Time to invest in a NAS

bigfec on 09/11/2014 - 13:51

Hi all,

I will admit i am a bit late in coming to the NAS party.
My HTPC is at capacity and it is now time to start of loading some of the storage into a more appropriate, power consumption friendly platform.

I am look for 4 bays. But will only start with a single 4GB drive to start with.

My budget is $600 which will need to cover both the drive and NAS device.

I am leaning towards the QNAP TS-420 but am open to any of the 4 bay Synology products given the price fits the budget.

Have you seen a bargain?

thanks in advance.

Computing NAS

Comments

  • p1 ama on 09/11/2014 - 14:04
    +5

    Why not HP-N54L? Far cheaper and more powerful and versatile!

    • sane on 09/11/2014 - 15:42

      Indeed, it would be my first thought at that level.

      Do it right and at least some of that HTPC capacity can probably be shifted across to the NAS.

      IIRC the N54Ls go for about $260 and a 4TB drive comes in a $160-$210 depending on what you get.

      OP should really consider RAID as well (it's just saved me).

  • CyberMurning on 09/11/2014 - 14:14
    +3

    More people with synology than qnap I think. Make sure Intel inside, and has usb 3.0

    • tonyjzx on 10/11/2014 - 12:43

      i wouldnt use synology given their last adventures with users data

      really, microserver and nas4free or freenas does it

      • Cobalt_ on 10/12/2014 - 22:23

        What did Synology do with user data that made you want to avoid them?

  • hamwhisperer on 09/11/2014 - 14:21
    +1

    Just pony up the extra $119 and buy the full spec DS 415+ from Synology, it's a pretty beasty 4 bay NAS to my knowledge.

    I personally use an N54L microserver with 8gb and FreeNAS but learning that can be quite daunting, it's at least 50 hours research but my array is 20TB

    • tonyjzx on 10/11/2014 - 14:40

      50hrs??? wat

      Freenas is very easy for beginners compared to nas4free which is a lot more convoluted on setup.

      I'm on my 3rd nas at 18tb and am thinking about nas number 4.

      I decommissioned 2 microservers having largely outrgrown 4 discs.

      • superm86 on 08/12/2014 - 12:21
        +1

        So much storage? What do you guys do with that? :)

  • airzone on 09/11/2014 - 15:39
    +2

    +1 on Synology.

  • teardrops21 on 09/11/2014 - 16:07

    Been really happy with my Sinology ds413j only thing is I would go for one with Intel processor.

  • RobMel on 09/11/2014 - 17:32

    With 4-10gb drives on horizon I would consider also 2 bay. Synology ds214 play is a great multimedia alrounder.

  • aim54x on 10/11/2014 - 11:35

    IM going to go with the trend and +1 Synology, but will also put in a suggestion of a Netgear ReadyNas. Same rules apply….Intel Inside!

  • onggie on 10/11/2014 - 14:22
    +1

    After many hours of investigation into this, this was my outcome.

    Wanted a NAS, something that was low powered and capable to streaming media. I didn't want to spend big bucks and already owned a HP N40L.

    Think of power consumption, the N40L just with a couple of drives runs at about 45w idle from memory. A DS214J runs at about 19w. This NAS is purely for media streaming, so something that has a low idle power consumption was critical as it would only be used a couple hours a night.

    I really wanted a 4 bay NAS, but they were out of the question, I found that I would be safe just running a 2bay with 2x3tb drives in RAID 1 sufficient for me (once again it all depends on your content). I feel with QNAP/Synology your really just paying for the software which I use none of it. But the power consumption was the real deal sealer for me.

    • knk on 09/12/2014 - 16:07

      I've always used a "server" running Debian as my NAS. Not good for power no, but the added advantage of being able to actually script things up, backup vital data to other PCs, Dropbox etc has been invaluable.

      I'd vote for the microserver rather than going for a "NAS" and using ESXi and Freenas / a preferred linux distro.

      • onggie on 09/12/2014 - 16:35
        -1

        You then have the added cost of needing a proper raid card. The cheapest you can go is the HP one can't remember the model off the top of my head, its around $200 to get raid working in ESXi. I run ESXi for about 5 VMs and wasn't about to put the load of a DSM loaded onto it as well.

        The Synology box takes all the BS away so you can just have something work a moderate price.

        • knk on 09/12/2014 - 16:41

          I don't think using software raid is a big deal considering the bandwidth he'll be using.

          I use mdadm, the built in Windows one isn't half bad either.

        • onggie on 10/12/2014 - 16:35

          @knk:

          You can't run software raid under ESXi

        • knk on 10/12/2014 - 16:40

          @onggie:

          But you can add multiple identically sized disks or add raw drive mappings. From there you can soft raid them provided the OS supports it.

        • onggie on 10/12/2014 - 20:49

          @knk:

          This is all going to come down to opinion but I would definitely say it is not best practices. There is a reason why fake raid is not supported by ESXi.

        • knk on 11/12/2014 - 08:06

          @onggie:

          Best practice no, however works fine for me.

          Also, the B120i (if I recall correctly) in the N54L works fine in ESXi. I have one running RAID1.

    • Regie69 on 14/01/2015 - 15:25

      Late reply
      Is this the same as a DS214 play?
      Coulnt find the j model
      http://www.centrecom.com.au/2-bay-synology-ds214play-disksta…

      • onggie on 14/01/2015 - 16:20
        +1

        Nah the Play is suppose to be able to do transcoding hence it being double the price. But apparently it's very problematic and users suggest investing in a different model which can transcode properly or buy something like the 213J and don't transcode.

        • Regie69 on 18/01/2015 - 11:55

          Cheers

  • ashanrath on 21/11/2014 - 14:38

    If you're not wanting to keep the N40L going due to power consumption, why not just use WoL and set it to sleep after 15mins or so? You'll probably need to chuck in a new NIC with ARP and NS Offload support to get it working reliably, but that's nothing compared to a whole new NAS box. I'm doing something similar with a spare Core i3 box I had lying around for a Plex server.

    Edit - You'd need to enable wake on pattern match, so that it responds to any network traffic rather than just a magic packet.

  • derek324 on 14/01/2015 - 22:55

    Netgear ReadyNAS series (different models). The only NAS within this price range which prevents (detects and corrects) silent data corruption (also known as bit rot). Google 'bit rot' or 'silent data corruption' for more info. Current ReadyNAS models are fantastically build, reliable, and competitively priced. Excellent support: see http://www.readynas.com/forum/

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