vexhold Posted February 16, 2011 Share Posted February 16, 2011 Ok guys, I need some opinions and guidance in a decision here. I am running unRAID in my home (of course) and am very happy with it. But, I am building a system for my mother's business and have run in to a decision impass. She is a photographer and is partnering up with three other photographers and renting a new studio. She has always needed a starage solution, and I was initially thinking unRAID for her in her home, but now that it will be at a new location kinda changed things. I switch my thoughts and moved towards Windows Home Server, but now I am having second thoughts. The big thing is the requirements needed for this operation. They are: Large amount of space Low Budget (I pretty much have it built) Local Availability Availability from 4 seperate homes Possible Availability from a set of 4 iPads Remote Administration (by me) Email Notifications on problems (I will only be going onsite if there is a problem) The ability to backaup scheduled images of other systems to the server Pooling of Drive Space Expandability (no fuss) Basically, I need you guys to push me back to unRAID. Show me that I have solutions for all the requirements above. Please talk me of the "Windows" ledge, before I jump!! Link to comment
prostuff1 Posted February 16, 2011 Share Posted February 16, 2011 Large amount of space Low Budget (I pretty much have it built) Local Availability All the above are easily covered Availability from 4 seperate homes This will take some setting up but is doable. Assuming the studio will have Internet then you can install a router that will allow VPN connections (I use a WRT320N running DDWRT). This is probably the only way the server should be exposed to the outside world is through the VPN connection. Possible Availability from a set of 4 iPads This is the only one I am not sure about as I do not have an iPad nor do I completely understand what you mean by "availability" Remote Administration (by me) See the VPN comment from above Email Notifications on problems (I will only be going onsite if there is a problem) Set up a gmail account for this server particularly and then set up the email notifications through unMenu The ability to backaup scheduled images of other systems to the server This can be done a couple of ways, if it is files you are worried about then look at installing CrashPlan on the server and the computers that will be accessing it. If you want to make an "image" of the computers on the local network then look into something like Acronis. Pooling of Drive Space Expandability (no fuss) User Shares for the first requirement should work just fine (just set them up correctly), and expandability goes without saying. Link to comment
vexhold Posted February 16, 2011 Author Share Posted February 16, 2011 Thanks prostuff1, thats a good start. To give you an idea of the system I have to work with, here are the specs: Case: Thermaltake Armor Motherboard: BioStar TA870+ CPU: AMD Athalon X2 250 Regor 3.0GHz Memory: Kingston 2x2GB DDR3 PSU: Corsair CMPSU-650TX 650W Hard Drives: 5x Samsung Spinpoint F4 2TB To make it into a happy unRAID server I would need to add: Controller Card: SUPERMICRO AOC-SASLP-MV8 Cables: Serial ATA breakout cable USB Drive: SanDisk Cruzer 4GB So another 150 bucks. The studio will have internet and I have not done any of the purchasing for the network yet. That will be soon though as internal construction will begin next week and I have to run all the ethernet. The iPad access would be, since they are photographers, the ability to access and show clients photos that are stored on the server. Possibly files/documents, but they are not business people, they are artsy people. As far as the email/internet, they will have a Comcast business account. This includes 5 hosted exchange mailboxes (4 for them, 1 for me) and a static ip block. Link to comment
kizer Posted February 16, 2011 Share Posted February 16, 2011 I think you can do pretty much everything that has been asked, but the hanger is the iPad. I have one and honestly its the lamest thing when it comes to viewing anything on a network because well it is. There are really no apps that are easy to view unless you run an app like Dropbox or something I use which is a PogoPlug to view since there are apps that work with them. Unless somebody else knows what views network images via the iPad, let me know too. Found this, but only one review and it wasn't the best. http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/photograb/id373208325?mt=8 If you want to dig thru the Mac apps have at it. My eyes started buging out after a few minutes. http://itunes.apple.com/gb/genre/ios-photography/id6008?mt=8 Link to comment
kizer Posted February 16, 2011 Share Posted February 16, 2011 Could you have all of the photos stored on their local machines then at night do a batch backup to the server? Things would load a lot faster being local and things would be all safe stored where ever the server lives. Link to comment
kizer Posted February 16, 2011 Share Posted February 16, 2011 Sorry for spamming this post. LOL Found this one too. http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/filebrowser-access-files-on/id364738545?mt=8 A few Mac guys recommended it while searching around. http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/filebrowser-access-files-on/id364738545?mt=8 Link to comment
vexhold Posted February 16, 2011 Author Share Posted February 16, 2011 Bah, unRAID was what I wanted to use in the first place, so I just pulled the trigger and orders the extra parts. Thanks guys. Found this one too. http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/filebrowser-access-files-on/id364738545?mt=8 Yeah, I saw this on this forum too, Its older post, but it still might work. http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=6001.0 Link to comment
kizer Posted February 16, 2011 Share Posted February 16, 2011 I'll try and tinker tonight with mine to see what I can see. My only concern would be how are you going to map things to your network drive if your drive is in another location. Might be fun to tinker with. Link to comment
prostuff1 Posted February 16, 2011 Share Posted February 16, 2011 At least on my iPhone I can set up a VPN connection. That would be what you would have to do if you want to access files from home on the iPad. Link to comment
Velkitor Posted February 16, 2011 Share Posted February 16, 2011 For the iPad thing. If you set up site to site VPN with something like a Cisco 5505 then if the iPads were on wifi with that network it should be no issue. The Cisco 5505's site to site VPN would route traffic to the external network (that you are VPNed into) If they want some 3G solution that would be harder... Link to comment
kizer Posted February 16, 2011 Share Posted February 16, 2011 I use a PogoPlug that sits on my network and I point my iPad and my Android phone at it. I view photos from where ever I am and then I manually sync my pogoplug to my unRAID server. My PogoPlug hangs out there on the net. It acts sort like Dropbox or Box.net but I supply the hardware and bandwidth. On my windows machine it looks like a P: Drive so I can easily copy things to it. Supports multiple users and the best thing is if the device dies I can simply pull out the USB drive or whatever else I have connected to it. Just throwing other ideas out at you. Sure its not as secure as a VPN, but I just have this fear of allowing any outside connection to my unRAID server. http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=10376.0 I haven't tried setting up another user and connecting to it before as a non owner of a Pogo Plug, but I'll try that when I get a chance. Just created an account and shared it out and I was able to upload and view images just fine via my Android Phone. Link to comment
vexhold Posted February 16, 2011 Author Share Posted February 16, 2011 If they want some 3G solution that would be harder... Thats what they need. It will be used mostly out in the field showing people their photos. On a side note: Not sure if it is possible, but I am working with a web dev guy trying to figure out a remote access website like WHS has. Looks difficult, but gonna give it a shot. Link to comment
dgaschk Posted February 17, 2011 Share Posted February 17, 2011 It may be easier to mount the photo share on a Mac and then access it via the Mac. Link to comment
dgaschk Posted February 17, 2011 Share Posted February 17, 2011 If they want some 3G solution that would be harder... Thats what they need. It will be used mostly out in the field showing people their photos. On a side note: Not sure if it is possible, but I am working with a web dev guy trying to figure out a remote access website like WHS has. Looks difficult, but gonna give it a shot. This is easy to do. Load lighttpd or unRAID-Web using unMenu. Configure the photo directory as the web server files directory and the photos will be accessible via http. This is only secure enough for local use, not over the Internet. See my previous post for a more secure method. Link to comment
PeterB Posted February 17, 2011 Share Posted February 17, 2011 If you set up site to site VPN with something like a Cisco 5505 then if the iPads were on wifi with that network it should be no issue. The Cisco 5505's site to site VPN would route traffic to the external network (that you are VPNed into) If they want some 3G solution that would be harder... I'm not familiar with the Cisco kit, but I have used Draytek Vigor routers for many years. They offer fully transparent site to site vpn, plus 'dial-in' vpn. The 2820 offers dual wan connections - dsl and usb, which supports a range of 3G modems. Link to comment
bubbaQ Posted February 17, 2011 Share Posted February 17, 2011 Could you have all of the photos stored on their local machines then at night do a batch backup to the server? You need to get an ACCURATE estimate of data size from the photographers, and an ACCURATE estimate of their Internet connection speed (upload). I eat up several gigabytes of disk space for a single shoot and that will not be able to be backed-up over most people's home Internet connection overnight. Ask them about their workflow, and model the copying to it. Link to comment
kizer Posted February 17, 2011 Share Posted February 17, 2011 Heres a horrid video of the interface of PogoPlug - Family at DisneyWorld FileBrowser - Myself and some buddies Playing in our Jeeps I don't have the same photos in both locations for some reason so I couldn't show you the same. I did notice that when I first fired up FileBrowser it was slow to load photos the first time. Im not sure if it needed to cache them or what, but I'm guessing both might be a little slow on 3G. I could try a 3G test later if your interested, but I don't have a VPN to show you FileBrowser. I could imagine however that your photographers are going to be shooting some high res photos and they could easily be 5Meg + which will slow down the loading speeds a bit. With PogoPlug they could give access to their clients to view lower resolution images with water marks directly from the device and then after a said period remove them and/or the clients. PogoPlug starts first then at 1:00 FileBrowser starts http://s499.photobucket.com/albums/rr351/links4jeeps_kizer/nonsense/?action=view¤t=IMGP2290.mp4 They basically act the same on Wireless, but PogoPlug is designed to work off the web opposed to FileBrowser, which I'm guessing you would use a VPN. Need anything else let me know. Its Horrid because I shot it with my camera and since I'm not able to walk and talk at the sametime you get what I shot. LOL. Anyways I'm done tooting for PogoPlug LOL. I use it and I like it so should the rest of the world I guess. Link to comment
Velkitor Posted February 18, 2011 Share Posted February 18, 2011 This is kind of hacky but it could be easily done. You could setup a windows server box running IIS, mount the directory they need remote access to as a mapped drive on the windows server, then just create a website in IIS that uses that mapped drive, have it index the drive so they can browse it. Turn on HTTP authentication... That way you have an IIS box sitting vulnerable, but in theory IIS should serve the data from the unraid box as if it was it's own. But as the other guys said, if the photographers are tying to pull down some huge image it may not be as good as they are picturing in their minds... Link to comment
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