Looking for info on NAS

[gogohopper]

I THINK I want a NAS. I know I want easy backup and data redundancy.

I have a couple PC's, a Mac, iPads, iPhones and Android devices that connect to my WiFi. My Internet is provided via my cable company. All my devices are on the 192.168.1.n subnet.

I am considering a NAS primarily for backup purposes, a well as consolidation of all our pics. files, and other data in one place. In have no problem spending a little extra $$$ to get drive mirroring in the NAS, or whatever it's called now. Redundancy is more important than speed, but both are nice to have.

Software for the various platforms that would automatically backup to the NAS, ala Carbonite style, would be great as well.

Streaming would be cool, but we don't have enough content for that to be a serious consideration at this time. Accessing the NAS from the Internet would be cool too, but not required.

Thanks. I did a search and didn't see any NAS discussions with recommendations.

If you know what an IBM 3350 or a 3420 is you'll have an insight into my IT experience, lol.

Thanks in advance

[jeremyy]

QNAP and Synology all the way.

[knerona]

NAS



sorry... had to... do ... it.

I've been interested in doing this as well, tagged for knowledge.

[the86d]

https://www.google.com/#q=slackware+NAS

[ExtremeX]

In the past I have always built my own using surplus computers, including some higher end ones with hardware raid and decent chassis. FreeNAS and Openfiler are both excellent free open source solutions.

Sounds like you may have some limited experience in that area, so I agree with the above poster, QNAP and Synology are both front runners in the NAS arena right now for the home to small/mid-sized business users.

Synology has some huge additional items like Apps to expand functionality since it’s more of a Linux server than a traditional NAS. Amazon Glacier connector seems like a big feature. QNAP does support Amazon S3 which is a different more expensive storage model.

Drobo is also an interesting solution, personally I think it’s more geared towards the novice to complete noob, but if you have a good amount of existing random hard drives laying around that you want to use their own version of raid could allow you to do things you cant do on a traditional hardware array like mix and match drive sizes. That said they do have some larger/higher end versions geared for biz use.

Just research features and go with one that fits your personal usage model best.

[aaaslayer]

NAS



sorry... had to... do ... it.

I've been interested in doing this as well, tagged for knowledge.

You beat me to it goddamn it LOL

[PolishMike]

After playing with a bunch of em I really like synology. The most versatile NAS system and it works. Very user friendly.

[Satex]

FreeNAS is amateurish and rarely stable. Get Synology, and you won't regret it. Don't bother with any other retail brand - they aren't worth it.

[gogohopper]

Thanks for the varied recommendations that I am sure work great for each of you. I think I'll go with a Synology DS213j in a RAID1 configuration for 4 TB capacity. I am planning to also hang an HD off the back, for backup purposes of the DS213j. Some of this data will ONLY be on the DS213j, so to be safe another device is needed for a truer backup scenario.

[Jel]

Synology all the way. Great products.

[stilly]

I have to agree with everyone as well. Synology was great, if you can afford to go big.

As for keeping it simple and cheap, Try NAS4free. It is a WAY better OS then FreeNAS and it has a TON of options as well. I fought with it for several hours one night before dumping it and going to FreeNAS and then when I got to FreeNAS I was like, Damn, where are all the options and cool things I could do? So I went BACK to Nas4Free and made it work. ANd I am VERY glad I do. For a Free Linux Os it is better then just about all the others. http://www.nas4free.org/
You can install it on a cheap 2GB or smaller USB drive that is connected to the motherboard and inside the computer and have it boot from it, then use the hard drives as storage only.

I also tried OpenMediaVault (looked great till I tried to load it up, then it flopped).

The single most expensive portion of your NAS is going to be your hard drives for storage. Depending on what you get they can cost you from a few hundred to a few thousand. Or you can hunt them down on Fleabay as New Pulls for around $35-$60 per 500GB or larger.

[the86d]

I have to agree with everyone as well. Synology was great, if you can afford to go big.

As for keeping it simple and cheap, Try NAS4free. It is a WAY better OS then FreeNAS and it has a TON of options as well. I fought with it for several hours one night before dumping it and going to FreeNAS and then when I got to FreeNAS I was like, Damn, where are all the options and cool things I could do? So I went BACK to Nas4Free and made it work. ANd I am VERY glad I do. For a Free Linux Os it is better then just about all the others. http://www.nas4free.org/
You can install it on a cheap 2GB or smaller USB drive that is connected to the motherboard and inside the computer and have it boot from it, then use the hard drives as storage only.

I also tried OpenMediaVault (looked great till I tried to load it up, then it flopped).

The single most expensive portion of your NAS is going to be your hard drives for storage. Depending on what you get they can cost you from a few hundred to a few thousand. Or you can hunt them down on Fleabay as New Pulls for around $35-$60 per 500GB or larger.

I have tried FreeNas and NAS4free on about 10 systems with 4 drive so far ranging from all SATA, all IDE, a mix of IDE for the OS and SATA for the data drive, another mix of SATA for the data and USB flash drive for the OS, and USB flash for the OS and IDE for the data, and it only booted to the OS on one after install. Like many distros these seem to have issues with mixed drive types (I think there was a Kernel-related issue?).

Slackware works better, but Pear Linux and Ubuntu variants have come a long way. Slack and Pear seem to support more hardware OOTB.

[ldsnet]

The only downside to a NAS is your backup storage is usually in the same storage site as the rest of your hardware.

If theft or catistrophic loss is a concern, a NAS won't protect from that; only off-site storage can provide that protection.

Off-site is tedious and usually delayed. At least you are considering making backups of some kind.

Put some thought as to how you are going to restore your system should you have a failure. Win 7 does not rebuild nicely (tried twice with Win 7 Home Premium, was less than pleased). Home Premium does NOT allow for a network back-up -had to use 3rd party software, which creates its own issues, and would not restore onto new hardware.

At least my documents, files and data was safe. Good luck!

[the86d]

The only downside to a NAS is your backup storage is usually in the same storage site as the rest of your hardware.

If theft or catistrophic loss is a concern, a NAS won't protect from that; only off-site storage can provide that protection.

Off-site is tedious and usually delayed. At least you are considering making backups of some kind.

Put some thought as to how you are going to restore your system should you have a failure. Win 7 does not rebuild nicely (tried twice with Win 7 Home Premium, was less than pleased). Home Premium does NOT allow for a network back-up -had to use 3rd party software, which creates its own issues, and would not restore onto new hardware.

At least my documents, files and data was safe. Good luck!

Robocopy backup scripts are a perfect solution, the only good way to backup for free for me at least, and very little config...

Here is an example from my server, and I haven't touched it in years, but I should probably review some of the switches again:

robocopy D:\ X:\ /b /r:0 /mir /COPYT /DCOPY:T /M /XD "D:\System Volume Information" "D:\$RECYCLE.BIN" /LOG:%userprofile%\Desktop\BackupLog.txt /TEE
echo C: & dir C:|find "free" & echo D: & dir D:|find "free" & echo "X:" & dir X:|find "free"
pause

the smiley is really "/COPY: DT" with no space.
I use a similar scripts at work.

Once on a NAS system via robocopy, an sftp to remote location is a good option, OR you could just get a wireless storage solution and keep it in a closet, or on top of the kitchen cabinet that can't be seen or something for the theft concerns.

[the86d]

If the Synology hardware dies, can you pull the data off the drives with anything else, maybe a newer version of their devices?

I would be scared of the Synology for the same reason I wouldn't get a DROBO... if the device dies, can you put the drives in a newer model and get your data, mixed results from what I read regarding the DROBO, so I assume it might have the same issue.

The benefit to Linux Kernel RAID (even a different Distro, or Version of Distro) is that the Kernel sees them for what they are, and you can just mount them without rewriting/rebuilding the RAID volume from scratch, and pull data...