Spec me a NAS (or something)

[Armageus]

Just received some unexpected money (~£500), so looking to streamline my data storage / backup options, but unsure exactly what to do.

Currently I have ~1TB of irreplaceable data (photos, videos etc). I'd also just recently started using Emby (although may switch to Plex), to store some of our DVD box sets (to make it easier to remember where we got to), and share our CD collection around the house etc.

Currently have:
2x2TB Hard drives in my old PC (this contains 2 copies of the irreplaceable data - manually synced) - hard drives are fairly old and I would like to replace anyway.
1TB 2.5" USB drive as off-site backup of data
Microserver N36L - currently unused
Emby server (Silverstone HTPC Case, Haswell I3, 4TB non-NAS hard drive)
Lenovo Tiny M900 (Skylake pentium, NVME and SSD drives) - currently running ESXi and hosting PiHole/Lancache

I was thinking of getting a Synology (e.g. the DS920+), to become my main storage device
(e.g. with 4x 3TB or 4TB drives in RAID5)

Despite the "don't use RAID5" mantra - for my use case I think this is still the best option, it maximises space whilst still protecting against a single drive failure.

I would re-use the existing 4TB drive I have in a USB caddy to use as an offsite backup, and the 2x2TB drives I have could be reused for backups of the DVD/Music data

A DS920+ should be supported for a long time, and would also allow me to move PiHole/Lancache VM's off the M900, and run them via Docker.

My only concern with the DS920+ is that despite being relatively expensive, it has no option for 10Gb (or even 2.5Gb), so although unlikely a problem now, is annoyingly limited going forward.
Additionally despite it having NVMe M2 slots - they can only be used for caching, you can't use them as a separate array, or specifically to accelerate e.g. VM's or Docker images. (I'd like Emby/Plex to have access to an SSD to ensure metadata etc responds quickly etc.)

I could run Emby/Plex on the M900, so benefiting from NVMe/SSD (and also has hardware encoding), as long as I can move PiHole/Lancache onto whatever I buy - the NAS could potentially then be less powerful CPU wise?

I've looked at a couple of QNAPs, as I think there was one at a similar price range that either has onboard 2.5G/10G, or could at least be expanded with a PCI-E card. Not 100% convinced with QNAP's os as it sounds like it's more Beta quality, whereas I've used Synology for years at work with no issues.

I'm not against building something, but I ideally want it to be low maintenance, quiet and low power consumption.

EDIT:
DS1520+ was another option I was looking at, as at least I could add a SATA SSD specifically for Docker storage if needed


TL;DR
- 1 Box to store both irreplaceable data, replaceable media, and ideal run a couple of light VM's/Docker containers
- 4 Drive RAID5 ok to maximise space, providing I have another backup anyway?
- DS920+ worth it over the DS420 (or something else)?
- £500-£700 budget for device, not including Drives

 

[Armageus]

Thanks for the reply and the link to your build.

I've not completely ruled out a self build, but not sold on it either for the following reasons:
- Lack of choice in Motherboards - would prefer MATX, 6+ Sata, and ECC memory. What happens if it fails? Difficulty in obtaining replacement?
- To relax the above requirement slightly, a HBA is an option, but then it's another expense / something to fail / additional power draw
- Not sold on the OS options:
- Not a fan of FreeNAS/TrueNAS due to their general attitude (e.g. ZFS is the best, despite actually having some shortcomings)
- Whilst Unraid sounds ideal for replaceable data such as plex media etc, rightly or wrongly I'm not sure I would trust it with my irreplaceable data

The only other idea was to do something that I am eminently familiar with at work - to use a HP Smartarray card, and actually do a hardware RAID array (e.g. raid 10), but equally the pitfalls are lack of support for HP Smartarray cards is "normal" motherboards, which then leads to e.g. a entry level HP Server (e.g. something like a ML310e V2 or ML30, but then it's back to the size/noise/power consumption trade off.

(I did try a P222 raid card in my Microserver, but the amount of heat it produces is simply too much to deal with in the older G7 chassis)

 

[Armageus]

Rightly or wrongly but a £40 discount swayed me in to picking up a 5 bay Synology DS1520+.

The price difference between a ds420+ and 920+ was too small to consider the lesser model, and it didn't seem like too much of a stretch to get an additional drive bay for raid6, an extra 4gb ram, as well as another esata and 2 more gigabit LAN ports, so went for the 1520+.

Should hopefully be here tomorrow

 

[Armageus]

A Synology or Qnap is probably the most convenient solution - but you do pay through the nose for the spec you get.

I know and had been thinking about it all day.

I wasn't expecting to have the money, but it was a gift from my dad, so wanted to spend it wisely. Putting it towards a prebuilt Nas rather than a collection of pc parts seems somehow more appropriate.

 

[Armageus]

Also For your very critical data remember whatever you do a NAS isn’t a complete backup solution. I’d strongly recommend syncing it to a cloud service as a minimum. Again Unraid is great for this as I can use rclone to periodically backup to an encrypted volume on all the major cloud providers. I think synology have a good app for this also.

I did go down the Synology route and got a DS1520+.

My plan so far is:
- Synology will be my main data storage - initially have 3x3TB Drives in SHR (RAID5 equivalent) (this leaves space to add an additional 2 disks and move to SHR-2 RAID6 equivalent)
- 4TB Drive from my current media server to be fitted into a USB enclosure and used to backup all important data on regular basis (weekly?) - this can be kept offsite
- Will be using the Synology Apps to sync important data to my current cloud accounts (e.g. Google Drive), may also consider dedicated cloud storage e.g. Backblaze or Amazon
- Current 2TB Data drives in my PC, will host another copy of anything important, but on a less frequent schedule (monthly?)