AD attached NAS

Liquidfox · 18 May 2011 at 14:57

Afternoon all,

A customer has had a server put in by another IT company around 2 years ago that is running out of space. It's an HP ML110 with a pair of 500GB drives in RAID1. As far as I am aware, the server is unable to take 4x 1TB drives, either at all, or without heat issues. I was therefore thinking of putting a NAS in there.

Anybody have any suggestions for some good NAS boxes that can hook into Active Directory on an SBS2008 box? Looking at around 2TB with options for further expandability in the future, RAID1 minimum is a must.

mattfinch · 18 May 2011 at 15:04

Look at Iomega's StorCenter range, they can, I believe, talk to AD.

Lanz · 18 May 2011 at 15:06

QNAP is good and cheap.

madman045 · 18 May 2011 at 18:34

Either QNAP or Netgear's ReadyNas Pro range

We have set them up as iSCSI targets so windows treats them as a local drive, so far so good

K.C. Leblanc · 18 May 2011 at 19:11

hellarda said:
i used to have a linkstation live by them. it was shocking. slow, noisy, and just disappeared off the network when it got bored. So i just took the HDD out and put it in my server IMO don't get buffalo

I can't comment on the performance, because it was part of a white elephant project. But we used to have a Buffalo NAS. One day it just stopped working, did some digging, no easy way to recover the data (which luckily wasn't very important).

#Chri5# · 18 May 2011 at 21:00

FWIW, HP QuickSpecs claim the maximum internal storage for an ML110 G6 is 4 x 2TB NHP.

Another vote for the ReadyNAS - I installed a Pro 4 for a customer recently with 4 x 1TB RE4s in. The unit is very solid with excellent build quality (quite heavy) and performance was good. There's also a Pro 6 model for around £670+VAT diskless, the Pro 4 is around £410+VAT diskless.

Liquidfox · 18 May 2011 at 21:08

The Netgear's were the bosses preference but i couldn't ssee anything about AD integration. Looks like it'll be the product of choice

Thanks guys

#Chri5# · 18 May 2011 at 21:16

Watch the ReadyNAS model. IIRC, the Ultra and Pro models are reasonably similar in hardware spec but the Pro has business features like AD integration.

http://www.readynas.com/?page_id=4680

Seamless Active Directory Integration
The ReadyNAS comes with 2 security levels suitable for environments with and without Active Directory service. Joining into an existing Active Directory environment is a snap, and within a few clicks, all existing users and groups from the directory can start using the ReadyNAS.

Business Model Comparision

sidethink · 19 May 2011 at 08:35

Liquidfox said:
The Netgear's were the bosses preference but i couldn't ssee anything about AD integration. Looks like it'll be the product of choice

Thanks guys

You wont really need AD integration if you use the NAS as an iSCSI device. to all intents and purposes your Windows server will mount it as a local physical drive and therefore it can be shared and managed on that server.

A colleague uses Netgears extensively for SME work using iSCSI in almost all cases. He is very happy with them.

Liquidfox · 19 May 2011 at 11:19

Looking at the price of the ReadyNAS pro boxes, i've been advised the customer probably won't pay the £900+ asking price for one (I couldn't see any Pro4's for the prices people have been mentioning), so i'm looking at the cheaper iSCSI options, it comes in at about half the price (£400-£500 populated)

Thanks for the suggestions guys

#Chri5# · 19 May 2011 at 14:43

Google for "ReadyNAS Pro 4 diskless" and you'll find plenty of results - can't link but plenty of choice eg £460 inc VAT.