Can you recommend a NAS OS / premade NAS that does the following?

[hungarianhc]

Hi All,

I'm looking to build a storage server. Well, I'd prefer to build it, but if all of these features come with a pre-packaged NAS, I'm happy to use that as well. This is what I'm looking for...

- Crashplan - I'd like the ability to run Crashplan on the NAS. I'd like to be able to use Crashplan to back up TO this NAS as a destination - and I'd also like to use Crashplan to backup the contents of the NAS to a cloud server.

- OwnCloud - I'd really like to install OwnCloud on the NAS, if possible.

- Auto expanding - UnRAID-like functionality so that as I add more disks, the storage array will automagically grow in size.

Thanks!!

 

[kdmitchell27]

Hi All,

I'm looking to build a storage server. Well, I'd prefer to build it, but if all of these features come with a pre-packaged NAS, I'm happy to use that as well. This is what I'm looking for...

- Crashplan - I'd like the ability to run Crashplan on the NAS. I'd like to be able to use Crashplan to back up TO this NAS as a destination - and I'd also like to use Crashplan to backup the contents of the NAS to a cloud server.

- OwnCloud - I'd really like to install OwnCloud on the NAS, if possible.

- Auto expanding - UnRAID-like functionality so that as I add more disks, the storage array will automagically grow in size.

Thanks!!

I'll answer these questions based on what I know.

1. Crashplan can be installed onto a Synology via SSH and ipkg installer - http://forum.synology.com/wiki/index.php/CrashPlan_Headless_Client

2. Synology has something very similar to Owncloud called Cloud Station that's a function on most NAS's. You can demo it at http://www.synology.com/products/dsm_livedemo.php?lang=us
and there's a video on it here - http://www.synology.com/support/video_your_cloud.php?lang=us

3. Most NAS's will expand the most you add drives to it however I feel Synology NAS's excel at this with their migration / expand functions with the Disk Station Manager. Simply add a disk and away you go - . Keep in mind however if you're using LUNS & iSCSI then you still have to manually increase the size of the LUN.

I know I sound biased toward Synology however I come from a pretty huge datacenter background and short of using those super expensive NAS's, the Synology NAS's came really recommended when I wanted to start a mini-environment at my home.

 

[hungarianhc]

Thanks - I really appreciate your response. Yeah it looks like Synology totally fits the bill in terms of the "Synology Hybrid RAID."

As much as I would like to build my own, it might make sense to just buy pre-made for a NAS.

 

[stevech]

The DIY vs. purchased, to me, comes down to feature set and ease of use, and ability to config and forget. Use the on-line demos at Synology, QNAP, Thecus.

It's not just file shares and speed. It's about what the NAS software can do and how easily.

 

[stevech]

The DIY vs. purchased, to me, comes down to feature set and ease of use, and ability to config and forget. Use the on-line demos at Synology, QNAP, Thecus.

Mine is a Synology DS212. Because it's just two drives, I do not use RAID but rather I use two volumes and automatic backups.

 

[Griffon]

Hello,

Even though my chances of purchasing a Synology (or QNap, or Thecus) at this point is slim, I'd like to ask a question about these "expanding" storage pools and backup.

Suppose I have a DS213 with a single 2 TB drive in it, which is being backed up to a 2 TB USB drive. I add another 2 TB drive to the DS213, and plug in another 2 TB USB drive so both storage and backup are 4 TB.

If I fill up the 4 TB, how does the system back the files up? Does it do some sort of "USB-Raid"? If the NAS fails, how do I get the data back from the separate 2 TB USB drives?

Or do I have to designate separate backup like "Music: At most 1 TB, to be backed up to USB drive 1. Movies, at most 1,5 TB, to be backed up to USB drive 2"? What do I do if I need 2,5 TB for a single category?

Thanks in advance..

 

[stevech]

with the two-drive NAS you describe, you may elect to have it be a RAID pair or each drive is an independent volume.

If you have one 2TB drive, and it fills, you'll need a 2TB external backup drive if 100% of all the data is irreplaceable and must be backed up. Or you can backup to a cloud service - but 2TB up to the internet isn't viable, IMO.

If you have two 2TB drives in RAID config, the issue is same as the above.

If you have two 2TB drives as separate volumes, you might do as I do: one volume is a time backup of the other, so I have the last n weeks of file versions. And the two drives are independent volumes which protects from file system corruption as well as drive failure. My use of the USB3 drive is to backup selected folders only. E.g., I don't backup my big set of drive image backup files for other PCs on the LAN - that would backup a backup.

I don't have vast multi-TB collections of videos; just 500GB or so of keepers.

 

[Griffon]

Hello stevech,

Thank you for the replies to my questions!

If I had a 2 drive NAS, I'd probably make them independent volumes. I don't have a huge collection of videos either, I was just wondering what would happen if a volume/share on the NAS is greater than the capacity of a backup drive connected to the NAS.

Having a 2 TB drive backup the other seems the most logical, and "Time Backup" is familiar to me through Time Machine (and useful too). I was planning to backup the Time Machine backup too, but maybe it's not so useful as I though.

As I said, I was mostly interested in what would happen if I have 2 TB drives in RAID 0 (4 TB total) and wanted to back them up to USB drives (3 TB max at the moment AFAIK). I would probably have to separate some of the files into "categories", correct?