Looking for a NAS with newbie-friendly GUI

[BusyBeaverHP]

Additional information:

I'm a Windows PC builder for 18 years.
I mostly edit 1080p footage with a 1TB SSD.
My footage archive currently sits in a 8TB MyBook, so I'm trying to move it to a more robust storage solution, mitigating single point of failure.
My experience with command lines is limited to Windows command lines, but even then it's more like copy-paste.

New to NAS hardware but not new to the hardware scene, seeking guidance.

 

[mxnerd]

No NAS required. Just 2 Windows boxes if you are a Windows builder.

https://freefilesync.org/

https://freefilesync.org/manual.php?topic=schedule-batch-jobs

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=freefilesync

==

4 drive sata backplanes

3.5" https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817998238

2.5" https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817994181

 

[seagate_surfer]

The more common offerings you're going to see in this space are Synology, QNAP, Asustor, TerraMaster, and Asustor.

Make sure you choose appropriate drives for the job as well, something rated for NAS. Our offerings in this space are the IronWolf & IronWolf Pro. When paired with certain models of the above NAS vendors, you also get an extended health monitoring feature called IHM (IronWolf Health Management).

 

[13Gigatons]

Try: http://www.openmediavault.org/

Also recommend using your own hardware. You get better hardware that way.

 

[EXCellR8]

I like Synology for the simplistic UI but the price doesn't make them great for home users unless you want a measly 2 bays

 

[VirtualLarry]

QNAP for me. (Also have some 2-bay Lenovo / EMC units, but don't use them much.)

 

[EXCellR8]

Try: http://www.openmediavault.org/

Also recommend using your own hardware. You get better hardware that way.

does openmediavault require hardware RAID or can you just use software?

 

[13Gigatons]

does openmediavault require hardware RAID or can you just use software?

• HDD power management (APM/AAM)
• GPT partitions
• EXT3/EXT4/XFS/JFS filesystem support
• Software RAID JBOD/0/1/5/6/…
• Quota (per volume)
• ACL
• Share management

Says software raid....

 

[EXCellR8]

Thx, might have to give it a try at some point.

 

[cfenton]

If you don't want to fiddle around and dig through support forums, then I'd highly recommend buying something from QNAP or Synology. I have a Nas4Free box and while it works great now it was not the easiest to set up. The screenshots for OpenMediaVault make it look a bit more straightforward, but there are still a ton of options and settings you probably don't need. For your use case, hardware power doesn't really matter since anything will be able to max out a gigabit connection from a single computer. Extra power is really only useful if you want to use the NAS with multiple concurrent users. Even then, I assume the off the shelf stuff can handle a few users.

 

[Anteaus]

Linux will give you the most flexibility and is generally my first pick, BUT if you are confortable with Windows and building your own machine, Windows Pro is an option. You can run it headless and access it from another machine using RDP. Additionally, there are some solid pooling options that include file duplication.

Linux is great, but there is a level of frustration that will come with the learning curve that can annoy more casual users.

A piece of advice, buy a CPU that has a built in GPU in order to not need a dedicated solution. Less is more with these types of builds.

 

[EXCellR8]

Linux will give you the most flexibility and is generally my first pick, BUT if you are confortable with Windows and building your own machine, Windows Pro is an option. You can run it headless and access it from another machine using RDP. Additionally, there are some solid pooling options that include file duplication.

I've gone this route before, and for the most part it works fine, but it's also less secure than Linux without 3rd party apps and tweaking. The cost isn't an issue because you can just buy a cheap key on eBay and hardware compatibility is obviously great.

I'm going to give OMV a test run with some spare hardware and see how it stacks up, if I ever get a little time...

 

[rchunter]

I would say buy a synology nas.
....or unraid if you want to build your own.
You still have to know linux a little going with unraid but it really isn't too difficult setting up dockers, vm's, etc.
If you plan on just using it as a file server unraid is simple, plus it supports dual parity drives now.

 

[Ranulf]

I like Synology for the simplistic UI but the price doesn't make them great for home users unless you want a measly 2 bays

It depends on what you really want to do. The Synology DS410 4 bay is down to $369 on Amazon. For just archiving data, two of those should be fine. If going into video transcoding with plex etc. you might want the 418play or better.

OP, for your use case I would look at Qnap or Synology NAS boxes. There are upsides to homebuilt for sure but if you're just looking for a quick and easy setup with a small footprint, you can't beat off the shelf units from those two. The second something goes wrong with NAS4free, OMV, etc. you're spending hours of your time troubleshooting it. God help you if you need help from FreeNAS' forums.