NAS for Home Use

[TXDawg]

I'll start by saying that I am not an IT-literate person and I am very new to the world of NAS's. I have read the NAS Buying Guide here and have viewed several forum topics regarding NAS selection and use. I think I've researched just enough to make myself dangerous, so now I'm turning to the experts.

I'm currently operating with an aging laptop and a 1TB external drive to store approximately 1.5TB of data which primarily includes photos, videos, songs, and movies. At this time, we do not have any back-up of this data (yes, this scares me). Since I'm going to be upgrading the home computer soon, I'd like to purchase a system that will meet our needs now, but will also be able to expand with us.

The needs I see for our family are as follows:
1) Multiple computers capable of accessing shared, centrally stored data.
2) Multiple users with varying access permissions.
3) Ability to access data remotely when not at home.
4) Ability to stream media to multiple devices through home network.
5) Reliable back-up of data.

Given these needs, the set-up I am considering is to purchase two laptops (likely MacBook Airs) and a NAS. I feel that this would give me a central location for the data, provide enough computers to support our current needs but allow for additional laptops to be added in the future, and meet the needs listed above.

The concerns I have about this solution are:
1) MBA's have limited local storage, so all files would need to be stored on the NAS - this will require data storage discipline from the individual users and could cause some performance hits when editing files stored on the NAS. Is this a viable way to operate?
2) My thought is to connect the NAS to a wireless router via ethernet and have the laptops access the NAS via wireless connection. Is this possible? Will the performance drop-off make this unbearably slow?
3) The two brands I'm considering (Synology & QNAP) appear to have excellent remote access capabilities. Are they as easy to use as they appear?
4) How difficult is it to manage multiple user profiles and access permissions on the NAS? Is there on-going maintenance, or is it pretty much set it and forget it?

Being new to NAS's, I'm not sure if I've even considered all of the potential issues I might encounter. Based on the needs listed above and the set-up I've described, is there anything else I should consider? Is there a better way to accomplish my goals?

Thanks in advance for any information you can provide.

Chris

 

[thiggins]

Hi Chris. Thanks for doing your research first.

Your needs are simple--basic file sharing and backup--and can be met by most NASes, including the two you are considering. Now to your specific questions

1) MBA's have limited local storage, so all files would need to be stored on the NAS - this will require data storage discipline from the individual users and could cause some performance hits when editing files stored on the NAS. Is this a viable way to operate?

Editing files directly on the NAS is fine for a few users and for documents that don't involve a lot of data flying back and forth, i.e. word processing, spreadsheets, etc. You would not be happy editing photo or video files, however.

2) My thought is to connect the NAS to a wireless router via ethernet and have the laptops access the NAS via wireless connection. Is this possible? Will the performance drop-off make this unbearably slow?

This depends on the class of wireless you are using and signal strength. MacBook Airs have 802.11ac radios, so if you get an AC router, use the 5 GHz band and use the MBAs in areas with strong signals, you should be fine.

3) The two brands I'm considering (Synology & QNAP) appear to have excellent remote access capabilities. Are they as easy to use as they appear?

Synology's remote access solution doesn't require opening router ports manually or automatically via UPnP. QNAP's does. I don't like opening ports, so I'd go with Synology on this one.

4) How difficult is it to manage multiple user profiles and access permissions on the NAS? Is there on-going maintenance, or is it pretty much set it and forget it?

Set and forget. Both Synology and QNAP have online demos. Check them out.

 

[TXDawg]

Tim,

Thanks for the quick reply and good information.

One other question came to mind regarding the multiple users and their access permissions. How does the NAS identify the individual user? I would assume that there's some login protocol required. Is this done when the user starts up the laptop, or is there a NAS access client (?) that requires user authentication?

I guess I was imagining that the laptop would recognize the NAS as a network drive and the user would access it through File Explorer (similar to accessing a server in a corporate environment), but I couldn't figure out how the NAS would handle the user identification and authentication.

 

[thiggins]

Go look at the online demos and setting Folder permissions. You set up user accounts with passwords and assign folders to those accounts.

User will be met with a login prompt on first access to the folder. Whether that happens every time depends on how the client OS handles authentication.