Looking for NAS Recommendations

chenko · 17 Jul 2022 at 22:57

I am planning on downsizing my NAS unit which is currently a 24 bay server with 16x 8tb drives and 8x 3tb.

This is running Free/TrueNAS so disks are pretty much spun up at all times. Server runs a few jails etc (sabnzbd, syncthing, sonarr etc) and would like to run these if possible on the new NAS. I have a separate VM to host any software that won't run on the NAS unit but would prefer the downloader itself (sabnzbd) to run on the new NAS.

Part of the reason is the power usage of the machine, specially with rising costs (looking at £630/year @ 30p/unit, measured over the last year or so with a sonoff unit), the server is noisy and the only place im happy with it is the attic which gets very hot. Secondly I am going to separate my CCTV onto its own NAS unit so they're isolated (this seems an easier choice, only need a single 8tb hdd).

I am basically going to start deleting data to make it all fit, putting some of the data into cold storage and will plug the drive I require in as and when I need the data.

Thinking something that can take 6 disks (maybe 8), gigabit. Supports at least 8tb, and can share via NFS as well as SMB.

I don't really want to look after an OS anymore otherwise I might have considered going to a newer microserver (not sure how many disks you can get in the new ones).

I've seen some that you can plug USB hdds into them, this would be a bonus as I have a spare 4 bay DAS unit knocking around (which supports USB3 and eSATA, but needs a SATA multiplier host port).

Considering I'd be looking at saving 600 a year (minus the power costs of the new unit) that would be my budget, but it would need to be something good and have the other odds im looking for as well!

Suggestions?

Edit: I realise there are other OSs and ways to run with this hardware, and have looked into them extensively (and have used many on and off over the years). I specifically want to downsize so I am not looking at keeping at 24 bay chassis running.

Snapshot · 18 Jul 2022 at 09:51

I have a 4-bay Asustor AS5304T with 2.5Gb/s Ethernet plus a 4-bay expansion unit, also Asustor, in the Sales section at the moment.

I don't think you're going to find a new 6-bay NAS for £600. The cheapest I could find was the QNAP TS-653D-8G at £649. I'm not familiar with that model but it has a sensible CPU for its class plus 2.5Gb/s Ethernet so worth considering, allowing for QNAP's ongoing problems with ransomware.

> Supports at least 8tb, and can share via NFS as well as SMB.
This is so standard it's not worth mentioning.

Donnie Fisher · 18 Jul 2022 at 13:42

What sort of wattage is your current drawing to cost that much a year ? are you sticking with truenas? (The likes of unraid can spin down drives which would save both power and noise and run dockers).

Avalon · 18 Jul 2022 at 13:51

So, you decided you wanted a lot of storage, made poor choices on hardware and storage set-upand are now paying the price literally? You aren’t the first and won’t be the last. Before you make a similar mistake again please stop and do some research, or at least take some advice from someone who has played this game for almost three decades.

What hardware are you running exactly?

Your power usage is nearly 240w/hr based on £630/yr at 30p/KWh, roughly 120-170w of that is probably in storage spinning constantly (5-7w/drive), which means 70-120w ish is likely the server/fans.

What if I told you that just changing your OS and storage strategy could remove the need to spin up those drives more than once a day for minutes rather than hours?That could literally half your power bill over night. You’d also get more storage than you have now from the same drives if you want.

The other issue you’ll face is NAS’ with decent CPU’s that are suited to running SAB + *arr’s and doing the associated RAR/PAR work aren’t generally going to be cheap and aren’t easily or cheaply expandable. Your average modern PC can idle at very low wattage.

Literally swapping out to something like UnRAID with a decent sized flash based cache drive/pool could remove the drives needing to be spun up more than once a day while the mover does it’s thing. Using the likes of rclone to mount remote cloud storage is cheaper than spinning drives up 24/7, but only lends itself to certain workloads as well as being uplink sensitive. You also have the option of remote hosting, you can rent OK spec servers for very little with symmetrical gigabit, combined with rclone and cloud storage this can be very efficient.

chenko · 18 Jul 2022 at 13:55

Avalon said:
So, you decided you wanted a lot of storage, made poor choices on hardware and storage set-up

Please tell me what poor choices I made based on the above?

Avalon · 18 Jul 2022 at 16:00

chenko said:
Please tell me what poor choices I made based on the above?

If you insist on having the contents of your op repeated back to you then OK... You purchased a server chassis designed for a DC/server rooms with little or no consideration for it's environmental impact (heat/noise), efficiency or running costs and combined it with an OS that's storage strategy is based on higher IOPS with large groups of spindles spun up than the kind of storage pattern you infer is now more appropriate to your needs. Clearly it didn't work out so well.

I have way, way more storage than you running in less than 6% of your power footprint using a hybrid approach, but clearly from your edit you think i'm wasting your time, so crack on

chenko · 18 Jul 2022 at 16:10

I have moved twice since and what I am doing has changed remarkibly over the last 10 years. Hence speficially mentioning downsizing, not really sure why I am being told I did the wrong thing, I specifically wanted high IOPS to start with.

I have included some more info above but I want to downsize which I did mention. No mention of cloud or anything either.