Good NAS with Private Cloud for Small Business?

[Not a Cook]

I'll keep it simple: I'm looking for an NAS for my small business that won't break the bank. In a nutshell, it needs to meet the following criteria:

• Be user-friendly (for the average office worker, not the average IT professional);
• Be reliably accessible as a private cloud for file sharing purposes with offsite computers. It MUST be able to be quickly and reliably accessed both from my office and my home office;
• Have a minimum of 4 TB storage;
• Be at least two drive, RAID 1 or better;
• Be accessible by mainly Windows computers, but also by smartphones (including Android and Windows OS for smartphones);
• Have a fast enough transfer rate that we're not waiting all day, including over the private cloud at an offsite location (this is for file server purposes and project photo upload purposes, NOT streaming video or anything like that);
• Did I mention "not break the bank" - under $1,000 preferably.

I've looked at a bunch - Buffalo, Synology, WD, LaCie, Seagate, etc. I see pricepoints and specs., but what is really the best, most-user friendly for a small business? What is reliable, and won't just be a pain to have to troubleshoot and fix?

Thanks in advance for any help you can offer!

[gogohopper]

I'll keep it simple: I'm looking for an NAS for my small business that won't break the bank. In a nutshell, it needs to meet the following criteria:

• Be user-friendly (for the average office worker, not the average IT professional);
• Be reliably accessible as a private cloud for file sharing purposes with offsite computers. It MUST be able to be quickly and reliably accessed both from my office and my home office;
• Have a minimum of 4 TB storage;
• Be at least two drive, RAID 1 or better;
• Be accessible by mainly Windows computers, but also by smartphones (including Android and Windows OS for smartphones);
• Have a fast enough transfer rate that we're not waiting all day, including over the private cloud at an offsite location (this is for file server purposes and project photo upload purposes, NOT streaming video or anything like that);
• Did I mention "not break the bank" - under $1,000 preferably.

I've looked at a bunch - Buffalo, Synology, WD, LaCie, Seagate, etc. I see pricepoints and specs., but what is really the best, most-user friendly for a small business? What is reliable, and won't just be a pain to have to troubleshoot and fix?

Thanks in advance for any help you can offer!

I asked a while back and decided on a 2 bay synology. Running mirrored, with a USB hanging off the back, for backups. I use it at home and very small business uses as well. Have had NO issues at all. They seem to push out updates well and have a ton of other uses as well. I use it to run security cams, stream content, personal externally accessible cloud, provide share drives to my pc's, sync content between devices, and have my pc's backup to it as well.

Again, I am no expert, but I have really enjoyed the Synology product.

They have sooo many versions, it may seem confusing, but they do have a NAS picker that helps out a bit.

[ExtremeX]

Synology makes a great product...

I have a RS814, DS1513+, and a 2 bay unit I use over an IPSec VPN for remote backup and replication.

[SMR510]

Synology is #1 because they are the best. I recently was looking to do the cheapest NAS possible for my house and ended up with a 4 bay Synology. I could have built one myself and it would have been cheaper but the Synology stuff flat out works and there is no reason to fix what isn't broken.

I bought the DS414, that is what I would recommend. With a 2 bay you will be at max capacity (drive # wise rather than GB wise) on day one and that just seems pointless to me. Throw in 2 2TB drives for now in your preferred RAID. I am using SHR both at work and home and I can't really comment on how robust it is since I have yet to have a drive fail. I am using WD Reds at work and Seagate NAS drives at home, the WD Reds have been going strong for 3 years I just got the Seagates so I can't comment on the longevity of those. The manual is very good and will help you get it going, I would say it is a intermediate level task nothing crazy. I believe to gain access through the cloud you will need to be able to forward the proper ports on your modem but I have not done it so that could be wrong. Depending on your ISP you may need to pay for a static IP so you can port forward (only on business accounts for Comcast for some stupid reason).

In any case also buy a external drive to backup the Synology to, RAID is not a backup. I back mine up once a week when I know no one will be using files off the NAS (it does slow down a bit).

Speed of the cloud is going to be dependant on your internet connection on both ends. You can setup a VPN if you are trying to access files from home, that would probably be the best. They have apps for uploading photos from smartphones as well as other things.

[Not a Cook]

Thanks, gentlemen... looks like Synology will most likely be what we'll go with. Just a follow-up question: for the private cloud services via a Synology NAS, is a static IP address required, or will it also work with a dynamic IP address?

[ExtremeX]

Thanks, gentlemen... looks like Synology will most likely be what we'll go with. Just a follow-up question: for the private cloud services via a Synology NAS, is a static IP address required, or will it also work with a dynamic IP address?

You can go about it multiple ways... They have their own DDNS type service; using their quick connect ID...

Using a static IP also work, some of this requires you to possibly use port forwarding on the firewall in order to access services. There is a ez-internet wizard that can probably help you.

Personally I don't use any of it... Considering this is for my office, I control all external access using my hardware IPsec VPN firewalls (Fortinet Fortigate UTM device). This gives me an extra layer of authentication and much better granular control over security without having to poke holes into my firewall.

Many of these things I already had in place... its great to have, but not required for what you might be trying to do.

[ugimports]

Don't do WD. I have it and am not very happy with it. Started with Linux support and then they ditched NFS support..lame.. I know you're mostly Windows and that works well enough, but the mobile support and remote support is pretty weak. Maybe newer firmware will be good, we'll see.. I may go the Synology route based on feedback here.

[atc4usmc]

+1 more for synology. Exactly what Gogohopper said!

[Satex]

I'll just repeat what others said: can't go wrong with Synology, outstanding product, outstanding support. So easy to use, even a CalGunner can use it.
Don't even bother with NAS' from the other vendors - they end support shortly after the next model is released. Get a 4+ bay model in a RAID5 configuration.

[Barbarossa]

Couldn't you do something like this with Meraki?

[e90bmw]

I own two NetGear ReadyNas.
Synology is also a great product.
They work great. Get WD Red drives.

[Pally]

Tagged for interest.

[Darryl Licht]

Synology makes a great NAS!

[mavericksun]

I use a Qnap NAS. Works great and cost less than Synology.

[garand1945]

I'll just repeat what others said: can't go wrong with Synology, outstanding product, outstanding support. So easy to use, even a CalGunner can use it.
Don't even bother with NAS' from the other vendors - they end support shortly after the next model is released. Get a 4+ bay model in a RAID5 configuration.

I'd use SHR, way more flexibility with upgrading to larger drives and such than RAID5. I run the SHR2 for my most critical data. Two drive redundancy is so much more conforming when you have a drive fail or are rebuilding. Gong to be really rare to have 2 drives fail at the same time, and even if you do you still have to loose a third drive before you loose any data.

I'm running mostly WD Reds, but will only buy HGST from now on. Again and again they prove more reliable. I want to have failed drives as infrequently as possible, so they are worth a couple extra bucks. Will NEVER buy Seagate with their current reliability, and they have always been like they are now.

https://www.backblaze.com/blog/best-hard-drive/