Nas Advice

Infamous786 · 20 Jul 2011 at 09:52

Hello Guys, I am thinking of purchasing a NAS, for my home, it will be used to back up my Machines, also for streaming media to my xbox, ps3 and sharing my printer at home, and having access to my files from any ware. I have narrowed it down to a Synology Diskstation DS411J, seems to be good, but wondering what kind of raid set up i should have, and how many disks i should buy? any advice would be great.

FMTopfan · 20 Jul 2011 at 17:44

Raid - If your choosing more than 3x 2TB drives then RAID-5 is ideal for this for speed+fault tolerance - RAID-5 is typically found on more expensive NAS/DAS.

HDD - Choose any HDD that isn't designed for power saving, especially the WD Caviar Green as it's not designed for NAS/DAS.

Speed - Read speeds of the DS411J aren't particularly fast, typically 22Mb/s I've seen previously but it does have the benefit of simplicity and Ethernet. It's hard to budget in 100MB/s read speed NAS/DAS drives unless your willing to fork out £500+. If your after fast regular backups, then this is one area to sort out.

I hope you find what your looking for & let us know what you decided.

Kona* · 20 Jul 2011 at 18:34

FMTopfan - No offence but that is a load of misinformation you posted, pretty much everything is incorrect bar the RAID5 comment.

Infamous786 - It sounds like the DS411J would be ideal for your requirements. I've personally got a DS211J (got it today) and it's great, especially for streaming media to my Apple TV and PS3.

As for hard drives, I'd recommend filling it up with as many as you can afford. I went with the Samsung Spinpoint F4 EcoGreen 2TB (HD204UI) and they are working great in RAID1 however they did need a firmware update before they were installed, lots of people on the Synology forums love the WD Caviar Green drives and they are fully compatible with all the Synology DiskStations. I'd recommend going with energy-saving drives (or Western Digital AV-GP drives) as you won't see the benefits of a 7200rpm performance drive over Ethernet.

If your going to fill all 4 drives I'd recommend either RAID10, RAID5 or RAID6. I'll outline the pro's/con's below:

RAID10 w/ 4x 2TB HDD
Capacity: 4096 GB
Speed gain: 4x read and 2x write speed gain
Fault tolerance: At least 1-drive failure

RAID5 w/ 4x 2TB HDD
Capacity: 6144 GB
Speed gain: 3x read speed, no write speed gain
Fault tolerance: 1-drive failure

RAID6 w/ 4x 2TB HDD
Capacity: 4096 GB
Speed gain: 2x read speed, no write speed gain
Fault tolerance: 2-drive failure

The above RAID levels are all supported by the DS411J.

My transfer speeds are ~40Mb/s read and ~60Mbps write so I'd guess the DS411J would be slightly faster given the amount of drives, they both have the same amount of RAM and CPU clock speed.

Hope that helps, let me know if you have any questions

FMTopfan · 20 Jul 2011 at 19:20

Hi Kona. I am happy to be corrected but I'm talking about experiences with green drives. The comment of the speeds of the DS411J are quoted (quick search of TrustedReviews) as:

Transfer speeds are respectable given the DS411j’s price; we saw a single large file copy to the DS11j at 26.3MB/s and read from it at 34.5MB/s. A mix of small files transferred the NAS at 17.9MB/s and from it at 19.8MB/s. We were pleased to note that, thanks to the dedicated hardware handling the process, encrypting the data stored on the DS411j doesn’t lead to massive slowdowns in transfer speed.

It was the WD Caviar Green EARS (I have 3x internal purely for Fraps & HD storage) that have been noted by WD themselves not to use in NAS/DAS setups so I was erring on the side of caution - more info from Synology forum.

Edit: List of compatible HDD listed here for the DS411J.

I agree with Kona that you should fill your NAS/DAS enclosure with as many as affordably possible. If that is out of the question due to cost and you'd rather see how much space your backups will consume, remember that Synology have brilliant software that means you can add in more storage into the RAID (hybrid RAID) at a later data, even if the size of the HDD is different.

Kona* · 20 Jul 2011 at 19:37

FMTopfan said:
Hi Kona. I am happy to be corrected but I'm talking about experiences with green drives. The comment of the speeds of the DS411J are quoted (quick search of TrustedReviews) as:

It was the WD Caviar Green EARS (I have 3x internal purely for Fraps & HD storage) that have been noted by WD themselves not to use in NAS/DAS setups so I was erring on the side of caution - more info from Synology forum.

Edit: List of compatible HDD listed here for the DS411J.

I agree with Kona that you should fill your NAS/DAS enclosure with as many as affordably possible. If that is out of the question due to cost and you'd rather see how much space your backups will consume, remember that Synology have brilliant software that means you can add in more storage into the RAID (hybrid RAID) at a later data, even if the size of the HDD is different.

It's nice to see someone come back with some solid evidence to back up their claims - respect

I'm unsure why TrustedReviews are getting such low throughput as Firegod is getting similar throughput to me with a DS211J (see here: http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=19617956&postcount=31) - both the DS211J and DS411J are based on exactly the same hardware and given the amount of disks, you should get slightly more throughput on the DS411J! Very strange.

As for the WD Green Drives - we have 4 in a QNAP NAS which are running fine, no problems with them in RAID5 at all. Given the information in that link I'll not be buying them in the future, didn't spot that on the forums - only people singing their praises, thanks for bringing that to my attention!

FMTopfan · 20 Jul 2011 at 20:38

Good to end on a nice note, I hate any flaming and doesn't do anyone any good. It is a wonder how TrustedReviews got low performance but if individuals are achieving higher results then I wonder if TR were actually using 2x HDDs. But a review on PCPro with only a single 1TB HDD revealed higher throughput of larger files (double in fact) :

In comparison to the other NAS in this detailed review, the DS411j confirms what was said in the Trusted Reviews article of a reasonable throughput. You can't hammer it for the price and seems to fit the bill for Infamous786.

The final feather in the DS411j cap is its performance. Even with a single 1TB drive, the DS411j read and wrote large files at 66.8MB/sec and 38.1MB/sec respectively. Small files proved more of a challenge, but read and write speeds of 5.6MB/sec and 10MB/sec are very good.

I'm very good at researching hardware in my knowledge as a gaming/hd author/photographer but always respect other peoples input as you can't possibility know everything, hindesight is a marvellous thing - we all live and learn.

Thejay · 20 Jul 2011 at 21:02

I've got 6 WD Green 2TB's sitting in my freenas box using 2xRaid-Z1 arrays and the speed is very nice each 3 drive array is capable of 200mb/sec write and 240mb/sec read, the head parking thing is slightly annoying but very easy to change to a higher value or disable.

I went for the WD's as theres a lot of reports of spinpoints failing in raid not only that the WD has nice features like the spindle is fixed at both ends.

Oh yea 4 drives aren't an optimal number for Raid5

DIABLO · 20 Jul 2011 at 21:37

If you want something that is just plug and play then get a NAS but if you don't mind installing a OS then get a Proliant Microserver which is far more flexible and powerful then any NAS and a total bargain.

Infamous786 · 21 Jul 2011 at 10:16

Thanks for the info guys, Im still reading up on it, i just want a simple NAS, deal with to many servers at work to have one at home. Is this NAS noisy at all? and what kind of warranty do you get, Im looking at prob 3drives from WD 1tb each

Kona* · 21 Jul 2011 at 11:11

FMTopfan said:
I'm very good at researching hardware in my knowledge as a gaming/hd author/photographer but always respect other peoples input as you can't possibility know everything, hindesight is a marvellous thing - we all live and learn.

Agreed! We can't all know everything, there is always something else to learn

Infamous786 said:
Thanks for the info guys, Im still reading up on it, i just want a simple NAS, deal with to many servers at work to have one at home. Is this NAS noisy at all? and what kind of warranty do you get, Im looking at prob 3drives from WD 1tb each

The DS411J comes with a 2 Year warranty, usually hard drives come with a 2 Year warranty (apart from some SSD's and WD Black drives which come with 5) - let us know how you get on

Infamous786 · 21 Jul 2011 at 23:24

Guys, is the Netgear Ready Nas NV+ 4 Bay Gigabit Desktop Network Storage any good? seems to have good reviews, and a friend at work recommended it?

Infamous786 · 22 Jul 2011 at 00:13

Also guys, Raid5 is ok with 3disks? at the moment i could afford 3x2tb

FMTopfan · 22 Jul 2011 at 07:03

RAID-5 requires 3 or more HDDs and 3x 2TB is fine

FMTopfan said:
Raid - If your choosing more than 3x 2TB drives then RAID-5 is ideal for this for speed+fault tolerance.

If it's the one I am thinking of (otherwise I've wasted everyone's time), the Netgear RND4000 NV+ 4 is RAID 0, 1, 5 capable (X-Raid capable means you can expand storage without reconfiguring the RAID or data).

As is typical with NAS, it has Sata-3Gb/s, although I had to check this and A****n and many others put Sata-1.5Gb/s in their specifications (not linking to a competitor etailer here). I found D**s specs which confirms a decent 256MB DRAM, up from the previous 128MB on DS411J. Not sure why some are putting Sata-1.5Gb/s and others Sata-3Gb/s but certianly don't buy unless it states Sata-3Gb/s. From chatting to a friend that owned plenty of NAS/DAS including this one a year ago, he said it was ideal for backing up (make sure you update to the latest firmware for larger HDD support as your wanting to use 3x2TB), and can run all day if needed, it's quite due to the larger fan (not sure what size it was though) than the usual 80mm which spins far faster which is loud unless your office/room is typically noisy to mask it. You could run the gig Ethernet from a spare room to your PC if that's an issue.

Magic_x_uk · 22 Jul 2011 at 08:14

is there any benefit in buying an off the shelf NAS instead of making one yourself from a big PC case, therefore giving your the ability of adding more HD's in time. ?

FMTopfan · 22 Jul 2011 at 08:48

Magic_x_uk said:
is there any benefit in buying an off the shelf NAS instead of making one yourself from a big PC case, therefore giving your the ability of adding more HD's in time. ?

Interesting idea, only that NAS gives you lower power usage (50W max with 4x 2TB in use), reliability (Drobo for example are excellent at automatically fixing problems without user interaction but expensive), remote management, ease of use, all at a reasonable price-point. Maybe Infamous786 doesn't want/need another PC as a small NAS is more desirable but we'd better let him say so. As for server setup for farm storage, that's a mind-field as I've considered a 24-bay server rack in RAID-6 ((best-price costs for 12 2TB (£600) + server rack (£350-£400) alone is £1000!)) and there's way more consideration needed, and mindset than simply building a home PC. With the experts on this forum and some research, almost any problem can be sorted! :cool:

Infamous786 · 22 Jul 2011 at 13:34

Thanks for the info dude, now i cant decide, netgear or the DS411J. Im leaning towards the DS411J, as then i can buy it from Overclockers, but should I buy the green WD drives? because there is not much else?

Myocardial Inf · 22 Jul 2011 at 15:18

Samsung Spinpoint F4EG as an alternative to the WD EARS drives

Infamous786 · 22 Jul 2011 at 16:45

Are they reliable like WD? I never bought any other drive, apart from a OCZ SSD. For me WD are solid.

Kona* · 22 Jul 2011 at 17:32

Infamous786 said:
Thanks for the info dude, now i cant decide, netgear or the DS411J. Im leaning towards the DS411J, as then i can buy it from Overclockers, but should I buy the green WD drives? because there is not much else?

Infamous786 said:
Are they reliable like WD? I never bought any other drive, apart from a OCZ SSD. For me WD are solid.

I've got the 2TB Samsung SpinPoint F4 EcoGreen drives in my DS211J and they have been great so far, it's possible that they will need a firmware update before using them however it's as easy as downloading an .iso, burning it to CD, booting from said CD and running the script - it takes all of 5 minutes. I can even send you the ISO file with the firmware integrated if you like (it's only 9MB)

Silentpcreview done a nice review of the F4EG here: http://www.silentpcreview.com/samsung-f4-seagate-xt-2tb

Both the WD and Samsung drives come with a 2yr warranty and while I am usually a self-confessed WD fanboy, I'd recommend the Samsung drives given the evidence of problems with NAS's that FMTopfan posted.

Out of the Netgear & Synology I'd definitely go for the Synology. Not only is the software miles ahead of the Netgear but looking at the performance figures, the Synology performs marginally better too.

Infamous786 · 22 Jul 2011 at 17:40

Kona your a star, I think you have convinced me now, going to order soon,

Synology Diskstation DS411J 4-Bay Gigabit Ethernet Network Attached Storage
Samsung SpinPoint F4 EcoGreen 2TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM * 3

This look good? only problem overclockers have only got one samsung drive left might have to wait a bit