What do you want/need in a NAS? Help me design it!

[Agarwal]

Hi,

I'm currently contemplating starting a business making NASes, and I would like to know what would potentially make you buy a NAS and what you would pay for it. This might be a good opportunity to make yourself heard regarding the features and specs you want in a NAS

This is what I envision:

Data protection features (this is mostly already developed and working):

• Mix & Match drives capability
• Automatic array grow on adding a new bigger drive or replacing a smaller one
• Independant file systems on each drives. This means that if you if you lose more than one drive in the array, the remaining drives can still be accessed and you don't lose data that's not on the failed drives.
• No special formatting or filesystem needed (there is a filesystem restriction if you want advanced features like automatic growing of the partition)
• NTFS support as a target filesystem; this means that you could plug your drive in your windows PC, format the drive, use it for some time, and then plug it in the NAS, and it would just work. Your data is now protected. In case of array failure, take the drive out of the NAS, plug it in your windows PC, and the data that was on that drive is still accessible.
• No initial clearing of the drive needed.
• Reading will only affect a single drive, unless you are reading a failed drive. This means that you can expect the read performance to be on par with the target drive.
• Write speed up to 200mb/s with an optional hardware add-in. Otherwise, write speed will necessarily be slower as the target drive's write speed and data protection needs to be factored in.
• Samba, FTP and NFS out of the box.
• If you have a 4-drives array and currently streaming (read-only) 1 file from 1 single drives, the other drives can spin down, making the device quite energy efficient for a read-intensive array.

Hardware, OS and apps:

• This is a dedicated, embedded NAS box running a custom firmware (probably based on linux like the others, but I have part of my system working in *BSD too)
• Something like the AMD E-350 CPU, along with 4GB of memory (upgradable) and 16GB of flash memory (upgradable).
• 4xUSB 3.0 ports
• 6.0 Gb/s SATA, 1 eSATA port
• HDMI and optical/analog audio output available (although not used by the stock firmware, but can be used by apps)
• PCI Express x16 slot (x4 bandwidth) for extensibility
• (External drives can be used in the main array)
• Ultra quiet machine and energy-efficient machine (<50 watts under full load)
• 2-4-6 removable (or not? vote on it) bays configuration
• Apps system: in order to be able to provide support for apps, I would use the App Store model, with apps typically selling for 1-10$. Some of the apps I can see:
• • VOIP server/gateway
  • usb printer spool
  • bittorrent client
  • web server/php/mysql with installable packages (blogs, cms, etc)
  • Settop box software
  • UPnP/DNLA server
  • Music player / streamer / jukebox
  • Router
  • Video transcoding (prolly not on the fly, but still)
  • Home automation center
  • Simple Remote access to files
  • DVD/BluRay ripper
  • iSCSI target, ADS support (although all business-oritented features would probably also be packaged in a separate product)
  • etc, etc, etc
• You would have root access to the box if you wanted to, meaning that you wouldn't *have* to buy apps and get vendor support if the time needed to install/maintain those apps is not worth 1-10$ to you
• I would also allow third-party developers to publish their app to the app store, after being reviewed. Developers would receive a percentage of the sales of their app.

Target retail price for the 4-bay NAS: 600$, 3 years warranty.

Would you buy it? If not, what is missing or what would make you buy it? Please assume excellent customer support, as this is certainly in my top 3 objectives.

Please make yourself heard!

/Edit:

• Added precision on USB, SATA and external drives.
• Added precision on single-drive streaming and spinning down other drives.

 

[stevech]

How 'ya gonna get the $M of capital to start?
Then compete with all the current vendors?
Have a business plan for investors?

 

[Agarwal]

Regarding investments and money, assume it's covered. This is not part of my question, in any case. You do not worry how Synology or QNAP funded themselves, as long as they provide the products you need along with the service and support you expect.

But yes, it does and will cost a lot of money.

Regarding competing with all the current vendors: exactly as every business does. By striving to be better than the competition, either with the products themselves, or in marketing, or by targetting a specific niche. This is precisely what this thread is about.

I'm really more interested in understanding what would make you buy a NAS, though.

I believe I got some unique features in the list I provided. Can you identity them?

 

[stevech]

before technical- I'd first look at the robustness of the supplier's engineering and support.

 

[Agarwal]

I do agree, as I said:

Please assume excellent customer support, as this is certainly in my top 3 objectives.

Point taken regarding customer support and "robustness of engineering" (which is at least half part marketing, unless you have intimate knowledge of the company). For the sake of discussion, do you have any other decision factors?

 

[sfx2000]

Hi,

I'm currently contemplating starting a business making NASes, and I would like to know what would potentially make you buy a NAS and what you would pay for it. This might be a good opportunity to make yourself heard regarding the features and specs you want in a NAS

I'd be happy to close out a consulting agreement and then we can discuss 8)

In any event, BSD is the way to go in my book - less entanglement with various licenses - Wasabi Systems has high quality BSP's across multiple architectures... As far as ODM's - much depends on what platform you intend to use, most platform providers will have tier 1 partners to work with.

 

[Agarwal]

I hear ya, concerning *BSD. Exactly why I started with freebsd and developed on it first. I got a working linux prototype now, too, but I don't know how I'd handle the whole GPL issue if I were to put it in production. Haven't put much thought/time at that matter, either, yet.

On another matter, after some discussion, I'm considering selling the "firmware" in itself, without the hardware, for power users and DIYers.

Any thoughts?

 

[stevech]

OP: Do you have hands-on time with QNAP or Synology's system software?

A respected ex-boss once said, at the podium to an audience of engineers:

"The genius is not in the engineering; it's in the marketing."

 

[Agarwal]

Marketing is no doubt very important... Or are you referring to what I'm doing *now* ? If so, well, I haven't started yet, I'm just (honestly!) seeking information to make a product that you guys would buy, or rather, determining how to package what I already got working in a way that would make it interesting to you.

 

[ntm1275]

Low power consumption is a must, removable lockable drive bays, and twin LAN connections with link aggregation

I'm intrigued by:-

Set Top Box software (do you intend to have dual TV tuners, and if so, would they be available in different configurations like satellite DVB-S or terrestrial DVB-T/DVB-T2)

Router, but the possibility of Proxy Server would be a good addition

 

[stevech]

Marketing is no doubt very important...

OP: Do you have hands-on time with QNAP or Synology's system software?

the more I use Synology's DSM, the more impressed I am. A NAS for consumers is far more than a file server. And that software is really sophisticated - like 1000 times more than, say, FreeNAS based on my hands-on.

It helps to know your prospective competition and what niche you'll fill that they won't fill by the time you get 'round the bases.

 

[GregN]

I take it that Avere is looking at at entering the Consumer NAS market with a Nexenta based solution?

 

[sfx2000]

To the OP - the E350 likely doesn't have the horsepower to transcode and do the other things you want to do - consider the AMD A series... much more horsepower on both the CPU and GPU side. Llano has so much more compute resource than Bobcat/Zacate

If you present it well, AMD likely will provide some NRE and technical assistance on this project.