spec me a nas drive

mejinks · 16 Sep 2014 at 16:33

Im toying with the idea of building a NAS as I store loads of photos. I already have a 2tb drive which is nearly full.

I have an old c2d box with 6 gb of ram so thought about freenas or something like that.

Looking online, there are server variants of hard drives available for a lot more than their standard counterparts, so I was wondering, don't modern drive like being left on 24/7 or is is a marketing gimmick?

What would you recommend for a 24/7?

venger7779 · 18 Sep 2014 at 23:20

WD have created the 'red' range of drives specifically for NAS boxes. I see a lot of people swear by them and supposedly they're designed to be left on permanently.

anthony566 · 18 Sep 2014 at 23:25

I have just replaced my old NAS and I put WD Red drives in this time as they do come with lots of recommendations ....

Londo · 19 Sep 2014 at 08:45

+1 on the reds got 2 in mine at the moment

mejinks · 19 Sep 2014 at 10:49

Thanks for the replies guys. Does that mean that other drives aren't to be left on? For example the greens?

TheVoice · 19 Sep 2014 at 10:54

No, just the Reds are specifically designed for NAS purposes.

bledd · 19 Sep 2014 at 13:05

For a fuss free solution, Synology are fantastic.

I still have a Windows based server which I use for extra backups, but I only power that on for about 1 hour per week.

My Synology is on 24/7 and only uses about 15-20 watts

Then use WD Red drives with it.

mejinks · 19 Sep 2014 at 13:26

Red it is then lol.

bledd · 19 Sep 2014 at 14:24

Tbh, any drive would work fine. WD Red are designed to be left on 24/7 in a NAS

peterwalkley · 20 Sep 2014 at 16:34

Definitely go for the WD reds. I have just set up a HP microserver using OpenMediaVault. It was much less grief to get up and running than freenas. I found this guide really helpful.

strumpusplunket · 22 Sep 2014 at 13:34

Sorry to hijack this a little (though my question is very much on-topic and it seems unnecessary to create another thread so similar).

I am also looking for a NAS solution to store all my films, home videos, photos and music on for streaming to my HTPC and upstairs to where I intend to set up a cheap Pi XBMC box for the very rare occasion we want to watch something in bed.

I notice the D-Link DNS 2-bay line seem quite significantly cheaper than anything else. Is there any reason for this? I don't see them recommended much, but if it works, it works, doesn't it?

I know very little on this side of things (this will be my first NAS), and would like if possible to do it on a budget as I also want to put together an i3 NUC soon to replace my HTPC.

venger7779 · 24 Sep 2014 at 14:59

strumpusplunket said:
Sorry to hijack this a little (though my question is very much on-topic and it seems unnecessary to create another thread so similar).

I am also looking for a NAS solution to store all my films, home videos, photos and music on for streaming to my HTPC and upstairs to where I intend to set up a cheap Pi XBMC box for the very rare occasion we want to watch something in bed.

I notice the D-Link DNS 2-bay line seem quite significantly cheaper than anything else. Is there any reason for this? I don't see them recommended much, but if it works, it works, doesn't it?

I know very little on this side of things (this will be my first NAS), and would like if possible to do it on a budget as I also want to put together an i3 NUC soon to replace my HTPC.

I can't comment on the specifc D-Link as I don't know much about them but I would say you get what you pay for with NAS boxes.

The Synology interface (DSM) gets rave reviews which makes them really easy to use plus you can download and run some applications on the NAS which is really popular. Other key element is around the speed of read/writes. I'm sure with a little searching you could get the data for both to compare.