Which Nas to buy ?

[Rancid]

Hello..

For a long time now i have been using a Full blown PC as my DIY NAS.
But i've always had an eye on getting a small purpose built NAS.

My boys old Emac has finally bit the dust and im thinking of re purposing my NAS (Intel C2D 4GB 8800GT) for him as his main PC and getting a NAS.

ive spent some time looking into the NAS's but to be frank ive got to cook dinner and the wife wants to watch a film..
I know what will happen if i dont stop looking, the kids will go hungry and the wife will get the hump.

So any advice would be much appreciated.

The NAS would be replacing a server that is used for Storing Media which is streamed over the network to a media Player. The several also provides email for 6 accounts.

Budget is the £240 ive got in my PayPal and maybe a little Extra, However again there is a wife involved who just doesn't get my desire for spanky IT kits whilst all the time using my Mac and net con to waste days and days on face book.

I don't need to buy any disks as i have 3x750GB's and a fair few 500GB units to hand.

I'm more than happy to get 2nd hand unit off thiefbay or buy new, whatever gets my best bang for the bucks.

Must haves.
1. ability to run email server with web mail interface.
2. back up specified data to USB connected disk (Inc the email data from above)


Would Likes.
1. Ability to run Dynamic DNS updates, I sue DNS Made Easy for my DNS it it follows standard updating protocols. Id rather the NAS did this but its not critical.
2. Three plus bays, like the idea of raid5 but i've been running a raid0 nas for speed for a long time now and just backing up my important data.
3. Fast(ish) Gigabit write speeds (form my PC to NAS), purely for no reason other than i dont like slow kit.

Firstly can people advise on a Make that would have the email and backup faculties and then specific models to look out for.

Cheers Much.
Cid.

 

[Rancid]

Kids still not fed and wife is getting well vexed....
However i have been unable to leave it alone.

Seems both the QNAP and Synologic both have good support for Email servers and so forth and would easily meet my needs.

The Qnap units do seem to be a little more expsensive when looking at like for like. Are they worth the extra ?

 

[Rancid]

Sort of deciding on the Snyology DS211J.

Any glaring reason not too ?

Cheers
Colin.

 

[Gothri]

Hello..
The NAS would be replacing a server that is used for Storing Media which is streamed over the network to a media Player. The several also provides email for 6 accounts.

Must haves.
1. ability to run email server with web mail interface.
2. back up specified data to USB connected disk (Inc the email data from above)


Would Likes.
1. Ability to run Dynamic DNS updates, I sue DNS Made Easy for my DNS it it follows standard updating protocols. Id rather the NAS did this but its not critical.
2. Three plus bays, like the idea of raid5 but i've been running a raid0 nas for speed for a long time now and just backing up my important data.
3. Fast(ish) Gigabit write speeds (form my PC to NAS), purely for no reason other than i dont like slow kit.

There are SOHO offerings from most companies that will address most of your needs. The models I'd look into would be the

- QNET TS-419+
- Netgear ReadyNAS Ultra 4

While all Linux-based boxes can be coaxed into working with DDNS, the ReadyNAS offers it's own VPN-based solution in the form of ReadyNAS remote, giving you secure drag and drop access to your files from any place that you can access the Internet. To use ReadyNAS Remote, you don't need root level SSH access, but the QNET device probably has some DDNS integration in its front-end software.

The ReadyNAS also comes with a personal web server built-in. The email server is something you can do as an add-on with just about every box, but you'll need to know enough about Linux to make it happen. Almost every box sold nowadays has USB ports that will support external drives. The QNET device even has a one-button backup feature for the USB port on the front bezel of its TS-659 series.

 

[thiggins]

NASes generally don't support email serving out of the box. As Gothri noted, you'd either have to manually add one into the LAMP based servers built into QNAP, Thecus, Synology and NETGEARs or look to see if they have add-ons.

Any of the above or even other makes will serve media fine and back up to USB.

I'd check vendor drive compatibility lists before I plan on reusing drives.

 

[Gothri]

2. Three plus bays, like the idea of raid5 but i've been running a raid0 nas for speed for a long time now and just backing up my important data.

Just quickly on this...

Did you mean to say that you run a RAID1 NAS?

RAID 0 is simple mirroring, if I remember correctly. RAID 1 is striping which has the advantage of breaking up read requests into parallel requests that -- with good hardware -- are able to make better use of available bandwidth.

Striping should always be faster than mirroring on reads, and it may also be faster on writes too.

 

[stevech]

Just quickly on this...

Did you mean to say that you run a RAID1 NAS?

RAID 0 is simple mirroring, if I remember correctly. RAID 1 is striping which has the advantage of breaking up read requests into parallel requests that -- with good hardware -- are able to make better use of available bandwidth.

Striping should always be faster than mirroring on reads, and it may also be faster on writes too.

I think these RAID levels are mistaken.