ds110j user here. I can just update to Synology DSM 3.0, no need backup my data first right? I am aware this firmware upgrade is not downgradeable.

if you worry about this, u can use the SMART test to test your HDD. ( this will also check the bad sector on your disk).

and if you have UPS, than u better to connect to this DS110j.

others than that , there is no problem for your to upgrade to DSM 3.0

Oh, thanks! So I guess, basically the firmware upgrade will only changes the system files, and hopefully all my files will not be affected.

Basically, it will only upgrade the system file. it will not affect your data.



actually, all the synology NAS will have 3 partition, 1) system 2) swap 3) DATA.

this mean, the firmware will be installed in system partition.

ur data will be in DATA partition.

Sorry for the late reply. I first saw it at All IT in the Curve. Got mine at one of the shops in Digital Mall at Section 14.

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Added on October 11, 2010, 4:35 pmIf you're looking at a budget, the Samsung F4EG is nice. It's 5400rpm and 32MB cache though. Not 64MB as mentioned.

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Added on October 11, 2010, 4:37 pmYes, 7200rpm is always better than 5400rpm but there's always heat / power / longevity vs performance issue. When you factor in that you're limited by the 125 MB/s limit over the Gigabit network, then you're better off with 5400rpm drives for RAID and you can already saturate the line.

Anyway, I think for a mission critical file server for company use, better to buy WD Enterprise line up (i.e. RE4 for 7200 rpm or RE4-GP for 5400 rpm). These drives are built for RAID use. The WD Black drives even though with 5 years warranty are not certified for RAID use because of the absent TLER command. If you plan on using the 2TB WD EARS drives in RAID, becareful. Even QNAP puts a warning.

http://forum.qnap.com/viewtopic.php?f=182&t=33196



This post has been edited by jchue73: Oct 11 2010, 04:37 PM

Hey! Thanks for your reply! May I know are you using it as NAS? if yes are you using windows or linux as NAS?

Yes, I am using it as a NAS. It's on Server 2008 R2.

I was initially looking at the Acer H342 but decided on this because of it's "upgradability".

I've gotten the same unit with your recommendation!

HP shop @ Digital mall

RM919 inclusive of:
1 x Unit
1 x Internal DVD (Writer?Reader?)
1 x USB Mouse
1 x USB Keyboard

Credit card with no charges. Overall I would say its very good bargain.

Bought extra 1 x 4GB Kingston RAM. Will try on WHS Vail and 2008 R2 to decide which to go!

Attempting to update Synology firmware to DM3.0 but no luck.
Error message: Data can not be applied.

Tried twice, downloaded from http://download.synology.com/download/firm...1_110j_1342.pat for my ds110j.

I will wait and see. Not in a hurry to upgrade. Since it not downgrade able.

Congrats man. 4GB extra? You're running 5GB in total? I only got 2Gb extra.

Yes, that's the same shop I bought from. The guy was patient enough to open up the display unit and slide out the motherboard tray to show me how many slots of memory etc. Not to mention that fixing up the Internal DVD Writer / Reader was quite tedious since the screws that the HP uses are all torqx screws.

BTW, did you notice the box that the Internal DVD Writer / Reader came with? It's bomb proof ! It's actually the same kind of packaging that the real Proliant servers come with.

Why can't I upgrade the firmware of the Synology product?

Answer:

It happens occasionally if the network services are on the duty. Please try the following suggestions to fix this issue:

* Store the .pat file on your local drive instead of the shared folder on Synology NAS Server.
* Disable ALL Web Services

1. Login to the web management UI.
2. Go to “Network Services > Web Services”.
3. Untick all the checked boxes to disable the Web Services.

* Disable Jumbo Frames

1. Login to the web management UI.
2. Go to “System > Network”.
3. Select “Disable Jumbo Frame, the MTU value is 1500” in Jumbo Frame.

* If you are using the Safari web browser, please try using Firefox or Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) to upgrade the firmware.

If you still have problems in firmware upgrade, please submit a Support Form.




http://www.synology.com/support/faq_show.p...id=385&lang=enu

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Added on October 13, 2010, 11:49 amas DSM 3.0 added more feature... it is a good to upgrade unless the new feature is useless for you.....

anyway, if you NAS is main for data processing and + running some application than please double check your application spec as it also upgrade to latest protocol ( like mysql or php and others)


This post has been edited by denhock: Oct 13 2010, 11:49 AM

That black in colour plastic protector? It took me a few attempts to slot in that Internal DVD writer. Did tried up Win2k8 Server but to be honest, I'm not good in windows server product at all so... I reformatted to Windows home server Vail... and again, struggling to re-size the unused partition at the moment such as 'recorded tv' drive etc.. etc...

thanks bro
i shat bracks for a while there >_<

Hi, whats your feedback on this Server? Is it powerful enough for a home server serving 3-4ppl at a time? I've check the processor is more powerful than Intel Atom that Acer H342 is using.

Care to share how much is the power consumption and the fan noise of this server?

Thanks

im new to this nas thingy. can someone recommended me a good nas enclosure that support mac. my budget is RM400.

This post has been edited by hnr2802: Oct 18 2010, 03:52 AM

Didn't the guy at the shop fix the DVD writer for you? They did it for me. It took a while though because of the torq screws and because it's quite small space. Now, I have already taken the DVD writer out because I needed the top space to put the 160GB Seagate boot drive there to make space for the 4 Samsung F4EGs at the bottom.

Anyway, I'm also a newbie. I've no experience with Vail. A little bt of experience in Windows Server. Still learning. Partitioning was a breeze as I used a single 8TB partition and devided to different share directories.

The reason I went with Server 2008 instead of Home Server on this machine is because I can take advantage of the motherboard RAID. This is also the reason why I was not too happy with the Acer as you'll be stuck with Home Server.

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Added on October 18, 2010, 11:33 amFan noise is very silent. I can only hear the 4 Samsung F4EG hardisk writing / reading if I put my ear in front of the casing. I don't have any equipment to measure power consumption but for a NAS with a CPU, it should still be pretty low. The Motherboard Monitor software does not really recognise the board / chip but it reads 5.1W at idle and max 9.1W.

I don't have many people connected to the server. I find it plenty fast for my use. I stream 1080p mkv files and even 40Mbit Bluray .m2ts files at 24p to my 46" LCD over wired LAN with no problems while simultaneously running Winrar to achieve files on the RAID 0 array in the background. If I'm not wrong, HP says the N36L is suited for small business not more than 10 people. I was looking for good read and write NAS performance and I find the network performance very good. From the Bandwidth Monitor program, the throughput easily hits the 1GBit LAN limit when transferring files from my other desktop to the server.

Check out some pics and review here;

http://www.tenniswood.co.uk/technology/rev...rver/#more-6595

http://www.tenniswood.co.uk/technology/win...nce-comparison/

This post has been edited by jchue73: Oct 18 2010, 11:33 AM

Hi,

You said you stream your MKV file and play on your TV, you still need a TV top media player to play the file right? I tried to stream (from a synology NAS but no idea what model) Avatar (1080p MKV) at my friend's place, the video is very jerky, is it because of the media player or the streaming speed too slow?

Thanks!

Is it your streaming is from synology NAS --> router --> media player --> TV ?

I m using this way. But cannot play the file. I only can see the folder and the file. When try to play it, it keep skip to another file.

This post has been edited by ozak: Oct 18 2010, 03:03 PM

I measured 1080p full Bluray m2ts files and they need to be streamed at around 5MB/s or so. The 1080p mkv are much lower at 2 or 3MB/s depending on the decoding. So it's quite light on the network actually. A 100MBit network is more than enough. I decent NAS like from Synology should be able to stream at that speed. So my guess is it's the media player? What player is that?

My playback is through mediaplayer on the PC. I built a SFF Lian Li cube PC V351 and put it in the cabinet near the TV. At that time, I was tempted to buy the small dedicated media players but decided to build a PC for that because of more playback flexibility and because at that time, the dedicated media players were VERY expensive. I will try and stream 1080p HD stuff through my WD Player and see how it goes.

Anyway, I decided on the HP Microserver for my NAS needs not solely for smooth HD playback but because of these 5 things;

1. I can put 4 hardisk in for the ever growing need for space.
2. It's fast when I transfer and store TB of files over the network.
3. It's relatively cheap.
4. It's flexible because of the OS.
5. It's relatively small (smaller than my Lian Li PC V351).

Else, a good Gigabit network backbone and a cheap NAS solution would be fine just for normal HD mkv playback.

I wanted a 4 bay because I already had 2 units of 2-bay NAS (Linksys NMH300 and Buffalo LinkStation Duo) filled up with 2TB hardisks. While the Buffalo was fast and problem free, the Linksys always disconnected when you write big files to it. Reading is fine.

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Added on October 18, 2010, 3:09 pmWhat media player is that? Perhaps cannot decode the video codec or the DTS codec?

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Added on October 18, 2010, 3:10 pmForgot to mention that HP came out with a service advisory on the N36L.

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechS...rodTypeId=15351

Basically it shows how to enable NCQ and Write Cache on the RAID array from RaidXpert program.

This post has been edited by jchue73: Oct 18 2010, 03:10 PM