Advice on New Purchase

[jrak]

I’ve been contemplating the purchase of an NAS for several months and would appreciate some advice and guidance. I've read the sticky and have looked at the reviews, but am a little overwhelmed by the amount of information on the website.

Presently, my home has 3 computers. The main computer is wired directly to my router (D-Link Dir 655). It is a six-month old computer that uses XP-Home. I use that computer for writing, video editing, and some software development. It has 3 hard drives with roughly a tetrabyte of storage.

The second computer is a desktop pc that uses XP-Home and is connected wirelessly. It has 3 hard drives with roughly ¾ tetrabytes of storage. That computer is used mostly for photo editing by my wife who has a fairly large photo collection.

The third is a laptop, mostly used for writing, PowerPoint presentations, and e-mail when I am on the road. It uses XP-Home.

I have a home-built server which uses Openfiler on a computer that is roughly 8 years old. I cobbled that together – mostly by trial and error – and while it works, I don’t trust it completely and have not been able to successfully add additional drives to it. It currently has about 300 megabytes of storage and is wired directly to the router. We also have hard-drives connected to our desktops via USB that are used for back-ups.

I’d like a NAS system that gives me the ability to add hard drives as my needs for storage increase. Even though I spend a considerable amount of time on the road, I don’t have a need to access my files remotely (a thumb drive suffices for that). When I’m home, I’d like to be able to back up my work files incrementally. I also want a place to back up video files which are also backed up on DVD’s. My wife wants to incrementally back up the photo files that she uses. She also backs up her photo files on CDs or DVDs and probably will continue that practice. We don’t have any particular need to play audio files or view photo or video files from the server, although that might be a good option to have for the future. And I don’t think that we need a RAID system, given that we back up our files on CD’s or DVD’s.

I’d like the ability to put the device in sleeper mode and keep energy costs to a minimum. While I’m fairly good with computers, I prefer something that is simple to administer.

I like what I’ve read about the latest version of the HP Media Smart server and would like some feedback as to whether I might be better off with one of the other products on the market. The price point for the HP Server is about right, but I would be willing to spend more if the arguments in support of other products were convincing enough.

 

[thiggins]

Sounds like you have done a good job of figuring out your needs, but just want some reassurance. Let's try to answer your question by using the How To Choose the Right NAS for You article.

First question is how much capacity do you need? Your current Openfiler machine has 300MB of storage. But then there are those USB drives attached to your machines.
If the answer is > 1 TB, then your selection moves to multi-drive NASes. If 1TB or under, you can use a single-drive NAS.

Remember that pretty much all NASes can be expanded by adding USB drive(s). These do not get added to the main storage volume, but appear as new shares. If you're ok with that, with two USB ports, you could add 2 TB of additional storage, for a total of 3 TB. Is that enough for you?

Next, of the Backup; Media Serving; Access Control; Network Filesystems; and Other Services functions, sounds like your focus is on backup. Main question here is how much control do you want over that backup and do you mind having an app running on your machines do it. The weakness of Windows Home Server is that the backup is once a day and it is basically focused on backing up entire machines, not just data files.

To cut to the bottom line, I think your needs are quite simple and can be solved a single-drive NAS plus a decent backup program. If you already have backup software, or don't mind buying it separately, then the choice is even easier, since you don't have to look for bundled backup software.

Now go to the NAS Charts, select Price Performance chart and filter for Number of Drives=1. The resulting plot will help narrow things down.

Note, by the way, that the default chart displays 1000 Mbps Read performance, i.e. with a Gigabit LAN connection. You didn't mention whether you have a gigabit Ethernet LAN. But with lots of photos and probably good-sized backups, I would definitely recommend upgrading your LAN (and computers) to gigabit if you're not already there. At any rate any NAS you buy should have a 10/100/1000 Ethernet port (and most do).

Hope this helps narrow things down a bit. Let me know what you come up with for final candidates.

 

[jrak]

Thanks ever so much for your thoughtful feedback. I believe that I need a little more than 1 TB of storage at this time and that my storage needs will grow in the years to come. A 2-drive NAS appears to make sense. I would start with one-drive and add a second in a year or two.

Thanks for pointing out the back-up weakness of the Window Home Server, which is a deal-killer for me. I don't need to back up all the video files I am currently editing, just the finished product. I do need to back-up certain directories on a scheduled basis and I would like to designate those using back-up software.

I have a Gigabit LAN connection, so there is no need to upgrade my PC or router.

Right now, I'm leaning toward the D-Link DNS 323. The price is very good and and if I choose to do more with the NAS in the future, I would have something to tinker with. It also appears to have a large user base, having been available for some time. Should I be giving serious consideration to any of the others in this category?

 

[thiggins]

Thanks ever so much for your thoughtful feedback. I believe that I need a little more than 1 TB of storage at this time and that my storage needs will grow in the years to come. A 2-drive NAS appears to make sense. I would start with one-drive and add a second in a year or two.

As long as you are ok with operating the two drives as two separate volumes, you plan is ok. If you want the two drives to appear as one volume, however, you will need to reformat the first drive, which means you'll need to backup and restore your data.

 

[jrak]

I don't have a problem with having two separate volumes. In fact, that might be advantageous since I can designate one for myself and one for my wife.

The DNS-323 is selling for $129 at this time (including a $30 rebate). I also saw Seagate 1.5 TB drives selling for $119 at a major retailer. Since the latest firmware for the DNS-323 can handle a 1.5 TB drive, I may buy two drives right now. Getting a NAS with 3TB of storage fo $367 is, in my opinion, a good value.

Thanks for steering me in the right direction.

 

[thiggins]

Be careful with the Seagate 1.5TB drives. Have seen lots of problems reported. You might be better off with 1 TB drives. They have been around longer. Check the drive compatibility list. Note that the 1.5 TB drives are not on it.

 

[jrak]

Thanks for the heads-up. I noticed that while the latest firmware (1.06) supports 1.5 TB hard drives, none have been approved for use with the product. I'll play it safe, and go with the proven product.

Is there a website that evaluates the performance/reliability of hard drives. I've chosen Seagate in the past because of their warranty, but I have had to return several because of drive failures.

 

[thiggins]

Performance, yes.
http://www.storagereview.com/

Google for others.

Reliability, no. Very costly to do a meaningful reliability test.

 

[jrak]

Thanks! There were only 2 tested and approved drives with a 1 TB capacity. I took a look at user reviews on several retail websites and Seagate appears to be having problems with their 1 TB drives as well. Many of the other tested and approved drives are no longer available. It looks like it will be more of a challenge to find an economical, reliable large drive than it was to identify the NAS.

Are the enterprise class drives worth the premium in terms of their reliability?

 

[jrak]

After reading a number of reviews, I decided to purchase the WD 1001FALS 1 TB drive. It appeared to have more favorable reviews than the Seagate drives of similar capacity. I was able to install the drive and update the firmware without a hitch. Thus far, the device is working well and meeting my needs. Thanks for the guidance!