NAS suggestions

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pwapwap

103 posts

Master Geek

#79199 14-Mar-2011 19:16

Howdy all.

With hard drives becoming so cheap, and my data requirements becoming bigger by the day - I am considering going all out and getting a RAID enabled NAS box.

Primary usage will be for picture/video storage.

I am thinking one with 4 HDD slots to future proof starting with 2x 2TB drives RAID.

Does anyone have any suggestions, I have not seen many good solutions in NZ.

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188 posts

Master Geek

#448330 14-Mar-2011 20:56

I was in the same position.
I picked up a Netgear ReadyNAS NV+ (diskless) http://pricespy.co.nz/product.php?p=218193
Its not the fastest (read/write), but for the price its pretty decent.

kyhwana2

2566 posts

Uber Geek

#448360 14-Mar-2011 21:30

What level of RAID are you going with? Given you said you need more space, you're starting with RAID0?
If that's important data, I wouldn't trust it to RAID0!

pwapwap

103 posts

Master Geek

#448366 14-Mar-2011 21:36

Looking for redundancy. that netgear one looks interesting how you can add drives without setting things up from scratch.

Agreed RAID 0 is probably not a good idea.

shrub

775 posts

Ultimate Geek

ID Verified

#448389 14-Mar-2011 22:58

Just make your own theres plenty of old hardware around now with 6-8 sata ports onboard then you also get a working computer aslo. or just use freeNAS as OS. Will work out cheaper than a NAS box that does not come with a HDD.

eluSiveNZ

188 posts

Master Geek

#448579 15-Mar-2011 15:02

pwapwap: Looking for redundancy. that netgear one looks interesting how you can add drives without setting things up from scratch.

Its uses "X-Raid" http://www.readynas.com/?cat=54

Quite handy as it can grow with your needs without much hassle at all.

reven

3743 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#448581 15-Mar-2011 15:21

for the price of a readynas i would go for a drobo, the cheapest is $648 from [url=http://www.drobo.co.nz/drobo/configure?drobo_enclosure=DR04DD60]here[/url]

i have a drobo, its pretty good (one drive bay died on me somehow though). the only downside with it is its slow to write (around 7MBs). but its hassle free, just slide a new drive in and it will start syncing and your data is good to go.

the good thing about drobo is that is supports different hard drive sizes, so you can have 2x 1TB and 2x 2TB and you're not only getting 3TB (3x 1TB + 1TB for redundancy) you're have access to more. theres a drobo calculator online at drobo.com to see how much space you'll get.

the cheapest drobo isn't a network drive (you can by an adapter for it) but there is a 5bay version with a network port but thats ~$1200 (im thinking about getting this)

pwapwap

103 posts

Master Geek

#449024 16-Mar-2011 20:47

Not sure how good of a brand - but the price looks OK.

http://www.ascent.co.nz/productspecification.aspx?ItemID=391412

Wise

Send money globally for less with Wise - one free transfer up to NZ$900 (affiliate link).

kyhwana2

2566 posts

Uber Geek

#449025 16-Mar-2011 20:49

Hmm, usually if you have the time/will, you can build your own (NAS/Linux) box for cheaper than most of these off the shelf NAS boxes and it'll be more useful..

reven

3743 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#449031 16-Mar-2011 21:11

kyhwana2: Hmm, usually if you have the time/will, you can build your own (NAS/Linux) box for cheaper than most of these off the shelf NAS boxes and it'll be more useful..

ive tried this in the past, ive had unraid (which is a special version of linux that runs off a usb stick), software raid5 under ubuntu, and a drob.

- unraid was pretty good, seemed to work well, but there was maintenance involved and i ended up losing all data on one of the drives
- ubuntu, lots of maintenance, upgraded from 9.1 to 10.04 and raid stopped working, took me months to get it back working. i could do more with the box, but in the end i didnt really need it and stopped using it.
- drobo, one hdd bay died, sadly i got this from overseas and couldnt really take it back under warranty, there wasnt a NZ distributor when i bought it, now there is. no maintenance at all, just slide the drives in and out and it works.

like im said im thinking about getting the network version drobo, but still considering a HP solution or similar running WHS. just need to know more about expanding and data redundancy.

drobo is really good, only real down side is 7MBs write time. its completely hassle free though.

Technofreak

6530 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#449034 16-Mar-2011 21:28

I'm looking for a NAS to serve two to three computers, also I want to be able to back up the NAS onto a USB connected drive. Does anyone know if the D Link DNS 320 or something similar will do this for me?

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pwapwap

103 posts

Master Geek

#449349 17-Mar-2011 20:30

The Drobo / ReadyNAS solutions look good as they can be easily upgrading... Just have to man up and pay I guess.

pwapwap

103 posts

Master Geek

#449358 17-Mar-2011 20:52

Or - Just looked on Amazon - $370 plus some shipping for "as new" - way cheaper.

NETGEAR ReadyNAS NV+

Kraven

729 posts

Ultimate Geek

#449370 17-Mar-2011 21:20

I have a ReadyNAS Duo, which has the same CPU/RAM as the NV+, just two disk bays instead of four. It's OK for a basic unit, just don't expect much in terms of performance. Also Netgear aren't focused on developing the firmware on these any more.

I have heard the ReadyNAS units with Intel CPUs are much better. However they are a bit more expensive.

I did have a play with a Promise SmartStor NS4600 a few weeks ago and I was very impressed with the performance of that. Put a couple of WD 2TB Blacks in it (RAID1) and it was maxing out a gigabit connection on reads at 100MB/sec and doing about 40MB/sec on writes. It also had a nice web interface. Bit of a let down on the hard disk "trays" though, just cheap, plastic frames really. Not hot-swap capable.

nakedmolerat

4629 posts

Uber Geek

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Lifetime subscriber

#449406 17-Mar-2011 22:36

check out thecus products. i have n4200 and never regret the purchase. you can do almost everything with it. 6 usb ports, 2eSATA, media server, itunes server etc! i highly recommend n4200Pro. otherwise, if you looking for bargain, get the original n4200 model. they are extremely cheap now from elive (i paid close to $1300)

Ragnor

8219 posts

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#449442 18-Mar-2011 01:11

SmallNetBuilder has great DB of NAS products they have reviewed
http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/nas/nas-charts

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