NAS

Deathwing

Deathwing

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Part of me thinks we have a thread for NAS but I couldn't find one. Please delete/merge if we do.


My storage HDD on my desktop died last week, so it got me considering buying a NAS. Nothing that important was lost, but it got me thinking that if the external HDD I use for backup ever fails, then I'm fucked. I know next to nothing about the NAS market. I know of the QNAP and Synology brands, but it seems a lot of other players have entered recently.

Basically, I'm looking for a somewhat budget-friendly model that will facilitate backups easier(so the external doesn't have to be trundled about) while also able to serve up media files to 1-3 clients at a time. The mysteriousness of how much *average* power a NAS downs per month has always made me leery about buying one. Can anyone estimate how much kWH their NAS uses per month?

I'm thinking QNAP's TS-231 is the best cheap option currently. I'm also considering the TS-251 because it seems to pack much more power. Supposedly you can do things like run a torrent client off it. But for some reason(maybe I'm wrong?), running a torrent off a NAS seems like a good way to kill the drives fast.

Speaking of drives...what to use? Are these WD Red's really the best option? Why? And what RAID configuration? I got out of the RAID game when SSDs came up, and all I was using was RAID 0. I was figuring of using RAID 1, but there seems to be a lot of ambiguity on the safety and usefulness of RAID 5, 6, or 10. I'm not even sure any of those are possible with 2 bay NAS.
 
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Kedwyn

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You could just build yourself a cheap PC and maybe get a lot more use out of it (say plex box) down the road. The cheap QNAPs are ok I had one for a little while and even ran Twonky for a media server. I ended up just using an old gaming laptop now for all that. I also use dual backup drives on seperate PCs over the network for important files in the event things go tits up. Mirroring software is free and abundant. You could also do a cloud solution depending on what you're backing up.

With 2 bay NAS you'll have the option to mirror the drives or use them together for more storage IIRC. it's been a long time.

Really though, just get yourself a cheap laptop or build a cheap pc and get a ton more use out of the box.
 
ronne

ronne

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Deathwing_sl said:
Part of me thinks we have a thread for NAS but I couldn't find one. Please delete/merge if we do.


My storage HDD on my desktop died last week, so it got me considering buying a NAS. Nothing that important was lost, but it got me thinking that if the external HDD I use for backup ever fails, then I'm fucked. I know next to nothing about the NAS market. I know of the QNAP and Synology brands, but it seems a lot of other players have entered recently.

Basically, I'm looking for a somewhat budget-friendly model that will facilitate backups easier(so the external doesn't have to be trundled about) while also able to serve up media files to 1-3 clients at a time. The mysteriousness of how much *average* power a NAS downs per month has always made me leery about buying one. Can anyone estimate how much kWH their NAS uses per month?

I'm thinking QNAP's TS-231 is the best cheap option currently. I'm also considering the TS-251 because it seems to pack much more power. Supposedly you can do things like run a torrent client off it. But for some reason(maybe I'm wrong?), running a torrent off a NAS seems like a good way to kill the drives fast.

Speaking of drives...what to use? Are these WD Red's really the best option? Why? And what RAID configuration? I got out of the RAID game when SSDs came up, and all I was using was RAID 0. I was figuring of using RAID 1, but there seems to be a lot of ambiguity on the safety and usefulness of RAID 5, 6, or 10. I'm not even sure any of those are possible with 2 bay NAS.
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2 bay NAS limits you to raid 0 or 1, anything else requires more drives than that. Raid 1 is fine if all you're doing is backups and maybe some media streaming.

My advice is don't get a NAS, they are too expensive for what they do. You can built a dirt cheap PC for the same or even less money depending on what kind of NAS you were looking at, and it'll do x10 more for you than a NAS ever would.
 
lurker

lurker

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I can connect a HD to my ASUS RT-AC68U router. Would that be considered a NAS?
 
Deathwing

Deathwing

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lurker_sl said:
I can connect a HD to my ASUS RT-AC68U router. Would that be considered a NAS?
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Sure. But I would have doubts of its scalability as you add more simultaneous users. Also, no RAID 1.


I would never buy anything Seagate. I don't know how they're still in business.


Barebones mini computer is an option, are there any handy guides for such?
 
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a_skeleton_03

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FreeNAS is a viable option.

I went through this decision about two years ago. I looked into building my own or going with an off the shelf system. I decided that I wanted a turnkey solution that had good support and enough power. I bought a Synology DS1513+ and filled it with WD Red 4 TB drives. At the time it was $1500 for the entire setup and that was fairly split between system and drives., about $700 for each. I was looking at building about a $700 system anyways so I felt it was a good option.

I run a torrent client, couch potato, sick beard, plex, VPN server, proxy, and a few misc things on it. I can transcode at least two video streams from it which is the only tangible limitation I have. I never have more than one transcode stream going though so not an issue. The software is pretty good and it hasn't had a problem with the hardware yet.

There are ways out there to essentially make your own Synology if you are interested in their software and have some hardware that will work.
 
T

Tenks

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Do you need a dedicated NAS? I know many routers these days you can plug a HDD into the USB port and it will support NAS features.
 
C

Captain Suave

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Barraco Bisi_sl said:
IsFreeNAS Project - Open Source Storage - FreeNAS Projectany good?
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I just built myself a 5-disk FreeNAS box for about $450. It wasn't without a learning curve, but I'm loving it so far. As a_skeleton_03 said, I've got it set up as a one-stop media acquisition and distribution system with plex, sickbeard, sabnzbd, headphones, mylar, etc. Prior to this I had the same features cobbled together on various pieces of residual hardware. Having it all properly configured on the same system in FreeNAS jails is very clean and works beautifully. You'll have to develop some comfort with Linux if you don't already have it.

One big selling point of FreeNAS was support for the ZFS file system. I tend to store digital files for a very long time and data corruption has been an issue for me. ZFS will protect your data from RAM errors, cosmic rays, or whatever. (Spring for the ECC RAM if your data is important.)
 
Deathwing

Deathwing

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Need? Kinda. I would like some backup redundancy and I don't see how a HDD plugged into a router can provide that.


a_skeleton_03, are you worried about the the torrent client wearing out the WD Reds prematurely?


Suave, what disks did you use? That alone would seem to eat most of your $450.
 
Jysin

Jysin

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a_skeleton_03_sl said:
...I went through this decision about two years ago. I looked into building my own or going with an off the shelf system. I decided that I wanted a turnkey solution that had good support and enough power. I bought a Synology DS1513+ and filled it with WD Red 4 TB drives. At the time it was $1500 for the entire setup and that was fairly split between system and drives., about $700 for each. I was looking at building about a $700 system anyways so I felt it was a good option.

I run a torrent client, couch potato, sick beard, plex, VPN server, proxy, and a few misc things on it. I can transcode at least two video streams from it which is the only tangible limitation I have. I never have more than one transcode stream going though so not an issue. The software is pretty good and it hasn't had a problem with the hardware yet.

There are ways out there to essentially make your own Synology if you are interested in their software and have some hardware that will work.
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I have the exact same Synology setup, but different 4TB drives. The Synology is pretty hardcore and overkill for 99% of the users out there though. Mine has been running 24/7 since I bought it and hasn't ever had a single hiccup. It is basically a giant media server / backup server for the entire household.
 
Arative

Arative

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I currently have a server with my media but its getting up there in age, about 6 years or so and I'm considering going with a NAS. The server is running 4 4tb WD green drives. Does red vs green matter much anymore in the grand scheme of things? I've read a little bit about people using idletools to change the green drives firmware but not sure that would be worth it.
 
C

Captain Suave

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Deathwing_sl said:
Suave, what disks did you use? That alone would seem to eat most of your $450.
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I bought five 2tb Hitachis on sale for $50 each (new, not refurb). They're not the greatest drives in the world, but for that price, and with two-drive redundancy, I'll just get more when they fail. Upon further reflection my whole system cost was more like $500, with a 50/50 split between drives and hardware. I can give you the part list if you're really interested.
 
Deathwing

Deathwing

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Sure, why not? Even if I don't go that route, other people might be interested.

2TB drives for $50 seems nonexistent these days.
 
C

Captain Suave

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First, I have to apologize for the earlier cost estimates. I obviously totally botched the summation of the parts list and was WAY off. Cost as built was $621, $760 if you include the UPS.

I went for the solidly functional but not pretty route for this box. It sits under a table under my desk, so I didn't care what it looked like at all. Lots of people shell out smaller form factors and designer cases. I also don't store hundreds of uncompressed Blu-Ray rips, so 6 TB was plenty for my needs.

FreeNAS part list:

5xHGST Deskstar 3.5-Inch 2TB 7200RPM SATA II 32MB Cache Internal Hard Drive($55 ea. - $275 total)
1xCorsair Carbide Series 200R Black Steel / Plastic compact ATX Mid Tower Case($60)
1xSUPERMICRO MBD-X9SCL-F-O LGA 1155 Intel C202 Micro ATX Intel Xeon E3 Server Motherboard($149)
2xKingston 4GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM ECC Unbuffered DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Server Memory Model KVR16E11S8/4($36 ea. - $72 total)
1xIntel Pentium G2030 Ivy Bridge Dual-Core 3.0 GHz LGA 1155 55W BX80637G2030 Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics($65)

If you don't already have a UPS:

1xCyberPower PFC Sinewave Series CP1000PFCLCD 1000 VA 600 W 10 Outlets UPS

RAM: There's a debate about whether ECC RAM is important. I chose to use it.
UPS: If a ZFS system experiences a sudden power loss it can corrupt your whole dataset. This is bad, so you need a UPS. Modern power supplies that use Active Power Factor Correction can be allergic to cheap UPS units providing square approximations of the expected sine wave. Spring for a good one that does it right, or else your system will just hard power off when it switches to battery backup.
 
Eomer

Eomer

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Bought a Qnap-439 Pro something like 7-8 years ago, and it's still going strong. I don't use the majority of it's features, but I don't regret it one bit. It generally consumes 20-40 watts, depending on what it's doing, how many drives are spun up etc.
 
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a_skeleton_03

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Deathwing_sl said:
Need? Kinda. I would like some backup redundancy and I don't see how a HDD plugged into a router can provide that.


a_skeleton_03, are you worried about the the torrent client wearing out the WD Reds prematurely?


Suave, what disks did you use? That alone would seem to eat most of your $450.
Click to expand...
Not worried about the torrent on the RED's at all. They seed quickly and then no usage after that. I have it automated to stop seeding at 1.0 so that helps.

I am not sure that it would be an issue even I left them seeding for longer.
 
lurker

lurker

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My needs are pretty basic. I want a place where I can store photos and data files (word, excel, musescore, etc) that is accessible from different computers in the house. Back-up is important. If my next laptop/tablet could use the NAS instead of an onboard HD, that would be a bonus.

Any suggestions? Woot hasthis
 
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