Spec me a NAS

Furyus

Furyus

Furyus

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So guys I've got +- £230 for a NAS I'll need to add drives as well but if it means me getting a decent NAS I'll try sort stretch for more for drives.

Want it for storage/backup and able to stream films/music to TV and sound system.

Any help would be great
Thanks
 
The most highly regarded NAS boxes tend to be Synology and Qnap at the moment so they are probably the best place to start!

It really depends on what size and how many drives you are wanting within your budget.

Personally I've got a Synology DS213 (DS = DiskStation, 2 = 2-bays & 13 = 2013 year of release) and can't recommend the Synology user interface enough!

The only issue I'm finding with mine is that it's not powerful enough to transcode for use through Plex - although there is a not-too-difficult workaround for this! (some Synology devices can do this and so can a few of the Qnap ones, but you obviously pay more for a more powerful device and probably won't fit within your budget!

I'd have a look at the Synology DS215J - reasonable cost with a decent spec!
 
I made one with a raspberry pi.

I use it to stream to my Amazon Fire stick that I installed Kodi onto. Works great. Speed is 8-9MB/s. It's limited by the the Ethernet connection. A Banana Pi would work better.
 
I do love the microserver brigade in the "what NAS" threads!

Don't get me wrong, I'm sure they are great pieces of kit but for the uses the OP describes, a fairly basic NAS will suffice!
 
If you have a decent pc why not use that as a server and put a few WD reds in thats what i did used my pc as a server i got an i5 so anything less NAS wise would be a waste
 
I think I'll just go for the DS214PLAY it's perfect what i need it for. And that microserver looks great but a lot of hassel
 
Furyus said:
I think I'll just go for the DS214PLAY it's perfect what i need it for. And that microserver looks great but a lot of hassel
Click to expand...

The microserver really isn't a lot of hassle. Once you have the hard drives in it and a usb stick you should be up and running in about 30 minutes.

If a 2 drive NAS is enough for you then the 215J is a great choice.

For me a Synology was no option, the N54L cost me £80 and it has 5 drives in it running XPenology. The equivalent Synology is about £500 :eek:
 
StevieP said:
I do love the microserver brigade in the "what NAS" threads!

Don't get me wrong, I'm sure they are great pieces of kit but for the uses the OP describes, a fairly basic NAS will suffice!
Click to expand...

The N54L has the very same OS as the synology . So what's your point?

I would never go 2 bay again. 4 bay is where it's at.

Take a look at the QNAP TAS-268 2-Bay QTS-Android NAS. It's 2 bay and has a HDMI. It has it's own Kodi version ect. £180
https://www.qnap.com/i/uk/news/con_show.php?op=showone&cid=457
 
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there are many suppliers for the microservers.
many do a cash back too, currently the gen 8 hp microserver costs about 60 quid after cash back.

there is a UK website with Hot Deals which is worth checking.
 
deuse said:
The N54L has the very same OS as the synology . So what's your point?

I would never go 2 bay again. 4 bay is where it's at.
Click to expand...

Never having had a microserver I've always assumed that it's a fair bit more complicated in terms of getting the software set up correctly than the "plug and play" nature of the NAS's out there! (when you say the "same OS" - I assume you mean they are both Linux-based as opposed to it actually using DSM??)

Also, why would you always go for 4 bay? Not having a go, I'm genuinely interested in why people would have more than 2 bays - is it for the extra capacity or some security (extra redundancy?) reason??
 
StevieP said:
Never having had a microserver I've always assumed that it's a fair bit more complicated in terms of getting the software set up correctly than the "plug and play" nature of the NAS's out there! (when you say the "same OS" - I assume you mean they are both Linux-based as opposed to it actually using DSM??)
Click to expand...


As I've said it's the same. It's called xpenology.
https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18528018

Also, why would you always go for 4 bay? Not having a go, I'm genuinely interested in why people would have more than 2 bays - is it for the extra capacity or some security (extra redundancy?) reason??
Click to expand...

If you get a 2 bay you'll run out of space in no time. May as well get a 4\6 bay.
I would say a 4 bay is the minimum now days.

I went from a 2 bay synology to a 4 bay N54L. But I wanted HDMI so I went with qnap as it's got kodi.

Anyone that's getting a HP gen 8 this is a great thread to update the cpu to a i5. https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18713708
 
StevieP said:
Never having had a microserver I've always assumed that it's a fair bit more complicated in terms of getting the software set up correctly than the "plug and play" nature of the NAS's out there! (when you say the "same OS" - I assume you mean they are both Linux-based as opposed to it actually using DSM??)

Also, why would you always go for 4 bay? Not having a go, I'm genuinely interested in why people would have more than 2 bays - is it for the extra capacity or some security (extra redundancy?) reason??
Click to expand...

Depends what you end use is really.

Some people install windows server on them and use them as a NAS only, some use unix based ones like Nas4free or FreeNas.

My Microserver has vmware hyperviser and is used for both NAS and a media machine (2 x NAS's infact) all running as VM's. So I have 4 disks in 2 Raid configurations (for a weak backup solution). Starting to run out of storage now so will just replace the disks when I feel like it with bigger ones (although will need the next version of the microserver for that!)
 
deuse said:
As I've said it's the same. It's called xpenology.
https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18528018



If you get a 2 bay you'll run out of space in no time. May as well get a 4\6 bay.
I would say a 4 bay is the minimum now days.

I went from a 2 bay synology to a 4 bay N54L. But I wanted HDMI so I went with qnap as it's got kodi.

Anyone that's getting a HP gen 8 this is a great thread to update the cpu to a i5. https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18713708
Click to expand...

What Qnap did you go for?
 
StevieP said:
I do love the microserver brigade in the "what NAS" threads!

Don't get me wrong, I'm sure they are great pieces of kit but for the uses the OP describes, a fairly basic NAS will suffice!
Click to expand...

Understood, but personally I wouldn't want to spend £200 on a synology when I can get (through work hopefully) an HP microserver for the same or less...
 
StevieP said:
Never having had a microserver I've always assumed that it's a fair bit more complicated in terms of getting the software set up correctly than the "plug and play" nature of the NAS's out there! (when you say the "same OS" - I assume you mean they are both Linux-based as opposed to it actually using DSM??)

Also, why would you always go for 4 bay? Not having a go, I'm genuinely interested in why people would have more than 2 bays - is it for the extra capacity or some security (extra redundancy?) reason??
Click to expand...

Ive had a miroserver for a while, but just installed xpenology. It's very simple and literally takes less than half an hour. The reason for wanting more than 2 bays would be more storage (obviously), but also because RAID 5 - which allows one drive failure - requires at least 3 HDDs.

As said, the software is identical to a Synology NAS.
 
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