(Part 2) Best network attached storage products according to redditors
We found 991 Reddit comments discussing the best network attached storage products. We ranked the 318 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the products ranked 21-40. You can also go back to the previous section.
Synology DS214play with WD red hdd.
I'll take a crack at this.
Based on the limited financial resources available, and a boss who seems unwilling to spend the proper amount of money to fix this the right way, here is what I would recommend as a bare minimum solution to tackle this challenge.
I fully acknowledge that there are better ways to solve this problem. But in the absence of logic on the part of an unreasonable boss...
To accomplish this task with some possibility of success, both software and hardware is needed.
Software - Adobe Creative Cloud Photography Package
This subscription will give you access to Adobe Bridge, a digital asset management software that will catalog all of your tif files. Bridge supports other photo formats as well. Bridge will help manage the data once it is stored properly on network storage.
Hardware - Synology DS2415+
tldr; Buy a Synology 2415+, a USB 3.0 Hard Drive Dock. Create an SHR-2 volume on your existing drives, move data around, leverage Amazon Glacier (or whichever solution you prefer) for offsite backups. Problem solved
Amazon or B&H
A few things to look out for
Some Tips
Whew... That was a virtual mouthful. I hope some of my recommendations help. Good luck and godspeed.
If she has a few thousand to spend, then I would go with this Synology 12 bay NAS along with 12 WD Red 6TB HDDs. That brings the total to ~$4,638. If you configure all disks into a RAID 6 volume, you end up with a little over 54TB of storage. I would also strongly consider, eventually, looking into an offsite backup solution as well [remember...RAID is not a backup].
To get the most out of it, you might want to consider getting a managed switch (just L2 is fine) so you can configure the ports on the NAS in a LAGG. You'd also want to invest in a decent wireless AC router. If the iMac is close enough, you could also just connect to the network via Ethernet (or directly to the NAS).
> Cloud storage isn't reliable
Some services aren't reliable. How much data have you lost from S3?
As for your question, you'll want 4 bays minimum. If that's literally all you want, the most affordable option is probably this. If you want other stuff like Plex, you might want something else.
Just 250 GB of free space? This will give you a redundant TB.
$140 Synology DiskStation 2-Bay
$65 (x2) 1 TB Western Digital Red
Total: ~$270
If it's purely for backup, this might not matter as much, but like /u/comnam90 mentioned, I'd advise you to bump up to the $200 variant if you have the cash for better performance.
That would take the build up to ~$330
You don't know what you're doing, and while this is a great thing to do for yourself, you shouldn't be doing that to paying customers.
Here is a commercial device that comes with a warranty, works well, and is fairly simple to set up:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00SWEM4DW
yes, it's going to cost more than your home built unit, but it comes with a warranty, support beyond just you, tested hardware, and software to handle performing those backups. It also eliminates the need of a boot device.
There are other budget-oriented storage hardware providers too, and another thing you can do is call them up and ask them to help configure the cheapest option (for instance, an 8-bay unit with an expansion unit using more 6tb drives may be cheaper than a 12-bay using 8tb drives.)
That is not an ideal set-up.
Okay, first lets talk server:
The NVIDIA Shield besides having the ability to function as a PLEX Server, it can also utilize the GPU for transcoding, so that should cover you and your parents just fine. Also, Kodi won't be necessary as Plex can DirectPlay almost all files on the SHIELD, even 4K files.
One thing you have to keep in mind about PLEX is the metadata file; my library (800 Movies, and 120 TV Shows | 30TB Storage Array) produces a MetaData file of 13GB, so a normal NVIDIA Shield won't cut it if you want to expand. You have the ability to expand the storage with a fast SD card, but I'm not sure if the ability to store the metadata in the SD card has been implemented yet (you have to check), in that case, the best alternative is the Shield Pro.
If you have a beefy computer you could also host the Plex Server on your computer, but that depends on you. The important thing is hard-wiring whatever you decide to go with through Ethernet for the best upload speeds.
Now as for the SDR-->HDR ordeal, it's true that a 4K file on a normal computer without tone-mapping will look washed out, but that depends on your set. For example, using PotPlayer and an extension, 4K HDR can be played on your computer (through the file itself) and it maps the colors correctly.
But like I said, it depends on your TV. One of my TVs plays 4K HDR movies just fine, and the colors look even better than my HDR set.., I don't know how it's converting the colors, but then again I don't have a $2,000 HDR TV to compare to.
Lastly, we'll talk storage and affordability. Storage is cheap, but paying half a thousand dollars for 8TB is a waste of money. The EasyStore 8TB External HDD at BestBuy occasionally drops down to $159.99-179.99 with the best deal being the 159.99. It's important you purchase the NESN model as those contain the $300 WD Red Drives with 256MB Cache, and meant for NAS 24/7 use. This is done through "shucking" the drive (you need a Philips and a Torx screw set) which involves placing hard card/gift cards at certain points to remove the drive from the enclosure and placing it either in your current computer, or a dedicated NAS machine.
So here are the following Scenarios:
Only costs are Storage + Client
Pay for Drives+ Client/Server + NAS & Drives
If you want a small machine that's always on and consumes little power you can pair it with a NAS
Also, make a separate library for 4K files, and one for the 1080p/720P ones. Do a speed test on both your network and theirs; you need a good upload for high-quality files (4K files = 110 Mbps Upload bandwidth | 1080P Blu-Ray Remux = 40 Mbps upload bandwidth). They can transcode to lower bitrates fine, but this is just so you double-check everything.
8x 8TB WD Red in a Synology DS1817+
Are the WD ones any good? Still not cheap, but you'd think they would know how to make a quality product.
https://www.amazon.com/EX4100-Diskless-Network-Attached-Storage/dp/B00TB8XMR0/ref=sr_1_26?ie=UTF8&qid=1494012106&sr=8-26&keywords=western+digital+8tb
Uhh... what? If all you need is data storage, that is absolutely not true and your tech guy is very wrong. One of these: https://www.amazon.com/Synology-DS1817-8GB-Disk-Station/dp/B06Y4TJL54/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1494516096&sr=8-1&keywords=ds1817%2B plus 8 of these: https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=wd+red+8tb gives you 56TB usable space if you use SHR/RAID5: http://i.imgur.com/IHkq1gM.png, or if you want more uptime, SHR2/RAID6 will give you 48TB usable space: http://i.imgur.com/feAwNUU.png
Total estimated cost: approximately $3200 USD or 2944 Euros.
Whatever budget you have left over can be used for cloud storage of some sort - I don't have experience with storing that much data in the cloud.
The WD 8TB My Cloud is on sale for $299 on Amazon. The downside is that it's single drive so no redundancy. Hard to beat 8TB of network attached storage for $299 though:
https://www.amazon.com/Cloud-Personal-Network-Attached-Storage/dp/B01C7JIO5Y/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1486513705&sr=8-4&keywords=8tb+nas
Pelican SD Case for on-set.
A high quality SSD is probably a better idea for portable editing. Flash drives are usually pretty cheaply made (read up on SLC, MLC, and TLC flash storage). I personally have a laptop that has two HDD ports, and one has a 1TB Sandisk Extreme Pro on it for a portable work drive.
For NAS, I love my Synology DS1815+ with 8 x 4TB WD RED drives installed.
When I drive home from a job, a lot of times the footage I'm transporting is worth more than my mortgage to my client. It's important to do everything and anything to protect it.
Yea, turns out a gaming box with a RAID array uses electricity! Huh.
edit - I want this but I may have to settle for a DS411J. I have had a great experience with Synology at work and this way I can just plug it in and save all the parts sifting for my desktop replacement.
Sure. Here's what I could pull from my orders and searching around. This is most of my gear. Not really "homelab" stuff. Have a crap ton of ethernet running around the house.
As an IT guy I REALLY recommend you use something like Google drive. It's cheap or free for a few gigs and you can set it up to back up any directory you want on Mac or PC. Back up your stuff! Or invest in a NAS for your home, because it's attached to the network you can have your laptop, PC, etc, back up to it every time you connect to your home network.
NAS: Network Attached Storage. It's designed to be attached to a router or low profile PC that's constantly on. These drives are made to be powered on 24/7. The purpose is to have access to your storage over your home network or the internet.
I've always wanted a NAS but could never justify the expenditure for just myself but if I were going to get one I'd prob get this. https://www.amazon.com/Cloud-Personal-Network-Attached-Storage/dp/B01C7JIO5Y/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1506612938&sr=8-2&keywords=wd+mycloud.
Or I would get something like this https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01CSCGD58/ref=psdc_13896591011_t1_B01N6MDE01 as my router with PFsense and then hook up extra storage to make it a NAS.
Short answer: NO
There is no consumer nas product that will let you put disks in and use them as-is without reformatting if you do not want to go with the same vendor.
This would be a compatibility nightmare and no sane company would stake any reputation on safely running new stuff on any random filesystem plugged into it.
Also, why the hate for synology? Is there a vendor-specific reason that it failed like the atom clock bug? For consumer reliability it is probably synology out front for everyday normal workloads, second to qnap.
Now, if you really absolutely need to use those disks as-is and not buy a synology, you might be able to get one of the terramaster devices that run on debian, and then use command line to mount your old filesystem to plug something in and not wipe your disks.
This will probably be horribly unreliable or unwise and more work than it is worth.
https://www.amazon.com/TerraMaster-Transcoding-Network-Storage-Diskless/dp/B01M4IQ506/
I'd go for this + 2 of these. Do not have this set myself, I have an older Synology, but they are great.
> how would the NAS be connected to the server? Ethernet, eSata, magic?
The "NA" in "NAS" stands for "network-attached," and there's your answer: Ethernet. You can use nfs, smb, iscsi, or any other network storage protocol that matches your requirements. If you're not sure what you want to use, you need to first decide what you're trying to accomplish here—what exactly you're going to use this NAS for. That answer will then inform how you want to set up your shares.
>If I move all my media to a separate NAS enclosure, how is that handled? Do I need to have a cpu/mobo/mem in the NAS, or am I still able to use my server?
I run a plex server on a mac mini HTPC, and I keep my plex media library on a NAS in the other room. They're connected via gigabit ethernet and the server doesn't care; transcoding, streaming, and all other operations work normally. Transcoding is done using the HTPC's CPU.
Think about it this way: the only thing you're moving is the physical location of the media. The server's going to work the same way whether it has to get its media from a locally attached hard drive or a network share. The server don't care.
> are there NAS enclosures that can handle the number of drives I'm using, without getting into the crazy price range (crazy for me is over $400-500)?
Prebuilt NAS systems, like a synlogy or qnap? As a rough guide to consumer NAS pricing, you can estimate that you're going to pay around $100 per disk slot. 8 bays is going to cost you a bit under a grand. From there, they tend to jump to 12 bays and get pretty silly.
If your budget is $4-500 and you have a hard requirement to hold 9 disks, you're either consigning yourself to DIY or you're going to have to start hunting through ebay for used NAS gear. Or revise your requirements down to a 4- or 5-bay NAS.
Have you considered an OEM microserver and an external NAS?
HP Proliant ML10 v2 | Xeon E3-1220v3 - $394.99
Synology DiskStation 4-Bay (Diskless) Network Attached Storage DS416 - $449.99
>I would like not to spend more than 300$, and I this is what i hope to achieve:
I think you need to be realistic here. If you want a NAS, you need to be willing to spend a bit more cash. $300 isn't going to get you very far.
>With this requirements, you think this model will comply?
>http://www.amazon.co.uk/Synology-DS214se-DiskStation-Bay-Desktop/dp/B00FWURI8K/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1426422404&sr=8-2&keywords=synology+2+bay
You are aware that's an empty enclosure, yes? To stay under the $300 price mark, you're going to be stuck with 1 TB drives. For a RAID 1, that's 1 TB of usable disk. Just so you're aware.
>I also looked into DIY solutions (using HP microservers mainly) but I think I would end spending more money.
Well, you get what you pay for. Setting up a little mini ATX server with 4 drives with ZFS might cost you a bit more, but you may be more pleased with the performance and the redundancy, as well as the total control over the system. I know I would be.
Yes, using Github is perfectly viable. I'm just paranoid, since the files contain so much valuable information; and in the interest of full disclosure...
It's not just Carbonite, but also Windows File History to back up to a server (which is very nice btw), then also a Grandfather-Father-Son rotating backup scheme with Macrium Reflect (I'm a customer, not affiliated with the software in any way beyond that). Then my server is a FreeNas product (https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B00EQJ1BTU/ref=oh_aui_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1) which I have formatted in ZFS (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZFS); because ZFS is built like a tank in terms of redundant backup and has lower error rate than hardware failures (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZFS#Data_integrity). All of that is automatic so I can just set and forget it; while doing periodic checks to make sure the backups are working properly.
I hope that helps. One of the number one things I encounter when working with computer (CS undergrad, so I am family tech support) is a lack of backups. ;)
Netgear has already adopted BTRFS which is quite similar to ZFS.
They have not adopted ZFS due to licensing issues (Most NAS run on Linux and the GPL is incompatible with ZFS) but mainly the high hardware requirement for good performance (most these NAS have ARM/Marvel/FreeScale CPUs and 1GB or less RAM.)
There are some ZFS NAS boxes though:
http://www.amazon.com/FreeNAS-Mini-Network-Attached-Diskless/dp/B00EQJ1BTU
I bet that we will see many of the other prebuilt NAS boxes adopt BTRFS soon too.
How is this for a basic NAS?
https://smile.amazon.com/TS-431P-US-4-bay-Personal-Cortex-1-7GHzDual/dp/B01N2K147Q/ref=sr_1_3?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1511541478&sr=1-3&keywords=qnap+4+bay
>(Linux) Western Digital MyCloud Ex4 is no longer supported (Its ARMv5).
I almost bought one of those WDC MyCloud EX4 units.
First available on Amazon, February 2015. Their product page still on Amazon still touts Plex support. I don't care it supports ARM5. You knew that last year. I'm super glad I built my own server now instead of buying a low powered pre-canned setup like this. Bad risk for a long term investment.
I can see one if my colleagues saying that and forcing all the customers to either migrate, upgrade, or find another company.
Amazon link to product http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00TB8XMR0/
When it comes to storage, I'm a big western digital fan. If you're going for USB Specific and want to support more than one drive, something like this may be good:
https://www.amazon.com/Book-Desktop-External-Drive-WDBLWE0040JCH-NESN/dp/B00KU68A1A
You can swap out the drives and it supports a couple of different RAID configurations so that you can configure it for either speed, or mirroring the drives for data consistency or something else.
You're not going to be able to get anything really portable that supports a RAID configuration that allows you to just ADD drive space (RAID 5, for example) because they typically require at least 3 drives to handle striping and such.
IF you wanted to configure a Network Attached Storage device (NAS), you may be looking at a little more cash, and the device itself will be larger, but it can be accessed via a network (or even the internet if you configure it that way) so that you can access it from anywhere.
https://www.amazon.com/EX4100-Diskless-Network-Attached-Storage/dp/B00TB8XMR0
These typically also support different RAID configurations that may actually allow you to just add drives at your leisure.
If you seriously just want something to drop some music or pictures or something like that on, you can get a fairly inexpensive solution and just upgrade that solution at a later date if you wish to do so. https://www.amazon.com/Passport-Essential-Portable-External-Pacific/dp/B0041OSAZI
Good luck, hope that helps.
Synology Disk Station 2-Bay Diskless Network Attached Storage (DS216se) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B014SKVQR8/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_qyOFxbTYA6WA5
I'd use this with hard wired cameras. This NVR will offer expandability and it's a wonderful product.
It's a LaCie Rugged 1 TB. I use it to backup my photos on my laptop. Everything gets backed up to a Synology DS412+.
Depends on your budget and what kind of reliability you're looking for. If you want drives that are 4TB or bigger, there's no cheap options for reliable drives. Your best bet for SATA will probably be WD Datacenter Re or Se drives.
If you don't already have a server machine with a hefty RAID controller that supports at least 8 drives, I'd recommend getting a Synology.
A 12 Bay Synology and 12 of These setup in a RAID 6 should do you well. That will give you a tolerance of 2 failing drives and 60TB of data.
You are looking at something like this:
https://www.amazon.com/Synology-DS1815-Station-Network-Attached/dp/B00P3RPMEO/ref=sr_1_1?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1495907881&sr=1-1&keywords=nas&refinements=p_n_feature_keywords_two_browse-bin%3A6792682011
with 8 of these :
https://www.amazon.com/Red-3TB-Hard-Disk-Drive/dp/B00LO3KR96/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1495907648&sr=8-2&keywords=wd%2Bred&th=1
that's 48Tb , 24 mirrored. And there are expansion modules if you want to expand later.
https://www.amazon.com/Synology-Expansion-Increasing-Capacity-DX513/dp/B009EMFXGG/ref=sr_1_1?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1495908341&sr=1-1&keywords=Synology+DX513
it has apps that you can use to mirror to cloud storage as well.
user friendly.
I just have a Synology DS212j. Threw a 2TB harddrive in there and configured everything through the software on the NAS itself. In retrospect, I'd probably go for the DS214Play model because the CPU is better and could probably run Plex pretty well. Mine can't handle Plex, but that's ok because it supports DLNA without it.
Check this out re: RAIDZ1:
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/storage/why-raid-5-stops-working-in-2009/162
And you may also want to look into getting an ixsystems box. They design/stress test specifically for Freenas deploys, and their homelab/mini version may fit your budget perfectly. I don't know anything about Canada dollars though. Here's an amazon link:
http://www.amazon.com/FreeNAS-Mini-Network-Attached-Diskless/dp/B00EQJ1BTU/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1413903675&sr=8-2&keywords=ixsystems+mini
All you need is one program built-in in every Linux since 1980s. It's called rsync.
This will fulfill all your needs when it comes to backing up files.
Although you probably will need to pick up some basic scripting skills. After all databases are not exactly files. You need to run a tool like mysqldump/pqdump to get a specific database in a file form and only push that to your backup server.
Same with recovery process - you likely need to stop your database from running for the time being and it's definitely not an automated process... Which brings me to an important point - untested backups might as well not exist. So I suggest setting up an extra database engine on your backup server and checking (preferably via an automated script) if recovering database from such a file is actually possible every few days. Finding out that you have a backup but have no idea what to do with it (or even worse - actually finding out it's broken/incomplete) when you really need it is A VERY bad thing to happen.
Basic setup is as follows:
Specs needed for a backup rig are not that big. If you already have 700GB of files then I personally would go for 4x 2TB drives in Raid 10. This will give you 4TB usable space and decent redundancy (1 drive can die without causing any harm to your data). But that's the only real cost (and you can chop that in half if you are fine with only 2TB that you get via Raid 1 of 2x2TB). Save for that you can just throw any Celeron G for $40, add a 4GB RAM stick, B150 motherboard, like 300W Seasonic PSU and you are done. Just avoid Raid 5 completely, it doesn't work past 2TB drives.
This is of course if you want to actually build your own machine. NASes are a thing too. This will give you better UI, easier set up, shitloads of backup tools and a lower TDP. In exchange it costs more however, an okay 4 drive Synology NAS (such as this one) costs much more than a desktop. But hey, convencience costs.
You can also set up your own NAS using Linux. This results in a network drive visible from your computer. I have personally gone with such an approach, it's good enough for my needs with some automation. Problem is that having a directory directly visible means that it's also a bit TOO easy to access it (compared to rsync which will require an ssh connection). Aka - if you get hit by ransomware then it very likely will reach your network share too.
Heck, they're on Amazon.
If this is the case, then go with a cheap model. I have a TS-451+ and just got a second one, but went with a TS-431P. It was half the price, but it works just as well for the purposes of serving as the storage for a different media server. https://www.amazon.com/TS-431P-US-4-bay-Personal-Cortex-1-7GHzDual/dp/B01N2K147Q/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1492794367&sr=8-1&keywords=ts-431p
I did a double blind test and the results in perceived quality from items coming off both boxes was the exact same.
I have no experience with Synology, but my experiences with QNAP have been great. Their tech support team generally gets back to me within 24 hours of an issue (and, as a *nix newbie, I have plenty of them).
On Synology, using PhotoStation, you can tag: Location, People, and generic tags. So, outside of the location and people in that photo, you can tag specific qualities of the photo (landscape, car, dog, animal, black and white, birthday, etc etc)
You also have the option to share the photo or add the photo to a shared album so you can share multiple photos at once.
At the top of the linked page, you can click a link for a live demo of DiskStation Manager, of which PhotoStation is a part of. And you can explore it on your own. They don't give you a username and password, but I was automatically logged in after I waited a short while. Once logged in, click the set of four squares in the upper left and select PhotoStation. Play around with it and see if that's what you want.
Keep in mind the the 2-bay Synology's don't come with hard drives, so that'll be a separate expense:
I linked to a WD Red HDD because those are rated and designed for use in NAS systems, it's a drive I'm familiar with, and a brand I trust. But, in the end, you can go with whatever drive you want. For what it's worth, the 2TB Seagate IronWolf, another HDD made for NAS systems, is only $79USD, bringing the subtotal down to $308USD.
I'm going to assume you have minimal knowledge of NAS systems so I'll add some additional info. You also may need more than 2TB drives, depending on how you set up the volume, RAID1 or RAID0, you'll have 2TB and 4TB of space respectively. I’m not saying you’ll need 3 drives but if 2TB or 4TB isn’t enough space, you’ll n Ed to purchase larger drives. But, that should be plenty of space.
RAID1 will mirror the drives, so all the data is both drives. So if one drive fails, all the data is still available. Just put in another 2TB drive and the system will copy the data over to the new drive. RAID1 has redundancy and you're protected against a drive failure.
RAID0 will combine the drive space. So, two 2TB drives is now 4TB of space. However, if one of those drives fails, you lose all the data. RAID0 is particularly useful for speed, and for program scratch discs. I would never keep important stuff, like photos of my family and vacations, on a RAID0 NAS system.
Of course, RAID is not a backup. Just because there is redundancy doesn't mean your data is safe. I'm not sure if it's the same in Canada but if you have Amazon Prime, you can back up all your photos to Amazons Cloud Drive. Depending on how/where PhotoStation stores your photos, you may be able to set up a backup task to copy the photos on the NAS to Amazon Cloud for you. That way, should the RAID1 array fail, and you need to replace both drives, your photos are still secure & safe and you'll be able to download them off Amazon.
Probably $200-$350 for decent NAS hardware and another $200-$300 for HDDs
2TB HDDs are about $50, or $70 for WDD blues.
NAS hardware:
WD My Cloud EX4100 Diskless Expert Series 4-Bay Network Attached Storage - NAS - WDBWZE0000NBK-NESN https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00TB8XMR0/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_W4wyyb4NPJDKP
2TB HDD, $72ea:
WD Blue 2TB Desktop Hard Disk Drive - 5400 RPM SATA 6 Gb/s 64MB Cache 3.5 Inch - WD20EZRZ https://www.amazon.com/dp/B013QFRS2S/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_Z-wyyb10ME7NY
You could also opt for the ultrastar refurbished drives, at about $69 for 3tb each, people have good luck with them as Hitachi (HGST) drives are crazy reliable for data centers.
Also if you're really savy you could build your own NAS for not to much - YouTube has plenty of tutorials.
While we're talking cameras.
Make sure whatever system you have conforms to industry standards (Onvif) and you have plenty of storage. My local regulations require 30 days of storage.
Sitewide we have 64 cameras. We use 2 LTS NVR's. Since our campus is split between 2 buildings, 2 lots, with only a single gig ethernet running between them, I kept a lot of the traffic off that one link by having an NVR in each building.
We could have just grabbed a bunch of hard drives and shoved them in the NVR's, but I opted to go with a QNAP 4 bay NAS unit for each building. I export the drive space as an ISCSI mount to the NVR. Works very nice. It also gives me fault tolerance and hot swap, so if any of my drives fail, my monitoring stays up.
Whatever you do, do not go to costco to buy a Q-See, Lorex, etc. These are absolute trash.
I'd also suggest a QNAP. I feel that QNAP generally has better hardware, where Synology has the software advantage.
QTS (QNAP's UI) has gotten pretty good, and closed a lot of the gap between them Synology.
You might consider something like this. It will do media transcoding and can also function as a media player (via HDMI out). You can use some of your budget to supplement the RAM and add storage.
Consider getting yourself a NAS (Network Attached Storage).
Yes, you can probably come up with some frankenstein setup with your two individual drives being exported to your home network via NFS in Linux, but honestly, I highly recommend a dedicated NAS device. It makes things ridiculously simple and painless. Plus get a 2+ bay device and you've got RAID options that are literally as simple a selecting RAID type from a dropdown box and hitting "apply."
I recently purchased https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B01M4IQ506 and after the experience of getting everything I wanted out of a NAS in under an hour (including Kodi streaming via Raspberry Pi 3) with no bullshit, no configuration problems, no errors, etc., I'll never go back. The monetary investment was absolutely worth the time saved. I too had disparate external drives and considered the export option. Between family and work, I like to spend all of my free time gaming. I was afraid that even if I got it working, performance might be degraded by being exported from my computer. Didn't wanna waste the time to find out. I can confirm 100% though that the NAS I linked streams 1080p to Kodi on a Raspberry Pi 3 with no lag at all.
Synology
The Pi is also too weak for on the fly conversions. Everything will be direct play.
I used this as my first setup.
​
I recently upgraded to this:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01M4IQ506/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1
It has a built in Plex App. Not a bad low end Pro-sumer NAS.
https://www.synology.com/en-us/products/DS218+#specs
https://www.synology.com/en-us/products/DS216+II#specs
the DS218 has a faster CPU and 2GB RAM (twice the DS216). If you want to use the Synology for Plex I would get the one with the best specs possible. In fact I would check Amazon occasionally for Amazon Warehouse deals or refurbs sold directly by Synology (they sell refurbs through amazon sometimes). For example $315 for a Amazon Warehouse Deal DS416, faster processor than the DS218 and you get 2 extra bays https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B016EWTC7E
This issue scares me a bit. And it does seem weird that there would be some kind of problem mixing specifically Synology's and Seagates as they seem to have partnered. Synology even mentions the IronWolfs specifically on the Amazon page of DS1815+
https://www.amazon.com/Synology-Station-Network-Attached-DS1815/dp/B00P3RPMEO
Is there a chance, in your opinion, that this is just due to a few faulty harddrives - which I guess is to be expected from all large productions of drives?
What you're looking for is called a NAS or Network Attached Storage. These can be as simple as plugging a external HDD with a SATA to USB cable into a USB port in your router, to buying a multi HDD enclosure, to a diy NAS with some parts you may have laying around.
I started out with a cheap 2hdd Dlink enclosure similar to the one above but I now have a diy 6-disk 16Tb home server running FreeNAS as the operating system.
Okay, but I was thinking of this drive. Will this work with a PS4? It is 2.5" but I'm not sure if it's height is a problem. I've looked everywhere but can't find anything, would you possibly help me out? This is the drive I'm speaking about just for reference! I’m just wondering because the OP of that guide mentioned in the comments that he bought a “slim” drive however it had the same model number as the one I am wanting to buy (STDR2000201). So this is why I’m wondering if it’s the same drive or not.
qnap <--this model is good for today and ready for tomorrow, you could find one cheaper if out of your budget. I have 3 of these and are great!
qnap encrypted file system
how to connect qnap to ldap
"Revit Server" is an application that sits on a Windows Server 2012 R2 system to help keep large Revit projects in sync with many designers working at the same time. From what I've read, this is a requirement to keep files synced between multiple designers if any designers are offsite. There appears to be some debate on Revit forums if it's a necessity/requirement for even local groups, if there's a large-number of designers on the same project/server.
The alternative is simply a central File Share that can sit on a NAS device. QNAP and Synology are my 2 goto pre-built brands for small work-group NAS. If the local network is fast enough (i.e. all designers on wired gigabit, not high latency or unreliable wifi), it looks like a central file share is enough for most small teams. Looks like this is the approach by most teams on the same site of less that 10 designers.
It's important to realize that just centralizing files in a Revit Server or a NAS are NOT backups. That's live files you are editing. You'll still want a backup solution. In it's simplest form, a large external USB for the offline backup of your NAS. A more elegant and automated solution would be a second small 2-bay (i.e. cheaper) NAS to backup to remotely. Or even automated Cloud backups if that's your thing.
Onto the parts detail help. If you are just looking for simple, centralized storage NAS: There are now pure SSD solutions. QNAP has the TBS-452A you can fill it with 4x 500GB or 4x 1TB SSDs, giving you 1.5TB or 3TB of RAID 5 storage on your network.
Here's the QNAP TBS-453A SSD NAS shopping list:
------------------------------------------------------------
... Storage Capacity Options ...
or
2nd NAS for Backup (Onsite or Offsite):
-------------------------------------
*Quick RAID Primer:
___
If you actually want a "Revit Server" full Windows Server 2012 R2 Application server, then you are looking at something with far more involved software setup and maintenance. You may want the help of a local freelance Windows Server Sysadmin to get it all configured and maintained. If you are looking for a parts-list for something like that, let me know.
A great friend of mine did, from Ultimate Personal Computers. /u/u_p_c -
I also have a Synology Diskstation under the tower https://www.amazon.com/Synology-Station-Network-Attached-DS1815/dp/B00P3RPMEO/ref=sr_1_6?s=pc&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1468523698&amp;sr=1-6&amp;keywords=synology
Filled with 8 of these. https://www.amazon.com/HGST-Deskstar-3-5-Inch-Internal-0S03664/dp/B00HHAJRU0/ref=sr_1_1?s=pc&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1468523724&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=HGST+4tb
https://www.amazon.com/QNAP-TS-431P-US-Personal-Cortex-1-7GHzDual/dp/B01N2K147Q
A 4tb hard drive is around $160, 3tb is $110. You will need more than 1 hard drive if you want any kind of redundancy for drive failure. You can get a synology(best brand if you dont want a rock solid platform with all the features) for around $150,+160 for the hard drive. If you are just using the drive for media, movies, music, things you can download again then raid is un needed. Backup your really important files in more than one location, possibly use a service like symform to keep your important files in the cloud.
Anything cheaper than a synology is not going to do everything, and be fast. You can get a buffalo or drobo for less money. But the synology is going to be much more reliable and well supported. If you had the time you can build a very cheap server with an OS like nas4free. It will probably consume more power and have some bugs you will have to work out, it makes more sense to do that when you want 5+ disks.
On the really cheap side you can get one of these integrated units, but dont expect it to do much besides copy files. http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00EVVGAC6
that exact model is on sale right now on amazon for $240
https://www.amazon.com/Synology-DS418j-4bay-NAS-DiskStation/dp/B074VB8DY7
Here are some links for the product in the above comment for different countries:
Amazon Smile Link: http://smile.amazon.com/dp/B008DWAGPG/
|Country|Link|Charity Links|
|:-----------|:------------|:------------|
|USA|smile.amazon.com|EFF|
|Spain|www.amazon.es||
|France|www.amazon.fr||
|Canada|www.amazon.ca||
|Italy|www.amazon.it||
|India|www.amazon.in||
To help donate money to charity, please have a look at this thread.
This bot is currently in testing so let me know what you think by voting (or commenting). The thread for feature requests can be found here.
If all you want is file streaming to more than one PC at once then the simplest/cheapest way would be to just get a NAS and plug it into your home router:
http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-Personal-Cloud-Storage/dp/B00439GMJ2
I'd probably look at a synology like this 1815+
http://www.amazon.com/Synology-Station-Network-Attached-DS1815/dp/B00P3RPMEO
It has 4 gigabit network ports, which you can bond together. Going 10gb likely won't help as im guessing the computers themselves don't have 10gb cards.
Id probably add 4GB of ram to it and look to set up a SSD cache drive.
if your budget is high enough, you could look to go entirely ssd, but i'm willing to bet you need too much storage space to justify that cost.
I'd likely go with 4 or 6 4TB drives in a RAID 10. (depending on your storage needs) as that will yield the best performance.
You could probably do all of this for a little over $2k. Using 6 x 4TB WD Red pro hard drives, an extra 4GB of ram, and a samsung SSD for caching.
I just got the qnap 251+ and love it. https://www.amazon.com/QNAP-TS-251-Personal-Quad-Core-Transcoding/dp/B015VNLEOQ
The best option for having network storage be backed up is to use a NAS device which is capable of mirrored RAID; with this solution, all data is stored on the device is written to two drives rather than one (unlike Time Machine in which your computers actively compute copies of each file to transfer).
Some examples of NAS enclosures capable of mirrored RAID are the Lenovo IX2, Synology Disk Station, and Buffalo LinkStation Pro. In all cases, you can choose two of any drive which conforms to your sizing needs.
Any further questions, don't hesitate!
If your computer can see it as a mounted drive, then Foobar can read it.
I use this plugged into my router to store media on my home network.
I am also considering this:
https://www.amazon.com/FreeNAS-Mini-Network-Attached-Diskless/dp/B00EQJ1BTU/ref=sr_1_1?s=pc&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1474235058&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=ixsystems
if anyone has thoughts on it
Jesus Christ. 4TB SSDs are like $1500 on Amazon right now.
I know this isn't the advice you want, but in today's world of multiple household devices, I am really enjoying having a reasonably small main hard drive and a NAS for everything else. You could have gotten this SSD for free for all I know, but if you did purchase this, you could have instead bought a 1TB NVMe drive for $480 which is at least 4x as fast as SATA SSDs and an 8TB NAS for $300.
Even the 2TB NVMe drives are going for $1,280 which leaves budget for that 8TB NAS.
For support and to unlock the APIs that a good backup application like Veeam would require.
Speaking of which, plan to use Veeam Essentials to back up to a Synology NAS. Do you have a branch office anywhere? If so, make that your off-site backup with Veeam. If not, use one of the cloud providers they support.
Veeam Essentials: http://www.veeam.com/smb-vmware-hyper-v-essentials.html
vSphere Essentials Kit: http://store.vmware.com/store/vmware/en_US/pd/ThemeID.2485600/productID.282883900
Here's the 2-bay NAS we typically get, with two 4TB WD Red drives: http://www.amazon.com/Synology-DiskStation-Diskless-Attached-DS214/dp/B00FY6DV3S/ref=sr_1_6?s=pc&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1416242136&amp;sr=1-6&amp;keywords=synology
If you need a 4-bay NAS, get this: http://www.amazon.com/Synology-DiskStation-Diskless-Attached-DS412/dp/B007JLE84C/ref=sr_1_3?s=pc&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1416242136&amp;sr=1-3&amp;keywords=synology
I'd recommend a basic Synology enclosure. You can get a one-bay (DS115j) for about $100, or a 2-bay (DS216se) for about $150.
Pop in a 3TB WD Red HDD and you're good to go. If you get the 2-bay unit, you can eventually add a 2nd HDD for additional space or redundancy.
You're looking for a NAS- network attached storage.
Often they can be more expensive than just a "crappy" desktop.
Or something like a Western Digital My Cloud.
WD 3TB My Cloud Personal Network Attached Storage - NAS - WDBCTL0030HWT-NESN
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00EVVGAC6/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_ZqI1BbTTV6XFF
sorry for the late response, but would this also be a solution?
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00EVVGAC6
i imagine i could just connect this directly to my router via ethernet and use the wd software to access the files rather than having to connect the my book via usb and access the router through asus software.
or is this the same difference? (basically either device works fine for my intended purpose)
thanks!
QNAP 2 bay NAS with no HDDs are right about $350. It should be able to handle a 1080p transcode, but I wouldn't count on it for more than 2 simultaneous transcodes.
https://www.amazon.com/QNAP-TS-251-Personal-Quad-Core-Transcoding/dp/B015VNLEOQ
If you need more power than that, you'll probably want to just build one, but that will be around $500.
I’ve been running openmediavault for a while now and I want to move to a commercial product in the near future.
I’m looking for a NAS in the same price range as you and keep coming back to the QNAP 431P because it is a 4bay device and the reviews are better than most.
QNAP TS-431P-US 4-Bay Personal Cloud NAS, ARM Cortex A15 1.7GHzDual Core, 1GB RAM https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N2K147Q/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_aGm7Cb3Q28SVW
Most people suggest going with synology or QNAP due to the OS but for $250-300 it’s hard to find a synology 4 bay device.
The 212 is a 2 bay NAS, not 4 bay. And it comes with a tiny CPU, so I wouldn't expect the performances to be impressive.
I'm Canadian, but I haven't shopped for NAS for a while now.
Just looking on Amazon.ca, I find stuff for cheaper :
A Sinology for $216, a Buffalo for $140 and a Startech for $110. No idea how the specs compare, but it seems the Netgear is priced quite high.
A NAS is great for editing photos. If it doesn't work well for her, she can edit on her device and then ship tot he NAS once complete. As others have stated, 3-2-1 is the proper mantra. I personally wouldn't both with cloud at those volume sizes. You should really have 3 copies of this data, but your costs may prohibit that. If that is the case, the best we will do is 2-1. 2 copies with 1 offsite.
Having said that, your best bet is in my opinion is 2 NAS devices syncing with eachother. The offsite NAS will be ready to go if anything happens to the primary so that she isn't down from her business for weeks if you have problems (RAID controller fails? CPU dies? Fire? etc.).
An 8TB hard drive is about $400. A 4 bay enclosure is about $400. A 6-8 bay is more.
If you do a RAID 6 (lets you have 2 drives fail before losing data), you'll need 5 of those for 24TB of storage. That's about $5500 that allows you to have 4 of 10 drives fail before she actually loses any data.
I think that if I were in the same spot, I would think about alternatives to save money. As others have stated, a RAID 5 has a much harder time rebuilding and a second drive can fail while trying to rebuild. Perhaps you would want to run without any RAID protection because you have an offsite to switch to when one of your drives dies. Perhaps you would be OK with less storage. Perhaps a combination of the two.
I would probably start with buying 2 of these: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B016EWTC7E/ref=psdc_13436301_t1_B019ZUR5WQ
And 8 of these: https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?item=N82E16822236737
That's about $2800 total cost. I would then configure for a sync between them and store the other in a different area. Preferably a different county so that an earthquake or flood or fire destroying her place one wouldn't take out the other.
Okay, that sounds like it will do. I knew it had Plex support, I was just explaining why I wanted the extra 1.8 TB beyond my actual storage capacity. I'll probably set up Transmission like you have or see about another client that also has a web interface, preferably also with RSS support.
If it doesn't support Linux out of the box (say, because they don't have ext4 support) it's probably fairly simple to just set up an rsync cron job. Or, if your statement is correct, just install e2fsprogs from the debian repos. I admit I have little experience with Debian but I've used Ubuntu and Mint extensively in the past (but am now running Arch) so I'm sure I could figure it out.
Something I forgot to mention earlier: This is the particular model I am planning on getting, in the 6TB version. Is that all on a single drive? If so, is there any real benefit in paying over $100 more for the redundancy of the second drive, since this isn't meant to be the master copy of my data anyway?
EDIT: I found a "recertified" version that's got a cool $50 discount. I'm guessing that's their term for refurbished? Also annoyingly under the specifications tab it mentions it's formatted ntfs, which will be troubling for preserving permissions, though I suppose I could get around it with tar or potentially try to reformat it as FAT32 or ext4. In the manual it does mention it supports ext4 over usb, meaning it'll probably be able to at least read from my system by default, but it would be nice to be able to reformat it so permissions are preserved.
Synology 4 bay NAS DiskStation DS418j (Diskless) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B074VB8DY7/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_uSJzCbKE17S3C
I was looking at this one, but it seems to be designed with surveillance cameras in mind. I'm on the fence about it because of that.
Too late to return? I only ask because amazon sells them for $280ish new..
https://www.amazon.com/QNAP-TS-251-Personal-Quad-Core-Transcoding/dp/B015VNLEOQ
You are the one asking for solutions. I honestly think you are making too much heat if you are consuming 350 watts for your SAN and what looks like two servers plus the UPS.
Consumer grade UPS units also have replaceable batteries, but it sounds like your mind is made up on that. No problem.
A 12 bay synology with optional expansion unit can support 240TB of space. That should be enough to last you for a year or maybe two..... haha
Unit:
https://www.amazon.com/Synology-Station-Network-Attached-DS2415/dp/B00SWEM4DW/ref=pd_sim_147_1?_encoding=UTF8&amp;pd_rd_i=B00SWEM4DW&amp;pd_rd_r=82Q1XT3SWR3XHNBA3RE0&amp;pd_rd_w=Abcab&amp;pd_rd_wg=jqDSi&amp;psc=1&amp;refRID=82Q1XT3SWR3XHNBA3RE0
They also have rack mount units if that is more your style. Rack mount gear is less flexible though if you decide your rack needs to go or you want to resell your devices. Non rack mount Synologies hold their value better than nearly any IT gear I have ever seen.
Expansion Unit:
https://www.amazon.com/Synology-Station-12-Bay-Expansion-DX1215/dp/B00QMVGBNQ/ref=sr_1_17?s=pc&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1491247179&amp;sr=1-17&amp;keywords=synology
These draw between 37 and 75 watts of power depending on utilization.
You could then run several Intel NUC 6th gen I3 ESXi servers with 32 gigs RAM each. (NUCs are my current love interest for home lab ESXi hosts. They are small and silent workhorses.)
These draw 10 - 45 watts of power each.
So lets say you sell what you have and do this. What would be the power consumption and heat dissipation difference?
You are currently burning 350 watts. (I assume that is near idle power draw.)
With 2 NUCs and 1 Synology, you would be burning less than 100 watts 95% of the time. That is a huge difference in BTU of heat to dissipate, plus you would have less noise. I guarantee that.
Also, the synology has the ability to run a plex server as an app among other app running abilities. This 'could' get you additional flexibility if you used them instead of VMs in some cases and could allow you to use less VM resources should you decide to do so.
In addition to these suggestions, I would purchase enough RAM for your current or future setup to be able to shut down one or multiple hosts when not active in your lab. You could do wake on LAN to easily crank them up as needed where needed during lab testing workloads.
If I was needed to get a NUC, would it make just as much sense to upgrarde to something like this? https://www.amazon.ca/WD-Expert-Diskless-Processor-WDBWZE0000NBK-NESN/dp/B00TB8XMR0/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1491416378&amp;sr=8-2&amp;keywords=wd+nas My goal is to have another PC just for this, but for now thats not an option.
> first, the way you described what you want to do with rsync sounds like mirroring would functionally be the same. Can you elaborate on why you think otherwise?
Mirroring is not backup. It does not protect against file deletion, overwriting, data corruption, etc.
If you are this familiar with ZFS then my assumption is that you work in the industry. I urge you to please take this to heart for the sake of your employer, its clients, and your career: Mirroring is not backup.
> Second, just a thought, what are all the disks you want to use? There are other ways to configure ZFS in addition to the varying disk size which may work for you.
At the moment, I have a 3TB and a 2TB drive, to be upgraded when cost is reasonable. My first purchase will probably be a 4TB drive to replace the 2TB drive.
> Third, so give me some ballpark of RAM you thought you needed for ZFS? is 4GB or 8GB unreasonable for you?
That is about exactly as much RAM as I expected to need for ZFS. 4GB might get me by for now, but that's still two to three times the cost of RAM for a cheaper solution. Most Atom motherboards will not support more than 4GB of RAM, though, so there would be no upgrade path.
> My home FreeNAS system (running ZFS) runs on an E3-1200 (IIRC), and it's dead silent, and it's a microATX mobo (and I'm sure you can get smaller for E3's/i3's. I would recommend along these lines.
I'm looking at Atom or ARM based solutions. The scale is completely different, but you'd expect that I could get something smaller for what I'm after.
> What mini-ITX cases are you seeing that are just not good enough? Mind linking me please?
Everything I find that supports at least two 3.5" bays is like
http://www.amazon.com/Silverstone-Tek-Micro-ATX-Mini-ITX-SG09B/dp/B009WXB2TE/
because it is designed to accommodate other parts typical to a general use PC rather than a dedicated NAS. Of course, these are typically $100 or more because they are marketed toward enthusiasts.
What I'm after is closer to
http://www.amazon.com/Synology-DiskStation-Diskless-Attached-DS214play/dp/B00FWUQNDQ/
Of course it would be a bit bigger because micro-ITX motherboards have a minimum size, but it need not be twice as large in every dimension.
>Also, ZFS is really not that expensive even for a home storage system, so I'm not exactly sure yet why you have a different impression. Mind elaborating if you can?
Disregarding disks and case size, I can build a perfectly reasonable home NAS with an Atom SoC board, cheap case, and minimal amount of RAM for $100 to $150. It will draw 10 to 15 watts of power at peak.
Solutions that cost a multiple of that and draw many times the power are not really in the same ball game. I'd be happy to build one of those big systems for work if there was a need for it, but this is something to go in my house to dump files on.
Exactly.
How do you like the DS1815+? Have you tried streaming high bit-rate 1080p or 4K video? I had my eye on DS1817+.
Ah, there was such an era?? Wow, I'm happy my dad bought me a pre-built Pentium 200mhz MMX.
Based on user experience, that Pentium was faster than my Synology, but Passmark suggests that the Synology can almost beat my NUC6CAYH NUC and my Q6600.
Since then I just built I think 2 PC's using best-buy guides.
Something like qnap, drobo, or another NAS.
Dynamic disks have gotten a lot better, haha. If you are going with the case you own, There are some internal enclosures that can hold 5 3.25 in drives per 5 in bay. Like this. With the benefit of being hot swappable. If you don't care wether or not things are hot swappable, you can go cheaper and get better air flow.
You can also get a box case like this which has the bays built in and just fit it with a good motherboard, processor, maybe an HBA and maybe a NIC. Honestly, with current parts, you should be able to saturate 1 gigabit drop. Since we are dealing with pictures and videos, I'm thinking you'll be reading and writing sequentially for the most part which maximizes your read/write speeds.
Take a quick look at this before you buy your drives, that way you have the option to balance price with storage. 10TB drives usually cost more than what you get, especially since the 12TB drives are cheaper per gig right now. If you don't want to pay that much for a drive, you can go with one of the cheaper 8TB or shuck for an even lower price with a bit more effort on your part.
As for pre-built appliances, you can go with something like this or this both can saturate your network and give you the storage you desire.
Edit: My first gold, thank you!!
Well do you want premade or diy
Also if you have a single drive, the checksumming won't help you. It will only tell you if its corrupted, it can't fit anything.
Premade, btrfs is rare, but this is what id get https://www.amazon.com/Synology-Station-Diskless-Attached-DS216se/dp/B014SKVQR8/ref=sr_1_4?s=electronics&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1481059736&amp;sr=1-4&amp;keywords=synology+2+bay
For diy Here is what id get. Id personally run fedora server as its very new, and btrfs has changed a lot in the las 3-4 years, unlike xfs and most other filesystems.
PCPartPicker part list: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/RDynyf
Price breakdown by merchant: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/RDynyf/by_merchant/
CPU: AMD 2650 1.45GHz Dual-Core Processor ($27.88 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: ASRock AM1B-ITX Mini ITX AM1 Motherboard ($34.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Memory: Crucial Ballistix 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1866 Memory ($33.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Seagate Pipeline HD 2TB 3.5" 5900RPM Internal Hard Drive ($54.95 @ Amazon)
Storage: Seagate Pipeline HD 2TB 3.5" 5900RPM Internal Hard Drive ($54.95 @ Amazon)
Case: Cooler Master Elite 130 Mini ITX Tower Case ($29.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: SeaSonic 300W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($38.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Total: $275.74
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-12-06 16:34 EST-0500
> network backups are expensive
Not really. You can get a NAS for like $150 bucks (Consumer-Grade, but something > Nothing). Set the NAS up to only allow a service account "Backup User" to write to it, and then install something like Veeam Endpoint Backup on the machine and explicitly tell the software to use the service account when backing up. Boom.
Honestly, you could probably do the same thing with a regular drive. Mount it, set the permissions on the drive to only allow writes by the service account, and then configure Veeam the same way.
Got a new laptop and need a new portable hard drive to go with it. It's only going to be running as my main project drive until I transfer the images over to a archival drive. It needs to be 1TB at a minimum, slim and tough, failure is not an option for me but still reasonably cheap. Fast transfer rates would be optimal as I plan to work with some video off of it.
I'm currently looking at this
2 of these
And maybe this
Honestly, I would use a small PC case and itx motherboard to spin the drives with one of the free NAS software options, but if you want simplicity a consumer NAS should work.
Laptop probably won't do, due to limited drive hookup slots. I'd probably go with a prebuilt, and whether you buy it loaded with drives or not is really your call. For ease of installation, they're a bit more money but the drive-included models aren't super expensive.
Here are a few models I've used in your price range with great performance.
For your budget, the QNAP might be a little pricey. If I were in your situation, it would depend on how familiar I was with NAS devices. If you know some stuff, the Synology is a great device. If you know nothing, the Western Digital is the most user friendly. All the included links are for Amazon. You may find them cheaper in a general search.
So correct me if I'm wrong but does this have a wd red inside?
https://www.amazon.com/Cloud-Personal-Network-Attached-Storage/dp/B01C7JIO5Y
There was no DS415. Also, the 4-bay (well 6 due to 2.5" slots) QNAP units with Thunderbolt are a lot more expensive than the Synology plus series so you're talking about a different class of product altogether.
This is QNAPs comparable 4-bay and it's also comparably priced to the DS916+: https://www.amazon.com/QNAP-Professional-Grade-Attached-Supports-TS-453A-4G-US/dp/B017YB7T6U/
I couldn't find a TS-435A (from the video at 00:36:20) but there is a TS-453A on amazon.
Right now its $584.74 Empty with 4GB of RAM ($731.99 for 8GB)
https://www.amazon.com/QNAP-Professional-Grade-Attached-Supports-TS-453A-4G-US/dp/B017YB7T6U
You could build a FreeNAS or UnRaid box with the same hardware as the iXSystems FreeNAS Mini and have a really great NAS rig.
perhaps a DS216se?
I don't think you can do much better for the money spent.
Buy one of these...totally gets the job done.
http://www.amazon.com/Personal-Cloud-Storage-Share-Photos/dp/B00439GMJ2
My biggest concern with buying something that's 7 years old would be that it could die any minute and you don't have any warranty at all.
In terms of power, it'd probably do fine.
You can also buy a new DS418j for CA$390, but I don't know if I'd recommend that as it uses a Realtek RTD1293 CPU (Dual core 1.4GHz ARM), meaning you won't be able to run Docker and lots of other stuff.
If I were you, I'd hold out just a little longer and buy a new DS418 for CA$545 or something instead.
Wow.
Honestly that's a lot more than I was looking for. I know I can build a full blown machine to do everything I need, but I was kind of thinking about something like this...
Western Digital My Book Live 2 TB Personal Cloud Storage Drive
or
D-Link DNS-320 ShareCenter 2-Bay Network Storage Enclosure
or
Synology DiskStation 2-Bay (Diskless) Network Attached Storage DS212j (White)
Any thoughts concerning stuff like this? Low budget and low maintenance.
This has made it to the short list.
With a pair of WD Red 4TB NAS Hard Disk Drives - 5400 RPM Class SATA 6 Gb/s 64MB Cache
It'll put me over budget but I think it'll be worth it in the long run.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00FZU9JYI/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&amp;psc=1
and
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00G7LQAQY/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&amp;psc=1
I am currenty using a Buffalo Linkstation with 2 4tb Seagate drives and have had no issues. Setup was a breeze and it comes with a "wake on lan" feature ensuring the drives arent spinning when not in use.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008DWAGPG/ref=oh_details_o06_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&amp;psc=1
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00439GMJ2/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1510928776&amp;sr=8-3&amp;pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&amp;keywords=wd%2Bmy%2Bbook%2Blive&amp;dpPl=1&amp;dpID=31WXSviQAuL&amp;ref=plSrch&amp;th=1&amp;psc=1
I miss spoke, it's one of these
This is connected to my Google WiFi AP via Ethernet. My Nvidia Shield is connected to the same AP also via ethernet. Is the AP the bottleneck? Should I connect both to a switch?
So to my 2nd question, what's the fastest way to move data off that Ethernet only My Book Live to a faster USB 3.0 drive? I can't seem to find USB and Ethernet external drives that allow for normal data transfers using both connections
$99 + one more drive is above budget?
What's the difference between these two hard drive bays which one is best for my use?
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B078YQHWYW/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&amp;psc=1
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B074VB8DY7/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&amp;th=1
I was looking at this one actually. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007JLE84C/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&amp;psc=1&amp;smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER
Hopefully it'll work for my needs unless anyone sees any issues with it or knows if it's known to be a bad option.
In your shoes, I'd probably go for the 128GB, and carry around only the things you need on the road. Then, with that $200 you'd spend, but yourself a decent Network Attached Storage drive like that.
It'll be accessible from your network, and supposedly over the internet. I say supposedly because I don't have any personal experience with them.
This way, you get the best of both worlds. Enough local storage for your day to day, and more remote storage than you'll need for a long time.
I bought this around 6 mpnths ago (UK Link: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00G7LQAQY/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&amp;psc=1) as at the time it was the best option for my budget and because I wanted to make use of the PS4 HDD i'd be tearing out, rather than binning it.
Just pick apart the casing of the new HDD, which is very easy to do, (youtube videos too if needed) and swap the drives around.
You now have a 2tb ps4, and a portable 500gb slim HDD too. You'll need to reformat the old ps4 HDD though as windows does not like the format
This is what I, and many others here, use: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B00G7LQAQY/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;amp;qid=1483203055&amp;amp;sr=8-1&amp;amp;pi=SL75&amp;amp;keywords=seagate+backup+plus+slim+2tb
My current setup is a Synology DS1815+. I have a 6-Core i7 4GHz PC on my network serving as a Plex server and also a SubSonic server. Plex for video, SubSonic for audio.
The SubSonic (SS) server accesses two shared directories on the Synology; MP3 (my iTunes library) and FLAC. SS streams those to my iPhone (or my PC, or my Roku using DLNA). I pretty much exclusively use my iPhone to stream music, all from my own library of about 50,000 tracks.
I can play the music throughout my house using my Marantz SR6010 receiver. I have 2 zones. Zone 1 Living room (Martin Logan Motion 40XT front channels, Atlantic Tech IC-6 OBA I think rear channel in-ceiling, ML Dynamo 500 sub). Zone 2 In the backyard, I have a pair of weatherproof Definitive Tech AW6500 mounted on my eaves. Ugly, but they sound AMAZING.
The house is controlled locally and remotely though a Control4 system that controls the AV, security, HVAC, and lighting. Also some minimal Amazon Alexa voice controls. It is a little bit buggy, but it mostly works well.
In my studio office (off the back of the garage) I have a pair of ML LX-16 speakers and an MLT-2 sub left over from my old surround system. It offers a fantastic 2-channel sound for my Marantz HD-AMP1 and Marantz TT-15S1. I also stream FLAC to the amp using my Macbook Pro and Audiovarna using the direct-in USB digital feed. Perfect lossless sound.
In my 2016 Toyota 4Runner (came with a crap audio system), I purchased a Pioneer AVH-2300NEX head unit and a variety of speakers and a 10" sub for the back. I replaced all the speakers and wiring, only keeping the steering controls and the backup camera from the stock configuration. I sound-proofed all 4 doors. It sounds INSANE!!!!!
And they all stream music from my Subsonic server through my iPhone 7 Plus. I can set up the SS client on my iPhone (AVSub) to recieve bit-for-bit lossless streams from my Flac and MP3 collections if I want to, but I usually stream at 256kbps in order to save data in the car. In the house, I stream direct lossless.
Works incredibly well, but it's not perfect. There are little oddities like the car head unit sometimes not wanting to connect to my iPhone, or the Marantz SR6010 sometimes turning on whiteout audio. Minor annoyances.
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It's a budget system compared to many that I see on this sub. Overall, it sounds fantastic considering what I paid and how basic it is. I just love having this kind of music available to me wherever I go. And I do not stream from any sources that require a monthly subscription.
Perhaps there are ways to improve upon it.
Synology DS412+ + 4x [3TB WD Red] (http://amzn.com/B008JJLW4M) hard drives. Just under $1000 pre-tax for 6-9TB usable space.
The Synology is stupid easy to set up, seriously. Even a beginner can get it going. Buy the NAS, insert the 4 drives, plug it in to power and your network, download the Synology Assistant, and you're on your way! The hardest part will be deciding on Raid 5 or Raid 6/Raid 10, that would take a while.
Honestly, please take a good hard look at a NAS unit to solve your problem here. Synology makes a great product that can grow with your needs. Direct attached storage units have a history of being horribly shitty and I would never trust my data to one of them. All in all, good luck! Head over to /r/DataHoarder as well and check out some of the more insane setups :)
If the primary focus is just photo viewing, then go with a low cost all in one NAS unit. There are some low cost ones that will give around 60MB/s reads and 30-40MB/s writes, which is more than enough for media consumption.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008DWAGPG/
If your router offers FTP access for USB storage, you can even use that (especially since many modern routers are now offering samba, FTP, HTTP, and DLNA access to USB storage, which works great for sharing media over a home network, in addition to remote access.
If you want an entirely cloud based solution for free, and don't have too many photos, and if they have a smart TV, you can set up a flickr account and crate a private album (though in that case, you are at the mercy of flickr, and the random changes that they like to make (often which will break compatibility with some applications.
I personally prefer the NAS solution, and current use it to share photos and media with family, though I am using a more crappy NAS for that purpose, and simply link the 2 netwoks together using a VPN server running on the router to allow only local traffic, that way their WAN access will not be route through my network.
just use a NAS...
Network Attached Storage.
It's a fileserver that doesn't need your pc running. your ps3 and ipad can connect to it easily.
plug it into your wireless router, and poof. You're able to download stuff using torrents directly to it from your laptop, and stream to it from your ps3.
I use a WD 2 TB NAS. Similar to this one, but mine is white.
You can find them cheaper, but I'm lazy and was just looking for an easy comparison for you.
You don't need to install any shit like these people are telling you to do. Just plug it into your router, use the program that is included to find the network drive, and drag and drop your movies to it.
At first I just had a 4TB harddrive attached to the Shield and that worked really well. After that ran out of space I got a cheapish 4bay QNAP NAS that I filled with harddrives.
I have the NAS connected to my router but my shield is wireless and I haven't had an issue playing anything on my Shield or my Samsung TV/phone.
I've got this https://www.amazon.com/Cloud-Personal-Network-Attached-Storage/dp/B01C7JIO5Y/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1480232377&amp;sr=8-7&amp;keywords=mycloud for storage. I have PMS on my personal machine so that does the transcoding, so I'm not sure how well it transcodes. For storage it seems to be great and i've not had any hitches.
Basically you buy a NAS based on your needs (for me I got a Buffalo with 2 3tb HDD's for under $350 shipped. With that you could build a 6tb storage device or a 3tb with raid 1. I went raid 1 so if one HDD fails I'll likely still have 1 functional HDD as backup. The buffalo also has a USB so you can attach another external hdd to access if you need a bit more space.
You attach the NAS to your modem using a standard cat5 cable to one of the empty ports in the back of the modem (mine had 4 or 5 available). From there you can access the NAS just like it was a hard drive from any computer on the network.
I put a roku in the bedroom (optional only needed if you're on a TV instead of a computer) and installed the Plex app and can now view any movie/music/show on the NAS in the bedroom using the roku's remote. In hindsight I probably should have gone with a raspberry pi but a roku is great for less savvy people.
Sorry if any of this info is less techy than you're looking for and feel free to ask questions I'll answer them if I can.
The problem is that even the high-end "simple" NAS units that are really expensive, like Synology, don't maintain parts for years and switch out models all the time. That means getting spare parts is difficult/impossible.
You can buy a commercial NAS from a real storage vendor, like NetApp, that has real long-term support but that NAS would cost $2000+ USD. WAY more than building your own system.
If you really, really want a pre-built FreeNAS system, a company called iXsystems makes them. Not cheap, $1000 USD for just the enclosure, and it's WAY overkill, but it includes a training course on using FreeNAS.
This is what I use - QNAP TS-251+, Plex works great on it and you can add other features via QNAP apps OR docker / Linux / LXC.
https://www.amazon.com/QNAP-TS-251-Quad-Core-Transcoding-TS-251_-2G/dp/B015VNLEOQ/ref=cm_wl_huc_item
I would suggest a ShieldTV, either the 2017 model or the 2019 Pro model, whichever is cheapest, for the Plex server. It supports hardware encoding in Plex and is also a top-notch streaming box. That'll run you $200 or so.
Then I would buy the cheapest 4-bay Synology NAS available, the DS418j, for $290, and fill it with 8TB drives. Ideally WD USB3 external drives which you can shuck to save money. They're frequently on sale for $130 or so apiece. This will give you 24TB of redundant storage so if a drive dies you won't lose any data.
That should come out very close to $1k, but if you have some money left over after that you can spend it on hats. Lots of hats.
https://www.amazon.com/Synology-bay-DiskStation-DS418j-Diskless/dp/B074VB8DY7