Thread: NAS - Network attached storage and media server?

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

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

cheers

ive got a qnap 412

i wouldnt buy one again

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.

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

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

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.

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.