NAS - Network attached storage and media server?

[VladTepes]

Been looking around and the Synology 413j seems perhaps the best option.(and value for money)

(read does the job well and good user interface easy to set up and use).

Interested in people's views and experience if they have a set up liek this or similar.

Was also looking at the Synology DS411 and the QNAP TS400 series.


Basically looking to keep all my music, photos, movies, documents etc in one place in a RAID system to prevent (or at least largely reduce the chances of) loss.

Then of course I'd need to get some 2.5" hard drives for it - any tips on brands which are good and ones to avoid?

(Not sure yet how much overall storage I will need for the moment and foreseeable future) but it will be WELL BELOW the potential 4 x 3TB possible with the 413j.

[Aussie]

I've been running a qnap for about 5 years, I use it to stream movies to ipad, plus a heap of other uses, great unit, has raid also which is good for redundancy, I have 2x 2tb but as I run raid 1 I lose half so 2tb max

[disco gazza]

Hi aussie,
What model qnap did you buy as I've heard that some of there models aren't that reliable.

cheers

[Eevo]

ive got a qnap 412

i wouldnt buy one again

[VladTepes]

I'm hearing good things about the Synology ones thus my research is directed that way.

Looking for best place (read cheapest) to buy one and quality hdd's to suit.

[County Steve]

Hi,

The Synology units are excellent. To date they have been very generous with the software updates so they will stay current longer than many other appliance type devices. We are currently using western digital drives in them and they are proving very reliable.

Steve

[Aussie]

QNAP 209 PRO2 hasn't missed a beat in 5 years

[MacMan]

Vlad, you may have joined the dots between here and a comment on another site, but having been badly burnt by the Netgear ReadyNAS experiences, I went the other way with open source.

My first experiment was with an old Pentium 4 PC running Freenas in Raid 1 config over two drives. It ran for months without trouble so I decided to go that way for keeps. I've since purchased two HP N40L Proliant Microservers and have one running Freenas and the other Nas4Free. Both have been excellent. Other than ironing out permissions issues stemming from multiple user accounts sharing the same data we've enjoyed a trouble free run with them. It would take a lot of convincing to get me back to running a proprietary NAS system. One thing to look out for is the ability to get access to the data on the drives should your proprietary hardware - whatever you choose - fail. The limitation with Netgear's product was the EXT3+ file system combined with the fact that the OS lives on the drives containing your data. With the Freenas/Nas4Free solution, just about any Intel box can resurrect your array within an hour. The OS lives on a USB stick. If there is any hint of trouble, the drives are safe. The ReadyNAS formatted started formatting a drive as a response to the other going offline after succumbing to the Seagate 7200.11 firmware brick-a-thon problem a few years back. It also corrupted the array on another occasion when something went wrong with the enclosure. I can't vouch for anything Qnap or Synology produce these days because until something changes, I'm out of the market.

[VladTepes]

Ta.

I did look at one stage about building a machine running windows Server, with the appropriate drives etc and it cam in well above the cost of the Synology solution I mentioned. Then again, maybe I over-specced the machine I really don't know.

What appeals to me about the Synology (and what it needs as I and to an even greater extent my fiance) are the supposed:
- ease of set up &
- ease of use / good GUI. (essential for the media streaming it would be used for)

All the internet reviews I've read appear favourable.

I've not heard any Synology 'downsides' though if there are any I'd like to know.

[shorty943]

I'm running a Seagate BlackArmour NAS system, 2 X 2TB discs in raid.
Absolutely rock solid with good software and support from Seagate.
All work is done via web browser login and the drives map as an extra drive in Win operating systems as native disks available via normal windows file browser as well.

[VladTepes]

shorty is that something that has to plug in to a computer on the network as it would be a PITA as I use a laptop which moves around the house....
Also does it do media streaming?

[VladTepes]

Edit: never mind - I bought the Synology 413j and 3 x 3tb WD Red hard drives. Total $833. Pretty happy with that. :D

[Ranga]

IMHO, RAID is a redundancy solution, not backup. Good to keep critical servers running, but not a total solution should it be compromised through virus, theft, catastrophic failure of all drives (lack of surge protection, fire etc).

Also, in the wrong hands, can be difficult to manage in the event of drive failure.

Remember, critical and irreplaceable files still need physical duplication stored offsite or even fireproof safe.

You're current Dell server would work fine provided you have a feasible backup strategy, and can fit enough storage space in it.

[VladTepes]

Cheers Ranga see above.

The Dell is proving problematic with the multi boot system and power draw and continual disconnections from the network etc cetera et cetera et cetera....
I'm over it.

Anyway you can tell me how to get the movies from the Dell to the new thingy when I get it (should be Thu night)

Cheers mate

[Eevo]

IMHO, RAID is a redundancy solution, not backup.

+1

RAID is not a backup.

[VladTepes]

Apparently the synology thingy has a utility which helps backup to external HDD's. While the external HDD's I have are much smaller at least I'll be able to back up the really important things like documents and photographs, and a fair chunk of the music collection.

[Ranga]

I have a HP N40L microserver as mentioned above for both server and HTPC. Uses about 30W IIRC and can fit 4 drives as standard. This would be my preference, with either Windows, Linux or FreeNas - anything non-proprietary.

Regardless, moving the files over would be easy, so long as you have room on your new NAS.

[VladTepes]

Yeah gonna have a total of 6TB available (9 TB in RAID5) so thats not a problem !

[shorty943]

shorty is that something that has to plug in to a computer on the network as it would be a PITA as I use a laptop which moves around the house....
Also does it do media streaming?


Vlad it connects to the network itself, I use an 8 port surecom 10\100 hub, makes the NAS available to all machines in the house. (Mine, the wifes, our IBM server, my music studio PC etc, plus a spare macine)

Never tried to stream media from it, our IBM machine does that (genuine IBM Xseries server twin dual core xeon CPU's LOTS of raided scsi drives etc), or any of the other PC's we have can do that too.