NAS Drives

[OnaRoll]

Another numpty here!

Would a two bay drive drive be able to mirror (raid1) and still behave as a media sever, CCTV and back up for home use if I put two large drives in for enough storage?

Or could I take advantage of the USB port somehow? It's a Big price jump from a two bay to a 4 bay.

[xeny]

OnaRoll said:

Would a two bay drive drive be able to mirror (raid1) and still behave as a media sever, CCTV and back up for home use if I put two large drives in for enough storage?

Yes, but remember RAID isn't backup.

[xeny]

Ydnaroo said:

WD Blog says the there are new CMR NAS drives coming out.

Edit. The part Nos supposedly at EoL are those in the above blog as being 'available soon'.

They'll be available as "Red Plus" for a premium.

[OnaRoll]

xeny said:

OnaRoll said:

Would a two bay drive drive be able to mirror (raid1) and still behave as a media sever, CCTV and back up for home use if I put two large drives in for enough storage?

Yes, but remember RAID isn't backup.

Confused even more now

If I were to backup to the NAS from my laptops and the NAS is setup RAID 1. If one of those drives fail I still have my DATA and just need to pop a new drive in????

[Gad-Westy]

OnaRoll said:

xeny said:

OnaRoll said:

Would a two bay drive drive be able to mirror (raid1) and still behave as a media sever, CCTV and back up for home use if I put two large drives in for enough storage?

Yes, but remember RAID isn't backup.

Confused even more now

If I were to backup to the NAS from my laptops and the NAS is setup RAID 1. If one of those drives fail I still have my DATA and just need to pop a new drive in????

That is my noob understanding as well. Maybe the reason you shouldn't rely on it as backup is that if you delete a file from one drive it is also deleted from the 'backup'. But in my OP example, Time machine would get around that issue as long as you had a reasonable size drive and realised the problem early enough.

[xeny]

OnaRoll said:

Confused even more now

If I were to backup to the NAS from my laptops and the NAS is setup RAID 1. If one of those drives fail I still have my DATA and just need to pop a new drive in????

Yes, just replace a failed drive. Accidentally deleting a media file and it would be gone though.

[bloomen]

OnaRoll said:

Confused even more now

If I were to backup to the NAS from my laptops and the NAS is setup RAID 1. If one of those drives fail I still have my DATA and just need to pop a new drive in????

Raid is considered redundancy rather than backup. People often prefer to order drives separately just in case two bought together are a bad batch. Rebuilding a raid is hard work on the drive so if one dies and the other has the same flaw then off goes everything.

I have a two bay Ex2 Ultra and went with Raid 0, no redundancy at all, as everything's backed up elsewhere and it's a whole lot cheaper than shelling out for a 4 bay.

LeadFarmer said:

So should NAS drives always be CMR and never SMR? Is there a way of telling the difference when buying?

If you're going to do Raidy things then yes. Linus Tech Tips tested this. CMR raid took 10 hours to rebuild. SMR took 12 days I think. Google the model number and you should find what you need to know.

[xeny]

bloomen said:

I have a two bay Ex2 Ultra and went with Raid 0, no redundancy at all, as everything's backed up elsewhere and it's a whole lot cheaper than shelling out for a 4 bay. .

what scares me with that is that if one drive has a bad hair day you're potentially looking at quite a large restore. I'd rather keep the 2 drives separate, so they can fail individually.

[bloomen]

xeny said:

what scares me with that is that if one drive has a bad hair day you're potentially looking at quite a large restore. I'd rather keep the 2 drives separate, so they can fail individually.

In retrospect perhaps I should've set it up as JBOD. Raid 0 does have a performance advantage but I'm not sure if it's big enough to favour it. Bit late now anyway.

Mine's up to 23 TB now so whatever happens is going to eat some time to sort it out.

[OnaRoll]

xeny said:

bloomen said:

I have a two bay Ex2 Ultra and went with Raid 0, no redundancy at all, as everything's backed up elsewhere and it's a whole lot cheaper than shelling out for a 4 bay. .

what scares me with that is that if one drive has a bad hair day you're potentially looking at quite a large restore. I'd rather keep the 2 drives separate, so they can fail individually.

So what's the best way to back this all up without using the cloud?

[xeny]

OnaRoll said:

So what's the best way to back this all up without using the cloud?

Another NAS?

[OnaRoll]

xeny said:

OnaRoll said:

So what's the best way to back this all up without using the cloud?

Another NAS?

I knew you were gonna say that!

[bloomen]

OnaRoll said:

So what's the best way to back this all up without using the cloud?

Boggo hard disks.

I have two 14 TB hard disks in my NAS that are raid 0 so if one goes they both go.

Everything on there is backed up on external hard disks elsewhere.

Once I went above the capacity of the original drives in raid 1 I had in the NAS I considered getting a four bay one but it would've been £1000 extra or so. Instead I decided to stick to two disks with no redundancy and have standard backups.

[OnaRoll]

ash73 said:

RAID only protects against single drive failure. It doesn't protect against user error (deleting the wrong file), or fire/theft.

For a typical home setup forget RAID (I think most people use it just because it's gadgety); use both drive bays for storage and get a physically separate backup, e.g. a usb drive you keep offsite or in the shed. Plug the usb drive in once a quarter, and back everything up to that.

Then if you delete something on the NAS you later need, it's still on the usb drive.

Could this be done via the usb port available on some NAS enclosures? I would still like to use a couple of drives mirrored then a third I could take of site.

Thanks for all the tips guys.

[wiggy001]

ash73 said:

Synology owners will recommend Synology, QNAP owners will recommend QNAP.

Western Digital owners will recommend Synology or QNAP

[bloomen]

wiggy001 said:

Western Digital owners will recommend Synology or QNAP

I'm very happy with my WD thing. All I want is streaming and sticking files on there. I've looked at all the features of the fancier ones and there's nothing there I require.

[wiggy001]

bloomen said:

wiggy001 said:

Western Digital owners will recommend Synology or QNAP

I'm very happy with my WD thing. All I want is streaming and sticking files on there. I've looked at all the features of the fancier ones and there's nothing there I require.

I was the same (WD MyCloud). Until it died a death 2 weeks ago. Can't connect to it over the network or directly, can't access the drive itself if removed of all the NASsiness. It's basically a paperweight.

[xeny]

OnaRoll said:

Could this be done via the usb port available on some NAS enclosures? I would still like to use a couple of drives mirrored then a third I could take of site.

Generally yes. I find it easier to do via a PC that can read the shares on the NAS - it's reassuring to see the files in the USB drive updating.

[maffski]

OnaRoll said:

Confused even more now

If I were to backup to the NAS from my laptops and the NAS is setup RAID 1. If one of those drives fail I still have my DATA and just need to pop a new drive in????

The most common time for a NAS drive to fail is while it's rebuilding after a failed drive. Think of a mirror as being for convenience rather than a back up.

[OnaRoll]

Thanks for the tips. You really are a knowledgeable bunch.

Hopefully none of you are talking from experience though......