NAS Server

[dpDesignz]

Hey All,

I'm looking at getting an NAS server to use as a media hub to replace my 6 hard drives I currently use. Just wondering if anyone has any recommendations or ones to avoid at all?

I'm looking at wanting around 16TBish for my first one to replace 3 of my drives, then I'll be getting another one to replace my other 3

Cheers

[psycik]

Hey All,

I'm looking at getting an NAS server to use as a media hub to replace my 6 hard drives I currently use. Just wondering if anyone has any recommendations or ones to avoid at all?

I'm looking at wanting around 16TBish for my first one to replace 3 of my drives, then I'll be getting another one to replace my other 3

Cheers

Haven't thought of building one? UnRaid, FreeNas, or Windows Storage Spaces, or like me Windows with DriveBender?

They all have features of raid, and depending on your implementation will depend on portability of the drives (ie can you pull out a drive and just plug it in another system an djust pull data off it - something not generally possible with hardware RAID). And also depending how you do it will depend on the "apps" you have available. As a lot of the selling features of NAS servers now are the installed apps (backups, media server, private clouds, remote access).

[dugimodo]

I have a Qnap NAS and it has been very good. I think all the main brands have good gear though. Mines a TS-231 with 2 x 4TB WD red drives in it. My only regret is not buying the 4 bay version but I'm starting to wonder what I keep all this stuff for anyway.
I just use RAID 0 on mine and back it up daily to another pair of Disks.

Here's my thoughts on RAID in a home NAS :-
RAID 1 uses twice as many disks and protects you against hardware failure but does not replace a backup. To Backup a RAID 1 volume you actually end up needing 3 times as many disks at a minimum, 4 times if you use RAID 1 on the backup device.
RAID 5 sounds great, but then you read how with large disks over 2 TB you have a high chance of a read error while rebuilding an array, effectively making RAID 5 virtually useless - and you still need twice as many disks to do a backup...

Rebuilding an array can also take longer than restoring a backup on some NAS devices and slows the disk performance right down while it's happening.
So basically I use a large striped array for speed, and back it up to a second pair of disks daily with a scheduled robocopy script. Using RAID for protection from a drive failure in a home environment seems pointless to me but I know some people will disagree with that.

Running a RAID array without a backup is only marginally better than nothing, if you delete a file or it gets corrupted, or you accidentally format the wrong disk, or whatever, you lose everything and the RAID array happily mirrors your mistakes.

[autechre]

Yep, either build one yourself or get something like a Synology NAS. I have a couple of 4 bay ones. The software is pretty good and they're easy to set up.

Build your own will be cheaper, but will take you longer if you've never done one before. A ready-made one will be more expensive and probably slower, but much easier to set up.

[Chilling_Silence]

Freenas is nice, easy. Building your own system you can space the drives well and ensure they're kept very cool rather than the Synology NAS systems etc which are all pretty tight and enclosed spaces.

For a home scenario, I'm with dugimodo, and a nightly backup is potentially better.

You'd do well to make sure you get WD Red drives or similar, don't go trying to use like the Blue or Green ones.

[gary67]

I use an old Pentium 4 running and older version of Amahi free home server.

I can't upgrade it the latest OS patch as they have now gone 64bit and the old P4 doesn't support that.

[dpDesignz]

Thanks heaps for all the feedback guys! Given me some homework to do

[chiefnz]

I just moved from a custom FreeNAS setup to a 8TB, 2-bay QNAP 231-TS NAS. Both the FreeNAS and QNAP setups were used specifically to hold my backups. I have 3 x 2TB WD Enterprise disks in my rig which hold all my data. I have backups running from Wednesdays to Sundays using EaseUS ToDo Backup Workstation 9 (incremental and full backups). I'm not too worried about backing up the NAS as it is unlikely I will lose both drives in the NAS as well as the 3 disks in my rig at the same time. The 231-TS performs reasonably well as a striaght up NAS. I'm not using any "advanced" features and it's relatively inexpensive given what I am using it for. The biggest driver getting this unit was it takes up less space than the previous C2Quad FreeNAS box I had setup and is much quieter too. I will probably get a 4-bay unit somewhere down the track but for now the 231-TS is doing the bidness so quite happy.

Cheers,