead to me.

 

[TeeJayHoward]

I've been searching around a step-by-step instruction on how to configure my machines to download directly to my NAS box. Will you teach me how to do this?

BTW, Im using bittorent and utorrent.

Thanks.

I'm at work at the moment, so I can't recall exactly where it is in the utorrent client, but the phrase you're looking for is "Default Download Location". Just point that to your CIFS share, and any torrents added from that point on will automatically download to that location. If you use magnet links, the .torrent file will also download to that location. I mount that share as my Z:\ drive on my Windows boxes - Makes it nice and easy!