Ultra 4 vs. TS410 vs. DS-410

[cpmiller22]

All:

After having my fill of bad experienced with Windows Server software RAID, I'm looking to get a 4 bay NAS that I plan on using with 4 2TB sata drives that I currently have in my server. Here is a quick list of must have features:
-At least 75 MB/sec read and
-At least 30 MB/sec write (although closer to 50 would be better)
-I'd ideallt like to spend under $500 for the NAS.
-Expandable RAID (i.e. I could add larger drives in later without rebuilding my volumes)

I'm open to other key features I should consider.

The key contenters I've found in this space are:
- QNAP Turbo NAS TS-410
- Netgear Ready Ultra 4
- Synology DS-410

The Synolgy seems to be the best bang for buck meeting all my must haves, and having the best performance reviews. I'd really love some input/advice or other key features I should consider in my review. A small things I've noticed is that ReadyNas and QNAP seem to have plug-ins available where as Synology doesn't really support this. Also noticied that Synology only has one LAN port (not sure how important that is).

Thanks in advnace your help!

 

[thiggins]

"Expandable RAID" always requires a volume rebuild. The main advantage is that it allows you to expand without deleting your data. But you don't get benefit of the expansion until you replace all drives with larger ones, with each replacement requiring a volume rebuild. And while the volume is rebuilding, if it fails, your data is gone.

More than one LAN port is useful only if you have a switch that supports link aggregation and have multiple clients trying to transfer large files at once. Or if you want to connect to two subnets at once.

 

[cpmiller22]

Thanks for the feedback on the expandable RAID. I don't currently have a managed switch so couldn't support Link Aggregation even if I wanted to. In the future I think the most I'd have to support would be streaming a movie to 2 PC's at the at the same time which I'd think a single NIC should be able to handle?

I'm still leaning towards the Synology DS-410 at this point, but open for any other comments/suggestions.

Thanks!

 

[cpmiller22]

Also curious any perspectives on how the Seagate Black Armor NAS 440 stacks up with with bunch. Its less expensive for sure, but I'm guessing not as high quality of a product as the others?

 

[stevech]

From what I've read, the Seagate (and Buffalo, Iomega, Netgear, LG) are not comparable in breadth of functions to QNAP and Synology. Perhaps Drobo is in a unique class.
Others' opinions may differ.

 

[teknojnky]

the ultra 4 (and all of the x86 readynas devices) has x-raid2 which supports expansion with only TWO disks replaced with larger ones.

 

[JoeJoe]

Only have used QNAP NAS systems, I'm happy with the TS-419P that I have, I have ordered another QNAP NAS for a backup unit. They will backup to each other using rsync.

The QNAP support seems better than Synology, their support forum is open and not censored. Synology's is not open.

 

[ntm1275]

Synology's is not open.

How did you determine that it is not Open?

I use the forum and it is not censored and is as open as you can get

 

[JoeJoe]

How did you determine that it is not Open?

I use the forum and it is not censored and is as open as you can get

All posts have to be approved before showing up on the forum.

 

[stevech]

Synology's forum is open to anyone for reading. These days, I can't fault a for-profit company for heavy moderating posts - spam, shills, etc. I do see lots of users' complaints, recommendations for improvements, etc. So it's not unreasonable. I think the best compromise is to require approval for a new user's posts for x amount of time until they've not shown misconduct or absurdity.

 

[ntm1275]

All posts have to be approved before showing up on the forum.

This is only for the first few posts for new users, after that no moderation is required

I assume it is to stop spammers

 

[JoeJoe]

Thanks, didn't know that. I know QNAP's forum get quite a bit of spam.