On 05 Sep 2012, at 14:21, Magnus <mag...@yonderway.com> wrote: > > On Sep 5, 2012, at 2:59 AM, Didier Carlier wrote: >> >> The use case described is handled perfectly by OSX server ($15 these >> days...). >> It might still be a good idea but don't believe that Mac users are waiting >> for such a NAS without any alternatives… > > My iTunes library is pushing 2TB these days, and I'm not done backing up my > large DVD collection yet. I've got a stack of external firewire drives > attached to my Mac Mini that are slow (nature of Firewire) and suffer early > thermal failure because these cases are designed more for looking slim and > attractive on my desk than they are for actively cooling the disks within. > If I want to add new disks to expand my volume, I can't really do that; I > have to make a full backup, destroy my original volume, and create a new > volume with more disks in it. > > I'm a beta tester for what was TensComplement so I have ZFS on there now, but > I still have the limitations of firewire and the consumer level external disk > thermal problems. > > I very much have an interest in moving my precious media library to something > more robust and performant. > > OS X Server doesn't fix any of that. > > Meanwhile I've got a ~5 year old AMD machine that used to be a nice Linux > desktop, now running Illumos (as of about 8 hours or so ago) and the long > slow rsync from my Mac is still going. My disks will be actively cooled by a > case with adequate fans. When my 2TB ZFS volume is a little closer to full, I > can add another mirrored pair of 2TB disks to my pool in a matter of maybe > half an hour tops (including time to physically install the disks). I've also > got a pair of SSD's for slog and cache devices to put in there, once I source > another SATA controller for the system. I can't do any of that with my Mac > Mini. > > I'm also looking at the *five disks* on my desk right now around my monitor, > and smiling knowing that they are going away soon. > > -M
I wasn't talking specifically about firewire, a Thunderbolt disk array like the ones from Promise is much faster than firewire and support up to 12 TB. That might be more expensive but functionally, a Mac mini plus this kind of storage handles your load without any problem. Now obviously I agree that ZFS has its advantages, but OSX has some too, at least in a full Mac home or SME. _______________________________________________ OpenIndiana-discuss mailing list OpenIndiana-discuss@openindiana.org http://openindiana.org/mailman/listinfo/openindiana-discuss