NAS Storage?

[Toff]

For those that have messed with this:

What NAS Storage Enclosures do you like? Reliability is key as well as ease of use/setup.

Theres tons to look at on the net but without experience with them its hard to know which one to get.

I would prefer an enclosure (i think) only as then I can put what drives I like in it. Also I would prefer a sata enclosure. I would think 4 drive spaces would be enough for us.

This would be for a business.

Thanks

 

[snouter]

I am interested in this as well.

Most of the NAS I see already have drives in them? And often the capacity is a little less than optimal for the money.

Also, most of the NAS I see get mediocre reviews, like in the 3 star range with hardly any 4-5 star models out there. Are prebuilt ready to go NAS kinda finicky?

If these NAS devices are ~$200 for 2-4 bays, should I just build a linux box stuffed with drives?

I'm WAY over my tangled mess of slow USB 2 drives and network shares and mapped drives.

 

[sxr7171]

I am interested in this as well.

Most of the NAS I see already have drives in them? And often the capacity is a little less than optimal for the money.

Also, most of the NAS I see get mediocre reviews, like in the 3 star range with hardly any 4-5 star models out there. Are prebuilt ready to go NAS kinda finicky?

If these NAS devices are ~$200 for 2-4 bays, should I just build a linux box stuffed with drives?

I'm WAY over my tangled mess of slow USB 2 drives and network shares and mapped drives.

Agreed. They get bad reviews and are expensive. The cheaper ones I would not rely on. I answered your other thread.

 

[kmmatney]

I have an extra case and motherboard, so I'm just building a box stuffed with drives. I'm too afraid that a pre-built enclosure won't have the flexibility I need with drive options.

I'm not sure what OS I'm going to use - either FreeNAS or some other Linux build. Kubuntu seems to be popular. Except for a little dabbling with Ubunutu, I'm a Linux noob, though.

 

[Gillbot]

I have a linksys NAS200, it's horribly slow. I also have an old PC running as a "server" which I use 90% of the time because my NAS is too slow. If you do get one, research it's transfer speeds.

 

[Toff]

Researching all this more it does seem that it would be best to just build a computer and make my own. I think this will be the route I go in once the new year is here.

I do like the idea of a standalone NAS system but it seems that it is not quite there yet for a small/medium sized business.

 

[billyb0b]

qnap is the way to go!

 

[Mark R]

qnap is the way to go!

If you want to buy a ready to go NAS box (just add drives) - then I'll second the recommendation for QNAP.

Reasonable support, nice firmware, data is stored using industry standard file systems, lots of supported 'add-on' applications.

Just bear in mind that like all low-cost NAS boxes, they are severely CPU constrained if you go with an ARM CPU, and this severely limits write performance. The atom based NAS boxes give very much better performance (but at a much higher price).

 

[Gillbot]

Researching all this more it does seem that it would be best to just build a computer and make my own. I think this will be the route I go in once the new year is here.

I do like the idea of a standalone NAS system but it seems that it is not quite there yet for a small/medium sized business.

From my limited research and trials, the ready built boxes that can actually do well are overpriced. The lower cost ready built boxes just don't perform so the best option i've found is just build one if you can.

I keep my NAS200 running only as a central storage point for all machines to dump files on but as soon as I finish migrating all my network to gigabit, it'll disappear and i'll put all the shares on my home built "server" for good. Using "leftover" parts from other upgrades, it basically cost me zero and performs extremely well.

 

[Nintendesert]

I could never bring myself to buy a NAS, with all the spare parts I have roaming around from old builds, I always figured it's easier to just use that.

 

[Gillbot]

I could never bring myself to buy a NAS, with all the spare parts I have roaming around from old builds, I always figured it's easier to just use that.

Somewhat yes, though I will say I REALLY like the plug-n-go simplicity of the Linksys NAS200 and if I find a unit that has better transfer speeds i'll likely pick one up just because they are nice and easy vs keeping a machine running 24/7.

If the transfer speeds were better on the NAS200 I would keep using it, but overall when I get 60-75MBps with my "server" and a lowly 2-4MBps on my NAS200, I just can't stomach it. I would expect slower performance from a 100Mbit connection vs. the Gigabit on my "server" but 2-4MBps is just appalling to me. I honestly don't know if I have something configured wrong or what, but man is it painfully slow sometimes.

 

[Muse]

I could never bring myself to buy a NAS, with all the spare parts I have roaming around from old builds, I always figured it's easier to just use that.

I could do that today, I have an old midtower with old MB. It doesn't even support SATA, so I'd have to get a PCI controller card for that. The reason I don't like this is the relatively high power requirements compared to a low power server box, e.g. Atom CPU, modest PSU, maybe a single 120mm fan for quiet low power server action, possibly 24/7, maybe suspendable or spin down drive configured. Also, the midtower would be relatively loud.

Researching this is a bitch. I've been doing it for nearly 2 years and still haven't figured it out. In the mean time I think I'm going to set up a spare laptop I have for my light server duty requirements. The most that the server machine will ever have to do is support one machine's data requests (sorry OP, I know you are building a business network), so I think a laptop, suspend or drive spin-down enabled may work out, at least for a while. The laptop uses around 15 watts with the display off and idle, so 24/7 operation wouldn't be so bad, but I'm concerned about longevity/wear on the fan and HD(s), so for my often very intermittent needs, suspend/spin-down seem like a good idea.

 

[ElenaP]

We have a QNAP unit and we once had a real (not simulated) hard drive failure with it. The firmware handled that less than impressive. Next time we probably go with our own build.

 

[sxr7171]

Moral of this thread. Build your NAS. Why dump $$$ into poorly supported, poor performing ready made devices, when you can build for cheaper and get excellent performance?

 

[sxr7171]

If you want to buy a ready to go NAS box (just add drives) - then I'll second the recommendation for QNAP.

Reasonable support, nice firmware, data is stored using industry standard file systems, lots of supported 'add-on' applications.

Just bear in mind that like all low-cost NAS boxes, they are severely CPU constrained if you go with an ARM CPU, and this severely limits write performance. The atom based NAS boxes give very much better performance (but at a much higher price).

They may be a low cost NAS, but they still cost more than a build.

 

[Gillbot]

Moral of this thread. Build your NAS. Why dump $$$ into poorly supported, poor performing ready made devices, when you can build for cheaper and get excellent performance?

That really depends on what you NEED it for. Many of the simple enclosure boxes can be had for under $50 on sale, toss in a drive and you are fine. If all you need is a central file storage location with minimal backups, a ready made box is fine.

 

[Emulex]

qnap and drobo can manage drives regardless of TLER(off,any value,etc). that's a huge plus that the rest of the free world seems to be missing.

 

[sub.mesa]

Any system based on Linux/BSD would not need TLER-enabled drives, and in fact would be blessed by not needing TLER since it has dangerous side effects as well.

If you build your own ZFS server, you also wouldn't need TLER disks. But that only works if you use normal SATA/AHCI/SAS controllers aka HBAs, without RAID functionality enabled. If you do use Linux/BSD/ZFS with Hardware RAID, then you would still need TLER disks to prevent dropouts.

 

[PUN]

I plan on getting DS211J from Synology (2Bay @ $200)
Great reviews and reputation.

 

[Muse]

I've been researching small scale data servers and etc. a lot recently and I encountered a lot posts from people using (and evidently liking) ReadyNAS. Good/Bad?

 

[DAM]

I've not used a ReadyNAS device and like every affordable out of the box NAS out there the reviews are mixed. I've been thinking very hard on this the last couple of months and I think I'm leaning to just build my own. The hardest part for me is to figure out how important is my data and my time. I think this will point you towards buying pre-build or getting your own.

dam

 

[DisgruntledVirus]

If you can find it, the Intel SS4200 was a great NAS. Could find it as low as $125 shipped, and with a simple CPU upgrade and 1 gb ram (up from 512) for another ~$60 or so it's been a very fast system. Running WHS on it with Win 7 on the other system transfer rates of 60+ mbps is common. Comes in at <70 watts fully loaded with 4 drives, great performance, awesome engineering of the enclosure, small size, and really the only negative about it IMHO is that it *only* supports 4 drives of <2.2 TB.

That said, it does have 2 eSATA ports with port expander functionality which means you could in theory have 12 drives with 2x 4 bay eSATA enclosures. I haven't tried that personally though, so I can't speak to how well that works. It would also obviously increase power draw, total footprint, and not be a "clean" setup with 1 box as well. If you can live with that though, it's a great system.

 

[KentState]

I know it's pricey, but the Synology DS411+ seems to have great transfer rates.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822108059