NAS Suggestion + RAID Query

Dogbreath

Dogbreath

Dogbreath

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I'd like to get a NAS to centralise storage of files at home, but don't have a clue what is good or what is bad. Definitely want something with at least two drives for mirroring, and something that's going to be reliable. Are there any specific models I should be looking at with a budget of up to £150?

It seems you can get dual drive NAS solutions quite cheaply, e.g. DLink DNS-320, are these worth avoiding?

Also I have a SATA II 1TB WD Caviar Green drive from my media player that has seen relatively little use, which I would like to put into the NAS box. However, that exact model (WD10EACS) is no longer available new so would there be any issues pairing it with a newer SATA II model of the same series (e.g. WD10EADS) which is still available?
 
The DNS-320(L) is a relatively slow device, but it is cheap.

Is your £150 budget just for the bare NAS?

SmallNetBuilder have some useful NAS reviews, including one for that D-Link.

You shouldn't have any problems using slightly different drives.
 
Yes budget was just for the bare NAS device, obv. lower the better but I want something reliable. I found a seller on eBay selling new drives with the same model as mine so that's one thing sorted.

Thanks for the SmallNetBuilder link, that's exactly what I needed. I'm tempted by the Zyxel NSA325, which seems to have better performance than most of the lower cost NAS solutions. OTOH I could stretch the budget out to a Synology DS212J (~£170), but is it worth twice the price of the Zyxel?
 
I used to have that D-Link nas, but have just replaced it with a microserver. It's really good for the price, but yes, it is a little slow. You'll get read speeds of between 15 and 25 MBps. Not a problem unless you're accessing the files all the time.
 
welshdragon said:
Can't recommend a Synology DS212j enough here. My review of it, and others HERE
Click to expand...


I'm looking for a NAS to replace my reliable but oh-so-very-slow WD MyBook World, and that Synology one looks awesome. Just found the DSM demo on the Synology website and it's like using a full OS!

Shame they're a bit pricey though...
 
My current thought for NAS, while totally NOT suitable for most people I'm sure is the HP microserver + a cheap infiniband/10Gb network card, cable and the same card in the PC. Can have the microserver multi-homed so it's still NAS then just set some local routes (via hosts file) between my main machine and it. If done right there would be little difference in speed to it being a local disk.

Definitely something that can't be done with most of the other NAS boxes but (personally) I think the slowish access/bandwidth etc is a bit of a downer for NAS.
Looked at cards and cables and seems about £100 for the pair with no switch etc.

Considering the price of the microserver and how much more you can do with it (around £80 with all the discounts/cashback going on) I don't really see how anything could really be much better (unless tiny box is a main part of your buying criteria).

The fact it gives a PCIe slot makes adding either a proper raid card (as the onboard is a bit poor, plenty of decent raid software though) or a really decent network card quite tempting.
 
TheVoice said:
I'm looking for a NAS to replace my reliable but oh-so-very-slow WD MyBook World, and that Synology one looks awesome. Just found the DSM demo on the Synology website and it's like using a full OS!

Shame they're a bit pricey though...
Click to expand...

They are a premium product and the dsm software is awesome to use. well worth the money
 
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