SYN DS410/411+ or HP EX490 (MediaSmart Server)

[TerrorForce]

Good afternoon y'all,

My PC is running out of space after having placed a 1.5TB WD HDD in it last year when our DS207+ died. The Synology DS207+ was pre-configured by my compu-wiz friend so I didn't pick up anything really from buying it, informationwise.

Now I'm in a pickle, cause he's on a 10 month treck through australia! hehe

So the PC is running out of room, a new NAS seems like a fine idea! I came across the following, which are too my interest (and got adviced to stick to Synology);
- Synology DS410
- Synology DS411+
- HP EX490 MediaSmart Server

The following will be done with it...
- FTP server & central media storage for the LAN (photo's, series, movies, music)
- BackUp 3 Desktops, 1 (practically) stationairy laptop
- Hooking it up to 2 External HDD's (WD MyBook's 1TB 2008)
- Streaming media to a PS3, Xbox360 a TV-connected MediaStation.

'Cause I store relative big client files (including video files of up to 2GB) I'm in the market for 8TB total disk space, preferably in RAID5 "just in case". Effective diskspace should be 4TB+ so with personal use as well, ~5.5TB effectively is plenty. (got my eyes on the EcoGreen F4 Samsung 2TB's x4)

I get taxes back, so I've put a tax-deduced (devide cost by 1.19) budget on it for around 450 Euro's (~575 US$) for just the device.

One quick thing 'bout the HP EX490, from what I've been told, this thing is quite "simple" as in you require very little technical knowledge (god knows I don't have the time right now to spend hours reading through manuals on how an item like this works & how to get it running)... It's also the cheapest & fastests, still I'm not convinced cause Synology in my experience is AWESOME! And windows, is not.

My question, asking people that know what they're talking about (seriously, people in stores in the Netherlands don't know JACK about what they're selling)... Which one would you buy?

Synology DS410
- Gigabit connection (10/100/1000LAN)
- 2 x USB, 4x SATA internal
- 1gig processor
- 512 Mb RAM
= 410 Euro's (535 US$) excl (495 euro/645 US$ incl taxes)

Synology DS411+
- Gigabit connection (10/100/1000LAN)
- 2 x USB, 4x SATA internal, 1x eSATA
- 1.6gig processor
- 1024 Mb RAM
= 485 euro's (630 US$) excl (595 euro/775 US$ incl)

HP EX490
- 4x USB, 4x SATA internal
- Intel Celeron 450 Single-Core, 2.2Gig
- 2048 MB RAM
- Includes a Barracuda 1.0TB with the software on it
= 380 euro's (495 US$) excl (450 euro's/585 US$ incl)
*Prices are avg of 4 shops at which I usually shop for my electronics.

Simply telling me "Get that one" is enough for me to make decision, although any arguement you share about it would be much appreciated. Also, F4 EcoGreen 2TB samsung x4 a good idea? Read on the WD website that their Caviar's don't go flawless with Synology apparature and my comp-wiz friend dies a little on the inside when he would glance at a WD filled NAS

Kind regards & many thanks(!),
- JW

PS: Apologies for my English, it's not my native language.
PPS: I'm a newbie when it comes to these devices and I've been looking at technical data & talking to electro-shop crews for 3 weeks now, can't do much longer without such a device, hence my inquiry. Should read up more on the technical aspect, just in a terrible rush *pant*
PPPS: The MediaSmart Server uses bout double the power compared to the Syn's, in both Idle- & Active-mode

 

[thiggins]

Nothing really beats Windows Home Server (WHS) based NASes for ease of expansion and ease of backup both client to NAS and backup of NAS storage itself. WHS uses an automatic replication service that runs as a scheduled batch process to sprinkle data to other drives. Storage can be expanded easily via USB (or eSATA if your server supports those ports).

Because WHS isn't RAID based, it's pretty fast.

The Synologies are fine products, but relatively expensive and have lots of features that you're not interested in. RAID helps build big volumes, but doesn't really provide security and isn't a substitute for backup.

Whichever one you choose, be sure you have a backup of critical data on a different device that has its own power supply. And make sure the NAS is on a UPS.