NAS recommendation

[David Cavalli]

Currently, I'm using an external Seagate (ext4 format) on my RT-AC68U router (Asuswrt-Merlin). The forum folks have helped me format this setup and maintain it. There's been an intermittent problem with the external HD as my main source for video, and the solution seems to be hardware based. When the drive gets in a bad state, core 1 goes 100% busy, the drive is invisible, and rebooting is the only solution.

Since I'm making my house even more dependent on that drive, the problem is happening more frequently and I'm looking to invest in a better solution. I use Plex / Sonarr on a Raspberry Pi (which works great), but thinking of putting them on a dedicated NAS, which can also store/serve the video data house-wide.

My main question revolves around which NAS to get, and I think the router will be the final point of the decision making process. The Synology DS218+ and DS718+ are the two models I'm considering. The 718 has dual ethernet ports and if I've read the forum right, I might be able to link aggregate them connected to the router. If so, that would be a great win! If not, the extra hardware on the 718 might not be worth the $100+ over the 218 model.

Will probably ask for help if/when I get either, but wanted to know if anyone had any particular experience and/or recommendations.

Also, if anyone has any feedback on the core 1 100% lock down issue (i.e. a way to software fix it, instead of reboot), that would make my wife happy.

Thanks!

 

[elorimer]

I repurposed some old hardware for a FreeNAS server, running Plex, Emby, a Docker instance; syncing PCs to it and to a Backblaze bucket. Works so well I got a newer motherboard, and a few 4TB WDRed drives. Whole thing runs on around 22 watts.

 

[Val D.]

My main question revolves around which NAS to get

You may get better answers in NAS section of the forum: https://www.snbforums.com/forums/#nas.8

There's been an intermittent problem... and the solution seems to be hardware based.

Yes, you figured it out the hard way that the router is not designed to be a NAS replacement. Even newer and much faster hardware routers like RT-AC86U have issues with large file transfers due to not enough RAM. Low RAM conditions are the main issue.

 

[Grisu]

No, not because of hardware limitations or low RAM it is ONLY because of bad firmware.
Have much weaker routers (not from Asus) than 86U and they have no problems to be used as NAS replacement.

 

[Val D.]

Have much weaker routers (not from Asus) than 86U and they have no problems to be used as NAS replacement.

Send me one of those to test it with 20GB transfer in 20.000 files and I'll post the results here on SNB. May take a few days to complete the transfer though, so be patient, please. This is how a NAS replacement on a router works in real life.

 

[jeff3820]

Unless you have a switch that supports link aggregation it won't work. Also, link aggregation will not give you 2000 Mbps speed, It will only possibly help if you have multiple clients that max out the single network connection. Even multiple clients using Plex generally won't do that. I'd save the money...go 10 Gbps at some point if you need speed...

 

[maxbraketorque]

ASUSTOR NAS's have worked well for me, but I have not tried any other brands. If a single external drive had sufficient storage space for your needs, then a 2-bay NAS should be fine. For ASUSTOR, I suggest the AS5202T. Its their newest 2-bay performance NAS. Despite its model number hierarchy, its likely as fast or faster than an of the AS6-series NAS's. Perhaps the biggest difference among different brands of NAS will be the operating system. ASUSTOR's has been fine for my needs, but I must admit that I wish the 3rd party software community was more active.

 

[dosborne]

Most of the major brands have reasonable entry level 2-bay units. Not top performers, but decent enough. Link aggregation, as mentioned above, likely won't do anything for you, so I'd suggest using any extra money towards larger capacity drives instead. Sounds like you just need some basic NAS functions.

In my setup, I do use the dual NICs in the QNAP ts-563, but I have each on a different subnet providing different services to each.

 

[PolarBear]

The Synology DS218+ and DS718+ are the two models I'm considering.

I have been using the Synology DS21- series for more than 10 years and I am very happy with them. I now have 5 for various purposes.

Many people on the forum seem to like and talk about Synology or QNAP.

I rarely stream video, but find that the 1 USB port on the DS218+ gives sufficient speed. (Cat 5e cables and gigabit switch).

You are right that a NAS is a much better solution than a portable disk plugged into the router's USB port. For many reasons - including the fact that the NAS box has a RAID array so it is not such a disaster if one disk fails. I bought a spare disk - from a different batch - to put on the shelf, so that I could quickly replace any failing disk. (If I were to wait until one does fail (a few years later perhaps), a similar model of disk might no longer be available.)

But RAID is not backup, and the rise of crypto viruses makes OFF LINE backup more important than ever.

My 2 cents

 

[Grisu]

Send me one of those to test it with 20GB transfer in 20.000 files and I'll post the results here on SNB. May take a few days to complete the transfer though, so be patient, please. This is how a NAS replacement on a router works in real life.

I did the test on my own and won't send you my routers, much too expensive only for shipping and taxes.
And why? You're asking everywhere for routers for free, buy your own if you want to test them or pay for shipping.

I used an old 500GB HDD with NTFS on my modemrouter AVM7590 (others reported to even use >4TB disk, but limited to 4TB per partition) with Dual-Core CPU Intel GRX550.
Then I copied 450GB files, small and really large ones upto 67GB a file, one Media-directory, just everything on my system with really long paths (when limited by windows or NTFS), in total 171000 files with 454GB size.
Tests has been done on PC over WiFi for proper function and over LAN for speed test!
After that copied them back altogether and made filecompare with 7zip CRC check, all ok!

Same again with ext4 with same results but double speed, so thats what I will use from now on.
Media server running well too with supported file formats.

I used SMB and FTP (slower for small files), so both can be used for copying.
Speed is ~22MB/s writing and upto 55MB/s reading for large files and short files 1850/min or 31/s read and write, enough for my purposes.
SSD would be faster but didn't test it to tell exactly how much (have no spare SSD).
20GB in 20000 files completed in 20 min. reading and 30 min. writing.

There are no errors, everyting like it should on long run since 6 months.
Can plug off in GUI without physically plug off/on, Media-index will be rebuilt automatically.
And I have it fully controlled on user and directory level.

Read:

Write:

 

[Val D.]

You're asking everywhere for routers for free, buy your own if you want to test them or pay for shipping.

No, I wanted to buy one specific non-working router another user was using as a paperweight.

Have much weaker routers (not from Asus) than 86U and they have no problems to be used as NAS replacement.

The AVM7590 combo router in the example above is actually newer and more expensive model than RT-AC86U. The price I see here and there is comparable to the price of RT-AX88U, actually. I see it keeps going with large file transfers, but the 22MB/sec write speed is like your external USB3 HDD limited to USB2 port speeds. At slower transfer speeds the router most likely flushes the caches faster and this is why it keeps going. RT-AC86U can do transfers 5 times faster, or at least it attempts to... and runs out of RAM. I don't see either router as NAS replacement. One is slow, the other inconsistent.

 

[Grisu]

The AVM7590 combo router in the example above is actually newer and more expensive model than RT-AC86U. The price I see here and there is comparable to the price of RT-AX88U, actually. I see it keeps going with large file transfers, but the 22MB/sec write speed is like your external USB3 HDD limited to USB2 port speeds. At slower transfer speeds the router most likely flushes the caches faster and this is why it keeps going. RT-AC86U can do transfers 5 times faster, or at least it attempts to... and runs out of RAM. I don't see either router as NAS replacement. One is slow, the other inconsistent.

Due to price its about equal to RT-AC86U, only 20€ difference on amazon, €179 for RT-AC86U and €199 for 7590.
RT-AX88U is listed €299 (newest Xmas offer before €329), you cant compare them!
You should better compare with DSL-AC88U which is sold for €236!
And it is even older than RT-AC86U which is listed in EU since 2017-08 (first time available on amazon 2018-01 why I bought mine in China 2017-11) while 7590 started 2017-03.
But you cant compare them only router based, because its a vplus modem too with fully integrated phone features like DECT-basis, POTS and ISDN S0-bus, fax, voicmail.
BTW mesh is working very reliable too either with Wifi or LAN backhaul!

Tests are done with USB3.0 but not much different with port set to USB2.0, only read of large files will go down to 45MB/s.
I set USB to 2.0 as I need very good 2.4GHz connection to exposed mesh-repeater and dont to stress things with any 3.0 interfereces. Dont have seen any problems with 3.0 but want to be on the save side.

I dont get any advantage from things which could do 10 times faster on paper but actually cant do at all not even slower!!!


And what I said: Asus NAS problems are NOT due to hardware limitations or low RAM but only because of bad software implementation, it can be done reliable with much slower hardware.
Thats where we started!

 

[Val D.]

And what I said: Asus NAS problems are NOT due to hardware limitations or low RAM but only because of bad software implementation, it can be done reliable with much slower hardware.

Oh, they don't call it NAS at all. No wonder if this part of the firmware is a copy/paste module used in 15 other models. AVM7590 example is good, but rare case. Intel based hardware is not that weak, actually. The problem is many manufacturers offer options for external storage attachment and the customers have no way to know how good/bad it is working. In most cases it's bad. I have personally tried ASUS, Netgear, Linksys routers... none work even close to NAS. Slow, inconsistent or both in the same time.

Thank you for the time spent on testing and posting the results!