Home NAS Setup

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kiwis

541 posts

Ultimate Geek

# 177326 30-Jul-2015 07:42

i'm looking to create a home NAS storage solution.

Im looking at getting the below box, my setup looks like this

- Fibre with vodafone
- hub in garage
- ethernet ports in all rooms
- 1 x desktop pc connected via ethernet
- 1 x laptop connected via wifi
- 1 x smart tv

my questions are:

- can this be set up in any room in my house with a ethernet port?
- how will my laptop and desktop connect?
- can i raid the two hard disks? (1 for back up)
- how does it have a static ip if my house does not have one?
- if i got the 4 bay option - could i ask just 2 disks now and more later?
- what are the/any limitations of this that I should know of? ill be using it for file sharing in my house
- any other comments

http://www.pbtech.co.nz/index.php?z=p&p=NASDLK2028516&name=D-Link-DNS-320L-ShareCentre-2-BAY-CLOUD-NAS-Networ

doublek69

31 posts

Geek

# 1355015 30-Jul-2015 07:57

Hello
Here is my untechnical response. The smart people should be along soon to help correct and fill in the gaps.
- It can be set up in any room with an ethernet port (that is obviously patched to your router). When contemplating a room, consider: cooling/dust mitigation/accidental power off/any other external impacts
- With my Synology NAS, I shared the various drives I created and these could then be added to the devices connected on my network. I created drives similar to the Windows Library format (Docs, Pictures, Movies, Videos etc)
- Raid on the drives is not back up. The second drive can fail at the same time. Consider back up of your files separate to what you choose to do with raid.
- Static IP is defined on your router
- The Synology allowed me to add less than the 4 max, but this obviously affects the RAID option you choose to utilise
- Dependent on how often you access your files and where from, you may see the drives needing to come up from a hibernation state (or not). Your power settings on the NAS are quite important from a longevity and performance perspective. If it to purely share your media across multiple devices, have you considered the current router options with a USB 3.0 option, allowing you to plug an external hard drive in and share? Far cheaper.

Inphinity

2538 posts

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# 1355019 30-Jul-2015 08:06

1) Yes, as long as it has network connectivity and power, location doesn't matter
2) via your home network
3) RAID is not a backup, it is resiliency and/or performance
4) it will have a static private IP, on your internal network. This is different from the dynamic public IP your internet connection likely has.
5) Yes
6) It is an entry-level device, and this will be reflected in performance - even in RAID0 I wouldn't expect much more than 30MB/s write performance and 40MB/sec read performance. RAID1 this will likely be slightly lower. Still plenty for most home uses, but if you're looking for something genuinely quick, this isn't it.

kiwis

541 posts

Ultimate Geek

# 1355244 30-Jul-2015 12:59

do i need to do anything to get my home network going? i just have my two computers running independently.

I dont want to have to have my desktop on for my laptop to connect to this? will it need to be on?

can i stream video/audio from this or too slow

dafman

2817 posts

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# 1355262 30-Jul-2015 13:19

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Don't know anything about D-link NAS, but I have been running a Synology for several years now and can't rate it highly enough:
- excellent user interface on PC
- great suite of android (and I presume apple) apps
- regular updates
- never misses a beat

http://www.ascent.co.nz/productspecification.aspx?itemID=419184

doublek69

31 posts

Geek

# 1355282 30-Jul-2015 13:42

kiwis: do i need to do anything to get my home network going? i just have my two computers running independently.

I dont want to have to have my desktop on for my laptop to connect to this? will it need to be on?

can i stream video/audio from this or too slow

If you are running Windows 8.1 or 7, you could create a homegroup. You don't need to have a desktop PC running in order for your laptop to connect to the NAS. The speed of connection between any of your endpoints (Laptop, PC etc) will be dictated by the lowest common denominator (router, cabling, WiFi connection speed). Audio should never be an issue. Video is dependent on what resolution you are running.

A question for you - what has lead you to a NAS being the best solution for you? What are you trying to serve from it? As I said before, if you are just wanting to share your movies across your computers, just use an external hard drive plugged into an appropriate and capable router.

Spyware

2280 posts

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# 1355286 30-Jul-2015 13:45

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kiwis: do i need to do anything to get my home network going? i just have my two computers running independently.

I dont want to have to have my desktop on for my laptop to connect to this? will it need to be on?

can i stream video/audio from this or too slow

No, desktop won't need to be on. You need to configure the NAS and maybe map a network drive on each of your computers pointing to the NAS share point (Homegroup is not necessary at all). As for using the likes of a media server on the Dlink I can't say but if it can run a media server then it won't have the energy to transcode as NAS is really a toy.

From my experience with the older version of these Dlink NAS boxes I would avoid at all cost. Buy a Synology DS415+ or similar or build a mini-iTX form factor Linux box for the purpose.

Ross

Spark FibreMAX using Mikrotik CCR1009-8G-1S-1S+

Speed Test

kiwis

541 posts

Ultimate Geek

# 1355294 30-Jul-2015 13:56

why NAS: because it allows me to have ample and expandable disk space. over multiple drives

can an external HDD get plugged directly into my router or router via ethernet cable?? if so what ones??

jonb

1494 posts

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# 1355301 30-Jul-2015 14:11

May need a better description or photo of the setup in your garage to best advise. The NAS can be connected to any active ethernet port in the house or into the back of the vodafone router. You say that there is an ethernet port in every room, but there needs to be an ethernet cable connected from your vodafone hub to a powered switch, which is then connected with more ethernet cables to where the network cables from the rooms terminate in the garage.

I am thinking of something similar, for my purposes I think an WD MyCloud (2TB, 3TB or 4TB) will be sufficient for my needs - saving and playing music and movies, central file storage. Using an additional external hdd and/or a cloud backup service for additional backup. If I find this too limiting in the future will invest in a 'proper' NAS.

doublek69

31 posts

Geek

# 1355350 30-Jul-2015 14:51

If you have a Vodafone Modem/Router, then this will apply;
http://help.vodafone.co.nz/app/answers/detail/a_id/11572/~/connect-a-hard-drive-to-your-vodafone-broadband-complete-modem
Give it a whirl with a USB stick and see if it meets your needs. Going with a 2.5 USB powered form factor will mean you don't need to worry about power supply and you could look to create a backup for this to a Cloud location (if needed) being run by one of your computers. I say 'if needed" because I never worried about backing up Movies or Music as I had originals or access to the media via my purchase method if I lost them. The things which were important were Home Videos, Photos and Documents.

afe66

2051 posts

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# 1355398 30-Jul-2015 16:30

I've got synology box (412+ two 3Tb drives) on which I have the usual music photos video. (Windows backup)

Run plex media server which works well for me. When I go away the two raspberry pi security camera machines point to the Google drive folder which syncs to the cloud.

Last week I created a drop box folder in which I place photos videos for my family which syncs to the cloud
What I really like about this is I can just dump the files I want to upload to drop box on my NAS and it will slowly upload them over asdl2. I don't need to keep power hungry PC on and I can also play games etc.

Sonos system also happy to stream music off the NAS.

I tried plugging a USB drive into my Vodafone router but bit slow.

Sometimes paying extra is worth it.

A.

jonathan18

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# 1355707 31-Jul-2015 09:23

I'd really think you're better off going with a dedicated solution for network storage, rather than relying on such a 'feature' of your router. These are usually painfully slow and relatively lacking in features. The only thing I find the USB on these useful for is wireless printing (which is a godsend).

The prices of NASs have really come down over the past few years, and while the cheaper units will not have the grunt to do stuff like transcoding video on the fly they'll perform far better than the router option, and offer far more features. Just as an example, on my entry-level Netgear NAS I run the Squeezebox media server for our three Squeezeboxes, and a torrent client (so useful not to have to have a computer running for this); plus it works flawlessly to serve video to our Mac Mini HTPC and Amazon Fire TV via ethernet and our tablets/laptop via wifi. And don't forget the advantage of backups - our Mac Mini and Windows laptops back up on to the NAS, which then also automatically backs up onto external drives. All for a few hundred dollars.

If that's too much money, a networked hard drive such as that discussed in a post above will still be a better bet than your router, but your upgrade path isn't a clean (with a NAS, you could start with an entry-level unit then when you want something more just switch the drives out, which keeps the cost of upgrading down).

timmmay

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# 1355854 31-Jul-2015 11:22

Do you really need a NAS? I keep everything on my PC, which is on most of the time anyway, a NAS adds nothing. They're slower than internal disks too. A router running as a NAS will be pretty slow and not sure you'll gain any reliability.

You still need backups.

kiwis

541 posts

Ultimate Geek

# 1357410 3-Aug-2015 07:04

So i did some testing over the weekend, my external hard disk was NFTS format and vofafone requires FAT32, i can only reformat to exFAX. so didbt get to testing my external hard drive connected via my router.

1. if i reformat to exFAT will it work?
2. what is the best way to share files across a home network without having to have a host PC on???

JimmyH

2627 posts

Uber Geek

# 1357456 3-Aug-2015 08:40

timmmay: Do you really need a NAS? I keep everything on my PC, which is on most of the time anyway, a NAS adds nothing. They're slower than internal disks too. A router running as a NAS will be pretty slow and not sure you'll gain any reliability.

You still need backups.

My NAS (Asustor 608T configured as RAID5, with dual-gigabit channel bonding) is most definitely not slower than an internal disk. It's much, much, faster. And you do gain reliability - specifically, it's fault tolerant if a disk fails.

jonathan18

3937 posts

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# 1357518 3-Aug-2015 09:11

kiwis: So i did some testing over the weekend, my external hard disk was NFTS format and vofafone requires FAT32, i can only reformat to exFAX. so didbt get to testing my external hard drive connected via my router.

1. if i reformat to exFAT will it work?
2. what is the best way to share files across a home network without having to have a host PC on???

1. Possibly not! I had to do this for my sister so her drive would work with the Amazon Fire TV, which also requires FAT32. You can do this - I just googled and found a free app that enables me to format in FAT32. But how about you try with an alternative drive - or perhaps even just a USB stick - to see how it performs before reformatting your main drive? As a number of us have already mentioned, expecting a product designed to function as modem/router to also perform adequately as a NAS is asking a bit much, so I'd suggest testing its performance before reformatting your drive.

2. A NAS.

You want to share files, so if you don't want to have the host PC on you need somewhere else to store it, and it kind of defeats the purpose if that device isn't always on ready to serve content. A basic NAS (which is all you probably need for this purpose) is small, quiet, and efficient; personally I'd elect this above leaving a PC on all the time.

As I mentioned earlier, possibly the easiest to use (and relatively cheap) would be something like a WD My Cloud (eg http://pricespy.co.nz/product.php?p=2259324) - but this would have no RAID and no ability to upgrade your hard drives.

Is there a particular reason why you're not keen on going down the 'always on' computer or a proper NAS? The former can possibly be done for nada if you've got a computer and drives available for the purpose (and could be a good starting point).