Home NAS Advice

Robi · 18 Nov 2016 at 12:53

At present I have very little in the way of storage/backup, which is stupid considering I have 10 years of photos, media, documents and various other bits that need to be stored safely.

I currently use 3 devices:

Gaming PC with Windows 10 (with 2x SSD + external HDD)
MacBook Pro
iPhone 6

The general idea is that I want all of my devices to automatically backup to specific network shares at timed intervals (once a week for example). I don't have the time nor the patience to manually plug in an external drive to each of my devices (obviously excluding the phone) to save my data. Therefore I'm after a NAS that can do the following:

- Automatic backups to NAS and cloud i.e. CrashPlan
- iTunes server/media streaming (Plex)
- Torrents
- Low energy state/sleep mode

This leads me onto my next question, 1 bay or 2? To me, it would make sense to go for 2 in RAID for redundancy, but I'm open to ideas.

Budget is up to around £150 for the enclosure itself and around £100 on 1 or 2 drives. I've had a quick look and come up with the following:

NAS

ASUSTOR AS12002T 2 Bay: £129.95
WD My Cloud EX2 Ultra 2 Bay: £134.99
Synology DiskStation DS216j 2 Bay: £144.99

Synology DiskStation DS115j 1 Bay: £79.99

Drives

2x WD Red 1TB 7200rpm

Any other recommendations?

Armageus · 18 Nov 2016 at 12:56

HP Microserver and your choice of NAS software e.g.

xpenology
FreeNas
OpenMediaVault
Nas4Free

Also really you want WD Red's rather than Blue's for a NAS (as they are designed for 24/7 running and more suitable for RAID configurations)

Robi · 18 Nov 2016 at 13:04

Armageus said:
HP Microserver and your choice of NAS software e.g.

xpenology
FreeNas
OpenMediaVault
Nas4Free

Also really you want WD Red's rather than Blue's for a NAS (as they are designed for 24/7 running and more suitable for RAID configurations)

How easy is it to configure the HP Microserver with NAS software as opposed to the Synology OS for example?

Sp00n · 18 Nov 2016 at 14:32

They'll be pretty similar, the NAS software mentioned is pretty mature so will be well documented and straight forward, as is the Synology OS.

As for actually installing it, it will just be an ISO to burn to disc or make a bootable usb.

The Microserver gives you the freedom to change your mind down the line if you want to switch it out for some other use, a virtual hypervisor perhaps.

zoomee · 18 Nov 2016 at 14:51

If you wanna do it cheap as poss then yeah microserver.
IF however you just want something that works - Synology all day long.

One caveat of using the microserver with the Synology hax0red OS is that you won't get the updates as quick as a proper synology user (new functionality, vulnerability issues etc)

Armageus · 18 Nov 2016 at 15:13

If you are interested in the Microserver route, its worth a read of the main threads here:
https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18216324
https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18528018

ASE001 · 18 Nov 2016 at 15:43

If you don't mind having a play and you don't won't to stream HD or 4K movies and want to keep the cost down, then perhaps the following:

Raspberry Pi 2 £20 (Not sure if they've ported it to a Pi 3 £30 yet?)
Raspberry Pi PSU £10
Memory card £5
USB HDD 5TB external Drive Approx £120-160
An old Mini PC case, you may have to get creative when mounting the components

in side!

Total £155-195

I know NAS4FREE supports the Pi 2, although its still in beta. But most of the NAS related features are stable I believe?

Robi · 18 Nov 2016 at 22:07

zoomee said:
If you wanna do it cheap as poss then yeah microserver.
IF however you just want something that works - Synology all day long.

One caveat of using the microserver with the Synology hax0red OS is that you won't get the updates as quick as a proper synology user (new functionality, vulnerability issues etc)

Interesting. Essentially the Microserver with Synology OS will provide all of the same features as a Synology NAS right?

If that's the case it makes sense to buy the Microserver, as it has 4 bays and can be used for a whole range of other things, rather than being strictly a NAS.

Snapshot · 19 Nov 2016 at 11:17

I have an Asustor AS-202TE that I can put in the sales section on request and that would be a very cheap option.

zoomee · 19 Nov 2016 at 15:44

Robi said:
Interesting. Essentially the Microserver with Synology OS will provide all of the same features as a Synology NAS right?

If that's the case it makes sense to buy the Microserver, as it has 4 bays and can be used for a whole range of other things, rather than being strictly a NAS.

doh! didn't realise it was you moon!!

The microserver options are awright - not great, but awright. I have plenty of colleagues (All techies) who bought these and funnily enough they are all selling them and going to Synology products. They got tired of having to 'maintain' them and there was some other points they mentioned which didn't favour the HP's. Power useage is also a lot lower on the dedicated NAS boxes (QNAP/Synology).

The ONE person I know who kept his microserver uses it for VM stuff - so like you say there are other uses for these compared to the more expensive dedicated NAS solutions.

If you can afford it - Go synology bud - there's a slightly cheaper option with QNAP (in all honesty I've had both and Synology only just fairs better than the QNAPS).

If you want to see what the fuss about the Synology OS is all about - try this link: https://www.synology.com/en-uk/dsm/live_demo

Personally I cba with IT stuff at home these days (working with it all day long is bad enough lol!) - So like to keep it simple. Love Synology OS for its simplicity - it just works - no need to faff with CLI's etc.

KIA · 19 Nov 2016 at 18:12

Armageus said:
HP Microserver and your choice of NAS software e.g.

FreeNas
OpenMediaVault
Nas4Free

Also really you want WD Red's rather than Blue's for a NAS (as they are designed for 24/7 running and more suitable for RAID configurations)

This gets my vote.

Robi · 20 Nov 2016 at 15:04

zoomee said:
doh! didn't realise it was you moon!!

The microserver options are awright - not great, but awright. I have plenty of colleagues (All techies) who bought these and funnily enough they are all selling them and going to Synology products. They got tired of having to 'maintain' them and there was some other points they mentioned which didn't favour the HP's. Power useage is also a lot lower on the dedicated NAS boxes (QNAP/Synology).

The ONE person I know who kept his microserver uses it for VM stuff - so like you say there are other uses for these compared to the more expensive dedicated NAS solutions.

If you can afford it - Go synology bud - there's a slightly cheaper option with QNAP (in all honesty I've had both and Synology only just fairs better than the QNAPS).

If you want to see what the fuss about the Synology OS is all about - try this link: https://www.synology.com/en-uk/dsm/live_demo

Personally I cba with IT stuff at home these days (working with it all day long is bad enough lol!) - So like to keep it simple. Love Synology OS for its simplicity - it just works - no need to faff with CLI's etc.

Hello mate! Haha long time no speak, I didn't clock that it was you

I'm in a similar boat. Realistically because I spend most of my working life in an IT environment, the last thing I want to do is have to configure and subsequently maintain a server. I want something that just works out of the box.

Thanks for the link. I had a play around with the Synology OS and it seems straightforward to setup OSX and Windows backups/iTunes server and cloud backups.

I've seen WD Red 1TB drives for <£60 on another site, so I'll see if OcUK can match those.

In terms of the drive, it sounds like Synology really is the way to go. Do you have any experience with ASUSTOR or other similar brands?

I'm looking at:

Synology DiskStation DS216j
ASUSTOR AS-202TE
ASUSTOR AS1002T
WD My Cloud EX2

All priced £130-£150.

KIA · 20 Nov 2016 at 18:42

Out of those four, I'd pick the Synology.

AyeAyeAhoy! · 21 Nov 2016 at 17:40

Dell T20 (Xeon if possible), plus Unraid

Would do all you want it to, plus would give you lots of overhead and room for expansion.

Edit: Just realised, it's out of budget

Snapshot · 21 Nov 2016 at 18:27

Robi said:
<SNIP>
In terms of the drive, it sounds like Synology really is the way to go. Do you have any experience with ASUSTOR or other similar brands?

I'm looking at:

Synology DiskStation DS216j
ASUSTOR AS-202TE
ASUSTOR AS1002T
WD My Cloud EX2

All priced £130-£150.

I have an AS-202TE which I've replaced with an AS-5104T as I wanted the extra bays and I can't see me replacing that for a considerable period. One thing I particularly like about Asustor is that they're constantly upgrading the OS and it's made available across the whole product range from the earliest models to the latest. This may be true of the other major players (QNAP & Synology) but I admit I haven't checked.

I also have a couple of Gen8 Microservers which, in terms of the technology you get, are amazing value but they are only for those who enjoy exercising their IT skills. As someone mentioned, the idle power consumption can be a bit high unless you turn off ILO but then IMO you lose one of the key bonuses of the Gen8.

There's a tendency here for everyone to fall into line behind Synology without any real justification. To me, they seem to have too many models with weak CPUs and the DS216j is typical (unless I've badly underestimated Marvell CPUs).

It would be worth posting something in the Wanted sales section to see what turns up....

Robi · 22 Nov 2016 at 09:26

Snapshot said:
I have an AS-202TE which I've replaced with an AS-5104T as I wanted the extra bays and I can't see me replacing that for a considerable period. One thing I particularly like about Asustor is that they're constantly upgrading the OS and it's made available across the whole product range from the earliest models to the latest. This may be true of the other major players (QNAP & Synology) but I admit I haven't checked.

There's a tendency here for everyone to fall into line behind Synology without any real justification. To me, they seem to have too many models with weak CPUs and the DS216j is typical (unless I've badly underestimated Marvell CPUs).

Thanks Snapshot.

I've been looking at reviews and all roads seem to be pointing towards the AS-202TE. Tweaktown awarded it 90% with "Best Value Award" and various other sites also gave it positive scores:

http://aphnetworks.com/reviews/asustor_as_202te/8
http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/58...-bay-consumer-nas-appliance-review/index.html

A couple of things are swaying me over the Synology DS216j:

- 202TE has a 1.2GHz CPU compared to 1.0GHz in the DS216j
- 202TE has 1GB RAM compared to 512MB in the DS216j
- Overall faster read/write speeds
- Hot swappable bays

It has all of the same apps I want - CrashPlan/DropBox/Plex/XMBC etc. The ASUSTOR OS is also meant to be fantastic with frequent updates, much like Synology.

I'm going to read a few more views on the DS216j but it looks like I'll be going for the 202TE.

zoomee · 22 Nov 2016 at 09:54

Snapshot said:
There's a tendency here for everyone to fall into line behind Synology without any real justification. To me, they seem to have too many models with weak CPUs and the DS216j is typical (unless I've badly underestimated Marvell CPUs).

The justification is warranted, ask anyone who uses a Synology box as opposed to QNAP or the other manufacturers. Heres what I found was better about Synology:

- Great OS - Hybrid RAID solution just works, flexible yet great performance. Requires NO CLI interaction at all.

- HUGE amount of applications out of the box (and thats not even looking at the likes of synocommunity for the excellent third party support they have integrated straight into the OS).

- Whilst the cheaper model's with Marvel cpu's look nasty they can still out perform more expensive models from other manufacturers due to great optimisation. Do your research.

- OS updates happen VERY frequently - constantly pushing the boundaries and setting the bar for other manufacturers to follow.

- Patches for security vulnerabilities are pushed out a lot more frequently than other manufacturers. QNAP for example sat on their hands for ages not addressing many publicly known vulnerabilities in certain modules in their OS - Synology patch them as soon as possible.

- Support cycle - Most manufacturers only support their products for up to 1 or two years, Synology guarantee you support and OS upgrades for 3 years.

As per above this all makes for a great end user experience and this is exactly where Synology excels over the other manufacturers. Once setup, it more or less maintains itself performing consistency checks, hdd health checks, etc so requires very little technical knowledge

Robi · 22 Nov 2016 at 10:54

zoomee said:
The justification is warranted, ask anyone who uses a Synology box as opposed to QNAP or the other manufacturers. Heres what I found was better about Synology:

- Great OS - Hybrid RAID solution just works, flexible yet great performance. Requires NO CLI interaction at all.

- HUGE amount of applications out of the box (and thats not even looking at the likes of synocommunity for the excellent third party support they have integrated straight into the OS).

- Whilst the cheaper model's with Marvel cpu's look nasty they can still out perform more expensive models from other manufacturers due to great optimisation. Do your research.

- OS updates happen VERY frequently - constantly pushing the boundaries and setting the bar for other manufacturers to follow.

- Patches for security vulnerabilities are pushed out a lot more frequently than other manufacturers. QNAP for example sat on their hands for ages not addressing many publicly known vulnerabilities in certain modules in their OS - Synology patch them as soon as possible.

- Support cycle - Most manufacturers only support their products for up to 1 or two years, Synology guarantee you support and OS upgrades for 3 years.

As per above this all makes for a great end user experience and this is exactly where Synology excels over the other manufacturers. Once setup, it more or less maintains itself performing consistency checks, hdd health checks, etc so requires very little technical knowledge

zoom why do you always have to make things difficult?

I was literally about to hit the buy button on the ASUSTOR.

All of the reviews for the DS216j indicate the hardware is basic and below the 202-TE but the OS is obviously better. However, the ASUSTOR OS isn't exactly bad is it? All of the same apps but less frequent updates and support.

The hot swappable bays, additional USB ports and HDMI are swaying me at the moment.

Decisions.

zoomee · 22 Nov 2016 at 11:42

Ahaha! - sorry dude

Look at read/write performance of the 216j compared to the ASUSTOR - Go for whichever you feel is the better bud. At the end of the day its your cash!

I don't think either QNAP or ASUSTOR can hold a candle to Synologys third party community - hence my preference (QNAP had the packages I needed but they were finnicky to get working). I've had no less than 3 security updates this month so that's really re-assuring compared to an update every 3 months or so for my previous QNAP. No idea what ASUSTOR are like on that front though.

The ONLY thing that you will be limited by regarding CPU power is your torrents - depending upon your internet speed that may be a bottleneck. For example - previously I was using sabnzbd to download on my 200MB internet connection.

On the older QNAP (Think it was like a 210 model I had) - I saw the speed limited to about 90Mb/s, I moved up to a single core atom DS-712+ and that gave about 120MB/s. The DS-415+ I run now is capable of 160MB/s download speeds (Quad-core 2.4Ghz) - just to give you an example of the differences in NAS cpus.

The marvel cpu's however don't compare directly to the other x86 cpu's - they are super low powered but you need to look at things like read/write speeds to be able to compare to other manufacturers (I think that's the only real life thing that will affect you tbh).

hth

JonJ678 · 24 Nov 2016 at 09:51

Regarding the high maintenance of a microserver.

I installed freebsd on one roughly three years ago. I turned it off when moving house and when a couple of disks died (no hot swap

). No other maintenance. I no longer have any idea how to administer / configure / fix freebsd as it's been literally years since the initial setup.