NAS Owner Question

[xaeniac]

What is the primary reason for a NAS if one can have platter drives in a desktop and share if needed? Is it due to most people moving toward laptops as a primary box?? No doubt their cool. Just trying to wrap my head around it.

 

[Malogeek]

What is the primary reason for a NAS if one can have platter drives in a desktop and share if needed? Is it due to most people moving toward laptops as a primary box?? No doubt their cool. Just trying to wrap my head around it.

1. Desktop needs to be on to serve the content
2. Desktops (consumer) have very few RAID options, usually only mirror (stripe useless for data retention)
3. RAID auto expansion
4. RAID hotswap
5. Often more physical expansion options
6. Linux OS

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Laptops and backups.

I back up 3 computers (one desktop and two laptops) to my NAS/Server. My NAS is then backed up to Crashplan.

It can hold way more HDDs than my desktop rig, but I can stick it off in a corner away from my workspace and access it over the network. So it's loud, warm, and most importantly NOT HERE.

As Malogeek mentioned, some tasks require the system to be always-on, so having a dedicated low-power system is a bonus.

Consumer NAS appliances often come with easy-to-use vendor-supported cloud functions that allow you to access your files remotely without worrying about misconfiguring your home router and compromising your security.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

I've been "PC-savvy" since 1982. It is easy to settle in to habits ignoring newer options, and I have a WHS-2011 server awaiting replacement with a Win 2012 R2 Essentials configuration. I'm not even sure I wouldn't be satisfied with a simpler NAS box of some sort, but all the hardware has been tested, and I already have the license and install discs for 2012 R2.

The server runs 24/7. It backs up the household workstations nightly, and has been a boon to use for some three or four bare-metal restores and an equal number of Boot-system storage replacements. I use it to archive DVR'd TV content, movies, music and anything I can think of. It gives me file and folder duplication, and backs up the important files and folders to a hot-swap.

If you took a survey, I could only guess beforehand that a much larger number of IT, tech-enthusiasts or similarly categorized folks prefer either a NAS or server in the home. I know a lot of mainstreamers who can't wrap their head around the idea, and wouldn't bother with it.

 

[monkeydelmagico]

Lower power draw, always on, and remote access without linking to my main box.

 

[smitbret]

Security.

It's much better to keep everything stored on an appliance without consistent, direct user access. Saves a lot of headaches.

 

[Malogeek]

I've been "PC-savvy" since 1982. It is easy to settle in to habits ignoring newer options, and I have a WHS-2011 server awaiting replacement with a Win 2012 R2 Essentials configuration. I'm not even sure I wouldn't be satisfied with a simpler NAS box of some sort, but all the hardware has been tested, and I already have the license and install discs for 2012 R2.

I went from original WHS to WHS 2011+addon for volume management and eventually gave it all up for my Synology NAS and I couldn't be happier. I probably would have gone for 2012 R2 if I was doing VMs, hosting dev sites or something useful for work on a win environment but I host all my stuff with 3rd parties for personal and I much prefer *nix for dev. All about our needs.

For my home use the main things I use it for is extensive media hosting for my HTPCs/Kodi and HDHR DVR as well as all general file storage of course.

 

[CA19100]

Convenience for our whole household. It's always on, draws very little power, and makes very little noise or heat. My Synology NAS will allow everything in the house to back up to it, including the "Time Machine" backup system on Apple's laptops. It then automatically backs up the parts I care about offsite to Amazon Glacier, which costs me just a few dollars a month. If the house gets destroyed, my data won't.

Not requiring my Windows PC to be booted up is a big advantage here at home, since I leave town for a week at a time, and I don't want to leave my giant tower running just to act as a file server for a number of reasons.

I'll give you a perfect example of where this came in handy: my wife's old laptop finally died a couple of weeks ago. I knew it was coming, and she'd been itching for a faster, lighter one anyway, so I said to go get one; the old one was past the point where we wanted to spend anything to fix it.

She brought the new computer home, connected it to the WiFi, and it saw the NAS on the network. All she had to do was click on it and enter the password, and all her data, programs, settings, passwords, etc., were set up on the new laptop without her having to do anything, and without me having to walk her through anything while I was busy at work. Backups to the NAS were happening hourly in the background, so nothing was lost at all. She was absolutely thrilled.

I use it as a VPN server when I need one. I use it to record my surveillance cameras outside the house. I've used it as a web and database server when the need arises. Nicer models than mine will transcode video on the fly for streaming. It'll handle Bittorrent and other file transfers. And much more.

To put it succinctly, it's a powerful linux server with an awesome RAID system, an easy GUI, automatic security updates, and no hassle. Truly, my only regret is that I only bought a 2-bay model (DS216j), but that's all the budget allowed at the time. I'd get another Synology in a heartbeat. It's done exactly what I bought it for, and so much more.

 

[xaeniac]

Ok I'm sold Would you recommend a make/model? Would I be able to use plex on certain models not running on a PC? I was leaning towards a 4 bay, possibly the Synology 416 play. I would like to keep the total package under $1000. Don't think I really need more than 4 TB at this time and could add more drives in the future?

 

[Malogeek]

If you only need 4Tb to start, then get 2x 4Tb drives. That way you're starting off your SHR array and can expand later with more drives and not starting off with smaller drives. As mentioned, adding expansion to Synology NAS is very easy. You could buy a 6Tb drive next and just throw it in, it takes care of everything.

Just make sure you buy NAS compatible hard drives. Don't buy basic desktop hard drives or something like Green drives. Mine are all WD Reds.

 

[Ranulf]

Ok I'm sold Would you recommend a make/model? Would I be able to use plex on certain models not running on a PC? I was leaning towards a 4 bay, possibly the Synology 416 play. I would like to keep the total package under $1000. Don't think I really need more than 4 TB at this time and could add more drives in the future?

Synology and Qnap have models that can do Plex. I think most of them can last I saw. The big question is if you want it to do transcoding on the fly, which requries some real cpu power, thus more money. From my personal experience, I would start with a 4 bay and just put two drives in it if thats all the space you think you'll need right now. Its very easy to fill up the unit later when needed.

 

[xaeniac]

think i will scratch the plex requirement and shoot for the 4 bay w/ 2 initial drives.

 

[JimmiG]

For me, it's convenience, having my data in a central location for my tablet, laptop, desktop, and even when dual booting on the same computer

It's much better for safety/redundancy. I used to run local backups from one drive to another in my computer, but I'd end up aborting because it would start backing up in the middle of a game, or I'd shut the system down in the middle of a backup, so it didn't really work.

Now I have a Backup folder on a different drive on the NAS, with a different username. So if I get some ransonware, it won't be able to infect that (unless the entire NAS gets infected, but then I have cloud backups, which are also done from the NAS so my desktop system doesn't have to be on). I can also just plug in a USB HDD and it will automatically do an incremental backup.

Not a fan of RAID since it will mirror anything, including corrupt/damaged files, with no retention/versioning. I just use QNAP's replication with versioning between the 2 drives so I have 30 days of file history.

I have one of the cheapest 2-bay QNAP's, but it's perfectly adequate for my needs.

 

[Malogeek]

Not a fan of RAID since it will mirror anything, including corrupt/damaged files, with no retention/versioning. I just use QNAP's replication with versioning between the 2 drives so I have 30 days of file history.

Synology's systems are far better than any normal RAID version. SHR and versioning achieves everything you need.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

I went from original WHS to WHS 2011+addon for volume management and eventually gave it all up for my Synology NAS and I couldn't be happier. I probably would have gone for 2012 R2 if I was doing VMs, hosting dev sites or something useful for work on a win environment but I host all my stuff with 3rd parties for personal and I much prefer *nix for dev. All about our needs.

For my home use the main things I use it for is extensive media hosting for my HTPCs/Kodi and HDHR DVR as well as all general file storage of course.

I have all of these possible projects on some back burner, like setting up an ORACLE database and some other things some have already mentioned here.

If I wanted to try a Synology NAS, which model and how much would it cost for 9 or 10TB of storage in 3TB or 2TB NAS disks? Let me put it another way: I already have six 2TB NAS disks -- two new, 4 are 2-years-old.

For my WHS-11 server, the hardware has maybe 3 years mileage, but it's an old Q6600 Kentsfield on a 680i motherboard and 8GB of RAM. I was going to phase it out as I said in earlier post. I could still go forward with the 2012 R2 server, and see what a Synology has to offer. The 2012 box is sunk-cost, or I could configure the hardware and sell it off, keeping the OS for later. It might be feasible for me just to experiment with a Synology if it isn't a major outlay, given the fact that I have plenty of disks.

 

[Essence_of_War]

I'm not sure why you'd want to set up an Oracle Database at home/lab. If you're messing around with traditional RDMS, SQlite, Postgres, and MySQL/MariaDB are all free and open source software. If you're messing around with key-value/NoSQL stuff, Cassandra and Redis are both free and open source also.

Oracle is incredibly expensive to license and you won't see TCO reductions on staff savings or whatever for home/lab use.

To get 12-16 TB of raw storage, you could pick up a 4-bay unit and throw in 3-4 TB drives. There is usually a pretty big price jump from 2->4 and from 4->6.

Here is a 4-bay QNAP unit for $350

Entry level for 2-bay units is usually ~$250 from QNAP and Synology.

 

[Malogeek]

It might be feasible for me just to experiment with a Synology if it isn't a major outlay, given the fact that I have plenty of disks.

Since you'll be using SHR then you can gradually swap out your disks for higher capacity ones, allowing your initial outlay to be relatively small. So at least a 4-bay, preferably 5-bay for the best expansion and processing power.

 

[JimmiG]

Synology's systems are far better than any normal RAID version. SHR and versioning achieves everything you need.

Not quite the same as you still need matched drives. I have a 4 TB drive for storage, and an 8 TB drive for backups/versioning, so there's enough spare disk space to store multiple versions of several files, or 2 versions of every file (highly unlikely scenario). If the 4 TB drive dies, I'd have to wait for a new one to restore normal file access, but since I'm not running any business critical stuff, I don't need that availability.

 

[Malogeek]

Not quite the same as you still need matched drives.

Where do to get that from? Matching drives aren't required, just recommended. You're talking brands right?

 

[Valantar]

Where do to get that from? Matching drives aren't required, just recommended. You're talking brands right?

I think he means matched capacities. Which ... wehll, duh.

 

[Malogeek]

I think he means matched capacities. Which ... wehll, duh.

Well that's one of the features of SHR, you don't need to match capacities. It's awesome for gradual expansion and changing out drives for larger ones later.

https://www.synology.com/en-us/knowledgebase/DSM/tutorial/Storage/What_is_Synology_Hybrid_RAID_SHR

 

[rsachoc]

You could also roll your own and use something like UNraid, which also offers Docker support. I run Unraid on a HP Microserver and run dockers for several apps, Plex included.

 

[CA19100]

Ok I'm sold Would you recommend a make/model? Would I be able to use plex on certain models not running on a PC?

You would, but with one caveat: The lower-powered Synology devices (like my 216j) cannot transcode video. That means you'd have to convert your videos ahead of time to match the device you're playing them on, which is a huge, impractical pain in the neck. If you're planning on using one as a Plex server, definitely get one powerful enough to transcode HD video. Plex has published a list of the capabilities of different NAS devices here.

I was leaning towards a 4 bay, possibly the Synology 416 play. I would like to keep the total package under $1000. Don't think I really need more than 4 TB at this time and could add more drives in the future?

The 416play probably isn't going to work for Plex, and as I'm looking through the list, a NAS powerful enough to transcode with Plex is going to be pretty expensive (definitely blowing your budget.)

On the other hand, if you use Synology Video Station software, which has a companion DS Video app (for the Roku, iOS, Android, and others), the 416play will be more than adequate because the Synology software takes advantage of the dedicated video hardware in the "play" devices, while Plex does not.

Just using Amazon's prices, a DS416play is $415, and you can stock it with a pair of WD 4TB Red drives for $145 each, or maybe three WD 3TB Red drives for $109 each.

Lots of options on storage, which you can play with a bit using Synology's RAID Calculator. Spreading your data across three 3TB drives would give you 6TB of usable storage, and room to expand in the future. The nice thing about the Synology Hybrid Raid system is that you can swap in drives of larger capacities, and the RAID will rebuild and keep working. Some of the space won't be utilized until the drives are all the same larger capacity, but it's a heck of a lot more convenient than having to start from scratch when going to larger drives!

If you're planning to go larger in the near future, you might start with the two 4TB drives, and add another as money allows. Starting with two 4TB drives gives you 4TB of storage with redundancy. Adding a third one later on will bring the capacity up to 8TB. A fourth will get you to 12TB. Definitely play with that calculator and see what it'll do.

Hope that helps!

 

[SlitheryDee]

I just wanted at least one box that could be always on in it's own area removed from the rest of the house, serving up content whenever I wished so that the devices that content was being served to could be smaller and quieter. I mostly use my NAS for media to be served up through plex. It makes sense to have one centralized device that is always on running plex and I'd rather that not be my gaming pc, mostly because of the dust buildup, wear and tear of system fans, etc. that would impose on it

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

It might be worth asking if people really need to keep their NAS on 24/7. It's a lot of power once you add it up. If you have 6 drives always spinning, even idle, that's still easily 30-35 watts. Throw in a CPU, RAM, fans, and you're probably got 40-45 watts.

Personally I turn on my NAS only on the weekends and only when I need to use it. Normally my NUC is my HTPC that handles downloading. That thing loads at 10W and idles in the single digits. To me that's far more efficient. Keeping my NAS on all weekend along with a TV you can definitely feel the room warm up. The HTPC has more than enough storage to hold some media in a folder and when the NAS is connected the HTPC will auto-copy those files over.

But I'm no expert. My setup is less than ideal.