NAS or not?

Livin The Dream

Livin The Dream

Suspended / Banned
Messages
4,608
Name
Kris
Edit My Images
No
Today one of my drives has failed, happy days! I bought a QNAP469L around two years ago and on the advice of a friend loaded it up with 4x 3TB Seagate drives. Since then, we have read up the failure rate of Seagate and he's moved over to Hitachi. One element we have learnt since, is about NAS specific drives, mine are not. Guess they cope better with the 24hr a day usage but I tend to switch mine on and off fairly regularly, is that detrimental?

Anyway, here's my dilemma. I don't really use the NAS for most of it's benefit, rarely stream media and I don't use it remotely either. I had it set up downstairs to stream films using XBMC, which is quite handy, but primarily I wanted it to store my photos, video and music. I was using hot plugs but the speed was terrible accessing files from LR, so recently I have dumped the last 3 years of photo's back onto my mac and backed up to an external drive. I keep thinking that a thunderbolt bay, mirrored would give me the speed to access and store my data sat next to my mac (mini mac with thunderbolt 1). I have around 3TB of data at present, of which, about 2TB is essential.

What do you think my best options are?
 
first off the thunderbolt drive is not a NAS, its a DAS (direct attached not network attached).

thunderbolt, unless you have deep pockets is completely overkill for the inflated cost. USB3 is a better bang for buck option.

essentially it does not matter which route you go down, as long as you have (at least) 2 copies of your data. which is sounds like you have already (1 on your mac and 1 on your external drive). NAS are workable as online storage, providing its over a gig LAN not wireless.
 
I agree with Neil. Unless you need to share data to multiple devices over WiFi ( iPad etc) then I can't see the advantage of a NAS system for your set up. Data transfer over WiFi compared to Ethernet is quiet slow. So if you are going to use a cabled system then opt for something like USB3. Much cheaper. OK if you are editing a lot of video then Thunderbolt maybe an option, but for normal photography USB is going to be fast enough
 
kris i have both like you, the NAS i use for archive and Films, General crud i build up. i then have the 8TB western Digital TB drive, didn't cost me much to be honest under £400 UK sterling, and when compared to likewise USB3 it wasn't much more. I run it at a mirror and have run it as a stripe raid 0 but i use bootcamp a lot for windows 10 and work stuff, and windows 10 will not boot if your running the Raid 0 stripe of 8TB it just reboots all the time, Known issue. but in a Mirror its fine. I also run Parallels and Fusion but much prefer bootcamp.

Speed wise the drive is very fast, but as the guys say above USB is fast enough, just weigh up the costs and go DAS and use NAS for the older stuff...

Because i use the TB drive ive started dumping all my films on there now and let the MAC stream them to all the TVS and Ipads, seems to work as well as XBMC and BOXEE did, but of course its got a middleman my Imac, XBMC runs flat file system..... But ive drifted away from XBMC to be more PLex/Apple Tv driven, due to MAC being on 24/7
 
Thanks for the responses all. I think DAS would be a good idea locally.

Is there much of an issue using non dedicated NAS drives, like at present? And what are thoughts on the various brands. If I go DAS then I will need a couple of drives and an enclosure, or is an off-the-shelf system a better way to go?
 
Last edited:
im always a little on the fence with NAS specific drives. you do get longer warranty with them, which is a good thing.

however ive got non-NAS specific 2tb samsung drives that are going on for 5 years old in my microserver*

*maybe should be said that they are on 24/7 and UPS protected

edit (from December 2012 :D ):

neil_g said:
incidentally for poos and giggles (that and im bored) i just worked out the age of my samsung 2tb's..

2x HD203WI are 2 years 7 months old
1x HD203WI is 2 years 5 months old
2x HD204UI are 1 year 5 months
1x HD204UI is 2 months old
2x HD204UI are 1 year and 10 months old

:D
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
I suppose it depends on what your expectation is on how long a drive should last. Do you have to accept that simply, drives do fail?

Would it matter if I replace the failed drive in my NAS with a different manufacturer or model than the other drives in there?
 
Last edited:
oh definitely.

drives have their lifespan stated as an average for a reason, they could last 5 days or 5 years.

drives can be mixed and matched from manufacturers/models. however (depending on your config)..

if a slower spinning disk is inserted into an array of faster disks, the faster disks will throttle back to the slower disk speed
if a larger disk is inserted into an array of smaller disks, only the same capacity of the smaller disks will be available from that large disk
 
Last edited:
My only reservation with buying an off the shelf product is, how easily can you replace a drive when eventually, one fails?
 
The WD is very easy to swap just flip top up and there in there as any NAS just pull it out and send off, it's not like the my cloud single drives which are indeed locked away
 
Another vote for WD Reds, at least the 2TB & 3TB versions. I have a couple of 6TBs and get more repaired bad blocks on them, one in particular, than all the others together. They may just be poor samples but I suspect it's more that they're at the limit of the technology.
 
andyscott said:
Get WD red drives, they are brilliant.
Click to expand...
Based on what evaluation criteria?

Most consumer NAS solutions don't need the features of NAS specific drives. They rely on software RAID which doesn't need time limited error recovery (TLER). I don't see anything in the hyperbole that makes them worth the extra cost. Even the guarantee is pretty pointless if you've lost your data.

Personal choice is the HGST Deskstar.
 
afasoas said:
Based on what evaluation criteria?

Most consumer NAS solutions don't need the features of NAS specific drives. They rely on software RAID which doesn't need time limited error recovery (TLER). I don't see anything in the hyperbole that makes them worth the extra cost. Even the guarantee is pretty pointless if you've lost your data.

Personal choice is the HGST Deskstar.
Click to expand...

I avoid RAID for backup purposes. I have 2 WD Red 2TB Drives in my machine, one is my main storage drive where I store all of my photos and it gets backed up to the other once a week.

The issue with RAID being that if a file corrupts, or you accidentally delete something from one drive, the same happens to the data on the other drive. It only protects you from drive failure.
 
WD reds are the most tested with NAS technology available, so picking these if your running a NAS is kinda a good idea based on the qualification this specific model goes through.
Blacks are fastest for the Gamers
Greens are cheapest but work ok...

Lots of drives cut the mustard bit this is just an example.
 
afasoas said:
Personal choice is the HGST Deskstar.
Click to expand...
I've got some 4TB HGST Deskstars and they're very good when used with a Highpoint RocketRAID controller in a WHS2011 server but have very odd read patterns on large files when used in two different Asustor NASs, either four drives in RAID5 or two in RAID1. As my WD Reds don't do this, it's some very specific interaction between Asustor and the Deskstars and I'm trying to get Asustor support interested......

as-5104t%20reads%204gb.png
 
I can see the drive activity lights pause at the same time as the LAN activity drops and it only happens with the Deskstars; the WD Reds give a constant data flow so I think it's a pretty good indication of what's going on.
 
I have a warning now on one of the drives through SMART information. I get the retired block count failing but there's no info on the web that I can find other than people asking the same. Can anyone help?
 
If you SMART is failing I would back up the data 1st. it might be a false positive but just be sure back it up.
In my experience of 20+ years seageate drives fail most often, then IBM / HGST then WD. ( i work in a corp with 150,000 computers).
In my personal experience I've never had Seagate drives, so I cannot comment, I've had a few IBM drives fail and a few WD drives fail.
Currently in my file server 5 Samsung drives and 3 WD ones . some of them over 5 years old no issues
 
yeah monitor the smart issue if it keeps popping up swap out the drive....
 
I do need to free up my Mac drive so I think I'm going to use two of my seagate drives out of my NAS and replace them with WD Reds. Just need a USB3 enclosure to put the seagates in, any recommendations?
 
I've been using a Buffalo NAS unit for about 18months. My work flow is to download from camera onto local drive >> copy onto 1.5 tb external >> process >> move all to the NAS drive.

The Buffalo system maintains a Trashbox (just like the recycle bin in windows), so any files deleted are kept here.

The NAS unit has two 3TB drives in a mirrored RAID configuration. It would take both drives to simultaneously, catastrophically fail for me to lose anything. If I lose a drive (not happened yet), I pop another drive in and they re-mirror while continue to work.

I have 2 PCs, a 2003 Server and a laptop which all backup to the NAS drive overnight.

With 21,000 RAW files alone, and all of my other data the drive is only 62% full.

I've attached the drive to a 1GB network switch so that transferring data to the drive doesn't effect other PCs. I'm getting about 18mb/s transfer to the drive which isn't amazing, but it does the job.

The cost of this unit was about £230. I got cabling done so everything is hard wired, £100. The network switch was about £20.

I plan to add more NAS drives as and when needed.
 
Last edited:
With a Buffalo I would be more concerned with NAS failure than I would the drives to be honest...

I've seen at least 7 terastation failures over the years, and the I/O was atrocious, not seen any recent models so maybe things have changed.
 
Neilc28 said:
With a Buffalo I would be more concerned with NAS failure than I would the drives to be honest...

I've seen at least 7 terastation failures over the years, and the I/O was atrocious, not seen any recent models so maybe things have changed.
Click to expand...

It's scary stuff, the thought of losing our work, but I've also got it all on my websites. I started doing CD backups for every session at one point, that soon got tedious.
 
Whilst I agree with the others regarding DAS vs NAS, I would choose thunderbolt over USB3 if you can afford it. There is no argument from me that USB3 is a cost effective options with great value for money and seemingly when you perform one task decent enough speed. However ....

Those old enough to remember the days of Firewire vs USB would also know that the theoretically slower Firewire actually with video and photos and sustained data transfers was not only faster but also most consistent. This was down to two things, efficiency in the protocols used to address the devices, and also impact of the architecture on the cpu or lack there of.

With faster machines and CPU's the latter is these days perhaps slightly less obvious, but hey if you are doing a big render together with a batch import or export it will be noticeable.

I would choose Thunderbolt myself, firstly I like neatness and like how it can be daisy chained and one cable used for many purposes. But more importantly in this context is the protocol utilised in address the hard drives. When using Thunderbolt it will be acting like a native AHCI SATA device, or in simple English the important part in that is that commands between the computer and the disk are processed in parallel, neither devices will be waiting on what to do next.

Now using USB3 the vast majority of the devices implement the Bulk Only Transport (BOT) mass storage protocol. What this means is that it sends a request, and waits for the responses in serial, and only once that is finished it will do the next lot. However USB3 also supports USB Attached SCSI Protocol (UASP) which will let you gain the benefits of a much improved parallel communication stream which in turn results in much faster, Thunderbolt style, communications. Now the problem is that the vast majority of USB3 devices are actually BOT devices, hey try and even find it in the specifications whether it is a BOT or UASP supporting device ;)

Now don't get me wrong, I used cheap USB3 powered portable hard drives just like everybody else. They are excellent value for money, and for single transfer to/from they serve their purpose. However if I was going for a DAS, it would have to be these days thunderbolt or USB3 with UASP support.
 
startech and icybox both tell you if their enclosures are UASP.

if youre going for a DAS multi disk array and/or SSD then sure TB is probably a wise move. but its too expensive for a single drive right now even factoring in any benefits.
 
Oh well, ordered a USB enclosure in the end. The plan is to back up my NAS (doing that as I type), there's just shy of 2TB. I'm going to use two of the seagates that are currently in my NAS, mirrored, in the enclosure as a DAS. So, I have ordered 2 4TB HGST Deckstars which will go in the NAS, again, mirrored.

Here's a question. If anything went wrong with the back up on the external, which is going to be used to populate the HGST's, could I use the seagate drives to recover anything - would mean that they are still in RAID 5. Need to read up on the QNAP process. My photos are on my Mac too so there's two back ups just in case.
 
Update: is this just bad luck? Another seagate has failed right at the end of the backup! I think it justifies what I'm doing.
 
Snapsh0t said:
I've got some 4TB HGST Deskstars and they're very good when used with a Highpoint RocketRAID controller in a WHS2011 server but have very odd read patterns on large files when used in two different Asustor NASs, either four drives in RAID5 or two in RAID1. As my WD Reds don't do this, it's some very specific interaction between Asustor and the Deskstars and I'm trying to get Asustor support interested......

as-5104t%20reads%204gb.png
Click to expand...

Disk, OS, Network stack. It's hard to say what's causing that network IO. It's intriguing. I'd SSH onto the NAS and see if I could install/run iotop/iftop in order to garner more idea as to what's going on.
I've only really analysed write speeds to my server and I get a good solid 118 megabytes/second with desktop - which slows down to about 80 megabytes/second after twenty or so minutes - presumably that's when the in-memory cache fills up. It's absolutely no comparison to your set-up as the server is Xeon powered with a ZFS filing system.
 
Last edited:
andyscott said:
Whether I think they are good or s***e. Pretty much what I base any recommendation on.
Click to expand...

littleted said:
WD reds are the most tested with NAS technology available, so picking these if your running a NAS is kinda a good idea based on the qualification this specific model goes through.
ks iBlacks are fastest for the Gamers
Greens are cheapest but work ok...

Lots of drives cut the mustard bit this is just an example.
Click to expand...


Just wondering if you had anything to add other than anecdata and marketing-hype.

If anything, leaving a disk switched on 24/7 should extend its life.
Disks used in consumer grade NASes are not subject to heavy loads - most of the time they are idle.
I've read stats and papers on disk life expectancy and the conclusion I've reached is that most consumer grade disks are already almost as good as enterprise disks in terms of reliability. I'm not really sure where that leaves this breed of NAS hard disk drives which are neither one nor the other.

Hey, why aren't we all buying WD Red Pro disks now?
;)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top