USB drive or NAS

[TimTech]

Hello,

I have an Asus RT-AC68U with Merlin fork 374.43_18E3j9527 running in AP mode which I’m considering adding a USB HD to. My reason is my wife’s Win10 laptop is running out of SSD space since she is backing up her iPhone to it and also copying all her iPhone pictures to free up her phone (in addition to Google Photos cloud sync). I know I could add a HD to the laptop but plugging one into my Asus seems more convenient. Besides, I could back up some of my Win7 computer files as well. I have no MACs but have several iPhones. My purpose isn’t to stream a movie collection, just have a common file repository for occasional use. As an extra bonus, I wouldn’t mind being able to access this drive remotely over the internet.

However, after researching for the best hard drive to add I found endless confusing articles about noise, spin down issues, router cache size, partition limitations, 2.4Ghz interference, swapping enabled to a USB flash drive, power interruption problems, etc. I get the feeling that the USB port on the AC68U is just about useless.

What would the experts suggest for my use? I would rather not have a drive that is constantly spinning for an occasional file write since my AP is in my living room. My first simple thought was a 4TB external USB 3.0 HD NTFS formatted that hopefully spins down when inactive. At the other end of the spectrum ($365) would be a pair of mirrored Seagate IronWolf 4TB 5900 in a QNAP TS-231P.

Thank you

 

[skeal]

IMHO, you won't be happy unless you deploy a NAS.

 

[jrmwvu04]

NAS. That you’re even remotely concerned about the drives spinning down suggests you won’t want to deal with the headaches of a router attached drive. (And there are headaches)

 

[L&LD]

QNAP NAS. 4 Bays or more (remember; you don't need to fill them all initially) and 4GB RAM or more. Make sure you pick a current NAS offering which will see many more years of support via future QTS updates.

Can't really recommend any 2 drive NAS' for you, the specific one you list I've had issues with (HDD's running hot on original plus two replacement units).

I would suggest the QNAP TS-332X 3-Bay NAS at a minimum for full RAID5 support.

Remember that with RAID5 (or higher) and with a 3 bay or better NAS, you are losing less capacity to redundancy while increasing the reliability of the system overall. This may mean that you can start with 3x 1TB drives instead of 2x 4TB that you specify now.

Trying to do what you specify off of a routers USB port is the cheapest possible way to achieve it. It will almost always prove to be the worst possible choice in the end if you value what you're trying to protect.

 

[maxbraketorque]

A single backup HD is not really that safe. My preference is for RAID 1 that requires two drives. 2-drive USB RAID enclosures are nearly as expensive as a 2-drive NAS, and a NAS offers so much more capability.

There seems to be quite strong opinions on the various NAS brands. I've only ever tried ASUSTOR, and its been fine for me. I have an AS6102T. Everything just works. Kinda boring. My only complaint might be that add-on software support is pretty minimal.

 

[bbunge]

Just got a Synology DS-218j with two 4TB WD red drives. Easy to set up with more features than I will use. Much better than an attached USB drive!

Sent from my SM-T380 using Tapatalk

 

[elorimer]

I have wandered all over this territory, never settling on anything in particular. You might experiment a bit. I have a bunch of movies I stream, music, backups, and downloaded programs I keep needing. All very light use. I suspect your W7 and W10 machines are home not pro.

1. I have a 4TB external drive connected to my 87U usb3 port. Work(ed)(s) fine for my use, although I have turned off everything except Samba and use this now mostly as a backup to other things. One advantage is that since the router is always on, the extra power is just the drive itself.
2. I have a 2tb single drive NAS in the form of a Seagate BlackArmor. Hot, had the original drive fail. Not very flexible but had reasonable automatic backup software. But not being updated anymore and when I needed to restore to bare metal it wouldn't. Turned me away from canned NAS solutions.
3. I also picked up a $15 embedded motherboard that I turned into a FreeNAS server. Uses about 18-20 watts with two big drives. I've been very pleased with this since it is under active development. I use this mostly now. Just started using it as a Plex server. But to the motherboard I added the drives, then a nice case, then a memory stick, and power so it came out as much as a canned NAS solution. Also seems to eat the thumb drives the OS runs on.
4. I also have two Toshiba external portable disks which have been terrific for bare metal backups and moving a lot of data fast. If your need is occasional that might be the easiest and cheapest. You could also combine this with #1
5. Online services like Google Drive, OneDrive and Asus are getting cheaper and are fairly convenient. I wouldn't rule them out, especially if you have a reasonable internet connection. I seem to have 100gb for Google Drive for free, 1TB of OneDrive, and I think I saw a recent sale for Asus for like $20 a year for a TB.

 

[RMerlin]

If your needs are light, look at the QNAP TS-228A. I recently bought one to use for backup purposes to my primary NAS, it's a pretty inexpensive device (as far as quality NAS are concerned), and comes with almost all the usual QTS features (including snapshot support).

 

[Dave Parker]

NAS definitely. What you choose depends on how much storage space you need and how much you are willing to spend. I'm using a Qnap ts431 with 4 x 3tb WD red drives in a raid 5 configuration. This gives me close to 8tb of usable storage space and a bit of redundancy. You can loose one drive and replace it without losing all your files. However, if your files are important to you then you should plan on some form of backup. I use a Western Digital 4tb My Book usb 3.0 external hard drive as my backup. At present I have a little less than 3tb actually used. At some point I will probably need more backup but I doubt I will ever fill up the Qnap. You have a lot of options, just do some research before you dive in.

 

[westmc]

I just switched from a 4tb WD Elements external HDD hooked up to my RT-AC68P to a Synology DS218+ with 2 10tb WD White drives. The interesting thing is that I used Crystal Disk Mark running against a mapped network drive and both showed similar speeds yet my weekly backup went from taking about 12 hours to only taking about 2.

Another thing of note that I luckily learned from slickdeals (where I found a deal on the DS218+ a couple weeks ago) was that the WD EasyStore external HDD comes with either a Red or a While (equivalent to a Red) drive inside and costs like half the price. I bought mine from Best Buy for $170 each and they even come with 32gb flash drives.

 

[TimTech]

Thanks everyone. You gave me plenty to think about. I’m now leaning toward a 3 or 4 bay NAS RAID5. I’m a newb regarding all the NAS apps that seem to be all the rage. I was under the impression that NAS was just storage available via the network. Hmph.
TS-351-4G w/ 3 2TB for around $570. Relatively inexpensive to protect all my kids priceless photos and videos from drive crashes. I’ll learn about all the other “benefits” as I go. And, yes, I’m a big fan of Slickdeals and have a google photos account.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Zonkd]

Thanks everyone. You gave me plenty to think about. I’m now leaning toward a 3 or 4 bay NAS RAID5. I’m a newb regarding all the NAS apps that seem to be all the rage. I was under the impression that NAS was just storage available via the network. Hmph.
TS-351-4G w/ 3 2TB for around $570. Relatively inexpensive to protect all my kids priceless photos and videos from drive crashes. I’ll learn about all the other “benefits” as I go. And, yes, I’m a big fan of Slickdeals and have a google photos account.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Synology or QNAP is the way to go. Get as many bays as you can afford. 6 is great. 8 is perfect.

You definitely need RAID6 with 2 drives fault tolerance. When a drive fails it takes between 2 days and a week to rebuild the array. With RAID6 you could afford to lose 1 more drive during the rebuild. With RAID5 you’d lose everything if another drive failed during the rebuild process.

I own several Synology units and recommend them because build quality is good, GUI is easy to use, good selection of software packages, mobile apps are slick and work well, it also has Synology Hybrid RAID which is a killer feature for novices and anyone wanting flexibility to upgrade to larger drives over time.

 

[Vishnu Rao]

I have a RT-AC68U as well. and was considering getting a NAS or building one. Ultimately I went with USB HDDs connected to the RT-AC68U. I have 2x 2TB HDDs connected to the router. The HDD connected to the USB 3.0 is the one thats shared in my network. Pics get backed up to the network shared HDD on USB 3.0 port.

I rsync from the primary to the second HDD once a month or when I have put lots of content on the primary / network shared HDD. I guess this is similar to a RAID1. This works OK for me. Speeds are not spectacular. About 12 MB/s writing. and about 22 MB/s reading. I wish writes were faster, since copying from my desktop takes time especially when moving large videos. Read speeds are acceptable, since its primarily streaming pics / videos to Kodi running on a raspberry pi.

To improve rw speeds, I plan to try overclocking. and to try automate the rsync from primary hdd to secondary hdd.

I know most people here recommend getting a dedicated NAS. But if you have external HDDs lying around, this maybe a good option to start.

 

[Zonkd]

I have a RT-AC68U as well. and was considering getting a NAS or building one. Ultimately I went with USB HDDs connected to the RT-AC68U. I have 2x 2TB HDDs connected to the router. The HDD connected to the USB 3.0 is the one thats shared in my network. Pics get backed up to the network shared HDD on USB 3.0 port.

I rsync from the primary to the second HDD once a month or when I have put lots of content on the primary / network shared HDD. I guess this is similar to a RAID1. This works OK for me. Speeds are not spectacular. About 12 MB/s writing. and about 22 MB/s reading. I wish writes were faster, since copying from my desktop takes time especially when moving large videos. Read speeds are acceptable, since its primarily streaming pics / videos to Kodi running on a raspberry pi.

To improve rw speeds, I plan to try overclocking. and to try automate the rsync from primary hdd to secondary hdd.

I know most people here recommend getting a dedicated NAS. But if you have external HDDs lying around, this maybe a good option to start.

With good reason. If it can be afforded then I tell everyone it's well worth buying a NAS right from the beginning. Sharing USB drives from an ASUS router is no substitute. I decided to spend on a Synology NAS and highly recommend. Great value when you consider everything they offer. Demo the web GUI here and research their mobile apps. Synology blow the competition away for usability. It's a breeze to setup all the main features. Tons of packages to install. The newest models even run Docker and VMs. With a bit of research you can hack'em to do anything. Plus they're often very energy efficient, ultra quiet fans with very good cooling. I keep my drives spinning 24/7. DIY NAS is a waste of time for most people and at greater risk of stuffing up and causing data loss.

The best option for any beginner on a small budget is a cheap entry level 2 bay NAS configured RAID1 (or SHR1) with scheduled hourly backups (versioned) to a few connected external USB HDDs. If they can afford larger NAS with 5, 6 or 8 bays then I say go for it as it'll last you longer. I also recommend buying quieter 5400rpm WD Red drives over the 7200rpm drives. I have both and it makes a difference. If you have any spare drives laying around the house then remove from their caddies and punch into the NAS. Or connect via USB for an external backup destination.

I've said it previously but I'll say it again: let a router be a router.

 

[PolarBear]

Another vote here for the Synology DS-2xx series. I am very happy with them.

 

[Vishnu Rao]

With good reason. If it can be afforded then I tell everyone it's well worth buying a NAS right from the beginning. Sharing USB drives from an ASUS router is no substitute. I decided to spend on a Synology NAS and highly recommend. Great value when you consider everything they offer. Demo the web GUI here and research their mobile apps. Synology blow the competition away for usability. It's a breeze to setup all the main features. Tons of packages to install. The newest models even run Docker and VMs. With a bit of research you can hack'em to do anything. Plus they're often very energy efficient, ultra quiet fans with very good cooling. I keep my drives spinning 24/7. DIY NAS is a waste of time for most people and at greater risk of stuffing up and causing data loss.

The best option for any beginner on a small budget is a cheap entry level 2 bay NAS configured RAID1 (or SHR1) with scheduled hourly backups (versioned) to a few connected external USB HDDs. If they can afford larger NAS with 5, 6 or 8 bays then I say go for it as it'll last you longer. I also recommend buying quieter 5400rpm WD Red drives over the 7200rpm drives. I have both and it makes a difference. If you have any spare drives laying around the house then remove from their caddies and punch into the NAS. Or connect via USB for an external backup destination.

I've said it previously but I'll say it again: let a router be a router.

Don't get me wrong. I agree with you that a dedicated NAS is certainly a much better option. I just wanted to put out an option to the OP.

I have it working and my needs are limited. If someone's needs are limited, This maybe something to consider. Just another option. Hence my post.

 

[Vishnu Rao]

3. I also picked up a $15 embedded motherboard that I turned into a FreeNAS server. Uses about 18-20 watts with two big drives. I've been very pleased with this since it is under active development. I use this mostly now. Just started using it as a Plex server. But to the motherboard I added the drives, then a nice case, then a memory stick, and power so it came out as much as a canned NAS solution. Also seems to eat the thumb drives the OS runs on.

What embedded motherboard did you get for $15? Thats a steal!

 

[GHammer]

I've used Synology 2 bay in different models for years.
It may have been that I'm used to the Synology way of doing things, but I tried a QNAP for just under the return window, then returned it.

 

[L&LD]

I've used Synology 2 bay in different models for years.
It may have been that I'm used to the Synology way of doing things, but I tried a QNAP for just under the return window, then returned it.

I am a QNAP user. I did the same thing with a Synology.

 

[Zonkd]

I am a QNAP user. I did the same thing with a Synology.

Why did you decide to return Synology?