NAS advice for small business

[techalpha]

I’ve done a considerable amount of reading on NAS devices, and have decided to purchase one for our small business. We are mostly a windows shop with a couple of Linux and Mac products sprinkled in. I’ve narrowed it down to QNAP, Netgear, or Synology products (as they seem to be the most recommended), but I’m unsure which to choose from as I have no prior experience with these products.

Below is a list of what we think would be our main uses.

• Central File Share with access control
• Automated backup of desktops
• Automated backup of Virtual Machines
• Storage of OS images for new machines
• Backup network shares incrementally
• Backup SQL Server databases incrementally
• VMware ISCSI target (nice to have)
• Hyper-V ISCSI target (nice to have)

Here is a list of our requirements.

• Supports RAID 5, 10, (Raid 6 support would be nice to have). Does hardware vs. software RAID matter?
• Bundled backup software
• Root access
• Web Based Admin
• Ability to schedule backups
• User/group level access permissions with Active Directory support
• AFP or NFS support
• Backup to external drives (eSATA and USB)
• USB 3.0 support
• FTP Support (Nice to have)
• Web based file download (Nice to have)
• Capacity 4-8TB

I’ve also thought about a DIY box, since we have licensed copies of Windows Storage Server and System Center Data Protection Manager, but I figured our time could be best spent elsewhere as opposed to administration duties.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[thiggins]

All three vendors have products that fit your needs. QNAP and NETGEAR have online emulators you can access to test drive the features.

USB 3.0 support is relatively new. So check specs to be sure it is supported.

All NASes implement software RAID.

 

[stevech]

Opinion: Omit Netgear. Include Synology, QNAP and perhaps Thecus.

Suggestion: to assess the on-line demos... make up a couple of mock tasks you'd have as owner, such as creating a time machine backup for selected folders or full backup to external devices, adding a user access, or setting up multimedia streaming services, remote access.

Also, read each vendor's user forum and see what people are struggling with - remembering you're seeing the complaint department and not the happy customer department. Forums, read with the right mental filters, are very useful.