Cheapest 8 Bay NAS system? no fancy stuff needed

[Jonnydangerdude]

Hello

I am looking for my cheapest 8 bay NAS setup possible.

This is for my home theater and I don't need any of that fancy enterprise corporate type stuff. Just RAID 5 and an Ethernet port.

No need for fiber connection or a server able to service thousands at a time.

Just cheapest 8 bay nas setup possible.

Thanks

 

[L&LD]

This is about as cheap as I would go.

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1413696-REG/qnap_ts_832x_2g_us_ts_832x_8gb_8_bay_nas.html

Don't mind the store I found, the model is what I am suggesting for you.

 

[Jonnydangerdude]

This is about as cheap as I would go.

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1413696-REG/qnap_ts_832x_2g_us_ts_832x_8gb_8_bay_nas.html

Don't mind the store I found, the model is what I am suggesting for you.

Thanks for the suggestion.

Are there cheaper ones than this that you would not go for or are you talking about the DIY ones with software and a PC?

Thanks

 

[L&LD]

Thanks for the suggestion.

Are there cheaper ones than this that you would not go or are you talking about the DIY ones with software and a PC?

Thanks

I can't find anything less expensive (but still a current/supported QTS/QNAP product) today. I would suggest to max out the ram on this though as a very inexpensive way to get the full use out of it, even for just home theatre use.

To me, the DIY boxes are not worth it in the long run when your time is involved (at least not when my time is involved!). They may be negligibly cheaper to build, hardware-wise, but their cost goes up just as their reliability goes south too. I have customers with QNAP products which are running for almost a decade now. Haven't seen any DIY project keep working after that length of time. Of course, HDD's have been replaced in the meantime, but they rebuilt the arrays without user intervention and without any data loss.

The DIY boxes have (and use) more power, are more general purpose vs. a primary storage-based unit like QNAP offers, offer no support when (not if) things go awry and considering that the biggest cost is the HDD's themselves, offer very little savings in the end too.

If this is a second or third storage option with important data on all, then DIY may be an option.

If this will be the primary storage option for all/most of your important data, DIY is the path I would not choose, from experience.


Edit: Just want to note that reading about Synology, they also make the equivalent products in terms of reliability to QNAP, I just don't have any long term experience with them, myself.

 

[RMerlin]

Check if Asustor has any 8-bay model. They are a nice alternative to QNAP/Synology if you want to save a few bucks.

Might want to reconsider whether you truly need 8 bays tho. 10 TB HDDs are available at a decent price (and fewer HDDs = fewer chances of hardware failures).

 

[sfx2000]

Check if Asustor has any 8-bay model. They are a nice alternative to QNAP/Synology if you want to save a few bucks.

Might want to reconsider whether you truly need 8 bays tho. 10 TB HDDs are available at a decent price (and fewer HDDs = fewer chances of hardware failures).

Can't go wrong with any of the recommendations - QNAP, Synology, and Asustor are all competent brands, and for most home and small business, they're probably a better solution overall than DIY...

If wanting to do DIY - Dell Small Business is a good place to get HW, esp. over in their refurb store, and run it on FreeNAS or NAS4Free.

As @RMerlin points out - the more drives, the higher the probability that one of those drives will fail out of turn (this is one of the big risks of doing RAID5) - and with a big NAS, make sure that one has a backup plan for the NAS... We've had more than a few threads where someone has had a NAS failure, and desperately looking for a way to recover data as they didn't back the NAS up.