Weekend Open Forum: Do you use network attached storage at home?

[misor]

No.

 

[infiltrator]

I don't own a Synology but a Qnap NAS that holds up to 9TB of data. In addition, I've built a FreeNas sever that can handle up to 10TB of data.

The FreeNas server is essentially an image of the Qnap NAS, but with the ability to heal any corrupted data, thanks to it's resilient ZFS file system.

But I plan on a purchasing a Synology unit for Virtualization purposes.

 

[LNCPapa]

That QNAP TS-870 PRO only has 1GbE ports on it as far as I can find and it doesn't appear to support expansion like some of the Synology devices like the 1511 and 1512 or higher. You can get both a 1511+ or a 1512+ set up with 15 drives all managed from a single point. I'm not saying the QNAP TS-870 Pro is bad (it looks really good actually) but I think your reasoning might need a little more thought.

 

[mctommy]

I've just spent a weekend reading reviews and opinions about all these prosumer NAS offers, only to conclude how large a waste they are, and I mean any product that has 1Gbe Ethernet as the primary connection.

Even if you buy the smallest, 2-bay NAS, you might want to stick 2x6TB Seagate Enterprise drives in it for maximum space and performance (ops!). Except that those drives coupled can yield over 400MB/s in RAID 0 in read speeds. That requires 4Gbe in network traffic, of which you will get zilch.

In all, it doesn't make sense to buy a NAS today that doesn't have 10Gbe in it. You would be effectively castrating all the hard drives you put in there.

And as far as I can see, Synology doesn't have good products in that area at all. All their consumer-oriented products are 1Gbe only.

QNAP, on another hand, offers plenty of products with 10Gbe on-board, starting with TS-x70, PRO and all the way to TS-EC1080 Pro.

They of course would cost more than those stupid 1Gbe "NAS" from Synology, bit you will get a proper server.

If those are too expensive, you will be better off with an all-in-one USB 3.0 external hard drive, with couple drives in it in RAID 0, which can give much faster speeds than the pathetic 90MB/s with those Synology 1Gbe NAS products.

Also, in terms of the value, QNAP TS-870 PRO is definitely at the top. That's a whopping 8-bay monster, with 2 x 10Gbe ports. And with a proper search and QNAP's regular 30% discount one can be found for around 1K, now that's one awesome investment!

That's a lot of complaints for someone who doesn't own either. For the majority of people out there, a single gigabit port is enough for their needs. Of course it would be better to have 10gb port but you also have to have the proper switched that can handle that 10gb port...thus increasing the cost.

 

[Guest]

My NAS is acer W500 tablet + 2tb exteral hdd

 

[Guest]

No NAS, just a RAID 1 DAS and an external HD for backups.

 

[Kibaruk]

Recently I installed an old netbook with a broken sceren as a headless server using samba for filesharing + some other functions commonly used. The good thing is I can attach as many external drives as I need to it through a hub, or use the 3 integrated USB ports for it + I can also set it up to do scheduled maintainance or use it for crashplan or whatever.

So far the only bottleneck is the 10/100 ethernet adapter, planning to get a usb AC adapter.

 

[DDG4005]

I use Seagate's Business Storage 16TB NAS at home as well their 4TB Central.

 

[Guest]

And do you have a 10Gb Ethernet port on your workstation or router?

 

[mctommy]

Recently I installed an old netbook with a broken sceren as a headless server using samba for filesharing + some other functions commonly used. The good thing is I can attach as many external drives as I need to it through a hub, or use the 3 integrated USB ports for it + I can also set it up to do scheduled maintainance or use it for crashplan or whatever.

So far the only bottleneck is the 10/100 ethernet adapter, planning to get a usb AC adapter.

Your bottleneck is both your ethernet adapter and USB 2.0 (I don't recall many if any USB 3.0 on netbooks)

 

[DDG4005]

And do you have a 10Gb Ethernet port on your workstation or router?

I'm not sure if you were asking me this question but the answer is no, I'm using gigabit connections on my router and switches. The 16TB NAS is pre-configured for RAID 5 and uses four 4TB drives.

 

[Kibaruk]

Your bottleneck is both your ethernet adapter and USB 2.0 (I don't recall many if any USB 3.0 on netbooks)

I said so far, since I'm using internal storage the only bottleneck is the 10/100 ethernet port, if I ever felt the need to use aditional external drives I would probably use them for the less accessed files, maybe backups or what not. The main function is to share information between the multiple computers connected without needing to have one on all the time. Also torrenting machine, for the same purpose.

 

[mctommy]

I said so far, since I'm using internal storage the only bottleneck is the 10/100 ethernet port, if I ever felt the need to use aditional external drives I would probably use them for the less accessed files, maybe backups or what not. The main function is to share information between the multiple computers connected without needing to have one on all the time. Also torrenting machine, for the same purpose.

I was just pointing out the other bottleneck. If you have one of the newer (nicer) router with USB port on them, you could attach an external hd and share that external hd with any connected devices without having 1 device on all the time. At that point, your bottleneck would be the USB port since most of those newer router are gigabit routers.

 

[Nnyan]

I currently have two, one for important documents (HP Microserver with 4 x 3TB WD REDs) running OmniOS/NAPP-IT with a RAID 6 ZFS equivalent. Primary concern is minimizing data loss. My media server uses a 4U case with 16 (not hot swap, really didn't need it) 3TB WD RED drives). I am still playing around with what OS I'll throw on that but right now I'm leaning on ESXI 5.5 (hardware is fully supported) so I can run various application servers on it.

 

[Guest]

I've got a Synology DS1511+ combined with a DX513 expansion at home. The cost is relatively high up front, but the downstream ease of use, ease of management, and ease of expansion are well worth the investment.