Which 4 Bay NAS?

HungryHippos

HungryHippos

HungryHippos

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Hello,

I am in the market for a 4 bay NAS. I am planning to populate it with 4 x 3TB WD Red drives.

The ones I have been looking at are the following:

Synology DS413j
QNAP TS-412

My budget is £300 or less ideally. More than that and it starts to become a very expensive enterprise.

Can anyone recommend any NAS devices that are better than the two above?

Some further info:

  • I currently have around 6TB of data.
  • I'd like a bit of redundancy in my data, none of the data I have is mission critical but it would be annoying to lose a disk and lose all of the data on it!
  • Something that runs cool/quiet is an absolute must. Low power consumption is a bonus.
  • I would like to use the NAS to stream video/audio to several devices. It would also be handy if it can do some utility things like backing up, or a download server.
 
Have you considered the DIY route or buying an HP Microserver? Cheaper and you get more for your money. There are loads of NAS specific OS's or you can run whatever you want.
ZFS with RAID-Z is the best you can get for file integrity. Remember that RAID != Backup.
 
Thanks AbsenceJam, I have considered a Microserver, but I am put off by the requirement to boot into the O/S each time I want to use it, and I really wanted something I could just boot up and use with as little hassle/fuss as possible.

My main objective will be having storage that I can feed back to whatever media player I want wherever I want it. It seems to me that the NAS devices are better for lite-touch maintenance.

I fully understand that RAID != Backup, but a bit of data redundancy is better than the none that I have now, backing up 6TB+ of data is not something I would like to pay for so I am willing to go backup-less even now to save the cost.
 
A purpose-built NAS is really the same thing, a small Linux/BSD machine and they actually tend to startup slower in my experience. They are easier, but also very limited and if there are issues or you want to do something that would be easy in another OS it's a damn pain to sort out.

With your own hardware you can do anything, you have upgrade and expansion options and you can turn it to other uses (spare PC, HTPC, even some gaming). With the range of fileserver OS's there are it's very easy to get started as well - build the machine, install, open your browser.
 
I getcha, but I really don't want the hassle of having to install/run a linux O/S, or using FreeNAS to create RAID groups/LUNs. The NAS, whilst costing a little more, should be simpler to just attach and run.

Anything I need to use an O/S for I can just use my main PC to do really, as long as the storage is available on the Network! :)
 
Have been using a Synology DS412J for a few years now and it hasn't missed a beat with 4 x 2TB WD Greens, and can't fault synology for their updates and constant upgrades to their DSM interface/system.

If I was looking to get another NAS I would stick with Synology.
 
Hey Hippos,

I'm in the same situation and looking for a similar storage solution. Sadly my entire budget, including hard drives, is the same as yours for the NAS itself!

I'm possibly going to go down the route of building a little box (I saw one with 4 3.5" bays and power for less than £40) and running a linux OS on it, shove it in a corner with an ethernet link and leave it on. The alternative is to buy a small 2-bay NAS now and then get another later. Either way, I'm going to have to limit my storage to 2 drives (due to budget) and expand later.

Let me know what you end up with - be interesting to hear what your results are!
 
Pookie Bear said:
Hey Hippos,

I'm in the same situation and looking for a similar storage solution. Sadly my entire budget, including hard drives, is the same as yours for the NAS itself!

I'm possibly going to go down the route of building a little box (I saw one with 4 3.5" bays and power for less than £40) and running a linux OS on it, shove it in a corner with an ethernet link and leave it on. The alternative is to buy a small 2-bay NAS now and then get another later. Either way, I'm going to have to limit my storage to 2 drives (due to budget) and expand later.

Let me know what you end up with - be interesting to hear what your results are!
Click to expand...

You can build a very good file server for under £300, Overclockers have a decent build here.
OcUK Home Server
Easily covers all the bases as far as file servers go.
 
I would go with the OcUK Home Server, as mentioned by Korgtronix, running WHS 2011. This would give you loads more than a NAS, automatic daily client backups, streaming media, remote access, etc. :D

You could always build you own server by repurposing redundant hardware you may have lying around.
 
I did consider getting one of the HP Microservers to do the job, but in all honesty I just want something that works and does not take up too much time to configure. Just yesterday placed an order for a Synology 412+ and 4 x WD Red 3TB drives to go in it.

Not cheap but half the cost was the drives which I would have needed anyway. Probably cost me £250-£300 more than getting a Microserver in the end.

Assuming this all works like I hope, I should not need to change the NAS for many years to come.
 
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