Home NAS w/ FTP, Quiet, flexible auto-backup

[joeyjoey]

I've read the articles here, and many of the reviews many times, and checked out the charts, but there are still some specific issues I'm stuck on before making my purchase so I'm hoping for advice from current users.

My network consists of a desktop and a few laptops/netbooks, plus a couple gaming consoles (360, but not sure I really care about streaming to it). Mostly running XP but Win2k still on one machine. All but one machine normally connect wirelessly through MIMO-g. The NAS itself will preferably connect to a wireless-g print server that's being used as a bridge.

HERE'S WHAT I'D LIKE:

1) Automated backups (but not RAID). I would like either a 2-bay NAS with separate volumes, or simply 2 single drives with at least one FTP-capable. I plan to backup my computers to the NAS drive (with MS Backup or similar), and use the rest of the space for media file storage. What I would really like to do is be able to have automated backups from the primary NAS volume to the other volume. This is one of my sticking points, because when I look at models such as the DNS-321/3 it is unclear to me whether automated backup could be performed from one volume to the other volume residing within the same device. I'd also like to choose what folders to backup, not just the full volume. And I'm guessing incremental backup is probably necessary due to speed considerations.

2) FTP or web access. I won't use it a lot, so performance isn't critical, but will use it on occassion and for sharing photos and whatnot with friends.

3) QUIET. I hate noise; it's a dealbreaker. "Medium" isn't even a consideration. "Very Low" is far better than "Low", though I realize subjective ratings are just that. No problem replacing a fan, if that's truly the primary culprit. Big fans are better than small ones. NO FAN is fantastic, and is what puts the WD MWB on the list (though I'm concered about backup possibilities, and suppose I'd need a different device that could actually control the backup schedule???).

4) ACCESSIBLE DATA. No one likes recovering data, but if worst comes to worst, I'd like to be able access the drive from a PC. Direct FAT32 or NTFS would be great, for EXT2 etc I can always download a filesystem reader utility, and if filetables are messed up I can tolerate recovery programs - but what I do not want is some oddball format I'll never be able to recover from without purchasing an identical device or controller (also one of the turnoffs of RAID). (Actually, the EXT3 format is something that concerns me with the NSA-220, since I've never recovered from it, but it that an issue??? or is it as easy as EXT2?)

5) Idle/Standby/Sleep - Low Power consumption. This thing should not run 24/7, and I'd prefer shutdown after x minutes of idleness as opposed to scheduled on/off periods. How this works between the various models was also unclear to me many times.

6) Not a requirement, but the media/iTunes servers are a noted benefit all else being equal.

Will any of the devices I mentioned above do what I want (the WD MWB clearly in conjunction with an unnamed device)? Are there better options available? I do not want to pay triple the price for features I will never use, which is why Synology and ReadyNAS haven't been mentioned, though they sound great. At first I was even considering a "home server", but it seems like just wasting power and paying for too many features, though some even seem to lack FTP - plus the whole noise issue. Also, while not a requirement, being able to upload offsite would be a plus.

Are there any considerations I'm missing?

I realize I've written quite a lot here, but will appreciate any advice and comments. Thank you.

 

[joeyjoey]

A day later I've decided to add more specific questions about the devices I mentioned, if anyone is kind enough to have an answer to even part of a question that'd be great.

D-Link DNS-321:
I mentioned I'd like to backup folders from one NAS volume to the other NAS volume, without RAID, in this case in the same enclosure. I see that you can do scheduled backups from local folders (the review mentions this, and it's in their software emulator) so I'm asssuming this will work, correct? This might seem like a dumb question, but can anyone confirm that in this scenario the DNS-321 will do all of the work internally without daring to send data to my wireless router and back to itself? That would take infinitely longer for backups.
Also, is it officially established that it will shutdown it's fan after idleness or at low temps? Is it definitely a working feature of the newer firmware? I'm concerned about noise after reading the 323 complaints.

Zyxel NSA-220:
Can this NAS do scheduled backups??? I've read the full review, and checked out its specs, but still don't think I've seen any mention of this. I realize if I'm running external software on my PC, such as MS Backup, I can schedule the computer backups that way, but this won't help me for backing up folders from one NAS volume to the other. Plus, it just seems nice if the NSA-220 could initiate all of the PC backups, rather than each computer doing it on its own.
My only other concern with this model is that "Zyxel" isn't a name brand I recognize. Valid? Or might quality and reliability be better than the brands I recognize and I just wasn't aware? User interface for "generics" is always a scary notion, until you can see what you're dealing with.

WD My Book World ("white stripe"):
Can anyone recommend a good method for backing up folders from this device to another location, preferably on another external drive? Can anyone recommend a specific other single-bay NAS or external drive that will work well with MBW for this purpose? Aside from the backup issues, this one got a glowing review. I'm just a little confused about how to back it, particularly in a scheduled fashion, but if anyone has some advice about what would be a great setup with this device I'd love to hear it.
Is using two separate external drives like this even a good idea? a bad one?

Other NAS recommendations considering the features-wanted list in my original post are still MOST welcome. Thanks everyone.

 

[thiggins]

My network consists of a desktop and a few laptops/netbooks, plus a couple gaming consoles (360, but not sure I really care about streaming to it). Mostly running XP but Win2k still on one machine. All but one machine normally connect wirelessly through MIMO-g. The NAS itself will preferably connect to a wireless-g print server that's being used as a bridge.

If the NAS is being used via a wireless connection you are severely limiting performance. You will get 1-2 MB/s with 11g.

1) Automated backups (but not RAID). I would like either a 2-bay NAS with separate volumes, or simply 2 single drives with at least one FTP-capable. I plan to backup my computers to the NAS drive (with MS Backup or similar), and use the rest of the space for media file storage. What I would really like to do is be able to have automated backups from the primary NAS volume to the other volume.

Not a good idea. "backup" to another internal drive is not backup. If you have a controller / power supply failure or glitch, both drives could be unreadable. At minimum backup should be done to an external USB/SATA drive and preferably to another physically separate NAS.

2) FTP or web access. I won't use it a lot, so performance isn't critical, but will use it on occassion and for sharing photos and whatnot with friends.

Most all NASes provide FTP access. File access via web browser is not as common. The safest way to do this is via a hosted service like Buffalo / WD have.

3) QUIET. I hate noise; it's a dealbreaker. "Medium" isn't even a consideration. "Very Low" is far better than "Low", though I realize subjective ratings are just that. No problem replacing a fan, if that's truly the primary culprit. Big fans are better than small ones. NO FAN is fantastic, and is what puts the WD MWB on the list (though I'm concered about backup possibilities, and suppose I'd need a different device that could actually control the backup schedule???).

You're always going to have drive noise, with more drives = more noise. This would point you toward single-drive products.

4) ACCESSIBLE DATA. No one likes recovering data, but if worst comes to worst, I'd like to be able access the drive from a PC. Direct FAT32 or NTFS would be great, for EXT2 etc I can always download a filesystem reader utility, and if filetables are messed up I can tolerate recovery programs - but what I do not want is some oddball format I'll never be able to recover from without purchasing an identical device or controller (also one of the turnoffs of RAID). (Actually, the EXT3 format is something that concerns me with the NSA-220, since I've never recovered from it, but it that an issue??? or is it as easy as EXT2?)

I would not put this high on the checklist. Only Windows Home Server based NASes will have NTFS format. No product uses FAT32. EXT3 is just a journaled version of EXT2. Any utility that handles EXT2 will do EXT3.
If you use the NAS-to-NAS backup method, you won't need to worry about recovering your files from the failed NAS anyway.

The more important consideration may be drive replacement. The drives in diskful NASes like the WD white bar and Buffalo LinkStation are not considered to be user-replaceable, so they won't initialize drives if you have to swap them. If this is important, then you have to go with a BYOD product.

5) Idle/Standby/Sleep - Low Power consumption. This thing should not run 24/7, and I'd prefer shutdown after x minutes of idleness as opposed to scheduled on/off periods. How this works between the various models was also unclear to me many times.

Power save features do vary from system to system. The "shutoff after x minutes" features only apply to drive spindown, not putting the NAS in standby. But for single-drive products, the drives suck most of the power anyway.

You don't say how important performance is. But if you are accessing the NAS wirelessly, then it's not really a consideration. So this means that you can look for bargains on last-generation NASes.

If you want BYOD, then look at the single-drive QNAP and Synologies. QNAP has a few models with no fans (TS-109 Pro, TS-119). But you'll be paying more because of the features that you don't want.

If you want diskful, look at the Buffalo single-drive models. Although it's last-generation, the Buffalo LinkStation Live LS-CHL has everything you want, including no fan, and a 500 GB version is $160 or 1TB for $180 from NewEgg. Get two and you can set one up to sync with the other for backup. If you want something faster go with the LinkStation LS-XHL.

 

[joeyjoey]

Thank you for the advice. I cannot believe the amount of work you must put in to respond to so many of the posts here.

I tried to just state what I was looking for, without a whole dissertation as to why, but I realize that will always lead to questions. As for backups, my critical files and photos are always backed to at least 3 or 4 locations, same for dated pc backups in different locations. But the truth is that there are various "levels" of backup importance, and the type of file I would back up from one volume to the other within the device would be more of the pain-in-the-butt-but-not-catastrophic type, things like ripped media files that are replaceable, just time consuming. Basically, the device I purchase will store "extra", most-recent pc backups, and media files with their backups I'd just prefer not to lose. FTP will be used as well.

The most important question in my mind in this regard is how often a failure is the type of device failure that really destroys both disks. If it is rare, I'm ok with it. But if 90% of time the initial failure in these devices wrecks both disks, I would agree that it's no backup at all.

Believe me, if there was any possible way whatsoever to hardwire everything in my network I would; I used to, and if I ever move I will again, but right now it is just impossible. There's absolutely no space for it, plus it would put it too close to me for noise considerations anyway. Most of my power consumption and standby concerns are actually more noise concerns, too. I expect the drive to be idle most of the time, so standby, idle or sleep modes are important to me.

I hate to take up too much of Mr. Higgins time, so I was hoping other users or owners could still address some of the specific device operation questions I had. I'd still like to backup files from one volume to the other, for non-critical files. I will check out the mentioned Buffalo Live though (another brand I considered "scary off-brand" but could easily be wrong).

thiggins: I couldn't help but notice that you didn't really say anything about the devices I listed, and instead listed qnap, synology, and buffalo devices. I don't know whether to interpret that as my original options not being good, which was my initial instinct, or if you were simply providing other options. Maybe you shouldn't really say because you rely on these companies to provide test models, etc., and that's outside the scope.

I admit I do not have a good understanding of the benefits all of the extra features on brands like Synology offer. It will be difficult to judge ease-of-use and functionality until one is actually used. I do not know how important secure https might be vs ftp. I do not know if I care about webservers or how much easier they could make file sharing. I'm not a mac person though. I wish I knew all of these things, but what really makes something like the ds209j cost mulitple times what the dns-321 cost? What makes it worth it?

 

[Osamede]

If you have a reasonably fast wireless network in the home and will add a NAS, why deal with backing up and managing all these PCs in the first place?

If you have a NAS, that should be the "home" for all user files. The PCs or laptops dont need to hold local data. Or at worst they should be syncing what they need from folders that are resident on the NAS.

That would be good use of a NAS and hhome network, not the other way around, making backups of others PCs - which is kind of "paving the cowpath".

They all you need to do is backup the NAS with one external hard drive, an online backup service or some type of FTP to offsite.

 

[joeyjoey]

Again, different people different needs. Osamede's suggestion might make sense for workstations, or if I was the primary user of every computer being considered here, but the home environment is different. Users of various tech-savy levels have different machines they want to drag with them to various places, with all of their data. I'm not going to troubleshoot my wife's inability to access her data for numerous easily-imaginable reasons when I'm away from home... that would just be a nightmare. My desire is for the computers to remain completely independent, and hopefully the rest are still backing up their documents as they should, but if one computer just completely goes down this will be my way of fixing it with as little headache as possible, and my way of scheduling backups to one central location that don't have to be attended for every machine. (I might have the nas sneak a few document folder backups from time to time, whether that's even public knowledge or not because reliance would equal blame. In terms of file backups and access, this will be my purely "savior" device, not one that makes me the "goat".)

Other than that, just plan to serve music that wastes 100's of GBs in duplicate copies all over the place. Maybe some other media types and photos as well, though I'll always keep a more secure backup of photos.

It might be semantics, but I'll truly be using this as "NAS" implies, not as a "server". Also, I'm just not prepared to put that much faith into one of these devices, even if it has a backup.

On another note, I do want to thank thiggins for the Ts-109 recommendation. I love that it's fanless. I'm probably going to either go with that and an eSATA drive, or the DNS-321 (maybe a pair). They are very different devices, I know, it's just a matter of whether I want to pay for a bunch of extra features, some of which I might personally use for things not discussed above, some of which I won't.

 

[thiggins]

Note that the DNS-321 has no USB port, so can't be expanded like the DNS-323.

 

[joeyjoey]

Isn't the USB on the 323 print server only? Or have they released a firmware yet that upgraded it? That could be a notable difference.


But if the DNS-323 is an option, that's getting close to the price point of the DS209j (which isn't reviewed here, I don't believe). Anyone have thoughts on which is a better pick? It's basically D-Link's premier vs Synology's economy model.

TS-109 still on the list, too.

 

[thiggins]

Isn't the USB on the 323 print server only? Or have they released a firmware yet that upgraded it? That could be a notable difference.

You're right. Sorry for the error.

The Synology and QNAPs have larger feature sets than the DNS-323. They do support external drives and backup to them.

 

[joeyjoey]

This site has been invaluable so far, thanks everyone.

I have a super simple question to add, and I feel foolish asking, but having never used one of these devices I just don't know how it works. Anyone who has used a NAS might even be able to answer in one word.

Here's the question:
When the NAS drive volume has been mapped to Windows, do the files behave like any other file on a system drive???? If I double click a music file, will my default audio player pop up and start playing? Can I right click to see the options "Play in Windows Media Player", or iTunes, etc? Can I choose to view the contents of photo folders as thumbnails or in filmstrip mode just like I would any other photo folder sitting on my C: drive? Basically, will it behave like one of my NTFS USB external drives, or will I be looking at a different sort of file browser and experience? (I realize it will be slower.)

I've just found that despite all the reviews I keep concerning myself with useability, not knowing exactly why certain features are needed. I honestly don't care too much about useability in terms of setup difficulty, because I know I'll figure it out having setup many other network devices, it's just the day-to-day operation that's unclear to me. For example, what's the point in an iTunes server? This might be the feature that first got me wondering about this whole issue. I assumed if I mapped the drive in windows and imported the files in iTunes they would behave like any music file located on a system drive, but is this not the case? Is the point all about allowing multiple computers simultaneous access, something that clearly cannot be done with usb?

I do understand the benefits of things like photo servers when it comes to remote access. Trying to use ftp to download photo files that you cannot even see a preview of could be quite a pain. These sort of web serving features do not need to be explained. I'm just wondering how the NAS is recognized by my local computers. Thanks again.

Forgive me, but I'll buy one soon enough and then shutup.

 

[thiggins]

Here's the question:
When the NAS drive volume has been mapped to Windows, do the files behave like any other file on a system drive?

Yes. Files on a NAS behave just like files on a networked share.