Which NAS?

Danger Phoenix

Danger Phoenix

Danger Phoenix

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I currently have 4 x 3TB in RAID 5 using an onboard controller and I am thinking of upgrading to a Gigabit NAS where I can put in 4 x 4TB drives in RAID 5.

I rather not build my own one, so I would like to buy a unit... any recommendations?
 
bledd. said:
Personally, I'd just build a low powered server. Much more flexible
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It might be more flexible, but I can't really be bothered with the hassle.


welshdragon said:
Depends on budget.

I'd be looking at an Austor/QNAP or Synology
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Sin_Chase said:
Synology for an out of the box appliance solution.
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The cost is not really an issue, but I don't want to go over the top and pay for something that I will not utilise.

From what you guys have said, Synology is looking to be the best but I was comparing it to the QNAP ones and cannot really figure out what the differences are that actually apply to me. I have paired up the below:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=NW-029-SY&groupid=46&catid=2125
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=NW-008-QN&groupid=46&catid=2125

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=NW-028-SY&groupid=46&catid=2125
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=NW-016-QN&groupid=46&catid=2125

I looked at the 8 bay ones as well for future expansion.

I also read that some of these have a maximum 4TB drive capacity... what is the limiting factor for this. When 5TB drives come out, will it definitely not work with this, or will a software upgrade solve that?
 
I've just bought a Snyology, easy to set up & even though I have loads of apps I can use I'd say half are useable & the other could be used at some point...

The OS is nice & snappy ! Can't fault it...

Snyology vote here....
 
synology or qnap.

Danger Phoenix said:
I also read that some of these have a maximum 4TB drive capacity... what is the limiting factor for this. When 5TB drives come out, will it definitely not work with this, or will a software upgrade solve that?
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if i remember rightly my old ds1010+ had a 2tb limit when i got it and an OS update took it up to 4tb?
 
I'd probably be edging Synology here. Though if you went for the two bay DS713+ you'll have the extra grunt of the atom processor and you can add up to two, 2 or 5 bay epxansion modules. Costlier initially but mor epowerful and more flexible perhaps?
 
I'd definitely reccomend spending out for a QNAP or Synology if you want something that just works out the box with all the features your likely to require even if your spending a bit for stuff you won't use.

I wasted a lot of time and money trying to make do with cheaper NAS setups and couldn't be more happy with my QNAP TS-412 tho people say the Synology version edges it on features - wish I'd just spent the money and bought it first rather than messing about trying to do it on the cheap as cheaper devices tend to either struggle for reliability or have all the hardware featrures and lacking software or all the software features and lacking hardware and so on.
 
I still can't seem to decide on the drives to choose. Some people are telling me that normal drives are fine and that it isn't worth paying the premium for NAS/Enterprise drives. What do you guys think?
 
If your using RAID then absolutely no reason to go for enterprise level discs with a home or even small business NAS - unless you have some really high end useage. Only consideration there would be research WD discs if you use them as some of the cheaper ones have some potential feature level issues with RAID.

If you have any really critical data I'd reccomend setting up either USB replication (real time software mirroring) or USB copy (one touch snapshot backup) to backup that folder to an external USB drive - replication very slightly slows down the read/write performance of the RAID but means you can have an upto date copy of the data on an external non-stripe USB disc so even in the event of full RAID failure you have a copy on a standard NTFS or FAT32 drive.
 
I think WD red drives are popular for NAS. I'm using WD green as they've been reliable for me, and neither samsung nor seagate have lasted so well. Ymmv.

SHR-2 will be like raid 6, except if the nas dies you'll have a rough time accessing the array from a normal computer. If you build the array using something like mdadm, you can rebuild it on anything you like. Hassle now vs hassle later I guess.

More ram might do anything from nothing at all to faster rebuilding when a drive fails, to better burst performance over the network. It'll probably do nothing.
 
I did have a look at the WD Red drives but they aren't available in 4TB versions.

Sorry, I don't get why I would have a hard time accessing it if it dies. Unless you mean if the actual Synology NAS dies... if that was to happen, could I not get a new one and plug the drives into that and carry on from where I left off?
 
Yeah, I mean the Synology dying. The drawback to proprietary raid is that, well, it's proprietary. So there's no option to plug the drives into a non-synology box to get at your data.

Buying the same model Synology as a replacement would work. A newer one bought in a few years time might, it depends how much value they place on backwards compatibility. It's not a big issue, but it gave me pause when choosing between hardware raid and software.

edit: re red drives - well damn, you're right. I wonder what WD are playing at there.
 
JonJ678 said:
Yeah, I mean the Synology dying. The drawback to proprietary raid is that, well, it's proprietary. So there's no option to plug the drives into a non-synology box to get at your data.

Buying the same model Synology as a replacement would work. A newer one bought in a few years time might, it depends how much value they place on backwards compatibility. It's not a big issue, but it gave me pause when choosing between hardware raid and software.

edit: re red drives - well damn, you're right. I wonder what WD are playing at there.
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I never thought that when I was considering NAS there would be so many things to factor in.

The reason I was leaning towards SHR-2 was because I can just whack in another drive when I start running out of space, which I don't believe is possible with a RAID 6 setup.

Western Digital are my preferred make of drives but their Green range doesn't have 4TB ones either. I am a bit wary of venturing to other drive manufacturers but it looks like I don't have much of a choice.

Instead of 5 x 4TB drives, I think I will go for 6 x 3TB WD Red :)


/Edit: According to this I can expand a RAID 6 array with another drive:
http://forum.synology.com/wiki/inde...t-Spare.2FRAID-6_Volume_with_additional_disks
 
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