Hoping for advice on a small home network...

[turnstyle]

Hi all,

I'm no network expert, and am hoping for a bit of advice on my small home netork.

Right now I have mostly Mac and iOS clients on a wifi network, through a Netgear 802.11n router -- I switched to Mac about a year ago, was PC prior to that.

So I also have an old PC wired to the router via ethernet which I use as a home server, and I have two external USB drives attached to that PC. I back up over wifi to one of those drives, and then mirror one drive to the other. I'm generally happy with the setup.

I previously also used that PC/server for other tasks (for example, as a print server, or to run legacy PC software I no longer need) -- but now it's pretty much just a file server.

I'm thinking about getting a new ac wifi router, and I'd like to eliminate the PC from my setup -- and this is where I'm hoping for some advice.

For example, here's one scenario I'm considering:

1) Get ac wifi router with a USB3 port

2) Attach the USB3 port to a USB3 hub, and attach two USB3 drives to that -- I'm also thinking about using portable drives that draw power over USB (so perhaps a powered USB3 hub).

I forget the max reasonable speeds, but I think ac may outperform USB2 -- so I don't mind if USB3 is a modest extra cost -- and I like the idea of portable if I ever want to move the drive (say, from the router to my Mac).

Anyhow, I'd be gratful if anybody can help get me on the right track -- am I thinking in the right direction?

thanks kindly, -Scott

 

[KenZ71]

You won't get great speeds writing to a usb drive that is attached to a router. So what will be stored on those drives? What is the primary use?

If streaming audio / video it might work. If read / write large files probably not ideal.

Also, what is your backup plan?

 

[System Error Message]

consumer routers cannot have great speeds for drives but if you're up for it you can try running pfsense and freeNAS on virtualisation, you get a great router and great NAS on the same machine at drive speeds. Wifi can be gotten by adding a wifi card (such as the ASUS PCE-68).

ARM A9 wifi routers can only max out usb2 at most for drive speeds. Some may have better implementations than others (this website has such a chart). Take a look at the router usb NAS chart and pick the highest one. Overclocking will increase performance but only by some amount. A gigabit ethernet port can only handle 120MB/s of data which is less than the average a hard drive handles now (150MB/s) while laptop hard drives run about 80MB/s.

 

[turnstyle]

Hi all, thanks.

My most frequently backed up files are RAW camera files (about 25MB each, often 100 or so) -- and the Lightroom catalog file, which is 1GB+.

So the routers that have USB3 ports are slow for writing? Meaning: even slower than writing to the USB2 drives connected to my old PC?

I've also seen routers with eSATA -- would that be better? Or do I actually need to plug the drive into one of the Ethernet ports?

Thanks again, hopefully I'll be up to speed soon -- very much appreciate the help, -Scott

 

[thiggins]

Let's bring some data to the discussion. Many current AC class routers can write to an NTFS formatted drive at over 50 MB/s and read at 80+ MB/s.

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/tools/charts/router/bar/174-ntfs-write-usb-3-0
http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/tools/charts/router/bar/175-ntfs-read-usb-3-0

Best in class are the Linksys WRT1200AC and WRT1900AC.

That said, wireless performance is going to limit your ability to access those speeds. But if you have been satisfied with file copy / backup throughput with your current Wi-Fi, then you'll be ok with using router-based storage, because Wi-Fi throughput is the limiting factor.

Forget about attaching a USB hub. That probably won't work. But some routers have two USB 3.0 ports and you can attach two drives that way. But routers don't have any backup utilities built in to do the drive to drive copy.

 

[turnstyle]

Thanks Tim! Am I going about this wrong?

I back up over wifi because I actually do it (even though it's slower than a wire) -- whereas if I had to plug in, I just wouldn't do it as often -- so I think it's best for me to expect that I should stick with wifi for backing up -- though I do assume ac would be faster than n, so at least that should be a plus -- and it's why I'm trying to be clear whether ac is actually faster than USB2.

But if I can't plug two drives into the router USB, then this idea isn't good.

Also, as it is now, with my PC/server with two USB drives -- when it mirrors one drive to the other, all that happens "locally" which I assume is a plus.

Is there some router that works like this? Or if I'm just thinking about this wrong, what's the 'better' way?

I like the idea of portable USB3 powered drives for a few reasons -- but if it doesn't work in practice, then I should look for more sensible solutions.

Thanks for chiming in, -Scott

 

[thiggins]

No routers will mirror or back up drive to drive.

What you need is a NAS. A two-bay model in RAID1 would mirror data drive-to-drive on the fly. But, keep in mind both copies of your backup data living on one physical device is not good practice. If something happens to the NAS, all your data is gone.

I'd get a cheap single-drive model and back up data to it. Then you can schedule backup of the NAS folder(s) to a USB drive attached to the NAS. You can then remove the USB drive and store it offsite or in a firebox for added data security.

You can get a QNAP TS-112P with USB 2.0, 3.0 and eSATA ports for $125 and add your own drive. A Synology DS115J is cheaper at $100, but has only USB 2.0 ports. There's also the WD MyCloud with 2TB of storage and USB 3.0 port for $130.

 

[turnstyle]

Hey Tim, yes -- I've liked my two standalone drive approach for a few reasons:

1) even if a NAS has two drives, it still strikes me as a single potential point of failure

2) I can easily move drives around -- for example, if I were to use small portable drives, it's pretty easy to cycle one off-site.

3) I also like for them to not be "always mirrored" -- but rather "mirrored on demand" -- there have been times I screwed up something on "drive 1" -- and I could go over to "drive 2" and pull it back over -- so I don't think I really want that sort of "always mirrored" set up.

So does this mean I need two standalone single bay NAS devices? Can these NAS devices work via USB? eg, can I unplug from Ethernet into the router, and plug into a Mac via USB?

Thanks a ton for sharing time with me! -Scott

 

[thiggins]

NASes are Ethernet only.

You could buy two single-bay NASes and back up one to another. I'm suggesting you back up to the NAS, then back it up to a USB drive attached to it. You can do either one.

 

[turnstyle]

NASes are Ethernet only.

You could buy two single-bay NASes and back up one to another. I'm suggesting you back up to the NAS, then back it up to a USB drive attached to it. You can do either one.

Ah, I missed that I could plug a USB drive into the NAS -- would I then use some sort of web interface to trigger the the backup from NAS to the USB drive attached to the NAS?

And I should just "abandon" the idea of plugging two USB drives into the router?

Thanks again, I really appreciate this! -Scott

 

[GhostriderZ85]

I have ac87u, read and write on the usb3 port is around 60MBps, and the linksys ac1900 beats that, the linksys ac1900 have the fastest usb read and write compared to other routers including the ac3200 and ac5300 routers.

 

[turnstyle]

But I can only attach one USB drive to those routers?

 

[GhostriderZ85]

I don't know if it will work with a hub but it has one 3.0 and one 2.0 ports.

 

[turnstyle]

If you want to mirror a drive attached to one port (prefer manually) -- does that all happen 'locally' within the router?

Thank you...

 

[GhostriderZ85]

To be able to do it locally, the web gui of the router must have a file explorer itself, my ac87u doesn't, i doubt that the linksys have this feature. If you use your computer's file explorer then it won't copy locally.

I think you have to opt for a real nas for that, my wd my cloud mirror can do it, but i'll suggest going for ds215j than my cloud mirror

 

[turnstyle]

hmm, so after all this -- perhaps I'm actually better off with the PC with the drives attached?

Is there a NAS that has no internal drives, and instead takes external drives via USB3?

Perhaps I'm totally missing the point, but I don't quite understand why I would prefer a single enclosure with two internal drives, which can then back up to an external drive via USB.

But I very much welcome being told how I'm wrong about this...

In my admittedly vague thinking, it seems better to have one box that connects via Ethernet to the router, and two external drives attached to it -- because, as I'm understanding it, in such a setup the individual standalone external drives would easily replaceable, fully redundant, and self-contained (meaning, I could just detach a drive and move it to my computer or wherever) -- and the overall system would use the same "parts" (as opposed to a NAS which uses internal drives in the NAS enclosure, and an external drive attached to the NAS USB).

Sorry if I'm being daft, and grateful for this conversation... -Scott

 

[turnstyle]

Sorry, one more question:

If I get two single-bay NAS'es, if I run a backup from one to the other, does that take place "locally" from one NAS to the other through the router -- or does it somehow take a pass through my Mac?

Let me explain: on my Mac I run ChronoSync to incrementally mirror my local folders to my remote storage.

If I run ChronoSync to mirror my Mac to NAS-A (over wifi) -- and if I decide to mirror NAS-A to NAS-B, also running ChronoSync on my Mac -- is that NAS-A to NAS-B transfer all direct from NAS-A through the router to NAS-B, or would it take a pass though my Mac over wifi?

Thanks again.

 

[mzheng168]

Scott, i am thinking the same as well. I found this http://www.addonics.com/products/nas40esu.php . i have used it myself just hope anybody has used it can share the experience.

or

something like this:
http://www.iogear.com/product/GUWIP204/?ClickID=cfkspfpfsnefv4e7ee7pnvninxlqwpixzzxz

 

[stevech]

Opinion: Two-bay NAS is best. I use one. Each drive is a separate volume (i.e., not RAID). One has a selective backup of the main drive's folders. Each drive is thus independent. Most Mac users I read about here use Time Machine with the NAS as the destination. I use my NAS's "Time Backup" to do versioned backup of selected shared folders.

And no matter the NAS, a big fat USB3 drive (or eSATA depending on the NAS) is essential, to make that backup kept hidden/offsite.

I and many of us here recommend only Synology and QNAP for many reasons.

 

[turnstyle]

Scott, i am thinking the same as well. I found this http://www.addonics.com/products/nas40esu.php . i have used it myself just hope anybody has used it can share the experience.

Yes -- that Addonics device strikes me as "the right general idea" -- though the reviews seem pretty sketchy -- I'd love to see something like that from Synology or QNAP.