Simple NAS device with just Gigabit Ethernet and USB3 ports?

[turnstyle]

Hi all,

I'm about to retire my old backup system, which worked perfectly for me: an old Windows PC that acted as a server with USB drives attached. I back up over wifi to one drive, and periodically mirror it to the other.

The PC is really old, and I'm planning on phasing it out before it dies. But the drives are fine, which got me thinking...

Is there such a thing as a simple NAS device with just Gigabit Ethernet and USB3 ports (or, less-preferentially, USB2)? Meaning: not an enclosure for a drive, but more like an adapter that puts a USB drive on the LAN.

I was hoping to find an "obviously gets great reviews" kind of device -- but I can barely find any, and they all seem to get spotty.

Or is this a terrible idea for some reason that I haven't realized?

Thanks!

 

[thiggins]

Pogoplug once owned this product category. But they switched to an all software cloud company business model.

Synology has one product the EDS14. But at $350, they obviously don't want to sell many.

Routers with built-in storage sharing are what people who don't want to buy a NAS buy. Or they buy one of the no-name USB drive sharers.

 

[turnstyle]

Thanks Tim,

And from what can tell, even back then Pogo was more of a hybrid that promoted a web-based service.

So none of the "respected" manufacturers now (or previously) sold a device as I have in mind?

It seems like such a useful thing -- do you think there's a reason why nobody offers one? (Perhaps I'm missing the fatal flaw?)

Thanks again, -Scott

 

[thiggins]

Reasons were given in the previous post.

 

[turnstyle]

Apologies, I should have followed-up with a different question.

Is there a section on your site where you review such "no-name USB drive sharers"? In NAS, you seem to bottom out at 1-drive devices. (Or is there possibly any particular such device you happen to favor?)

I guess I'm looking for the wrong thing, even though I like the concept.

 

[thiggins]

Is there a section on your site where you review such "no-name USB drive sharers"? In NAS, you seem to bottom out at 1-drive devices. (Or is there possibly any particular such device you happen to favor?)

Persistent, aren't you?
No. Not worth it. The product category is basically dead, replaced by low-cost single-drive NASes and routers with storage sharing features.

 

[turnstyle]

Persistent, aren't you?

Guilty!

Thanks at least for giving me the bad news straight up.

 

[stevech]

I have an old/slow small black box that connects to Ethernet and has a USB2 connector. It puts the drive(s) on the LAN as a share. Low data rate, but good for some things, like an out of sight shared hard disk or USB drive.
Web pages for admin.

Goes faster with FAT32 media, rather than NTFS.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B002CMEIV6/?tag=snbforums-20

 

[turnstyle]

Thanks, and yep that's basically what I'm looking for -- except I was hoping to find Gigabit Ethernet and USB3 -- and was also hoping for a device with decent reviews.

(I feel like it would be a better failure-recovery situation with two of those and two USB drives -- as compared to a single NAS with two internal drives.)

But I guess it just doesn't exist!

 

[stevech]

Most people would just plug a USB3 drive into the PC, of course. The PC could share it if need be.

 

[turnstyle]

Most people would just plug a USB3 drive into the PC, of course. The PC could share it if need be.

Understood.

In my case, I have a very old PC -- with two relatively new 2TB USB drives, only 1/2 full.

So I was hoping to ditch the PC and turn the two USB drives into NAS.

One concern I have about traditional NASes is failure of the NAS itself.

So I kind of like the idea of two devices like the one you linked to, each with a USB drive -- that way anything can fail without much worry.

Perhaps I should go into the Gigabit-USB-NAS-adapter biz...

 

[stevech]

Just get a disk-less 2 bay NAS from Synology or QNAP or eBay.
Or a 1 bay and use a USB as the backup.
I have a 2 bay, non-RAID config, with independent file systems on the two drives. And a means to read the Linux ext4 drives under windows if need be.

 

[htismaqe]

Or a 1 bay and use a USB as the backup.

This is what I do.

1-bay diskless NAS with USB/eSATA backup drive enclosure.

 

[KG60]

Why retire the PC? Just remove windows (presuming that's what's on it) and install FreeNAS. That way you can turn it into a NAS box without any extra cost and it should run a lot better than with an old Windows install. Information on FreeNAS can be found at http://www.freenas.org/

 

[turnstyle]

This is what I do.

1-bay diskless NAS with USB/eSATA backup drive enclosure.

Meaning, no drive in the 1-bay NAS -- and an external drive via USB or eSATA?

 

[azazel1024]

Thanks, and yep that's basically what I'm looking for -- except I was hoping to find Gigabit Ethernet and USB3 -- and was also hoping for a device with decent reviews.

(I feel like it would be a better failure-recovery situation with two of those and two USB drives -- as compared to a single NAS with two internal drives.)

But I guess it just doesn't exist!

That you are not likely to find. Most/all of those "no name" USB only NAS are likely to only run in the 3-10MB/sec range at most, so a gigabit port, or USB3 ports would just be an increase in the build of materials without actually providing any extra useful performance.

If you need something with better performance you are looking at one of the cheaper single disk NAS. that is likely where your best bang for the buck is going to be. IIRC Synology just announced/released a bargain basement single disk NAS (USB2 port(s) though, IIRC) at around $70-80 price range with a gigabit port. Either drop a single drive in it, or attach one or more USB drives to the port(s) on it. IIRC from early reviews, it has okay performance. Nothing stellar, but it looks like it should be capable of at least 70-80MB/sec reads and 30-50MB/sec writes for larger files, which is MASSIVELY better than any router based storage at that price point, and deffinitely massively better than any of those no-name brand USB based NASs.

I am mildly considering one for tertiary storage for my network to put spare drives I am about to excess from my desktop and server in to a 4 disk USB enclosure. Just trying to figure out my price point and performance requirements. I am also mildly considering spending somewhat more and getting an entry level Bay Trail NUC or something like that to use the USB3 ports off that for a more capable server with tiny power and space footprint. Or maybe a used Ivy Bridge NUC or something. Dunno. Need the funds to get the new HDDs first, then worry about USB enclosure and then server/NAS.

 

[bogdancat]

As KG60 says, why not using PC as a NAS? You could install an appropiate Linux distro also and configure it as server/nas/webserver

 

[htismaqe]

Meaning, no drive in the 1-bay NAS -- and an external drive via USB or eSATA?

Yes. My NAS is diskless, meaning the HDD is purchased separately and is replaceable (vs. integrated into the NAS like my old Buffalo).

The NAS supports USB2 and eSATA interfaces. The Rosewill drive enclosure supports USB2/3 and eSATA interfaces.

 

[stevech]

Of course, talking about a drive enclosure with eSATA and USB versus a NAS is the epitome of apples to oranges.

 

[turnstyle]

Of course, talking about a drive enclosure with eSATA and USB versus a NAS is the epitome of apples to oranges.

Just curious, why do you think so?

If you have an empty 1-bay NAS with a drive attached via USB or eSATA -- isn't that still NAS?