Need advice on a NAS

[htismaqe]

Right. They're also trying to streamline their support (and thus support cost) model by standardizing on Xbox as a hub and Windows 10 as the interface, whether it be from the desktop, tablet, or smartphone.

Between the lack of revenue from consumer OS business and the complication/cost of supporting a dozen different operating systems, they're having to re-invent their consumer business. That's why they're giving away Windows 10 to all existing Windows 7/8 users. Unfortunately, I highly doubt it's going to work. I've haven't seen too many compelling reasons to upgrade and there's a multitude of risks.

 

[sfx2000]

That's from the consumer viewpoint.
But MS is trying (we hope) to re-discover where their revenue comes from. Corporate / enterprise sales, not windows PCs or tablets.

Both are good points - I do think that moving MCE type functionality over into the Xbox is a good move - and unifyng things like user accounts across the different screens, along with some abstraction of how user data is stored and managed... and it plays well into their cloud strategy.

Now if they could roll some of the Windows Home Server functionality back into a non-Server OS, that would be pretty good..

This industry is changing is big ways, and has been for the last 5 years - big IT organizations are finally getting that the User Data is the real value - not the desktops/laptops, and overhead managing those devices - secure the users, manage the application licenses, and protect the network..

And this is much like the tail wagging the dog, as data transparency and portability, along with security and backup, the real drivers have been in the consumer space, not in the big IT space - companies like Apple, Google, and Microsoft have been leaders here...

 

[htismaqe]

big IT organizations are finally getting that the User Data is the real value - not the desktops/laptops, and overhead managing those devices - secure the users, manage the application licenses, and protect the network..

Cha-ching. You hit the nail right on the head.

Microsoft is looking to adopt a more Apple-like OS strategy. Because they're realizing it's not about devices, it's about interconnected data and seamless experiences

And this is much like the tail wagging the dog, as data transparency and portability, along with security and backup, the real drivers have been in the consumer space, not in the big IT space - companies like Apple, Google, and Microsoft have been leaders here...

Yup. C-level executives are having the Google/Apple/MS at home with their PCs and their phones/tablets and taking that experience to work with them and asking their IT staff "why aren't we doing this here?"

This is one of the clearest examples in a while where the consumer space is driving innovation in the large enterprise.

 

[sfx2000]

I'm looking to buy a NAS, I've done a lot of research (probably too much), but as I've been looking into the functionality, speeds, and other options but more keep being released. Seems to be overwhelming.

It can be a bit overwhelming, mainly due to the products being very, very similar - even within a single vendors product lineup...

In business - we call this sector maturity...

I'm looking for a NAS that I can use for backup of my data, has the ability to backup to other cloud services, but will also be able to store 4K video files that I can stream to multiple devices on my network.

I think the main challenge you'll find is that streaming 4K across to multiple clients - the rest of your LAN/WLAN needs to seriously be up to scratch, that's the real weak spot in most networks, mine included...

I'd like something that could be setup with a RAID0 format, for performance benefits, but also either mirrors my data or uses parity, so I'm guessing a RAID5 or RAID10 device.

People don't do RAID5 for performance - it's mostly for storage density is where RAID5 has a bit of upside compared to RAID10 - RAID10, in a 4 disk NAS, you'll lose half of the space, but still get excellent read/write performance...

I want some kind of protection from losing my data if a drive goes out, but any important data I could have backed up to a cloud. QNAP seems to have a good lineup of products, but I don't want to invest in something I don't need.

We've already beat this one down, but I'll add again - NAS is not a long term backup - it can be a very useful tool as part of a backup strategy, but it's not the end-point - even the NAS should be backed up on a regular basis...