Which NAS to buy?

[random_builder]

I'm looking for some advice on buying my first NAS.

My requirements
4-5 Bays
Support for 2TB drives (For upgrading in the future, I only plan on putting in 1TB drives now)
RAID 5
Reliable

Desirable
Raid Expansion
Hot swapping drives
Fast


The main use of the NAS is going to be storing ripped DVD movies/TV shows. Some Bluray stuff as well. I'll be streaming these to 2 other computers around the house. I'm not sure how fast a NAS has to be to handle this. Whats the bandwidth requirement of streaming 2 1080p movies to 2 different PCs at the same time? Kind of a worst case but I'd like to know. I should also mention that'll it'll be used on a 10/100 router. I may replace it with a 10/100/1000 but not yet.

Also - If the NAS unit itself dies, I'd like to be able to take the 5 drives (in RAID 5) and pop them into another one and have the NAS still be able to read the drives. Is this possible?

Lastly - I don't want it to be too expensive

The Thecus 5200B seems to be the best option for me, but I'm also looking at the Buffalo Linkstation Quad and Acer Easystore because they're both much cheaper.

 

[thiggins]

Also - If the NAS unit itself dies, I'd like to be able to take the 5 drives (in RAID 5) and pop them into another one and have the NAS still be able to read the drives. Is this possible?

That won't be possible.

There are many suggestions for a unit such as you want in the Forums.
If you want cheap, you don't want Thecus, Synology or QNAP. They charge a premium because they have many server features that you don't need.

 

[random_builder]

That won't be possible.

Really? Even I replace it with exactly the same model of NAS?

This might be a dealbreaker for me. If I lose all my data if the NAS has a hiccup, I'd be very annoyed.

 

[thiggins]

Sorry, I thought you meant any other NAS.

If you swap to the same make/model NAS, it might work. But it depends on how/when the NAS dies. If it fails in the middle of a write, your array will probably be dead and only recoverable by an expensive data recovery service.

 

[random_builder]

Interesting. A failed write can destroy the array? Maybe Raid 5 is not for me.

 

[thiggins]

RAID 5 requires the calculation of a parity block for every write to the array. If this process is interrupted, the array will be corrupted.

RAID is not backup. Never trust your data to a single device. RAID 1, plus backup to another device is a reasonable combination. See
Smart SOHOs Don't Do RAID