NAS recommendations

tophee · 22 May 2011 at 09:49

Hi,

I want to add a NAS to my home network. I am wanting something reasonably low powered and/or has power saving features on a budget.

The Synology DS110j is in my price bracket, but doesn't enable mirroring of my data. Though initially this isn't a major concern I think it'd probably be good be able to add a second hdd at a later on. Especially once I start populating it with everything.

The the other OCUK enclosures unfortunately are too pricey for me atm even before you add the price of hdds. I'm trying not to spend £££. I'm quite a fan of the Samsung F4 2tb drives and would be considering putting one of those in whatever I buy to start with. Especially as they are on offer atm.

Obviously documents are going to be on it, but the main function will be to ensure network wide access to my itunes and photos. I may put some ripped movies on it too.

I run a mix of lunix and various flavours of Windows (if this has any bearing on it).

Any suggestions, pointers and advice please.

Thanks.

welshdragon · 22 May 2011 at 09:54

I have the DS210J and its is fantastic. Maybe check the mm or bay for a used one?

I paid just over £200 for a DS210J and two brand new 2tb wd caviar green drives. Thing hd prices have dropped since?

shine · 22 May 2011 at 11:11

The Synology range is very good, I have two (one in the office and one at home).

I'd recommend saving for a 2 disk bay one as they've got faster processors and more memory along with the ability for RAID.

deuse · 22 May 2011 at 11:59

+1 Synology

Al Vallario · 22 May 2011 at 16:52

Forget dedicated NAS drives, grab an HP ProLiant MicroServer. Hands down.

Can be had for £120 inc. VAT after £100 cashback from HP (set to expire at the end of the month, although it has been extended numerous times now). Built-in gigabit port, 4x cold swap drive bays, comes supplied with a 250GB 3.5" system drive and 1GB ECC RAM, 5.25" bay to install an optical drive or extra hard drives, etc.

Obviously you can then install whatever operating system you please on it — FreeNAS being a popular choice for those using it as a NAS — and can also use it for a variety of other purposes

tophee · 23 May 2011 at 10:32

Thanks for the replies guys.

The HP ProLiant looks interesting, and good value with the rebates. It's power usage is abit high for my liking tho. But very tempting.

Perhaps a Synology with two drive slots... things to think about.

Thanks again

DavidS14 · 23 May 2011 at 11:28

After looking at QNAP and Synology for a home server/NAS I also went with the HP Proliant.

Installed Ubuntu Server and Webmin (for a GUI front end) and have been using it for a few weeks now.

I'm running the OS off a USB stick so I've gained an internal bay for storage instead of an OS drive, you can also install another storage drive where the optional optical drive would go which
gives me 5 storage drives. You can get 6 drives by routing the rear eSATA back into the case but I have not done that yet.

I've upgraded the RAM to 1GB of ECC and flashed the bios to unlock the south-bridge settings and used HDParm so that it spins the HDD down after 20 mins if not used. It took me while to
take the plunge but I'm glad I went with the HP as it's really flexible, fast and has plenty of storage plus with the cash back deal its a bargain.

There's a few build and set-up guides if you search (The one on AVForums was enough to get me started but he's used UnRaid for his OS).

From another forum

Parity Drive: 2TB ST32000542AS
Data Drives: 2x 2TB WD20EARS, 2x 1.5TB ST31500341AS
Cache Drive: 320GB WD Scorpio 5400rpm
Total Drive Capacity: 7.32TB

Primary Use: SABnzbd, Transmission, Blu-ray server, day-to-day file storage
Likes: Very lower power. Very Quiet (21dB). Compact. Very cheap. Well designed and constructed. Easy to swap out drives. Slide out motherboard tray. IPMI card option. A screwdriver (which fits all screws in the system) and drive screws are held in place in the front door!
Dislikes: You can almost fit a second 3.5" drive in the top part of the chassis, but not quite! Plastic parts of coldswap bays feel a little flimsy, but these should be easily user-replaceable if they do break. 250GB drive is a waste of money. They shouldn't have bothered including it.
Add Ons Used: SABnzbd, Transmission, SickBeard, Bandwidth Monitor NG, unMenu, lighttpd, php, nzbgetter, ntfs-3g, screen, unrar.
Future Plans: Upgrade RAM. Upgrade 2.5" cache drive.

Boot (peak): 115W
Idle (avg): 27W (all drives spun down)
Active (avg): 35W (downloading to cache drive at 20mbps with SABnzbd)
Light use (avg): 36W (unpacking rar with SABnzbd)

Donkeyfumbler · 24 May 2011 at 13:37

Stick with Synology. I bought a Netgear Stora, which was half the price and does a reasonable job (plus it does do two drives, so you can mirror or JBOD) but it's just to basic a device and gives you next to no feedback or OS access when things go wrong.

ringo747 · 25 May 2011 at 21:57

Another vote for Synology.

GaryH-21 · 25 May 2011 at 22:35

I got a Buffalo LS-CHLv2, but I'd rather not have my drive idling at around 500 degrees, so I'm looking for another. I also have a netgear sc101, but it doesn't support 64 bit systems?! and it's not really what i'm after anyway