Discussion
I'm in the market for a NAS, around 1TB would be fine, but I'm a bit lost on the various options around. Is there a reasonably-priced and well-regarded favourite? It doesn't need to be that flash, I don't do BitTorrent downloads, but iTunes compatibility and automatic back ups would be handy.
I'm on Be with their standard freebie wi-fi box - would an upgrade be advisable if going for a NAS?
I also have a spare Dell Optiplex knocking around, and I've heard about various free NAS software - my two reservations are complexity of set-up and power consumption compared to a stand alone NAS box.
TIA
I'm on Be with their standard freebie wi-fi box - would an upgrade be advisable if going for a NAS?
I also have a spare Dell Optiplex knocking around, and I've heard about various free NAS software - my two reservations are complexity of set-up and power consumption compared to a stand alone NAS box.
TIA
I have a ReadyNAS,you didn't mention RAID redundancy so it's probably more than you need. Try http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/nas for comparisons, guides etc.
JulianHJ said:
Cheers guys, will give it a look. I'm planning on getting WD 1TB Caviar Black drives - worthy purchase?
Have run a Maxtor Shared Storage drive since they were first released - must be 4+ years ago - not a single crash, failure, or data-read error in all that time. Lovely thing. Recommended.Have also had an ICYBOX RAID NAS enclosure this last year. Dreadful garbage - brilliant in theory, but VERY slow, and crashed about once a day, losing all data/backups of data. NOT recommended.
ReadyNAS highly recommended, too.
Note: If you're going for a 2 drive set-up (guessing from your "drives" plural), DO NOT get the same drive from the same batch from the same shop from the same manufacturer. If there's a manufacturing/design fault, you're likely to lose them both at approximately the same time. If you're going down that route... different drive from different manufacturer. So, 1x WD Caviar Black, and 1x Seagate, perhaps? (Or similar)
marctwo said:
QNAP !!!
Ask dDog as he's just got one and loves it.
they are great until they go wrong and its 12 days turnaround from Taiwan for an RMA ...dont think they even have a prescence outside of Taiwan, I prefer my data to be on something a bit more established Ask dDog as he's just got one and loves it.
Readynas (Netgear), Buffalo, and Iomega (EMC) are the top 3 players in the sub £3K NAS market ....
some good offers on readynas right now, for free drives too
http://www.netgear.co.uk/freedrive.php
JulianHJ said:
Cheers guys, will give it a look. I'm planning on getting WD 1TB Caviar Black drives - worthy purchase?
If you're thinking of going down the ReadyNAS route then head over to Readynas.com and look in the hardware compatibility list to make sure that they're supported.I bought a ReadyNAS duo a while ago and stuck 2 x 1.5tb disks in RAID 1 and I'm very happy with it. I kinda wish I'd spent a bit extra and gone down the ReadyNAS NV route to give me more capacity but other than that it's a good bit of kit.
One thing I just thought of... why bother with a WD "Black" drive? I'd be tempted to go for the various vendors "green" drives, perhaps. Your speed-limiting factor here is likely to be the network connectivity if you're largely running over WiFi (be it A, B, G, or N), or 10/100 Ethernet. If you've got gigabit ethernet throughout, then the blacks make more sense from a performance perspective.
The numbers I'd be looking at would be the power draw and the MTBF of the drives. Power draw not because I'm a hippy, but power = heat and heat = one of the quickest ways of shortening a drive's MTBF. Especially in a cramped little NAS box that's likely to be stuffed up against other electronics/in a cupboard somewhere without the best airflow.
I can't remember if the Black's MTBF is significantly higher than other WD/other manufacturer's drives. If it is, then you can probably ignore all of the above.
The numbers I'd be looking at would be the power draw and the MTBF of the drives. Power draw not because I'm a hippy, but power = heat and heat = one of the quickest ways of shortening a drive's MTBF. Especially in a cramped little NAS box that's likely to be stuffed up against other electronics/in a cupboard somewhere without the best airflow.
I can't remember if the Black's MTBF is significantly higher than other WD/other manufacturer's drives. If it is, then you can probably ignore all of the above.
JulianHJ said:
QNAP look a little on the pricey side for me. The ReadyNAS Duo looks about right in terms of budget. I'm not sure that I'll RAID to start off with, as I plan on having a regular off-site backup via my WD My Book, which will be kept at my parents' place.
QNAP are pricey considering they only give 12 months warranty etc - Readynas (Infrant now Netgear) and Iomega (EMC) are 3 or 5 year depending on model (including any drives shipped with them, which are enterprise models) ..I guess they are more confident in their products long term..but then they have come from the SMB market down, rather than making low end consumer kit and working their way upCheers all for comments. I've been reading up on the subject a little more and WD Green drives make more sense (thanks JSG!). I've also read a lot of good stuff about Synology, particularly this review: http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/nas/nas-reviews/309...
They seem to be decent enough, and certainly not cheap, running at a slightly lower price than QNap (both from OCUK: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/productlist.php?grou...
They seem to be decent enough, and certainly not cheap, running at a slightly lower price than QNap (both from OCUK: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/productlist.php?grou...
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