Thread: Network Attached Storage (NAS)

Hiya,

I've been thinking about buying a pre-built NAS, anybody got any experience or recommendations?



I need 5-10 3.5" HDD's (ie. 10-20TB total), RAID5 or RAID6 depending on the size, bittorent (obviously ;), mediaserver (streaming movies over the network to my ps3), file encryption

I've been looking at the Synology DS 1010, QNAP 859, QNAP 809 & Thecus N7700

As I said, I'm still undecided, can't really tell which is better and what to watch out for. If anybody's got some experience (with respect to companies, functionalities, specs, hardware, software or operating-system) I'd certainly appreciate it :)

~ Exa

All I can say is QNAP is amazing. F-ing unbelievably amazing. Just fantastic. They get the job done with amazing speed, and just overall quality. The features work great, but I just wish there was a Bittorent client embedded to utilize all 4TB I have. I would go with any of the QNAPs hands down. Did I mention they are f-ing unbelievably amazing?

Originally Posted by chuck norris

All I can say is QNAP is amazing. F-ing unbelievably amazing. Just fantastic. They get the job done with amazing speed, and just overall quality. The features work great, but I just wish there was a Bittorent client embedded to utilize all 4TB I have. I would go with any of the QNAPs hands down. Did I mention they are f-ing unbelievably amazing?

Hmm, afaik the QNAPs come with bittorrent installed. Question is what client, but it should be too hard installing say rTorrent and ruTorrent for a seedbox style webinterface :)

Thx for the feedback, the QNAP was already on my shortlist so your praise is indeed helpful ^^

I am also hunting around for a good and reasonably priced NAS. However I have found them all to be very expensive (compared to building a PC) I don't understand why it's so hard for manufactures to make box's that take 8+ hdds that don't cost thousands of dollars. most decent 5 bay NAS's seem to have a premium of $150-200 per drive, which sadly is more than the price of 2TB drives you then have to buy to go into them.

If anyone knows of an awesome NAS/standalone case that is able to house heaps of drive on the cheap let me know.

Originally Posted by TangoSeeder

I am also hunting around for a good and reasonably priced NAS. However I have found them all to be very expensive (compared to building a PC) I don't understand why it's so hard for manufactures to make box's that take 8+ hdds that don't cost thousands of dollars. most decent 5 bay NAS's seem to have a premium of $150-200 per drive, which sadly is more than the price of 2TB drives you then have to buy to go into them.

If anyone knows of an awesome NAS/standalone case that is able to house heaps of drive on the cheap let me know.

I've actually been thinking about building it myself for a few years now, but as it stands it hasn't happened, so now I'm gonna bite the bullet and get a more expensive prebuilt... :/

Originally Posted by TangoSeeder

I don't understand why it's so hard for manufactures to make box's that take 8+ hdds that don't cost thousands of dollars.

Because they can?

Exa: What's keeping you from building a budget rig to do the same thing? What you're trying to do is what I'm already doing with just my normal computer. One of the main things I do is use it as a media server for my PS3, and I guess it depends on how you're trying to do things, but I find it takes a little bit more power to stream that good 1080p via PS3 Media Server. Or are you trying to just move over the stored material when you want to access it on the PS3?

Originally Posted by LtGrunt

What's keeping you from building a budget rig to do the same thing?

Mostly time and effort. Ordering the parts, hoping that they all work as intended, setting everything up (dedicated sata raid controller, os, sw). Aside from the actual hardware, you're also paying for the setup aswell as the guarantee that the parts work together, are stable and reliable. Also, with a home-built you're gonna have max. 5 5.25" hot-swappable drives at the front with some drives ending up built into the case. HDD failures do occur and with my main storage unit I wanna be able to access the HDDs easily.

Originally Posted by LtGrunt

What you're trying to do is what I'm already doing with just my normal computer.

How many TB do you have in your pc? Mine currently has 3 TB on 4 discs. I need much, much more...

Originally Posted by LtGrunt

One of the main things I do is use it as a media server for my PS3, and I guess it depends on how you're trying to do things, but I find it takes a little bit more power to stream that good 1080p via PS3 Media Server. Or are you trying to just move over the stored material when you want to access it on the PS3?

One of the things I want is encryption and that will in fact eat at the cpu's coping capabilities. Other than that, an Atom CPU is already powerful enough to stream the 8-15 Mbit/s that HD content requires over a network. I want the device to store all my data, run 24/7 and act as a remotely accessible download-station + media-center.

Building it myself would be an option, however it's a hassle. Using my own PC is not an option because it's already full of drives. Hence my request for info regarding experience with prebuilt-NAS ;)

Here's one I'm seriously looking at: QNAP TS-809 PRO TURBO 8 BAY NAS REVIEW - [TWEAKNEWS] - PAGE 1

Expensive, but the specs are amazing and it supports 8 drives which leaves you with 14TB in RAID5 or 12 in RAID6

Right now I'm at 7tb but a couple drives are small. I have 3 SATA and two eSATA open still (I run my DVD IDE), and thats all onboard. Also, in case I fill that up i've got a convenient HDD dock that I can hotswap 3.5" and 2.5" drives all day.

About the streaming PS3, let me clarify. I find it tedious to convert everything to a compatible format so I transcode on the fly, which eats up a bit more cpu than just streaming compatible video.

That TS-809 Pro seems sweet but they are rather pricey. If it's a convenience factor and you have the money to burn then by all means go that route, I imagine it'll do everything you are looking for exceedingly well. What you're paying for is the software and that convenient modularity, but you could buy equivalent hardware and setup encryption and remote server yourself for a bit less money (with the proper know-how). By the time you drop 8 x 2Tb drives into that TS-809 you're in for like $2700 and tax.

Exa,

Agree with the QNAP comments. I have a QNAP TS-219.
I only have 2 x 1TB HDD's but they are quickly becoming filled and I will need to be upgrading very soon. I am more than likely going to stick with QNAP but I might look into the Synology and see how it is.
Havn't had any problems with the QNAP and TwonkyMedia (the software that streams to my PS3) works like a charm! :)

Hope you found this helpful.