Battleangel | Personal

I couldn’t wait for a NAS to I decided to get some more hard drive space in the meantime. I figured the 1TB Samsung F2 (HD103SI) would last me a while. Ironically this was the drive I originally had wanted for a NAS system, but due to hibernation issues couldn’t use.

About the NAS project, well, it has stalled because the people on the QNAP and Synology support forums haven’t provided solid answers. They have been unable to provide anything but sketchy power consumption figures. And they have been completely unforthcoming when it comes to BitTorrent. Basically, I want to move my torrenting to a lean NAS platform. But the lingering issue is one of speed. How fast could could a 1.2 GHz Marvell/ARM-based NAS run BitTorrent (with encryption enabled). A simple question but one that I’ve yet to get a proper answer to. People that I’ve asked have either not ventured beyond the built-in client or they don’t have a fast enough connection so that they can be of any help or their ISP throttles torrents. Needless to say I DO NOT want a $350 NAS on my hands that I wont have any use for.

Another complication with Synology (and probably QNAP as well) is that pretty much every new “green” drive is incompatible in one way or another. The above drive doesn’t enter hibernation. Data on Seagate LP is dodgy and not very reassuring. And my second drive of choice WD10EADS has just come out in a new revision (00P8B0) that supposedly brings a two-platter design -  and total incompatibility with most NAS units and many other platforms. I’m unsure as to whose fault this is, but buying a green NAS has gotten a lot harder all of a sudden.

But moving on … I also resupplied with a few knickknacks, and got some interesting vibration dampeners and a cooling intake as I move some hard drives to 5.25’’ bays.

Now, I was a bit worried about mounting these Scythe dampeners (Hard Disk Stabilizer 2) in my Gigabyte Aurora case. But I took the plunge and they seem to be ok with some tweaking. Despite the tool-less design of the case. In retrospect I regret getting a case with a bunch of sliders and rails. Oh well. The Scythe Kama Plus was even more of a gamble, and one could question the necessity of such a device, but I now believe that I can make it stick with some tweaks. And a bit of glue perhaps. My case looks kind of like this and these plastic slider can actually come off to reveal ordinary screw holes. The problem is that the “back side” of the case has nothing whatsoever. Just a metallic ribbon to keep the tension. Oh well, it’s halfway there.

The biggest problem with Kama Plus could be that it’s support mechanism is such that it effectively blocks two 5.25’’ slots with its “supplemental plates”. At least when combined with the Stabilizer 2. Fortunately I have five slots to waste and if that isn’t enough I’m sure I could come up with something else. Like perhaps if this Samsung F2 drive is less of a nuisance than the T166 it could perhaps stay in the 3.5’’ bays.

At the end of the day I really wish Gigabyte would have come up with a better 3.5’’ drive cage. One that doesn’t transfer vibrations quite so easily. Or perhaps the T166 is a real monster in this area. It has been suggested after all.