New Vortexbox - hardware sugestions

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simon
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#31

Post by simon »

What Neil said. RAID is belt and braces, but I felt it was worth the extra. I had a suspicion that my old QNAP NAS was losing data, but unless you have a meticulous backup regime it can be difficult to catch. RAID 1 hopefully gives me that but I take regular backups whenever I rip a few CDs or copy some photos over.

I also try to keep an off site backup too. It would be fairly traumatic if our house burnt down, but it would be even worse if we lost all our photos etc.

Don't know if you can use the USB port in the back of the NSA325, you may be able to enable it in its setup but I use the USB3 port in the back of the BT home hub.
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#32

Post by Neal »

IDM wrote:Hi Yes, it certainly does, it had crossed my mind, but assumed that would not happen.

So I can see two failure scenarios:
1. If data was corrupted I would want to reinstall the data from a backup.
2. If a drive failed I would need to replace the drive and again reload the data from a backup.

I understand that RAID can speed up access time, however, this has never been an issue with just a single drive. So I am wondering if RAID is worth it.

Given this I wonder if I should simply buy a single drive version and just back it up to a separate external HDD whenever I add music files? I assume you can use the Zyxel USB port to connect the backup drive for this?

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You can rebuild the data on a new drive from the surviving drive in a Raid 1. RAID can improve access times depending on the Raid level and type of data access IE: small block random or large sequential reads etc. I don't use Raid though but I do backup to 2 other drives. The backup button can be configured on the Zyxel to copy to an external USB drives.
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#33

Post by Dave the bass »

IDM wrote: Given this I wonder if I should simply buy a single drive version and just back it up to a separate external HDD whenever I add music files?
Dunno if you know but VB has an incremental backup feature built-in Ian. It's located in the GUI on 2.2, I'm assuming its still there in 2.3.

I connect a 2TB ext USB HDD and just select 'Back-Up to USB' every month or so and of it goes. Simple, quick, fuss free.
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#34 Re: New Vortexbox - hardware sugestions

Post by pre65 »

Is 2.3 safe to use now ?

I'm thinking of installing Vortexbox and don't want any hassles.
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#35 Re: New Vortexbox - hardware sugestions

Post by pre65 »

Reading on the Vortexbox forum, it suggests that the problem is updating 2.2 to 2.3, and that if starting afresh with 2.3 things should be OK.


http://info.vortexbox.org/tiki-index.ph ... nstall-2.3
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#36 Re: New Vortexbox - hardware sugestions

Post by Dave the bass »

Yeah, I had to increase storage space from 2TB to 4TB a while back so took the opportunity to upgrade to 2.3 at the same time. It went well. Make a back up(s) of your music though Pops as it re-formats the HD IIRC.
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#37 Re: New Vortexbox - hardware sugestions

Post by pre65 »

Does one need visual capabilities (ie a monitor) with a VB computer ?
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#38 Re: New Vortexbox - hardware sugestions

Post by Dave the bass »

Its designed to be run headless ie monitor-free in day to day operation. The only time I've had to attach a Monitor and keyboard to my VB is when I've done a OS upgrade that isn't covered by a regular system update.

You can 'look into' the VB using browser, the GUI looks like this
Image
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#39 Re: New Vortexbox - hardware sugestions

Post by pre65 »

Thanks.

Would I connect the

A) Vortex box.

B) Squeezebox

C) NAS

D) Main PC

all directly to the router ? (wired)

And if necessary,(say for an Owston),could I just connect the Squeezebox to the NAS ?
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#40 Re: New Vortexbox - hardware sugestions

Post by The Stratmangler »

pre65 wrote:Thanks.

Would I connect the

A) Vortex box.

B) Squeezebox

C) NAS

D) Main PC

all directly to the router ? (wired)

And if necessary,(say for an Owston),could I just connect the Squeezebox to the NAS ?
Yes to A, B, C & D.

For the bit in bold, it's a bit more involved than that.

You have a Squeezebox Touch IIRC?
Why not use the embedded server and pop your files onto a SD card/USB memory stick/USB HDD (with external PSU)?
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#41 Re: New Vortexbox - hardware sugestions

Post by Dave the bass »

pre65 wrote:Thanks.

Would I connect the

A) Vortex box.

B) Squeezebox

C) NAS

D) Main PC

all directly to the router ? (wired)

And if necessary,(say for an Owston),could I just connect the Squeezebox to the NAS ?
I can only quote from my experience, but, the VB IS my NAS. So, my 4TB VB is hardwired to the Router via Ethernet cable, as is the Main system SB Touch. All other rendering devices are connected to the router via WiFi for convenience. We don't have a 'main computer' as such so via Wifi again we use 2 x Laptops and 2 x Tablets here but thats our choice and nowt to do with how we run VB/LMS and various Squeezeboxes.

As Chris says, its easier to just copy (say 16GB of) music onto a Flash Drive and run the Touch's simple onboard server if you want to use an SBT at Owston.

That make sense?
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#42 Re: New Vortexbox - hardware sugestions

Post by pre65 »

Thanks Chris/Dave.

Makes sense.

My thinking behind a direct connection between VB & NAS was not having to decide in advance which of my superb collection to take with me. :lol: :lol:

My main PC and Touch are hardwired to the router but all the ancillary PCs are wireless. :)
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#43 Re: New Vortexbox - hardware sugestions

Post by pre65 »

So, if I had a PC with a small SSD drive for the VB software, and two 1TB drives for the music & backup would setting up Raid 1 be simple ?
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#44 Re: New Vortexbox - hardware sugestions

Post by Dave the bass »

pre65 wrote:
...not having to decide in advance which of my superb collection to take with me. :lol: :lol:
*Diplomatically bites own lip!* :)
Last edited by Dave the bass on Tue Mar 08, 2016 2:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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#45 Re: New Vortexbox - hardware sugestions

Post by Dave the bass »

pre65 wrote:So, if I had a PC with a small SSD drive for the VB software, and two 1TB drives for the music & backup would setting up Raid 1 be simple ?
No idea. I don't run a Raid back up array. VB has a simple ext USB arrangement to back up your files onto a VB formatted HD that you can keep NOT CONNECTED to the system for 99.999998% of the time. Once the back up HD is formatted all back ups (that you yourself have to remember to do, no biggie) as incremental, so it only backs up what you've added or deleted from the VB HD since the last back up. Super simples and done using the VB GUI.
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