Stepping into the World of NAS. Down to two Contenders.

[eiger]

Hi Guys,

First post!

I'm in the tech world. (work for a very, very large software company in Redmond, Wa) and am looking at getting some dedicated storge in my home office. I'm considering 3 x 2TB RAID5, but haven't totally decided.

It's multi purpose and I'm going to combine my wants and needs in a single bucket. Here we go.

- A quiet, energy efficient, compact and sleek box. This isn’t being shoved in a server closet.(yet) It’s in my home office.
- 4 bay RAID storage. (technically 2 at the moment, but want the scalability). Capable of 0/1/5 depending on what I end up going with to begin with.
- FTP/File Server access.
- Replication
- Streaming: I have SONOS players throughout the house. So as long as it's CIF/SMB compatible, it is fine.

DLNA/UPnP stuff.
across the house. Also ripped DVDs etc to PS3/360.
- A solid backup solution(s)//Gbe
- Web hosting capability. This is more of a want. I have a WordPress blog that I currently have hosted externally, but I’ve considered moving to my NAS if that’s at all doable.

Oh, did I mention it should work without having to spend hours troubleshooting event logs etc? ;-)

It has come down to these two for me at the moment. You wouldn't insult me if you counterd me with an alternative, but I need to stay within that general budget/feature line.

Synology DS411J $359.99- http://www.synology.com/us/products/DS411j/index.php

QNap TS-410 TuboNAS 429.99 http://www.qnap.com/pro_detail_feature.asp?p_id=134

What do you guys think? I'd like to pull the trigger fairly soon.

Would love to hear from you guys.

 

[thiggins]

Either Synology or QNAP should do what you want. You might also look at NETGEAR ReadyNASes.

The more drives you have, the noisier the NAS. Also be sure you have a backup strategy for the NAS itself if it is going to be used as primary storage. RAID is not a substitute for backup. And get that sucker on a UPS.

 

[eiger]

Thanks Thiggins.

IF I began with a 2 or 3 x2TB solution, what RAID implementation would you reccomend starting with with leaving room for customization and expansion in the future?

Probably backup to Esata or potentially Amazon S3.

Seeing lots of read on the thread, but no replies. Looking for all the advice I can get at the moment!

 

[teknojnky]

your expansion capabilities are going to be specific to the nas you choose.

in the case of readynas, using x-raid or x-raid2 in the newer models, the mode and expansion is automatic and dependent on how many disks you have.

you can start with 1 drive, add a 2nd drive (mirrored), add a 3rd drive (raid-5), add a 4th drive (raid-5)


I can't speak on the syn or qnap products, for but readynas here is my experience/thoughts

- A quiet, energy efficient, compact and sleek box. This isn’t being shoved in a server closet.(yet) It’s in my home office.

no nas is completely quiet, and manufacturer specs are hard to compare and accuracy leaves much to be desired.

i have 3 readynas, none of them are quiet, but none are as loud as my main pc, nor as quiet as a laptop.

The sound does not bother me, but I am sure others are more sensitive. My furnace is way louder than all my computer devices anyway.

- 4 bay RAID storage. (technically 2 at the moment, but want the scalability). Capable of 0/1/5 depending on what I end up going with to begin with.

readynas x-raid modes automaticlly use the right raid for however many drives you have. you can switch to 'flex-raid' mode if you want more control over raid modes and/or want multiple volumes (I wouldn't recommend it tho).

- FTP/File Server access.

pretty standard, I think most nas in existence have this

- Replication

this is not so clear.
if you simply want to be able to backup from one device to another, then I would expect most nas to have you covered.
readynas includes backup (as source or destination) using any of the supported protocols, including rsync, cifs/smb, nfs, ftp, etc.

If your meaning some type of real time or near real time replication, or some type of two-way sync (meaning changes on either end will be sent to the other), then good luck as far as I have seen there are no real/supported solutions here at the home/prosumer market.

that said, readynas use a customized/embedded debian linux and can use various linux utilities/programs which may be able to suit your needs. Definately not supported though.

- Streaming: I have SONOS players throughout the house. So as long as it's CIF/SMB compatible, it is fine.

this is pretty much all nas can do

DLNA/UPnP stuff across the house.

readynas includes a dlna server, works with most dlna/upnp things, however it does not do any transcoding, so your client must support the file type(s) you want to stream.

Also ripped DVDs etc to PS3/360.

I don't think any dlna supports ripped dvds unless you convert them to avi or some other format.

- A solid backup solution(s)

see commments above at replication

Gbe

I assume you meant gbit ethernet, I expect all current nas models have this

- Web hosting capability. This is more of a want. I have a WordPress blog that I currently have hosted externally, but I’ve considered moving to my NAS if that’s at all doable.

you can setup http(s) shares on the readynas, as well as some add-ons for various blogs and cms things.

if you were to look at readynas, I would suggest either an NVX model (a little older, but probably cheaper) or one of the newer ultra or ultra+ models (these are new atom based models).

there are the 'pro' series which include additional 'business' features (like active directory support, ethernet bonding, etc) which are NOT included in the ultra and other non-business models.

there are the NV+ and/or duo models, but these are old and use a very low power sparc based cpu, and while I have an nv+ and it works great for basic file sharing/backup, I would not recommend it for the stuff you want to accomplish.

 

[eiger]

Just picked up this one..

http://www.qnap.com/pro_detail_feature.asp?p_id=183