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[dcwebman]

I now have a NAS set up with all my media data. Of course that now means that anytime I make a change in MC, it takes longer to update the files because they're residing over on a network drive. Would updating to a gigabit network help in that?

[bob]

If your NAS has a ATA-100 or SATA drive the maximum theoretical transfer rate is from 1-1.5 Gbit/Sec which is about 10 times faster than your 100 Mbit/sec ethernet. If there were no other bottlenecks (and of course there are plenty of them), the gigabit ethernet on both ends should help.

How efficiently the data gets from the network to the NAS hard drive is probably a significant limiting factor.

If you had a network monitor you could watch when you are doing an update and see if the entire bandwidth was being used. I assume there are several that could be found for windows with a bit of searching...

[dcwebman]

Thanks for the reply. It is a SATA drive, well actually 2 running Raid 1 so that probably slows it down a bit too. I have been trying to give myself reasons to upgrade to gigabit and it sounds like this is another reason to do so.

[Jean-Max]

Hello

I had a Synology NAS on a  1gb wired network and a 750Gb Sata2 HD inside

For best HD videos viewing and JRiver MC use, I prefer now ++++ my Windows Home server :
It's an single PC (not very powerful : PIII , 512m ram) with 1Gb ethernet card, 2To of Sata2 Hard discs ans the MS Home server RC soft installed

It's very fast, faster than any 1gb NAS !!

Now All my multimedia datas (picture, HD videos and music) are on my Home server
On 4 PC, I installed J River MC and the Home server client software : perfect !!

note : from 2 or 3 days, MS sells now the official final Homer server version to replace the RC test version 

[AoXoMoXoA]

Jean-Max I will look into that, although I am not certain what the advantages would be.

I have my media machine in the closet and is wired into my home audio and television and generally runs headless.

I control it remotely, presently using Messiahs' "xpTunes - enhanced remote server (alpha)" plugin
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=43402.0, wireless keyboard & mouse, (soon to have) RF Remote, as well as a laptop with VNC.
In this fashion I cannot hear the PC's fans (noise problems eliminated on-the-cheap) and I have  Zones controlled by MC as well as selector switches where local sources also exist (main listening area).

My Main point being that I am using local hard drives eliminating network slow-downs and additional hardware. I also have a direct interface between the motherboard and the hard drives, eliminating numerous other possible corruption opportunities (file system conversions with NAS, additional read/write control devices, etc).

Modern motherboards can handle quite a number of drives (I see boards with 6 SATA ports plus IDE) and 750gb drives are reasonably priced since the 1tb drives are appearing more.
Add a good case and it can easily handle 3 to 5tb.

So, is there really an advantage to the networked storage approach?
Unless your goal is to be all wireless perhaps?

[Jean-Max]

Hello,

My Home server is on first floor, always On, without keyboard, mouse or screen.

In my living room, I use a Laptop as HTPC :
Sony Vaio FZ11Z with Core2 duo T7300, 2 g ram, Nvidia 8400M GT, Blu-ray, Hdmi Hdcp output etc..
On this laptop: Vista + JRiver MC + Home server Conect soft.
Projector : Sanyo Z4 (720p)
Hdmi switch : Gefen 6x2

Many advantages :
Home server is far from living room (can be ugly, big and noisy !)
No sound from Laptop
User control on laptop screen in dual screen mode used by J River MC (Setups on Latop, Videos on Projector)
Not a permanent HTPC in living room (WAF++)
Remote used with success: MS IR Remote from MCE2005

Note: because the Laptop is not 1gb ethernet, I added an Express docking station (Targus ACP60EU) which adds 1Gb network, Optical sound, RS232 etc..

Best regards !!

[jmone]

I now have a NAS set up with all my media data. Of course that now means that anytime I make a change in MC, it takes longer to update the files because they're residing over on a network drive. Would updating to a gigabit network help in that?

Most cheap NAS have a low spec CPU running linux and have no chance of saturating 100Mbit let along 1Gbit.  I've got a 1TB WD NAS and I get MAX 40Mbits from it on my Gigabit lan.  These things are better suited for backup IMO.  Cheaper and easer to just add a 1TB drive to your PC.

[Jean-Max]

Most cheap NAS have a low spec CPU running linux and have no chance of saturating 100Mbit let along 1Gbit.  I've got a 1TB WD NAS and I get MAX 40Mbits from it on my Gigabit lan.  These things are better suited for backup IMO.  Cheaper and easer to just add a 1TB drive to your PC.

Yesss !
My 2 NAS Synology DS-101G+ (netw 1gb) are very slow compared with my old PIII (netw 1gb) 512M ram PC with MS Home server on it !

[dcwebman]

My NAS is a D-Link DNS-323. Any experience with that and 1GB?

[jmone]

My NAS is a D-Link DNS-323. Any experience with that and 1GB?

I see the quote realativly good "up to" figures for this class of device (the WD is a max of 5!!!!) 

RAID 0 combines both drives in a striped configuration, which provides the highest performance, enabling speeds up to 23MBps-Read and 15MBps-Write (MBps: Megabytes per second) when using a Gigabit Ethernet connection

.  If this is true then 1GB will be of help.