Another LinkStation or Something Else

[nheather]

I have an old Linkstation Live on my network - has worked (and still is) worked faultlessly for many years.

Trouble is it is only 500GB which was huge when I bought it. We don't store movie collections or anything but it has come close to full before and I trimmed out the junk - now it is filling up again.

It's attached to a 1Gbit network but we didn't really see much of an improvement from when it was on 100Mbit - presumably because of the controller and interface in the LinkStation.

So what do I need

More space - 1TB - 2TB

It would be nice if it were faster but the way in which we use it doesn't cause too much issue.

Would be nice to add some redundancy.

But one feature that we really appreciate and wouldn't like to be without is the Auto Power setting of the LinkStation Live. Essentially, this puts a tiny app on each computer and the first one switched on starts the LinkStation and the last computer to be switched off shuts down the LinkStation.

As far as I can tell only the LinkStation Live, Mini, Duo and Quad have this facility. The 210, 220, 410, 420 and 421 don't - just the ability to programme ON and OFF times like a water boiler. Not sure about the TeraStations.

So questions for you guys.

1 - Are there any other NAS solutions that have the automatic power on and off like the LinkStation Live

2 - Is there anything that would give me a decent performance increase for a moderate spend increase over the LinkStation.

3 - Are the LinkStation Duo and Quad any good?

Many thanks,

Nigel

 

[stevech]

Most popular here are the Synology and less so QNAP NASes for small home systems. Mostly 2 bay. Mine's a DS212 long owned and I've been very pleased.

Both have user configured off/on times. Mine is off while we sleep.

Try these two vendors' web site on line demos. Shop far and wide for best prices on the diskless NAS, then 3.5 inch. disk drives (Western Digital, maybe Seagate). Be sure to have a large USB3 drive as your external backup, stored out of sight.

 

[nheather]

Most popular here are the Synology and less so QNAP NASes for small home systems. Mostly 2 bay. Mine's a DS212 long owned and I've been very pleased.

Both have user configured off/on times. Mine is off while we sleep.

So let;s say you have it set to come on at 8am and off at 12am.

What if one of your family gets up at 7am and wishes to use it.

What I like about the LinkStation Live feature is that as soon as the first computer is switch on, the NAS turns on. And when the last computer switches off the NAS shuts down.

So if we go out for the day the NAS doesn't come on at all.

If someone wants to use their laptop 'out of hours' the NAS turns on for them.

In short my family don't really need to know anything about the NAS - it is just there when they need it.

There are a couple of downsides

1 - when you turn the first computer on there are a few minutes before the NAS is available

2 - non-computers (consoles, tablets, streamers) can't turn the NAS on and off. So if there is no computer on, the streamer won't find the NAS.

But neither of these are big issues to me and I really like the auto feature.

My question was really whether other NAS systems have a similar auto feature. If they don't then I guess I will have to stick with LinkStation.

Cheers,

Nigel

 

[stevech]

So let;s say you have it set to come on at 8am and off at 12am.

What if one of your family gets up at 7am and wishes to use it.

They have to push the on button on the NAS.

What I like about the LinkStation Live feature is that as soon as the first computer is switch on, the NAS turns on. And when the last computer switches off the NAS shuts down.

So if we go out for the day the NAS doesn't come on at all.

If someone wants to use their laptop 'out of hours' the NAS turns on for them.

In short my family don't really need to know anything about the NAS - it is just there when they need it.

There are a couple of downsides

1 - when you turn the first computer on there are a few minutes before the NAS is available

2 - non-computers (consoles, tablets, streamers) can't turn the NAS on and off. So if there is no computer on, the streamer won't find the NAS.

Most people, I think, don't program the NAS to power off. They just let the drives spin-down due to inactivity. The power consumption of this is very low.

But neither of these are big issues to me and I really like the auto feature.

My question was really whether other NAS systems have a similar auto feature. If they don't then I guess I will have to stick with LinkStation.

I'd look at the big picture of NAS features via the on-line demos before choosing based on just one.[

Cheers,

Nigel

 

[nheather]

Thanks, I'm beginning to like the sound of the QNAP.

Couple more questions.

Q1 Would you recommend running two drives as striped or mirrored?

I understand the performance, capacity, redundancy of the two RAID configurations but unsure about

a) whether performance is actually limited by the controller so 0 and 1 could be about the same.
b) just how reliable are disks these days - how important is mirroring

Q2 When you talk about drive spin-down is that something that the NAS or do the drives just naturally do it on their own?

Cheers,

Nigel

 

[stevech]

Thanks, I'm beginning to like the sound of the QNAP.

Couple more questions.

Q1 Would you recommend running two drives as striped or mirrored?

I understand the performance, capacity, redundancy of the two RAID configurations but unsure about

a) whether performance is actually limited by the controller so 0 and 1 could be about the same.
b) just how reliable are disks these days - how important is mirroring

Q2 When you talk about drive spin-down is that something that the NAS or do the drives just naturally do it on their own?

Cheers,

Nigel

I use my Synology DS212 in neither of the above. I use two separate volumes, one per drive. With mirroring (RAID1) if a file systems gets corrupted, it is so on both. No recovery. Same for user error in file handling/deleting.
I rank drive failure lower probability in a small NAS than human error or file system corruption - and that can also come from a power failure or NAS main board failure during a write. With two volumes, the second isn't affected - because in my arrangement, the file duplication is done time-deferred.

But external USB3 or eSATA is essential as the "1" in the proverbial 3-2-1 backup strategy.

5-10 years ago drive failure was all too common. For me, none in may years, including a small server in the garage running 24/7 for perhaps 8 years now, with two 500GB drives.

I recommend buying a NAS from a company like Synology or QNAP that specializes in such, rather than a Netgear, Buffalo, etc. that have inferior software in their NASes because the company exists to sell any and all sorts of hardware.

 

[nheather]

So am I correct that you have two separate volumes but you have something (not RAID 1) that copies data from one drive to another.

So in effect you are mirroring the data but at an application level rather than hardware\firmware level.

If that is correct, what application do you use to duplicate the data? Is it something that resides on the NAS and transparent to users (apart from the guy that administers it).

Cheers,

Nigel

 

[stevech]

So am I correct that you have two separate volumes but you have something (not RAID 1) that copies data from one drive to another.

So in effect you are mirroring the data but at an application level rather than hardware\firmware level.

If that is correct, what application do you use to duplicate the data? Is it something that resides on the NAS and transparent to users (apart from the guy that administers it).

Cheers,

Nigel

yes. Done with software in the NAS system software. Plus time backup... Version history.

 

[Deleted member 28741]

Bought yet?

Did you buy anything yet?

If you think storage might increase later on then why not consider a 4 Bay drive instead? You can start with 2 or 3 drives and add more later.

I am in a similar situation as you and enjoy the auto on/off function on the buffalo boxes. I have two.. A quad /qvl and duo /wxl

However, I'm not happy with either though and am leaning towards a QNAP TS 469 L to replace them.

I use RAID 10 on the quad and 1 on the duo (which now acts as a backup for the quad).