NAS Drive

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Discussion

rufmeister

Original Poster:

1,332 posts

121 months

Wednesday 18th March 2015
quotequote all
Hoping someone can recommend me a simple to install and use NAS Drive.

Well, it's what I've been told I need anyway, so happy to listen to alternatives if it's not.

I run a business from home, using a PC and Macbook, also as a family have a laptop, 2 iPads and 2 iPhones.

I would like to back up all devices to a central point, and be able to access all the data remotely.

Things like images, files, etc etc, I want to be able to access if I am out and about, or on holiday, and also to ensure they are safe.

Been told I need minimum of 2 bay set up, as they can fail, so best to have a mirror.

Any help please?


LordHaveMurci

12,034 posts

168 months

Wednesday 18th March 2015
quotequote all
Synology - even I could set it up & use it!

QNAP also get recommended a lot but I have no experience of those.

rufmeister

Original Poster:

1,332 posts

121 months

Wednesday 18th March 2015
quotequote all
http://www.dabs.com/products/synology-ds214-play-2...

Something like this?

Although am I being daft...it doesn't actually have a hard drive in it as it says storage 0 with a max of 12TB?

onlynik

3,978 posts

192 months

Wednesday 18th March 2015
quotequote all
You are correct.

It doesn't ship with any drives but will support 2 x 6TB drives, in a RAID 0 configuration, hence 12TB.

LordHaveMurci

12,034 posts

168 months

Wednesday 18th March 2015
quotequote all
You need some Western Digital RED hard drives to go with it - whatever size you feel you need - I went for 2 x 3Tb which are about £90.00ea

Edited by LordHaveMurci on Wednesday 18th March 14:11

daddy cool

3,996 posts

228 months

Wednesday 18th March 2015
quotequote all
I have a QNAP TS-412 - its relatively easy to set up, and once done, has performed faultlessly for the last 2-3 years. To be honest, i dont use a fraction of its functions - i just stream movied from it to my PS3 and watch on the telly.
Its a 4-bay one, and i have it set up as RAID5 (i think its RAID5 anyway - its the one where one of the drives is a backup of the other 3). I have 4 x 3TB drives, so 9TB of usable space - 3Tb is the backup.

LordHaveMurci

12,034 posts

168 months

Wednesday 18th March 2015
quotequote all
rufmeister said:
http://www.dabs.com/products/synology-ds214-play-2...

Something like this?

Although am I being daft...it doesn't actually have a hard drive in it as it says storage 0 with a max of 12TB?
Or this: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Synology-DiskStation-Deskt...

rufmeister

Original Poster:

1,332 posts

121 months

Wednesday 18th March 2015
quotequote all
This is all getting a wee bit scary now! Is there any difference between the cheaper one and dearer one? Or is it down to storage capacity?

onlynik

3,978 posts

192 months

Wednesday 18th March 2015
quotequote all
Cheaper one doesn't come with any drives.


You'd need to buy the drives.


The more expensive one can be configured with a different amount of drives from Amazon.

nyt

1,803 posts

149 months

Wednesday 18th March 2015
quotequote all
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00OZ0CTAU/

Seems a fair price

You'll need to add a couple of hard disks

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Red-3-5-inch-Desktop-Hard-...


You'll probably need something to back up what's on the NAS.
IIRC synology will back up to an external USB drive. Something like: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Seagate-Expansion-desktop-... but you'll have to check that


rufmeister

Original Poster:

1,332 posts

121 months

Wednesday 18th March 2015
quotequote all
nyt said:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00OZ0CTAU/

Seems a fair price

You'll need to add a couple of hard disks

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Red-3-5-inch-Desktop-Hard-...


You'll probably need something to back up what's on the NAS.
IIRC synology will back up to an external USB drive. Something like: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Seagate-Expansion-desktop-... but you'll have to check that
So its advisable to back up, my back up, of a back up?

Blimey guv!


nyt

1,803 posts

149 months

Wednesday 18th March 2015
quotequote all
rufmeister said:
So its advisable to back up, my back up, of a back up?

Blimey guv!
Well, it's up to you obviously, but an offsite backup is always a good idea (left at work or a relatives).
What would happen if your house burnt down or one of the encryption viruses hit you?

Though cloud storage is now so cheap and convenient that that might be a better option



rufmeister

Original Poster:

1,332 posts

121 months

Wednesday 18th March 2015
quotequote all
nyt said:
Well, it's up to you obviously, but an offsite backup is always a good idea (left at work or a relatives).
What would happen if your house burnt down or one of the encryption viruses hit you?

Though cloud storage is now so cheap and convenient that that might be a better option
Would a cloud set up back everything up, images from phones, documents from pc, etc etc?

Or back the NAS drive up to the cloud?

irocfan

40,152 posts

189 months

Wednesday 18th March 2015
quotequote all
I read/heard good things about these (especially good for me being as dumb as mud when it come to tech)

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prod...


FlossyThePig

4,083 posts

242 months

Wednesday 18th March 2015
quotequote all
daddy cool said:
Its a 4-bay one, and i have it set up as RAID5 (i think its RAID5 anyway - its the one where one of the drives is a backup of the other 3). I have 4 x 3TB drives, so 9TB of usable space - 3Tb is the backup.
I think you need to read up on RAID to find out where you have made your fundamental error there.

rufmeister said:
nyt said:
Well, it's up to you obviously, but an offsite backup is always a good idea (left at work or a relatives).
What would happen if your house burnt down or one of the encryption viruses hit you?

Though cloud storage is now so cheap and convenient that that might be a better option
Would a cloud set up back everything up, images from phones, documents from pc, etc etc?

Or back the NAS drive up to the cloud?
What's your internet connection like? It's the upload speed that is important if you want to use "the cloud" for backup.

Remember that RAID provides resilience not a backup solution.

nyt

1,803 posts

149 months

Wednesday 18th March 2015
quotequote all
rufmeister said:
Would a cloud set up back everything up, images from phones, documents from pc, etc etc?

Or back the NAS drive up to the cloud?
The cloud will certainly back up your stuff - check dropbox/google/microsoft out.

But there's a lot more that a NAS can do - such as store media mentally for playback on a smart TV (DLNA) or music via something like SONOS.

My main point is that if your data is valuable (pictures are irreplaceable and your business data is also valuable I guess) then having everything in one building is a risk. A small one, but a risk nevertheless.



daddy cool

3,996 posts

228 months

Wednesday 18th March 2015
quotequote all
FlossyThePig said:
daddy cool said:
Its a 4-bay one, and i have it set up as RAID5 (i think its RAID5 anyway - its the one where one of the drives is a backup of the other 3). I have 4 x 3TB drives, so 9TB of usable space - 3Tb is the backup.
I think you need to read up on RAID to find out where you have made your fundamental error there.
Nope, its RAID5 that I set mine up as. Unless you are being geeky and pointing out that im saying 3TB of my total storage is "backup" when the proper word is "parity", or the fact that that parity is spread across all the drives, rather than just one specific one (though for the layman the difference is the same - you can lose one drive - any one - and your data is still safe)

sgrimshaw

7,311 posts

249 months

Thursday 19th March 2015
quotequote all
onlynik said:
Cheaper one doesn't come with any drives.


You'd need to buy the drives.


The more expensive one can be configured with a different amount of drives from Amazon.
Actually, neither come with drives.

There must be something to make the 214 considerably more expensive than the 215 ... trying to figure out exactly what that is myself.

nyt

1,803 posts

149 months

Thursday 19th March 2015
quotequote all
sgrimshaw said:
Actually, neither come with drives.

There must be something to make the 214 considerably more expensive than the 215 ... trying to figure out exactly what that is myself.
http://www.storagereview.com/synology_diskstation_ds214play_review

In short: Lots of media transcoding and streaming features that the OP didn't mention needing

GuinnessMK

1,608 posts

221 months

Thursday 19th March 2015
quotequote all
I have an old HP Proliant Server, which has 3 of these drives in it;

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/HP-DG0072BALVL-72-GB-Int...

Would they fit in one of these NAS devices?