NAS for storing games?

[Mr_boboston]

Im thinking about creating a NAS but i haven't made one before. I want to store my games on it and stuff like that but im not quite sure whether or not it will work. If i put the game files onto the nav and launch them from my main PC will it be using the hardware from the NAS or my main PC?

[VectorTech]

6 minutes ago, Mr_boboston said:

Im thinking about creating a NAS but i haven't made one before. I want to store my games on it and stuff like that but im not quite sure whether or not it will work. If i put the game files onto the nav and launch them from my main PC will it be using the hardware from the NAS or my main PC?

You can use a network based NAS to store all of your games, however keep in mind-

An internal SATA 3 connection can operate at a max of 6Gb/s (although it'll in the real world be much slower), if you use a network based storage device you are limited by the speed of your network interface card (NIC) which will likely be 1Gb/s (100MB/s). I've ran a NAS as secondary storage for games I don't play super often and it was fine.

 

If you're curious about how to set it up just PM me.

[Mr_boboston]

8 minutes ago, VectorTech said:

You can use a network based NAS to store all of your games, however keep in mind-

An internal SATA 3 connection can operate at a max of 6Gb/s (although it'll in the real world be much slower), if you use a network based storage device you are limited by the speed of your network interface card (NIC) which will likely be 1Gb/s (100MB/s). I've ran a NAS as secondary storage for games I don't play super often and it was fine.

 

If you're curious about how to set it up just PM me.

Ok so my connection in the games would be bad because its over my network speed. Another question about it I had was would the computer still work like a regular computer or no. The first video i watched about making a NAS was using freenas and it said i needed to download their OS for the NAS to work which is fine but then how would i update games if they where from say steam. Like would i download the launcher on my main PC and just install the games to the NAS?

[VectorTech]

Just now, Mr_boboston said:

Ok so my connection in the games would be bad because its over my network speed. Another question about it I had was would the computer still work like a regular computer or no. The first video i watched about making a NAS was using freenas and it said i needed to download their OS for the NAS to work which is fine but then how would i update games if they where from say steam. 

So you could use freenas or you could use Windows Server or really any operating system. You would just map the network drive and install your games here it's really pretty easy.

Also it won't necessarily be "BAD", however you will likely experience longer loading times with bigger games like Warzone for example.

[Mr_boboston]

4 minutes ago, VectorTech said:

So you could use freenas or you could use Windows Server or really any operating system. You would just map the network drive and install your games here it's really pretty easy.

Also it won't necessarily be "BAD", however you will likely experience longer loading times with bigger games like Warzone for example.

Ok and another question i had just for my own curiosity is does it matter what components the NAS has in regards to hardware. Like the stuff in my old computer will be fine but im just curious as to whether the NAS requires decent hardware or not to function or is it all based on the drives themselves.

[FloRolf]

I personally store games on my NAS too and it's just fine. However only steam really. Origin doesn't work, they need their games to be stored on a local disc for some reason. 

[Kid.Lazer]

6 minutes ago, VectorTech said:

So you could use freenas or you could use Windows Server or really any operating system. You would just map the network drive and install your games here it's really pretty easy.

Also it won't necessarily be "BAD", however you will likely experience longer loading times with bigger games like Warzone for example.

To expound on this and the previous comment, It won't affect your connection in terms of latency or "lag" as far as the multiplayer experience. It will only affect level load times.

And yes, you would install steam on your computer like normal, only mapping the game directory to your NAS, much like selecting a local drive.

[Mr_boboston]

Just now, FloRolf said:

I personally store games on my NAS too and it's just fine. However only steam really. Origin doesn't work, they need their games to be stored on a local disc for some reason. 

Ok that wouldnt be a problem as i dont think i have any origin games even downloaded anymore.

[VectorTech]

1 minute ago, Mr_boboston said:

Ok and another question i had just for my own curiosity is does it matter what components the NAS has in regards to hardware. Like the stuff in my old computer will be fine but im just curious as to whether the NAS requires decent hardware or not to function or is it all based on the drives themselves.

Old computer hardware will be fine so long as it's got a decently fast NIC and can support SATA 3.

 

1 minute ago, FloRolf said:

I personally store games on my NAS too and it's just fine. However only steam really. Origin doesn't work, they need their games to be stored on a local disc for some reason. 

You can map a network folder as a local drive and use it like that.
 

1 minute ago, Kid.Lazer said:

To expound on this and the previous comment, It won't affect your connection in terms of latency or "lag" as far as the multiplayer experience. It will only affect level load times.

And yes, you would install steam on your computer like normal, only mapping the game directory to your NAS, much like selecting a local drive.

Since you're using the same network connection to connect to the local server as well as the internet you can see some increased latency when connecting to web based servers as well as puling files from the NAS.

[Mr_boboston]

Ok well then i guess this is the point where i say F it and see if i can get the NAS to work lol. Thanks for the help everyone 

[aBattleBorn]

On 7/21/2021 at 9:17 PM, Mr_boboston said:

Im thinking about creating a NAS but i haven't made one before. I want to store my games on it and stuff like that but im not quite sure whether or not it will work. If i put the game files onto the nav and launch them from my main PC will it be using the hardware from the NAS or my main PC?

the game will run on your computer hardware, you are just loading files from the nas instead of your disk.

overall it is possible to store whole games on your nas and playing them, but you are limited to your server and pc ethernet hardware which is probably 1 gig which comes around to 100M/b per sec which is around the speed of a 5400 RPM HDD.
if you have any questions you are more than welcome to ask me since I am running truenas.

 

On 7/21/2021 at 9:43 PM, Mr_boboston said:

Ok and another question i had just for my own curiosity is does it matter what components the NAS has in regards to hardware. Like the stuff in my old computer will be fine but im just curious as to whether the NAS requires decent hardware or not to function or is it all based on the drives themselves.

must of the consomer nas run on dual core cpu with 1 gig of ram so you don't need such a powerfull hardware.

i mean you can run windows server 2012 with 512MB of ram and 1GHZ dual core proccessor but from the other hand freenas/truenas requiers 8 gb of ram,open media vault is a nice middle ground with really low requierments(can even run on raspberry pie)

On 7/21/2021 at 9:43 PM, FloRolf said:

I personally store games on my NAS too and it's just fine. However only steam really. Origin doesn't work, they need their games to be stored on a local disc for some reason. 

just from curiosity which protocol do you use on your nas? nfs/smb or iscsi? i think that if you will use iscsi even origin will be able to run games from your nas

[FloRolf]

24 minutes ago, aBattleBorn said:

just from curiosity which protocol do you use on your nas? nfs/smb or iscsi? i think that if you will use iscsi even origin will be able to run games from your nas

yes with iscsi it will probably work but i just use SMB Shares.