NAS vs directly plugin drive to router.

[Budgeter]

Hi all,

Just a quick question, what exactly are the difference between using NAS and portable drive (SSD or hard drive) for a local storage. I know that NAS will have better performance, along with storage management ability, but aside form that, is there anything else?

I simply want to have a local storage where all device can connect to it to do streaming, file backup, etc.

By the way, I used to have one USB, which was broken after a long time using it with my router (maybe because it runs 24/7). So, is there a risk of using portable drive in this scenario?

Thank you.

 

[Trip]

Other than initial convenience, perceived simplicity and one less device, having a NAS is superior in nearly every way imaginable.

Overall, you have something that is no longer crippled by an all-in-one router's ability (more like inability) to handle the share (which is most of them).

Specifically:
- SATA/PCIe storage buses and network-optimized transfer
- Optional fault tolerance (2 bays or more, with RAID 1, 5, 6, 10, etc.)
- Standalone processing power and resources
- Upgrade-able throughput/performance
- No cascading point of failure (way higher reliability)
- Way better manageability and feature set in general
- Independent user land and software ecosystem

Basically, if you need some lightweight logging or dump space every now and then, a USB stick or drive will do fine, but if you need a routinely-accessible share for even just a couple or more devices at a time, a NAS is the vastly superior solution.

 

[L&LD]

Well said @Trip.

 

[Budgeter]

Very detailed answer, I appreciate @Trip

Can I think it as this way? NAS is basically a computer (has its own CPU, RAM, etc), however, it is specialized in storage-and-transferring stuff. Connecting a NAS to local storage, via router for example, is like connecting a computer to local storage. Every tasks (like read/write, etc) will be executed by that computer system (NAS), while router is only an interconnect to for networking purpose.

However, when connecting a drive directly to a router. It means the router will act as a computer system at that point. Of course, a router cannot have much resources (both physically, and software-wise) compared to a dedicated computer system, so its ability and performance is greatly reduced.

Aside from that, the concept are basically the same. I guess one hard drive connected to R7800 is enough for my need.

 

[Tech Focus]

Very detailed answer, I appreciate @Trip

Can I think it as this way? NAS is basically a computer (has its own CPU, RAM, etc), however, it is specialized in storage-and-transferring stuff. Connecting a NAS to local storage, via router for example, is like connecting a computer to local storage. Every tasks (like read/write, etc) will be executed by that computer system (NAS), while router is only an interconnect to for networking purpose.

However, when connecting a drive directly to a router. It means the router will act as a computer system at that point. Of course, a router cannot have much resources (both physically, and software-wise) compared to a dedicated computer system, so its ability and performance is greatly reduced.

Aside from that, the concept are basically the same. I guess one hard drive connected to R7800 is enough for my need.

I used to had very similar setup. R7000 with WD 1TB MyBook. I tried to stream stored music, video, and transfer files to my tablets and phones. The issue was it crushed occasionally. The worst part for me was when the system crushed, the entire data on my WD 1TB became collapsed and inaccessible even plug in to Mac or Windows directly.

Now theoretically, if you use some tool to recover the HDD, I probably could have recovered the data but I didn't have such tool then and I fortunately had back up so I didn't bother. But after couple crushes and complete loss of accessibility to the HD, I gave up.

I've also had WiFi speaker that allowed USB storage connection plug into any of its unit and share to all other speakers (or technically to entire network). So I purchased USB thumb drive just for that to store some music, back then it was only 128 GB storage. Even that did not flow well. It was too intermittent, loading the music library was way too slow. Now R7800 is much newer and more powerful than R7000 so it may work better. But I would advise you to make sure back up of any files you put onto the drive.

 

[Budgeter]

I have another related question so I want to ask it here too.

In case I use an attached drive to router (usb, hard drive, etc) as a local server, how can I control access to it (E.g: password lock, designated user access, etc)? I believe it can be done via router GUI, thing is, it seems like my R7800 (Voxel firmware) can only lock the drive with admin password. I guess the password cannot be changed and there is no other management ability, right?

Besides, is it possible to encrypt my drive without the use of NAS?

 

[alba666]

Done it both ways.
IMHO, you don’t want to consume scarce CPU and RAM resources on any consumer network device managing disk I/O. Keep your network resources focused on network services and network security.
A very basic NAS can be had for less than $200.

 

[Budgeter]

Done it both ways.
IMHO, you don’t want to consume scarce CPU and RAM resources on any consumer network device managing disk I/O. Keep your network resources focused on network services and network security.
A very basic NAS can be had for less than $200.

Thanks for your answer, but can you explain in more detail what you just said for me please? English isn't my native language so what you said is a bit unclear to me.

 

[alba666]

Thanks for your answer, but can you explain in more detail what you just said for me please? English isn't my native language so what you said is a bit unclear to me.

Sure. Although you can plug a USB drive of whatever size you need into the router and use the router software to make the disk accessible on the network , the router has to dedicate processor and memory to manage the traffic to and from the disk drive. The router only has so much processing ability and memory and most manufacturers use the vast majority on the basic network functions.
So for a permanent setup, I found it was more stable to buy a dedicated Network Attached Storage (NAS) device.

 

[Budgeter]

Sure. Although you can plug a USB drive of whatever size you need into the router and use the router software to make the disk accessible on the network , the router has to dedicate processor and memory to manage the traffic to and from the disk drive. The router only has so much processing ability and memory and most manufacturers use the vast majority on the basic network functions.
So for a permanent setup, I found it was more stable to buy a dedicated Network Attached Storage (NAS) device.

Great, it is much clear now, thank you!

Putting performance reduction aside, is there anyway to encrypt router-attached drive, either using plug-in or third party software? Assuming the scenario is when a drive attaches to the router, a router is connected to a client PC via ethernet.

 

[alba666]

Great, it is much clear now, thank you!

Putting performance reduction aside, is there anyway to encrypt router-attached drive, either using plug-in or third party software? Assuming the scenario is when a drive attaches to the router, a router is connected to a client PC via ethernet.

Are you concerned about encryption at rest (data on the drive) and/or encryption in transit (data moving between the drive and a PC)?
Encryption at Rest would be a feature of the NAS system. Not something I have on my low end Western Digital unit.
Encryption in transit is actually easier over WiFi. Most routers support AES encryption on WiFi connections.