I believe I have narrowed my choice to the Synology DS411J, however the QNAP TS410 and TS412 are still on my list, and I am having a very hard time deciding what to do here.
All of the systems can be had for under $400 from either amazon or newegg, so let's set my budget there. I'm not compeltely sure that I need all of the features of either system (right now I just need big storage with a meager safeguard, and I need it now). Instead of buying yet another disk to hang off of a PC or put in a USB enclosure, I'd like to finally get a box for the corner where I can put years' worth of files and have it be readily accessible.
I don't need all the fancy web, streaming, phone, ftp, etc stuff, but I think I am going to have to pay for it because all of the vendors who offer what I want offer all the jazz to go along with it.
Of paramount importance to me is the ability to dynamically resize a single volume by adding and removing different disks from different vendors of different size. If I have to add two identical disks at a time, I can probably get over that. The idea is the old Drobo marketing line of adding storage when I can *afford* it.
I've watched some Drobo videos (that is actually still on my list, see below) and *that* functionality is exactly what I want. I don't want to kludge together a ZFS server from parts, I was a network engineer in a former life and I'm well past the tinker stage. I'm looking for as near a turn-key system as I can get. I haven't touched unix since Solaris 10 and IRIX 6.5 and I don't have the time or the desire to get smart on anything new at this point in my life. All systems in the house are WinXP and Win7.
I have a small server that currently houses a couple of largish disks, and I turn that server on when I need access to said disks. Its a small thing, low power consumption, and I don't think I'd mind keeping it on all the time, which leads me to...
For not a lot of money I can get the old Drobo 2 (nearing the end of its life, problematic unless I can be assured that it will support 4/5/6/10TB disks in a few years) and hang it off a firewire (better) or USB port on the server. This seems like an ideal solution, except: there are more Drobo horror stories online than any other vendor I've researched, the interface is slow (for now, fine, but later on I'll need something faster), and the product will likely no longer be supported by the manufacture, and soon.
So for similar money I can get an Adaptec RAID controller ($200) and 8-bay external enclosure with hot-sway bays ($200, twice the storage space of any solution I've looked at so far) and just hang that whole setup off my server. Only problem is that, while Adaptec supports dynamic online pool sizing, I'm not sure my OS (Windows 7 Pro at the moment) does. Can anyone advise on this point, as it is one of my primary hang-ups right now... And I really can't get comfortable with the idea of using a third-party solution to resize the partition on the fly, we all know how problematic Windows is and the whole point of this is to use RAID to secure the data (yes I back up). I want to keep wildcards and variables to a minimum.
As an aside, does the Synology hybrid RAID allow for essentially effortless array sizing, ie, power the box down, throw in a new drive (or does it have to be two...), power it back up, and the array builds? Or is it like the QNAP box where I have to follow a twenty step process (I've read through the process a few times at QNAP's website and it really requires a lot more of my interaction than I'm really willing to do at this point)?
I'll pitch a final scenario and you can (please) chime in with what solution you feel is best, and this can either be a NAS device or an external drive cage attached to my server:
I put a 250gb, a 320gb, a 1tb, and a 2tb disk into said array. Array builds as I sleep. Wake up to whatever storage amount it decides I can get while still maintaining data redundancy supporting one disk failure (RAID5). UPS man drops off one 3tb disk, I replace the 250gb disk, array rebuilds. UPS man drops off another 3tb disk, array rebuilds. In a year, I reaplce the 1tb disk with a 5tb disk (after a firmware update, I assume, and I doubt the ancient Drobo model I am looking at will support that, but I know my server will) and the array rebuilds. Etc etc etc. If I go with the server/8-bay solution, the idea would be to add drives until I hit a total of 8, and then start replacing small drives, all the while the array dynamically resizes (and, most importantly, Windows can handle this).
As an absolute worst-case scenario, if you, who are orders of magnitude smarter than me on this, suggest that I can boot FreeNAS/OpenSolaris/etc off of CF and get the functionality I want out of my server setup idea, except not with Windows, then I will entertain that idea, but I can't afford to spend three days at a shell prompt (poor man's Drobo wiki) and once the array is up it has to be completely hands off (no shell prompt action required every time I add or swap a disk, and no partitioning by hand).
Whose product fits?
Many thanks. I've been stuck to the web for three straight days obsessing over products and I've been back and forth so many times, I literally can no longer see straight.
ETA one final note, I saw some rumblings of 2050GB partition size issues with WHS in my readings tonight, and I'm not sure it applies here, but whatever solution I go with, I need it to present the entire available space to clients as one single large drive.
Anyone using FlexRAID?
All of the systems can be had for under $400 from either amazon or newegg, so let's set my budget there. I'm not compeltely sure that I need all of the features of either system (right now I just need big storage with a meager safeguard, and I need it now). Instead of buying yet another disk to hang off of a PC or put in a USB enclosure, I'd like to finally get a box for the corner where I can put years' worth of files and have it be readily accessible.
I don't need all the fancy web, streaming, phone, ftp, etc stuff, but I think I am going to have to pay for it because all of the vendors who offer what I want offer all the jazz to go along with it.
Of paramount importance to me is the ability to dynamically resize a single volume by adding and removing different disks from different vendors of different size. If I have to add two identical disks at a time, I can probably get over that. The idea is the old Drobo marketing line of adding storage when I can *afford* it.
I've watched some Drobo videos (that is actually still on my list, see below) and *that* functionality is exactly what I want. I don't want to kludge together a ZFS server from parts, I was a network engineer in a former life and I'm well past the tinker stage. I'm looking for as near a turn-key system as I can get. I haven't touched unix since Solaris 10 and IRIX 6.5 and I don't have the time or the desire to get smart on anything new at this point in my life. All systems in the house are WinXP and Win7.
I have a small server that currently houses a couple of largish disks, and I turn that server on when I need access to said disks. Its a small thing, low power consumption, and I don't think I'd mind keeping it on all the time, which leads me to...
For not a lot of money I can get the old Drobo 2 (nearing the end of its life, problematic unless I can be assured that it will support 4/5/6/10TB disks in a few years) and hang it off a firewire (better) or USB port on the server. This seems like an ideal solution, except: there are more Drobo horror stories online than any other vendor I've researched, the interface is slow (for now, fine, but later on I'll need something faster), and the product will likely no longer be supported by the manufacture, and soon.
So for similar money I can get an Adaptec RAID controller ($200) and 8-bay external enclosure with hot-sway bays ($200, twice the storage space of any solution I've looked at so far) and just hang that whole setup off my server. Only problem is that, while Adaptec supports dynamic online pool sizing, I'm not sure my OS (Windows 7 Pro at the moment) does. Can anyone advise on this point, as it is one of my primary hang-ups right now... And I really can't get comfortable with the idea of using a third-party solution to resize the partition on the fly, we all know how problematic Windows is and the whole point of this is to use RAID to secure the data (yes I back up). I want to keep wildcards and variables to a minimum.
As an aside, does the Synology hybrid RAID allow for essentially effortless array sizing, ie, power the box down, throw in a new drive (or does it have to be two...), power it back up, and the array builds? Or is it like the QNAP box where I have to follow a twenty step process (I've read through the process a few times at QNAP's website and it really requires a lot more of my interaction than I'm really willing to do at this point)?
I'll pitch a final scenario and you can (please) chime in with what solution you feel is best, and this can either be a NAS device or an external drive cage attached to my server:
I put a 250gb, a 320gb, a 1tb, and a 2tb disk into said array. Array builds as I sleep. Wake up to whatever storage amount it decides I can get while still maintaining data redundancy supporting one disk failure (RAID5). UPS man drops off one 3tb disk, I replace the 250gb disk, array rebuilds. UPS man drops off another 3tb disk, array rebuilds. In a year, I reaplce the 1tb disk with a 5tb disk (after a firmware update, I assume, and I doubt the ancient Drobo model I am looking at will support that, but I know my server will) and the array rebuilds. Etc etc etc. If I go with the server/8-bay solution, the idea would be to add drives until I hit a total of 8, and then start replacing small drives, all the while the array dynamically resizes (and, most importantly, Windows can handle this).
As an absolute worst-case scenario, if you, who are orders of magnitude smarter than me on this, suggest that I can boot FreeNAS/OpenSolaris/etc off of CF and get the functionality I want out of my server setup idea, except not with Windows, then I will entertain that idea, but I can't afford to spend three days at a shell prompt (poor man's Drobo wiki) and once the array is up it has to be completely hands off (no shell prompt action required every time I add or swap a disk, and no partitioning by hand).
Whose product fits?
Many thanks. I've been stuck to the web for three straight days obsessing over products and I've been back and forth so many times, I literally can no longer see straight.
ETA one final note, I saw some rumblings of 2050GB partition size issues with WHS in my readings tonight, and I'm not sure it applies here, but whatever solution I go with, I need it to present the entire available space to clients as one single large drive.
Anyone using FlexRAID?
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