NAS Drive for a home based business

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Technofreak

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#75854 24-Jan-2011 20:35

I'm looking at buying a NAS drive for use in a home based business and don't want to spend too much money, however would rather spend a bit more to get something that will do the job properly rather than having to buy twice after finding the cheap option didn't work.

The criteria are as follows

1. Provide increased disc capacity.

2. Provide a common file point (server) for two laptops via a LAN using a Linksys WAG200G ADSL gateway.

3. Provide backup capability for the two laptops

4. Be able to be backed up either to a remote server or to a local USB connected drive. For the amount of data we would need to back up, a couple of 32 Gig flash drives would probably do, at least in the early days.

5. Capable of allowing remote access to the files, though this is not absolutely necessary.

At this point there is no need for it to provide a server function for a printer though this may happen in the future.

Also I am going to install a UPS to power the NAS drive.

I've done a search and read a couple of threads about these drives but most of the stuff is over a year old and with the constant change in technology I figured it was worth asking around to find out what others might do in similar circumstances.

Any feedback on how this might be best achieved and what make/model of NAS drive is considered worthwhile. Also any feedback on other features I should look for would be appreciated.

For example how good is something like http://www.dse.co.nz/dse.shop/4d3d28ae0047ede2273fc0a87f3b06bb/Product/View/XH0638

I am of the opinion that a drive case that allows the drive to be replaced might be a better option, eg. something like http://www.ascent.co.nz/productspecification.aspx?ItemID=388460

I welcome any information.

Thanks

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Snowflake

#430731 24-Jan-2011 21:15

Technofreak:
The criteria are as follows

1. Provide increased disc capacity.

2. Provide a common file point (server) for two laptops via a LAN using a Linksys WAG200G ADSL gateway.

3. Provide backup capability for the two laptops

4. Be able to be backed up either to a remote server or to a local USB connected drive. For the amount of data we would need to back up, a couple of 32 Gig flash drives would probably do, at least in the early days.

5. Capable of allowing remote access to the files, though this is not absolutely necessary.

given you're not staking about huge amounts of storage, have you considered using an online service? it would cover off all your points, but upload speed on your internet connection and broadband upload/download caps might be an issue.

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Zeon

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#430755 24-Jan-2011 21:54

Regs:
Technofreak:
The criteria are as follows

1. Provide increased disc capacity.

2. Provide a common file point (server) for two laptops via a LAN using a Linksys WAG200G ADSL gateway.

3. Provide backup capability for the two laptops

4. Be able to be backed up either to a remote server or to a local USB connected drive. For the amount of data we would need to back up, a couple of 32 Gig flash drives would probably do, at least in the early days.

5. Capable of allowing remote access to the files, though this is not absolutely necessary.

given you're not staking about huge amounts of storage, have you considered using an online service? it would cover off all your points, but upload speed on your internet connection and broadband upload/download caps might be an issue.

+1, online services are built from the ground up to be reliable and protect your data. Ie what happens if you have a fire or someone robs your house? It's not going to happen at a major datacenter.....

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kyhwana2

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#430810 25-Jan-2011 00:03

Zeon:

+1, online services are built from the ground up to be reliable and protect your data. Ie what happens if you have a fire or someone robs your house? It's not going to happen at a major datacenter.....

Except upload on DSL is pretty crap and costs money. That's what off site backups are for. (Copy important stuff to a 2nd USB drive, encrypted and ship them to family/friends out of your city)

But yes, an off shore backup is also good, as long as you don't have too much data to backup.

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Snowflake

#430813 25-Jan-2011 00:10

kyhwana2:
Zeon:

+1, online services are built from the ground up to be reliable and protect your data. Ie what happens if you have a fire or someone robs your house? It's not going to happen at a major datacenter.....

Except upload on DSL is pretty crap and costs money. That's what off site backups are for. (Copy important stuff to a 2nd USB drive, encrypted and ship them to family/friends out of your city)

But yes, an off shore backup is also good, as long as you don't have too much data to backup.

i have over 120GB of pictures, home video files and documents backed up over DSL to an overseas backup service - mozy.com. Because i'm only uploading a gig or so in a session, and only every now and then, the upload speed doesnt really bother me and the data charges are negligible.

if you're regularly uploading/download gig's worth of stuff then the speed and cost is going to be a factor, sure.

the money saved by not buying NAS's and UPS's could potentially be put towards a symmetric internet connection and an online service. e.g. a 2mbps/2mbps HSNS or Wireless service, instead of adsl.

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trig42

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#430828 25-Jan-2011 06:41

+1 to online backups - then they are accessible from anywhere with an internet connection.

I have used the Dlink DNS323 units a fair bit, and they do everything you ask. Not all that cheap though, but they do have inbuilt RAID to protect from a single drive failure, the drives are easily replaced, it has an FTP server for remote access.

Technofreak

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#442449 22-Feb-2011 15:57

I'm not that keen on the "Cloud" options for server or back up. Mainly because you are reliant on a fast reliable internet connection and while I admit our internet connection has been reliable I would rather not have to rely on it.

For me RAID is not a high priority, we don't need the redundancy that RAID gives and the backup provided does not provide protection against fire or theft. We will be doing daily backups that will be taken off site.

Basically I want a network drive that can serve files to, and back up, the PC's connected to the network. I want to back up the critical files contained on the NAS drive on a daily basis to another removable (portable) drive. The idea being that we would swap 2 portable drives on a daily basis, doing incremental back ups onto the portable drives.

The way I see it I need a NAS drive with only one drive fitted, that is capable of being backed up to a portable drive via it's USB connection. Also I need to be able to schedule the backup to happen at a regular time.

To help me aviod buying something that won't do what I want can someone answer these questions?

What NAS drives are there that will allow me to do this?

Do I need any special software to achieve this? It seems that some portable drives come with back up software, but this software needs an OS on the drive to be backed up in order to work. As I understand it the NAS drive is a dumb drive in that it has no OS except for what's required to configure and run it's basic functions.

So far as incremental backups are concerned, what decides where the incremental back up starts? The data on the backup drive being compared to the files on the drive to be backed up, or the drive being backed up knowing what was backed up last?

Thanks for any info.

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trig42

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#442454 22-Feb-2011 16:03

The DLink ones will still do it. They have a new model DNS-320, room for two drives, RAID 0, 1 or JBOD. The 320 is considerably cheaper than the 323 was.

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jjnz1

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#442464 22-Feb-2011 17:00

trig42: The DLink ones will still do it. They have a new model DNS-320, room for two drives, RAID 0, 1 or JBOD. The 320 is considerably cheaper than the 323 was.

+1

I have just ordered the 320, as the reviews are amazing for the price -around $230.

This NAS is super fast if you have a gigabit network too, -210Mbit/s read and WRITE.

Also has an easy to use web interface.

Spend a bit of time choosing your drives carefully though as some new 4k sector drives are having issues under raid in the DNS-320. They do not appear to be formatting successfully, so if this happens, remove one of the drives, format it alone, then remove it and install the other to format that (by itself).

Then, insert the first drive back into the DNS-320, (so now you have 2 drives inserted) and complete the set up.

Technofreak

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#442483 22-Feb-2011 18:01

Thanks for the lead on the DNS 320. It looks to do almost everything I want.

The only thing I can't be sure that it does is to be able to backup onto a drive connect to the USB port. It mentions USB backups but I thnk it's talking about backing up the content of the USB drive rather than backing up the DNS 320 to the USB drive.

Does anyone know for sure if backups can be done from the DNS 320 to a drive connected to the USB port.?

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Snowflake

#442533 22-Feb-2011 20:42

Technofreak: I'm not that keen on the "Cloud" options for server or back up. Mainly because you are reliant on a fast reliable internet connection and while I admit our internet connection has been reliable I would rather not have to rely on it.

i would rather not have to rely on a physical medium that you have to remove from the site. Its somewhat difficult to retrieve that USB disk from the embers of a house that burns down, or from the hands of a theif that steals your PC and peripherals

with internet backups, the main difficulty is the initial backup. recovery can often be in the form of getting your data dropped on a physical disk and sent back by courier etc. if you're keeping your backup up-to-date then it should only be an incremental backup. something that you can trickle out over a slower connection.

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trig42

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#442571 22-Feb-2011 21:22

Depending on the amount of data - backing up to the cloud is definitely a good idea. It would be cool if you could send them a pile of DVDs or something for the initial backup.

As for the DNS-320 backing itself up to a USB drive, I don't think it will, but it wouldn't be hard to schedule something like Syncback to copy the contents of the NAS to a USB drive connected to a PC (and Syncback will only copy changes/additions, so incremental backups are very quick). The copy contents of USB stick to the NAS with the press of a button is a cool feature though.