Recommend a NAS please

PaulF

PaulF

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Hi,

As I am running out of disk space at a rate of knots I am looking to consolidate the storage for pc and laptop's onto a NAS.

I would like your input as to the one to go for, reliability being a priority.

What it needs to have:
Reliability, PSU especially - don't want the power to give up after a year or so.
At least 4 disk bays.
Capable of taking 2TB disks (minimum)
RAID 5 as a minimum.
Gigabit ethernet
USB for external drive connection (backup to be removed 'offsite')
To be quiet, as it will be in the same room as the TV etc.

Nice to have:
Ability to increase storage space on the fly without having to trash the raid and restore, Drobo does this but may be a little expensive.
Hot swap for the drives.
Web access for easy config/monitoring

Can anyone recommend a particular make or model, Synolgy/Drobo/Verbatim/Netgear.

Thanks
Paul.
 
I've got a Netgear ReadyNAS NV+ which meets all the requirements except perhaps the noise. Not sure I'd want it sat behind the TV in the living room, but for me it doesn't need to be.

If I were buying again, think I'd look at the ReadyNAS Ultra range which run on newer, faster x86 processors with better transfer rates. NV+ is fine for streaming HD content, but sometimes wish it was faster to save it to the NAS in the first place.
 
HP Proliant N40L server - £250 with currently £100 cashback... 4 bays, run whatever OS you like on it (I'm running Ubuntu, others I know are running Win 2008, Win Home Server, Debian, Fedora...) - using it as a NAS & mediastore for the house.

Idles around 20-21W, sat on my desk right now - and it's drowned out by the boiler that's through 2 closed doors.
 
crazy badger said:
If I were buying again, think I'd look at the ReadyNAS Ultra range which run on newer, faster x86 processors with better transfer rates. NV+ is fine for streaming HD content, but sometimes wish it was faster to save it to the NAS in the first place.
Click to expand...

Thanks Adrian, I'll take a look at the Ultra range.

neil_g said:
synology, blows my old netgears out the water.
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Thanks Neil, any particular model you've had experience with or would recommend?

jezgb said:
QNAP TS-419P+
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That looks nice Jez, bit pricey though. It may do a lot more than I need it to. Tis nice though :)

hunnymonster said:
HP Proliant N40L server - £250 with currently £100 cashback... 4 bays, run whatever OS you like on it (I'm running Ubuntu, others I know are running Win 2008, Win Home Server, Debian, Fedora...) - using it as a NAS & mediastore for the house.

Idles around 20-21W, sat on my desk right now - and it's drowned out by the boiler that's through 2 closed doors.
Click to expand...

Thanks Jason, only Raid 0,1 support according to HP specs so not really what I'm looking for but cheap if anyone has a use for it :)

Cheers
Paul.
 
"Consolidate storage" ?

Just wondering what you plan for this unit. I'd see the NAS as one backup copy of data and nothing more. If you don't have copies elsewhere then the NAS unit will need backing up.....
 
RobertP said:
"Consolidate storage" ?

Just wondering what you plan for this unit. I'd see the NAS as one backup copy of data and nothing more. If you don't have copies elsewhere then the NAS unit will need backing up.....
Click to expand...

My current situation is:
A photo archive folder and a photo folder of the last year or so. All this synced on 1 PC, 1 laptop, external drive plus a copy at work.
Now I am running short of space on the laptop and the home PC, so my plan is to change the folder structure to just have the last month or so on the PC and laptop, synced, a copy of that on the NAS along with the archive/current year. The whole lot will be backed up onto an external drive (hence the need for USB) and also backed up at work.

It's the plan so far, no doubt it will be refined a little along the way!!

Paul
 
You need a Synology box.

I have the ds411j with 4 x 2tb running raid 5.

It's great, you can do so much with them

Check them out
 
I don't think I would want to run any of them in the living room by the tv.

I am running a drobo now for about three years. Very reliable, brilliant to upgrade the disks on the fly. But not quiet.

I've since also build my own San, just got some cheap intel atom boards, 1u case with 5 drive bays, a fanless power supply. It is super quiet and expandable. Perhaps not as easy as a drobo, but lots of cheap storage. That one is running Solaris and zfs.
 
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dejongj said:
That one is rubbing Solaris and zfs.
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ZFS is the dogs. I actually chose the OS for my fileserver because it ran ZFS. A bit of a learning curve, but it works well and it is a complete PC too...
 
arad85 said:
ZFS is the dogs. I actually chose the OS for my fileserver because it ran ZFS. A bit of a learning curve, but it works well and it is a complete PC too...
Click to expand...

Isn't it just :) A little learning curve to set it up with ZFS and iSCSI, but once done. Expanding the volume when I got a second server in was an absolute peach. So basically unlimited storage now :)
 
Bullysrus said:
You need a Synology box.

I have the ds411j with 4 x 2tb running raid 5.

It's great, you can do so much with them

Check them out
Click to expand...

Thanks Tony,
I'm leaning towards the Synology ones.

dejongj said:
I don't think I would want to run any of them in the living room by the tv.

I am running a drobo now for about three years. Very reliable, brilliant to upgrade the disks on the fly. But not quiet.

I've since also build my own San, just got some cheap intel atom boards, 1u case with 5 drive bays, a fanless power supply. It is super quiet and expandable. Perhaps not as easy as a drobo, but lots of cheap storage. That one is running Solaris and zfs.
Click to expand...

That's interesting Jean-Paul, I'm due to do some Sun training at work in the next 6 months or so. Maybe I'll convert :)

Cheers
Paul.
 
Hi Paul, now there is a coincidence :) Solaris or OpenIndiana, ZFS shared out via Comstar iSCSI and you have something at better and more expandable than nearly anything on the market for the price of a self build. Only thing is you must now desire for a nice web front end and not be afraid to use ssh for a remote connection. As you are going on a solaris course that shouldn't be a problem :)
 
dejongj said:
Solaris or OpenIndiana, ZFS shared out via Comstar iSCSI
Click to expand...
There are alternatives ;)

I run PC-BSD and share ZFS via samba. Currently on 8.2 but just about to upgrade to 9.0 and drop a couple of PCI-e HBA cards into the machine (the cheap mobo I have is lacking on SATA ports and some of them are visible in software as PATA ports due to the southbridge implementation!)...

For a web interface, try webmin. Lots of modules are available for that, but I have to say I prefer command line and ssh is my weapon of choice.

As to cost - I just added it up. £400 for the base machine (case, mobo, PSU, processor & 10G of memory), another £150 for the two HBA cards I'm just about to drop into it (although the system works quite well at the moment, one set of disks are comparatively slow) plus whatever for the disks. That may sound like a lot for the enclosure, but it is relatively quiet (I'd probably spend more on quietening the cooling if it were in the living room), has space for 9 drives (I have 8 here!!) and as dejongj says, with ZFS things are now totally seamless for storage.
 
Yes many different ways. I use iSCSI as I use a mac mini server to do the actual sharing on my network. So it see big in formatted volumes which then get formatted with hfs+ for sharing.

The great thing as well is that if you have no more space for more disks. You just build another and left it join the zfs and it is all one big San :)
 
Nice... I've only started scratching the surface with ZFS but it really seems worth it given the flexibility it brings.
 
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