What Is Your NAS Setup and Which Would You Buy Today for < $500?

hyouden on 19/08/2021 - 10:33

I am new to the NAS game and wanted to find out what your setup is or what you would recommend for a newbie.

Being new, I wanted to make sure I started off with a solid foundation which I gather would be something along the lines of a Synology DS220j (budget friendly) or Synology DS220+ (higher spec'd) plus a few IronWolf 4-12gb drives.

Keen to know what the ozbargain favourite is for the NAS devices in general (sticking to a general budget of up to $500 just for the device excluding drives) and how well your setup runs tasks such as

  • video streaming
  • transcoding (is this a function that lots of people use?)
  • storage safety
  • server security

Any other factors that I should consider before purchasing one?

I hope this topic helps anyone else considering a NAS for the first time during this lockdown :)

Computing NAS

Comments

  • pegaxs on 19/08/2021 - 10:48
    +2

    I have a QNAP TS-251+. It's only a 2 bay unit and I have 8tb of storage in it (2x 4tb drives, I don't run it in any RAID configuration). I bought it for use as a Plex media server. It's a few years old now, but I remember buying it, without drives, for around the $500 mark from a 15~20% off sale on ebay. I have about 300 movies (mostly at 1080p) and about 2000 TV episodes stored on it. Never misses a beat. streams to multiple devices around the local network at times and has no problem streaming to my devices when I am out of the house.

    I dont think you are going to get a 4 bay unit that will do things like transcoding and streaming for under $500. And 48tb of space is a lot of space… but u guess if you are storing 4k videos, it might get eaten up fairly smartly.

    • hyouden on 19/08/2021 - 11:41

      Thanks mate.

      Comparing between the QNAP TS-251+ and Synology DS220+, they look pretty similar. Except the QNAP has a HDMI port too…

      Was there a compelling reason why you went the QNAP vs Synology?

      • pegaxs on 19/08/2021 - 13:50

        I just remember reading reviews at the time and it was pretty much of a muchness. I remember the QNAP getting a really good write up with regards to Plex integration and the fact that it basically worked out of the box as a media player and came with a remote and, like you said, a HDMI port (not that I use either of these.)

        At the time, I also think there was a deal for the QNAP where it was posted here, where it got an extra 2gb of RAM thrown in for nothing which made it cheaper and better spec than the similar Synology that I was looking at.

  • mikeb on 19/08/2021 - 10:52
    +2

    NASCompares is a pretty good source of info. Just google the name. Synology is generally considered to be easier to setup and use, with Qnap probably better for more experienced users.

    Transcoding is important if you can't direct play to a device - e.g. you are streaming to your phone. Generally speaking the more you pay the better your transcoding experience will be. I personally don't use the NAS as a server because my shieldTV does such a good job as a PLEX server/client. In NASCompares somewhere you'll find a table which lists and compares the transcoding abilities of many devices. I personally wouldn't go less than a synology 920+ (720+ 2 bay) if transcoding was a priority and even then it has limitations.

    • hyouden on 19/08/2021 - 11:48

      Probably not a wise idea to go on it during work hours :D Been spending the last 30mins reading and watching. Thanks!

  • No Username on 19/08/2021 - 11:01
    +1

    Currently using a Synology DS918+ but currently considering moving back to FreeNAS. Reset button malfunctioned on the NAS and kept doing a factory reset. RMA has taken over 3 weeks.

  • USER DC on 19/08/2021 - 11:07
    +1

    I got a WD NAS 6 tb for a cheapo mere $99 (without box and without any full accessories, just hard drive and charging cable, NOT EVEN AN ETHERNET CABLE GIVEN by JB) from JB HIFI (would never usually shop there unless getting discounted sh*t)

  • gromit on 19/08/2021 - 11:10
    +3

    I went the path of self build. cheaper when going for higher end offerings, not something I would try for under $500 though.
    mini ittx case and power supply from here https://u-nas.com/
    ASRock Rack C3758D4I-4L (8 core and put 16gb left over ram in it I had laying around)
    this let me setup a nice tiered storage with mirror SSD cache drives along with a 6x12tb ironwolfs.

    for sub $500 for tasks you want you are going to need second hand. I would be looking on gumtree and ebay for secondhand, many sell for way way under RRP and in these times I am sure their are a lot of people flogging off gear to pay bills. For the precanned ones I like the Synology NAS's.

  • ldawg on 19/08/2021 - 11:38
    +1

    Not quite an answer, but I've recently setup a raspberry pi 4B running Plex with an attached powered HDD purely for media streaming on my local network. It runs pretty well and was a very budget setup (<$300 all up I'd say). Plex will struggle to transcode media on the pi (as it does not use any hardware encoding/decoding), I've heard mixed reports that Jellyfin handles this much better though - on my list to try it out!

  • boomramada on 19/08/2021 - 12:00

    I got pi 4B (samba share) + WD external HD + Nvidia Shield Pro - No issues so far.

  • Miami Mall Alien on 19/08/2021 - 12:09
    +1

    Another satisfied Synology DS918+ customer here. It just keeps on running.

  • AFOS on 19/08/2021 - 12:22

    I assume that your NAS is going to be used primarily for Plex (sorry if I am wrong here). Please correct me if I am wrong, but isn't it just better to run PC for that purpose?

  • BlueSkyAPI on 19/08/2021 - 13:14

    Personally I used to think a lot about transcoding when setting it up, however once my NAS is set up I never want to use transcoding. All the media consumption happens in house and I don't want any transcoding that would degrade the video quality.

    How often do you really need to consume the media remotely?

    Also consider the energy consumption - many of the low-end ready built from NAS vendors would be able to idle at lower wattage than most homegrown computers.

  • Switchblade88 on 19/08/2021 - 13:27

    There seems to be a huge market gap for NAS's with >4 drives. You either fork out several grand for a big NAS box, use a PC with 8 SATA ports, or otherwise buy a HBA and build your own disk array…

    • gromit on 19/08/2021 - 13:38

      I think the problem is there really isn't a huge market for that. Most people want more performance when they are investing in thousands of dollars in spinning rust so they aren't looking for the low end performance you get out of a cheapie NAS. I am sure there is "some" market for dirt cheap >4 bay NAS's but I doubt it is significant enough for commercial investment, very few home users go past 4 drives so the whole market is tiny compared to the 2-4 drive market.

    • cfuse on 20/08/2021 - 10:17
      +1

      This is when you go on ebay/gumtree/auction sites and buy ex-enterprise. They're always dumping hardware.

      More research and tinkering than an off the shelf solution, obviously.

  • dogboy on 19/08/2021 - 13:52

    HP G8 Microserver (w/ xeon cpu, 16GB RAM, SSD, HW raid controller, etc.) but probably cost a fair bit more than that with all the upgrades. Does everything perfectly.

    • dragong87 on 19/08/2021 - 14:13

      i do this and it works well if you can find a cheap G8 Microserver - Even without the upgrades it's not bad.

    • cfuse on 20/08/2021 - 10:23

      Also HP G8. Running Truenas. iLO makes me happy.

  • websterp on 19/08/2021 - 14:11
    +1

    Wanted something rack mountable but quiet/fanless/cheap and low power.
    Went with a case similar to this - Built-in fans not in use
    ASRock J4105-ITX - Which can comfortably do HW Accl transcoding if needed. IMO the use of transcoding is hugely overstated, never used/needed as pretty much all Plex viewing happens in the local network and if I'm away there are plenty of streaming services for more than what I can ever consume.
    Three shucked 2.5" drives installed in designated bays and piggybacked using double-sided tape for storage and a SSD for Proxmox (Pity the M2 does not support storage) - 2 Drives in Raid1 and the other on it's own for a bunch of movies etc. that I really don't care if lost with a dead HDD
    Quad ethernet Intel PCIE for additional BW

    Hasn't skipped a beat for year now.

  • nige0090 on 19/08/2021 - 18:47
    +1

    HP Microservers have been very popular. I've still got some running either OpenMediaVault or Win 10 Pro. The only problem I've had was one PSU died after running 6 HDDs for a long time. I've also got a HP ml10v2 with 8 HDDs which works well.

  • snooksy on 20/08/2021 - 08:53

    I have ~120 TB active with about an extra 20% redundancy for drive failures running in SAS Raid enclosure and custom rackmount Xeon server. About 140 TB in total but I can’t remember without checking. All my drives are Seagate drives and have been very reliable. My first drives were SATA IronWolf but I’ve transitioned to SAS as I’ve expanded. The server runs Ubuntu server with a single ZFS pool. There’s Nvme boot and cache drives in the server. This is all connected to 10GbE in my house.

    I have blu ray film rips mainly. I have an Oppo 203 and 2x Apple TV devices for media playback. Nothing is ever transcoded. Why?

    Just keep the original quality of the files you saved on your NAS. No issues with streaming multiple files at once or performance anywhere. I don’t use any wifi except for wireless devices like iPads. Cable is more reliable. The Oppo and Apple TV’s running infuse accept all original files including UHD ISOs etc.

    The server also runs TvHeadend with a quad TV card and I use that to record some TV shows and to stream IPTV (internet and terrestrial) around my network. Apple TV apps and Kodi to watch TV from any device / screen.

    I don’t use Plex. I don’t have a need for it. My content is all organised in my pool and Infuse collects metadata on the client side. Infuse syncs via iCloud which shows the films I’m watching/watched etc.

    Invest your $500 on something you can expand as you want more space. Look at FreeNAS or Synology if you want something plug and play. Also any old PC can be a good starting point. Maybe spend the $500 on a disk array.

    My NAS is always on and I’ve had one drive failure in about 10 years. I keep the drive temps close to 50 degrees most of the times and I have scripts that I wrote which check the drive temps and adjust the fan speeds in my SAS enclosure accordingly. About 1/5 of my drives are installed for redundancy. You mention security. I don’t have drive encryption turned on because there’s nothing of significant importance on my drives that need it.

    I’m at the stage where I probably will invest in a tape drive to archive content off the NAS. I don’t need more hot storage but I’d like to keep a lot of content for posterity that I can’t get anywhere any more.

    • Miami Mall Alien on 20/08/2021 - 11:37
      +1

      I have ~120 TB active

      That's amazing, you must have every Linux ISO ever released…

  • cacique on 20/08/2021 - 12:26

    If you're a newbie, you probably wont be building or using tape drives,etc. If you have something like a Nvidia Shield you wont need to worry about transcoding, but if you want to know which model does what: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1MfYoJkiwSqCXg8cm5-Ac…

    https://www.umart.com.au/TerraMaster-F5-221-5-Bay-Dual-Core-…

    Link above has 5 drive bays, an Intel processor, and upgradable RAM at $550, works as a Plex Server, can handle Docker containers for Sonarr, etc, and also just as pure storage/backup.

    Have a 14TB drive in the NAS, paired with an Nvidia Shield, connected via Ethernet, and play all 4K media through Kodi on the Shield and syncing media via PlexKodiConnect, and after initial setup havent had to touch it.

    This might help to setup: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UonGIefEXi0

  • mhz on 20/08/2021 - 16:20

    If you're only wanting to setup a NAS for streaming movies, how about look into getting a Google G-Suite account and utilise the unlimited storage you get through that and then use Infuse on apple devices (Apple TV, IOS and MAC OSX).
    Connect Infuse to your Google drive and there you go.
    I used to run 2 x QNAP NAS devices in my house running Plex, but I find this new setup to be much better and I can also allow my friends and family access to the google drive too

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