Network Attached Storage recommendations

**Gremlin** · 14th July 2015, 02:25

Originally Posted by MarkH

I Can't see it to be honest.
4-Bay NAS box running RAID 6 would give the data storage of 2 drives - half the storage you paid for.
That's the same as RAID 10 while being slower in most cases both for read & write.
Maybe if you have RAID 6 over 8 drives it can make a lot of sense, but for what the OP is talking about it seems to me that RAID 6 would be pretty shit TBH.

So summing it up, raid config depends on your config (number of disks, desired protection and speed). Certain numbers of disks do indicate raid configuration.

3 disks - Raid 5
4 disks - Raid 1 (x2) or Raid 10, Raid 5 for more capacity (trade off being speed)
5 disks - Raid 5 or 6
6 disks - Raid 1, 5, 6, 10 etc....

Once you have enough disks you can then make multiple groups instead of throwing them all into one group.

2, you have no choice, 3-5 some choice, and once you're going higher then yes, multiple parity options are available.

**Gremlin** · 14th July 2015, 02:33

Originally Posted by Scuba_Steve

I have no real requirements but ability to add drives wouldn't be a bad thing

Mmm, saw this Steve. This is a tricky one and different NAS handle this differently. One thing to replace a drive, another entirely to dynamically add more disks. If you're using a consumer setup, it would have 2 or 4 bays for example, you can't put 3 into 2, or 5 into 4 bays.

If you have a raid 1 on 2 disks in a 4 bay, you can't add 1 disk because it's not the right number. Then you factor in whether you're striping or mirroring (or parity) and this affects the config very definitely. So you'd add 2 disks, but to get a raid 10, you have to stripe 1 and 3, 2 and 4, but the data isn't striped. You'd be better (if it lets you) to add another raid 1. Otherwise, you're removing all the data and re-configuring the raid.

If it can do it on the fly (lets say raid 1 to raid 5), then you're risking the data during the process. When messing with raid config I prefer never to have the only copy of data in it... it can easily go wrong.

If you're going to keep it longer, then you need to check if you can upgrade disks, ie, replace 1TB disks with 2TB disks. Can you increase the volume once disks have all been replaced... and so on

**Akzle** · 14th July 2015, 06:10

hdd docks. Can get 3-4 slot bastards, hot swappable. Usb3. No raid faggotry.

**eldog** · 14th July 2015, 07:26

NAS BACKUP SOFTWARE

Anyone found a decent automated backup software that can be configured and actually run at a reasonable pace without stopping 3/4 of the way through or taking forever?

Tried Norton 360 which I could configure to select my data files but would fail to completely copy some random time in the middle of the night for no apparent reason (I often wondered if this was Windows glitch or accessing 'updates')

Tried Western Digital Smartware - setup again good but took months with the computer continuously on and still didn't finish

I currently use File History but it seems a bit vague.

I have about 1 TB of files to back up, this is from a Windows 8 computer with a 2 TB RAID 10 drive setup (4 disks full disk space 2 TB)
It has run very reliably for the past 5+ years - Its a CAD number cruncher

I have multiple Western Digital My Cloud Mirror 6 TB drives which are nice and when used directly have quite a rapid file transfer (I like to think so), but its the backup software I am really concerned about. I would like to swop these on a weekly basis and use file history in between (or something)

Like my bike I just want it to be there for me and to start when I turn the key-off we go....

I expect the usual KB wealth of information and comments

**Gremlin** · 14th July 2015, 13:40

Do you want a fancy GUI type software, do you want specific backup software that will encapsulate all the data into one backup file (specific to that software) or do you actually want replication?

Specific backup software: ShadowProtect (paid), Macrium (think there is a free consumer version)
Replication: Rsync, cwRsync derivative, BeyondCompare etc etc.

**Latte** · 14th July 2015, 13:54

Originally Posted by TheDemonLord

Synology NAS

Do it.

I run multiple ones for my Company - they are lovely to work on.

Deployed these years ago back when I was in the SME space. Synology were always ahead of the curve with features and ease of use as you say. DS101's and DS107's from memory. I beleive the new ones have a *nix or bsd OS ? Able to run torrent clients / TV Managers etc.

**Big Dog** · 14th July 2015, 15:19

Of course you can go the other extreme.
Old box as a file server with no raid.
Ftp for browsing and uploading directly those files you don't want to keep locally.
Scheduled robocopy or other fancier backup from your hosts to the box and from the box to a larger backup drive and replicate to at least one other hdd.
Throw up a media streamer and stream your music, movies etc within your LAN.
Cost if you're patient? $0

Sent via tapatalk.

**Big Dog** · 14th July 2015, 15:21

But if your after an out of the box no mucking about solution buy exactly that.
Synology is a name I hear over and over from people with a better disposable income than me.

Sent via tapatalk.

**TheDemonLord** · 14th July 2015, 15:30

Originally Posted by Latte

Deployed these years ago back when I was in the SME space. Synology were always ahead of the curve with features and ease of use as you say. DS101's and DS107's from memory. I beleive the new ones have a *nix or bsd OS ? Able to run torrent clients / TV Managers etc.

Yep - all the old ones ran a customized version of *nix - I think its called Synology DSM now.

But yes - they are Ver nice

I prefer them over the Netgear ReadyNas and the Qnap QTS NAS(or whatever it is called)

**Scuba_Steve** · 14th July 2015, 16:17

OK so further thought into this, I don't really need redundancy as 86.93% of what this is will be backups for the PC's (currently 2x looking to expand to 4x) so a backup of a backup in a home environment to me seems maybee overkill... JBOD could be a way to go as it'll allow me to keep the 4TB & add to it with whatever size is flavour of the day; Only question being really how flexible is expansion on it does anyone know??? I'm getting conflicting stories on Googley

**Gremlin** · 14th July 2015, 16:36

Originally Posted by Scuba_Steve

OK so further thought into this, I don't really need redundancy as 86.93% of what this is will be backups for the PC's (currently 2x looking to expand to 4x) so a backup of a backup in a home environment to me seems maybee overkill... JBOD could be a way to go as it'll allow me to keep the 4TB & add to it with whatever size is flavour of the day; Only question being really how flexible is expansion on it does anyone know??? I'm getting conflicting stories on Googley

Depends on the hardware. WD for example in the Live Duo range allows for Raid 1 or spanning (not Raid 0). However, this means that some data can still span disks, ie, lose a drive and that data is lost (not all in most cases).

For a cheap option, I'd consider adding a disk or two to an existing PC then backup to that disk with file sharing + permissions. Nothing flash, just extra manually controlled space (so you know which backup is stored where).

**MarkH** · 14th July 2015, 16:54

Originally Posted by Scuba_Steve

OK so further thought into this, I don't really need redundancy as 86.93% of what this is will be backups for the PC's (currently 2x looking to expand to 4x) so a backup of a backup in a home environment to me seems maybee overkill... JBOD could be a way to go as it'll allow me to keep the 4TB & add to it with whatever size is flavour of the day; Only question being really how flexible is expansion on it does anyone know??? I'm getting conflicting stories on Googley

I've gone JBOD with a couple of DLink 2-bay NAS boxes.

DLink 2-Bay: $150 on special, nothing amazing in terms of performance but does the job OK. Uses EXT3 file system so can't just plug in an already formatted NTFS drive.
Advantage: cheap.
Disadvantages: lower performance than some more expensive NAS boxes, only 2 bays.
For expansion: Put in a drive and initialise it, copy data to it, easy. To expand storage you add a 2nd drive and initialise that, you can then copy data to either drive as desired.
Currently 4TB drives are cheap, in a few months 6TB drives (currently pricey) should be coming down in price.

If you want to spend more there are 4-Bay NAS boxes by QNAP or Synology you could look at.

So:
How much do you want (are willing) to spend?
How many drive bays do you want/need?
How fast a system are you willing to pay for?

**Scuba_Steve** · 14th July 2015, 17:18

Originally Posted by Gremlin

For a cheap option, I'd consider adding a disk or two to an existing PC then backup to that disk with file sharing + permissions. Nothing flash, just extra manually controlled space (so you know which backup is stored where).

Problem is my current PC's consist of a full server, a laptop & a All-in-one... not exactly expandable in themselves; The 4th PC to come will have space but also I'd rather have the backup external to a gaming PC (which the 4th will be)

Originally Posted by MarkH

So:
How much do you want (are willing) to spend?
How many drive bays do you want/need?
How fast a system are you willing to pay for?

As little as possible, they're not for media creation/mass file-sharing/Webserving or anything exciting
Would like 4x just for future expandability but 2x would probably suffice for awhile
Don't need speed, it's the space I'm after... Just as long as it can keep up with N wireless or faster I'm pretty happy (most stuff is done from laptop)

**Latte** · 14th July 2015, 17:19

Originally Posted by Big Dog

Of course you can go the other extreme.
Old box as a file server with no raid.
Ftp for browsing and uploading directly those files you don't want to keep locally.
Scheduled robocopy or other fancier backup from your hosts to the box and from the box to a larger backup drive and replicate to at least one other hdd.
Throw up a media streamer and stream your music, movies etc within your LAN.
Cost if you're patient? $0

Sent via tapatalk.

This is what I have now, an old E8500, onboard HD (intel 3500?) , 10TB storage. has Sonarr, Couchpotato, kodibuntu, and Deluge. Great for TV - add a show I want to watch via a web page. it downloads the entire series to date then grabs new eps as they arrive, updates xbmc library and notifies me. Missus and the kids can use it like a set top box with a standard remote. I can browse my tv and movies with my iphone. Fiddly to set up exactly how I wanted it , but pretty reliable now.