Hi guys
Firstly let me just say what a great site this is. I've found it to be a fantastic resource over the last week or so. I’m hoping I might be able to get some help with my final choice of a NAS system.
The subject of Network Attached Storage is something completely new to me. I’ve been trying to educate myself on the subject over the last few weeks, using the articles and forum discussions on this site and a couple of others. It’s been an extremely steep learning curve and I still don’t feel completely happy that I’ve got a good grasp of everything I should. Just when I think I’ve nailed it all down, I come across some aspect or issue that I hadn’t previously even been aware of!
EXISTING SITUATION: I have a laptop (running Windows Vista) and a 500GB external HDD on my wireless network. The HDD is now all but full. Primarily with ripped dvds and a back-up of the sizeable mp3 collection and photo album held on the laptop. I have an aging and slow desktop PC that is used now only to run bit torrent and P2P clients. I’ve recently also had a spring clean of the PC’s hard drive to free up extra storage space and added it to my wireless network. I’ve had enough of hooking up the laptop to the TV every time I want to sit down and enjoy a film. Music is currently played from my ipod via docking stations attached to my amp/surround sound.
NEEDS: I have recently purchased a network media player. A HDI Dune HD Max. The NAS will primarily be used to store and serve digital video content to the media player over a homeplug (200mbps) created network connection. I’ve got about another 40-50 dvds and a couple of boxsets which need to be ripped once I have this additional storage space which can then be boxed up/sold. The NAS will also hold my music collection, with a view to this also in the near future being sent wirelessly around the house to no more than two locations. I’ve not really looked into how I intend to do this yet but I believe itunes servers are standard on the units I’ve shortlisted. Photos will also be stored on the NAS. It’ll also be using it to store personal documents and back-up the small amount of content held on me and my fiancée’s laptops. I’d like to dispose of the desktop PC and be anle to run torrent and P2P downloads on the NAS and manage them via my laptop. It’s taking up space in a bedroom that could be put to better use.
CAPACITY: I’ve got a need right now for approx. 1TB of storage space. Taking account of redundancy needs, the space a bluray disc occupies and the fact that I always seem to fill whatever space I have (be it a HDD, a shed or a garage!) a 2-bay unit may have a limited life expectancy. With that in mind I’ve been looking at 4-bay units. I had looked a 5-bay units but these seem to be geared much more towards hi-end performance and business use. Also the leap in price between 4 and 5 bay units seems disproportionate.
As I’ve learned over the last week or so, an important consideration when assessing capacity needs is the intended RAID level and back-up arrangements.
Considering the varied nature of the content to be stored on the NAS the consequences of a total loss of the data would range from disastrous to inconvenient.
As such I intend to employ RAID and regular back-up of selected data to a diskless external HDD such as a Buffalo Linkstation or the like. RAID level to be used is another point on which I would like some advice. I’m currently undecided on which of three approaches would be best. Assuming use of 2TB drives....
1) RAID 5 across all 4 drives would give me a max of 6TB of usable space while reducing the risk of data loss.
2) RAID 5 across 3 drives and leaving the 4th spare as a ‘hot swap’ would give me a reduced max of 4TB of usable space, but make the system significantly more robust.
3) RAID 1 across all 4 drives would also give me a max of 4TB of usable space and a mirror of the data.
In all of the above scenarios I’d be regularly backing up the most crucial and irreplaceable files with a separate drive as outlined above.
Am I being too paranoid about disk failure and data loss? Am I being paranoid enough?
Is option 1 a sufficiently cautious approach to use?
Options 2 and 3 give me the same usable space - would one of these preferable to the other?
If I employ 2 or 3, and then want to expand my usable space, would it be viable to change to option 1 considering all disks would by then be nearing full capacity?
I believe I’ve narrowed down my final selection to one of three units
QNAP TS-410 http://www.qnap.com/pro_detail_feature.asp?p_id=134
QNAP TS-412 http://www.qnap.com/pro_detail_feature.asp?p_id=193
Synology Diskstation DS411j http://www.synology.com/enu/products/DS411j/spec.php
Considering their reputation and standing, I don’t think I’ll go too far wrong with any of these, but would welcome any opinions/pointers on any differences which may make one a more sensible choice over the others. The ability to add IP security cameras to the QNAP systems does sound kinda cool though. I’m a complete novice in this area, so ease/simplicity of use would be one big consideration!
Looking ahead, I’d also be grateful if someone could give me some pointers regarding the sort of spec of the drives I should be looking at. It goes without saying that I’ll only consider those on the manufacturer’s approved list, but what sort of performance level should I be looking at? Cost is not a crucial factor as since I regard this as a long term investment I do not want to sacrifice performance and functionality for the sake of a few pounds. Though at the same time I don’t want to be unnecessarily paying for performance that I’m just not going to use. I wouldn’t but a BMW M5 to do the weekly shop!
Apologies for the length of this post and thanks for taking the time to read it. When I started out typing I thought it would only be a paragraph or two. I seem to have quite a few questions that I still need the answers to!
If anyone thinks I’m looking at completely the wrong sort of solution please feel free to tell me. I’m more than aware that in my research of this area, I may have become blinkered and completely missed a seemingly obvious alternative!
Cheers
Darren
Firstly let me just say what a great site this is. I've found it to be a fantastic resource over the last week or so. I’m hoping I might be able to get some help with my final choice of a NAS system.
The subject of Network Attached Storage is something completely new to me. I’ve been trying to educate myself on the subject over the last few weeks, using the articles and forum discussions on this site and a couple of others. It’s been an extremely steep learning curve and I still don’t feel completely happy that I’ve got a good grasp of everything I should. Just when I think I’ve nailed it all down, I come across some aspect or issue that I hadn’t previously even been aware of!
EXISTING SITUATION: I have a laptop (running Windows Vista) and a 500GB external HDD on my wireless network. The HDD is now all but full. Primarily with ripped dvds and a back-up of the sizeable mp3 collection and photo album held on the laptop. I have an aging and slow desktop PC that is used now only to run bit torrent and P2P clients. I’ve recently also had a spring clean of the PC’s hard drive to free up extra storage space and added it to my wireless network. I’ve had enough of hooking up the laptop to the TV every time I want to sit down and enjoy a film. Music is currently played from my ipod via docking stations attached to my amp/surround sound.
NEEDS: I have recently purchased a network media player. A HDI Dune HD Max. The NAS will primarily be used to store and serve digital video content to the media player over a homeplug (200mbps) created network connection. I’ve got about another 40-50 dvds and a couple of boxsets which need to be ripped once I have this additional storage space which can then be boxed up/sold. The NAS will also hold my music collection, with a view to this also in the near future being sent wirelessly around the house to no more than two locations. I’ve not really looked into how I intend to do this yet but I believe itunes servers are standard on the units I’ve shortlisted. Photos will also be stored on the NAS. It’ll also be using it to store personal documents and back-up the small amount of content held on me and my fiancée’s laptops. I’d like to dispose of the desktop PC and be anle to run torrent and P2P downloads on the NAS and manage them via my laptop. It’s taking up space in a bedroom that could be put to better use.
CAPACITY: I’ve got a need right now for approx. 1TB of storage space. Taking account of redundancy needs, the space a bluray disc occupies and the fact that I always seem to fill whatever space I have (be it a HDD, a shed or a garage!) a 2-bay unit may have a limited life expectancy. With that in mind I’ve been looking at 4-bay units. I had looked a 5-bay units but these seem to be geared much more towards hi-end performance and business use. Also the leap in price between 4 and 5 bay units seems disproportionate.
As I’ve learned over the last week or so, an important consideration when assessing capacity needs is the intended RAID level and back-up arrangements.
Considering the varied nature of the content to be stored on the NAS the consequences of a total loss of the data would range from disastrous to inconvenient.
As such I intend to employ RAID and regular back-up of selected data to a diskless external HDD such as a Buffalo Linkstation or the like. RAID level to be used is another point on which I would like some advice. I’m currently undecided on which of three approaches would be best. Assuming use of 2TB drives....
1) RAID 5 across all 4 drives would give me a max of 6TB of usable space while reducing the risk of data loss.
2) RAID 5 across 3 drives and leaving the 4th spare as a ‘hot swap’ would give me a reduced max of 4TB of usable space, but make the system significantly more robust.
3) RAID 1 across all 4 drives would also give me a max of 4TB of usable space and a mirror of the data.
In all of the above scenarios I’d be regularly backing up the most crucial and irreplaceable files with a separate drive as outlined above.
Am I being too paranoid about disk failure and data loss? Am I being paranoid enough?
Is option 1 a sufficiently cautious approach to use?
Options 2 and 3 give me the same usable space - would one of these preferable to the other?
If I employ 2 or 3, and then want to expand my usable space, would it be viable to change to option 1 considering all disks would by then be nearing full capacity?
I believe I’ve narrowed down my final selection to one of three units
QNAP TS-410 http://www.qnap.com/pro_detail_feature.asp?p_id=134
QNAP TS-412 http://www.qnap.com/pro_detail_feature.asp?p_id=193
Synology Diskstation DS411j http://www.synology.com/enu/products/DS411j/spec.php
Considering their reputation and standing, I don’t think I’ll go too far wrong with any of these, but would welcome any opinions/pointers on any differences which may make one a more sensible choice over the others. The ability to add IP security cameras to the QNAP systems does sound kinda cool though. I’m a complete novice in this area, so ease/simplicity of use would be one big consideration!
Looking ahead, I’d also be grateful if someone could give me some pointers regarding the sort of spec of the drives I should be looking at. It goes without saying that I’ll only consider those on the manufacturer’s approved list, but what sort of performance level should I be looking at? Cost is not a crucial factor as since I regard this as a long term investment I do not want to sacrifice performance and functionality for the sake of a few pounds. Though at the same time I don’t want to be unnecessarily paying for performance that I’m just not going to use. I wouldn’t but a BMW M5 to do the weekly shop!
Apologies for the length of this post and thanks for taking the time to read it. When I started out typing I thought it would only be a paragraph or two. I seem to have quite a few questions that I still need the answers to!
If anyone thinks I’m looking at completely the wrong sort of solution please feel free to tell me. I’m more than aware that in my research of this area, I may have become blinkered and completely missed a seemingly obvious alternative!
Cheers
Darren
check that one out
