QNAP TVS-1271U-RP-i7-32G-US 12 Bay Rackmount NAS

[stevetoney]

I may buy one of these next month.... eventually replacing in a downsizing (smaller footprint) with use of larger TB drives -- a server and 2 external JBOB chassis with SAS expanders in them (supermicro) that are about 5 years old...

questions -- is the SAS external card that can go in this NAS able to see/use other external SAS expander chassis or only QNAP REXP one's for use with it's storage manager software....

what "crucial" msata ssd drive would work in this NAS as cache -- Mx200 series??

I use my storage server for ISO media of my DVD's and bluray's, PLEX, multiple backup of various PC's at my house.. including feed the media to 2 home theater PC's and I do a couple of VM's in windows 2008 for some playing and testing software

I think this NAS would work for most of what I use my server and external storage for today in a smaller - less power consuming setup with the new larger TB drive

also is there an option for NAS to server a virtual desktop/PC to another client on the network -- say a virtual windows 7 or windows 8 desktop/PC used from a thin client or even another PC on the network in an easy manner.. I will be shrinking the number of various PC's I have in the house as well.. I use dameware mini-remote control to access current physical and some VM's that are on the win 2008 server

comments?
thanks

[stevetoney]

also -- is there a way to re-host the VM's I have on the windows 2008 R2 server in Hyper-V on the QNAP -- or would it be a build it from scratch thing

[kbk00]

you'll have to rebuild your VMs, yes. Also, they are normal VMs on your network (as long as you set Virtualization Station up properly) so you could hit them with a thin client easily. I've been thinking about this myself. If your VMs aren't performing well, I'd recommend getting an SSD or two to be the storage. Depending on your usage and hard drive selection, disk access can be problematic.

the test for seeing if another brand's external chassis wouldn't probably hurt but i haven't heard of anyone running a test. if you do, please post your results.

One thing you should research is if the device itself is capable of supporting SAS drives in the bays. I didn't think any of them were (and needed an external chassis for that). You may be planning on using SATA drives (large ones) already but it wasn't clear from your post.

I had a lot of different hardware that managed my home before I got my 870. With my upgraded proc, 16G of ram, and 7 x 4TB of WD Se drives I have been able to eliminate everything else. My electricity bill from not running two DL360s has seen a very nice drop in the last 18 months.

[stevetoney]

yes -- I have nearly 60 2TB SATA drives in 3 chassis and 1 server all connected by SAS cable with an ARECA HBA -- occupies 3x 4U and 1 2U (I have a half height rack in a isolated place in the house)-- and I'm looking to shrink the footprint and power consumption after 4-5 years of the current setup -- all this provides the live used arrays and a few VM's and multiple places and arrays to make multiple backup copies of files -- so there is multiple copies of files ---- some to arrays -- some to single disks -- for really critical files (this is not many TBs) I have copies offsite