NAS Recommendations (and Expectations)

Andybtsn · 24 Jul 2023 at 09:49

Hi all,

I hope you can help me.

I currently use OneDrive for all my storage needs, I am very near maxing out the 1TB subscription on pictures alone so either I pay for more storage taking the sub to around 12.99 for an extra 1TB or kill two birds with one stone and go for storage on-prem. The reason to kill two birds is that I currently have a NAS, a 12-year-old WD MyCloud; it currently stores all my films and music, and via DLNA, I stream my movies to Kodi apps on smart TVs and the like, and all works fine.

What I am after with a new NAS.

- Mapped drives, all family members can save their pics/docs etc., to shared drives but with some privacy, i.e. I, as an admin, can edit everything; my daughter, for example, can't go in delete folders and such. OneDrive replication does this well, but it could be quicker, my PC can take forever to open up a folder with many pics in there for example; I'm not sure there would be better performance but if I could setup My Docs and Pics in the same way, and it replicates to the NAS, that would work too.
- Media Centre. Currently, we have around 5 TVs in the house with Kodi on them, all with different setups. You can't pause something on one Kodi app and resume in another room. Is this possible? To have one central Kodi database and all the other apps pull from this?

These are my two primary wants with a NAS. But security/resilience is critical; I don't want to lose any data and wish to future-proof myself as much as possible. I'm not sure what RAID config would serve me best?

My current setup works, but ideally, I'd like my setup in-house, as I know I need to replace the WD soon anyway.

Thoughts? And what NAS would you recommend with what drives?

Cheers!

Andybtsn · 25 Jul 2023 at 10:37

Thank you for the responses. @Armageus, that sounds ideal to me.

I was hoping to get something in for around £600 with drives. Are there any recommendations for which to go?

Andybtsn · 25 Jul 2023 at 14:03

Armageus said:
Synology DS220+ is the cheapest option worth considering - it's a 2 bay NAS with an Intel processor (Useful if needed for Transcoding media in plex). Downsides are no NVME slots for caching or extra storage, and only gigabit lan.
Beyond that unfortunately I'm struggling to recommend any other Synology around or even just above your budget as they either don't have an Intel cpu, or don't have 2.5Gb or better Lan - it's a Shame as Synology's software is probably the benchmark for "it just works" NAS usage, but their hardware seems to lag behind a lot.

Download Center - download | Synology Inc.

Centralize data storage and backup, streamline file collaboration, optimize video management, and secure network deployment to facilitate data management.

www.synology.com

(DS723+ almost fits the bill, but has an AMD ryzen rather than intel, so transcoding isn't necessarily hardware accelerated, but has NVME drives, 10Gb Ethernet option and upgradable RAM)

QNAP TS-264 or TS-364 would be my other choices, although once you factor in drives they'll be a bit over budget.
However they have all of the following features that I'd consider essential for a modern nas:
- Intel CPU
- 2.5Gb Network
- support for 2x NVMe Drives, either for Caching, or for an additional storage volume (e.g. on the TS-364 you could use the 3xHDD in RAID5 for media and NVME for data)
- TS-264 has optional 10Gb Ethernet, whereas TS-364 has upgradeable RAM (e.g. if you are running lots of virtual machines/dockers etc)

TS-264 | Bye-bye Gigabit NAS, hello 2.5GbE NAS.

TS-264 is a compact 2-bay NAS with superior performance. Supporting up to 24 TB storage and 4 TB M.2 SSD caching* at an affordable price, the TS-264 fulfills your multitasking challenges for file management, backup, collaboration, and video conversion.The TS-264 uses the QTS operating system by...

www.qnap.com

TS-364 | High-performance 3-bay RAID 5 2.5GbE NAS with M.2 SSD caching for running virtual machines and Qtier

The 3-bay TS-364 not only allows you to enjoy the higher performance and data protection of RAID 5 using the fewest number of disks, but also features M.2 SSD slots and efficient auto-tiered storage to realize optimal system performance. The TS-364 has a 2.5GbE port to enhance daily use and to...

www.qnap.com

Thanks mate. I will bear them in mind. For future-proofing, is there a model you would go for? I don't always stick to a budget, and for extra coins, getting the right fit is more practical, especially how long my current NAS has lasted!

Andybtsn · 26 Jul 2023 at 18:44

Honestly still don’t know what to go for. After pricing up drives to go with the ts-664 I’m not sure it’s completely overkill for what I need. I just don’t want to be disappointed. I think I’d be happy with anything with 4 bays anyway.

Andybtsn · 29 Jul 2023 at 11:36

Thanks again for the replies. Decided to go for the QNAP 464-4G.

I was looking at 4 x 8TB drives. I’m not sure what the best setup is in relation to RAID. I have around 1.5TB of data, pictures etc I wouldn’t want to lose which is increasing all the time.

Then currently around 2TB of media data which would also massively increase over time.

Are there any decent guides out there?

Andybtsn · 29 Jul 2023 at 11:56

Armageus said:
Good choice - the 4gb version has upgradeable memory.

Raid10 is the only option really worth considering, which gives you 16tb useable and will tolerate up to 2 drive failures (as long as they aren't in the same pair).

Thank you. I’m still slightly nervous going from the resilience of OneDrive to this. Is it extremely unlikely that two drives would go at once? Presumably the qnap apps monitor drive health etc?

l In a few years should I start running out of space, what’s the process for upgrading the drives?

Andybtsn · 29 Jul 2023 at 12:19

Minstadave said:
You don't have to give up using Onedrive just because you have a NAS. As above I backup to the NAS locally and this uploads to Onedrive overnight.

True. It was more because I was exceeding their data allowance and the investment in the NAS saving a few pennies a month paying MS.

Andybtsn · 29 Jul 2023 at 12:30

Minstadave said:
You've seen the family Onedrive let's you have 6x1TB accounts? It's only £40 ish a year.

Yeah, wish you could just allocate the 6TB out between family members! Me 5.5Tb for example!

Andybtsn · 31 Jul 2023 at 23:05

I changed my mind again and went for the new Asustor AS5402T Nimbustor 2 Gen2 in the end. I thought what was offered suited my needs, although slightly over budget; having the four M.2 drive slots is something I can use in the future, I have one to put in immediately as the prices have been decent the last few days, then 2 mirrored 8TB drives.

Looking forward to it all coming and working it all out.

Thanks again for the help!

Andybtsn · 8 Aug 2023 at 11:44

After a week of using the Asustor, no regrets. Everything works as I wanted it to; I have IDrive for online backup linked to the NAS, so I have the resilience there. NAS also backs up from my drives on the PC, so I'm comfortable that nothing should be lost!

Filled around 4TB of the 8 of Media, it should be okay for a couple of years, then may expand, also have the 3 x M.2 bays. Not sure what I should use them for right now! Plex is a good experience over Kodi, some frustrations, but it's all working great.

Andybtsn · 23 Aug 2023 at 13:30

@Armageus hopefully you can help.

I have volume 1 on a 1TB M.2. I’m wanting to add another 1TB m.2 drive. Can you RAID such drives? I’m a complete noob to this. If you can, and I have to reinstall ADM, will my 2 x 8TB drives be affected?

Andybtsn · 23 Aug 2023 at 14:14

Armageus said:
You shouldn't need to reinstall the OS, and your 2x 8TB drives should be unaffected.

Having a quick read of this link: https://www.asustor.com/en/online/College_topic?topic=352, suggests it should just be a case of shutting down, fit the 2nd M.2 and then start back up.
You then go into Storage Manager -> Volume -> Management -> RAID

It will then be a choice of either "Add Disk to this volume" or "Migrate this volume from the current RAID level to a higher one".

Presumably you want them to be a RAID1 mirror? If so I think you'll need the second option, to convert if from a single disk to a RAID1 array

Thanks!

I'm not going to mirror. Just expand so I have 2TB of storage. I have enough places now where my data is backed up so happy with this option.

Andybtsn · 23 Aug 2023 at 15:06

Armageus said:
~~Should be a case of "Add disk to this volume" then I would think~~

EDIT: Assuming you want it to appear as a single drive? If so you will likely need to remove the first M.2 from a volume (losing any data on it), then create a RAID0 that stripes across both.

If it doesn't matter about being a single volume, then you should just be able to add it as another separate volume. (meaning 3 volumes total - your 2x 8TB volume, and then 2 separate 1TB volumes)

Yeah, I want the 2 x M.2 drives as a single volume so I assumed I would lose data on the original volume; this wasn't a concern. I was more worried about Vol2, the 8Tb drives in RAID1, I assume their config won't be affected?