Buying NAS : do I make a good choice ?

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Ghost26

Weaksauce
Joined
Jan 18, 2009
Messages
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Hi all !

First of all, here is a little idea of my personnal setup :

Workstation PC :

Many OSes : Windows Server, Qubes, Fedora 19, Windows 8, ESXi.... I like to make some tests on it.
Config :
P8P67 WS Revolution
Core i7 2700K 4.5 GHz
16 GB RAM
RAID 0 SSDs Crucial M4 128 GB
RAID 1 Seagate 7200.14 2 TB
RAID 1 WD 500 GB

As you can see, I have a lot of storage. My PCH is practically fully loaded (1 spare SATA remaining).

I also have a MacBook Pro and my girlfriend also has a MacBook Air (2 Time Machine Backups)

My father has a Windows 7 PC.

I have a Cisco WS-C2960S-24TS-L switch. Every computer above are wired to it.

I have an Asus RT-N16 which only serves as a Wireless Access Point and default gateway.

Here is a link to what my home network is most likely resemble in the near future : http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/716/j17g.jpg/

So, I need more storage, while remaining safe (that's why I have RAID 1 arrays). I store more and more data from clients (got my own business) who backups important things on my server so the 2 TB RAID 1 array dedicated to storage is becoming full.

And I want to centralize all my data externally to my workstation, so it would be OS-independent, limiting downtime and allowing me to fully play with my PC.

I first though to an LSI RAID Card (9271) to make a large RAID 5 array on it (since integrated PCH is not really suited for RAID 5). It would be fast, but still OS-dependent for services.

So I think that a NAS would be the right thing to buy (if there any advice on that point, please let me know !)


So I found that the two most popular brands are QNAP and Synology.

I made some researches and it seems like Synology currently has the lead. Personally, I compared both solutions and the OS of Synology and features seems more interesting, more well-done than QNAP.

So I'm looking for advice that would confirm this choice of Synology over QNAP.


Then, I spotted the Synology 412+ model : http://www.synology.com/products/product.php?product_name=DS412+&lang=us


It's VMWare, Citrix, Windows Server 2012 ready (I do a lot of virtualization so I'll use it to store VMs), has many server features (FTP encrypted, VPN server, DHCP server, etc), real cloud solution. Hardware-wise, it has a powerful dual-core Intel Atom and most importantly a dual Gigabit Link for Link Aggregation. So speed is here, especially with the switch I have.


So, according to all I have written, would this be good for my needs?

I would put in that 4 Seagate 3 TB NAS HDD : http://www.seagate.com/internal-hard-drives/enterprise-hard-drives/hdd/nas-hdd/?sku=ST3000VN000


Thank you very much for any advice ! This is quite an investment (~1200 $ !) and I don't want to waste my money.

Thanks to all !

Ghost26
 
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You can't go wrong with the + models from Synology they are fantastic! From how you describe your needs, I think it would be a good fit for you and satisfy your needs. As an aside, you may want to look at WD Black or even enterprise drives, personally I am not a fan of Seagate and their NAS drives are very new to the market, so we have not really had a chance to see how they will function in real world use.
 
Thanks for your input !

WD Black ? 7200RPM desktop drives in NAS ? It works nice ? I though it would be too hot in temperature to put in a NAS system. Vibration are also important and NAS-oriented HDDs are better on this aspect. There is also the power-on hours that is far better on NAS HDDs (8760h) than desktop HDDs (2400h)

Is the reliability your only argument for going in enterprise HDD or is there a speed/performance improvement ? Price is significantly higher ... :/

Thank you !
 
What do you suppose people used before NAS hard drives were available? Many people have used WD Black drives without issues, and enterprise drives are designed to be used in servers that run 24x7, don't forget that NAS drives are consumer level drives, enterprise drives will be far superior IMO and more expensive too. Reliability is what you are after, so yes, that is my argument.
 
I've been looking at putting myself a NAS together too.

Currently wrestling with Desktop drives (Hitachi Deskstars/WDsomething) or NAS Drives (Seagate Constellations/ WD Reds) for the ~$20 per drive difference I think I'll go with the NAS drives.

I've just been told, try to mix up the drives or source them locally so you can get ones from different production runs (so, if and when, they don't crap out at the same time).
 
I've currently been using several WD 3TB Green drives in my Synology NAS that's running 24/7. It's cool, quiet and fast enough for my home use. A friend of mine who works for WD told me Green and Red (dedicated for NAS) have the same parts and assembling lines. Red only has a different label in red (of course) and a certain firmware that allows it to run 24/7. But their prices are quite different. I finally picked Green.
 
I too have 16 green drives in my environment running 24x7, no issues so far after a year and a half and all these drives are out of warranty. Not sure if I believe what your friend is saying about the minimal differences in the drives, but I guess we'll never know.
 
Elpee said:
I've currently been using several WD 3TB Green drives in my Synology NAS that's running 24/7. It's cool, quiet and fast enough for my home use. A friend of mine who works for WD told me Green and Red (dedicated for NAS) have the same parts and assembling lines. Red only has a different label in red (of course) and a certain firmware that allows it to run 24/7. But their prices are quite different. I finally picked Green.
Click to expand...

Very interesting about the Red/ Green being the same. Any "proof" about this, I personally doubt, that just changing the firmware can make such a difference, that you get a longer warranty with the reds.
 
Liggywuh said:
Very interesting about the Red/ Green being the same. Any "proof" about this, I personally doubt, that just changing the firmware can make such a difference, that you get a longer warranty with the reds.
Click to expand...

I was just discussing this with another [H]ardmember.

They aren't the same, or at least don't appear so...

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/storage/display/wd-red.html
http://www.overclock.net/t/1407559/wd-red-vs-wd-green-for-builds-without-raid-nas#post_20355683

The warranty is also a year longer, I'm going with WD Reds. I'm about to order 5x2tb for a raid5 array I'm doing next week.
 
+1 for Synology. Just bought DS1812+ to upgrade from Qnap TS-419PII (which is for sale if anyone interested).
 
I keep reading and reading posts here on this forum. I learn a lot about storage and servers, but some things remain unclear for me.

Actually, I personally find that the Synology NAS are simply perfect. Fully features, easy, simple, nice interface, nice performance.

But a lot (if not 90 %) of people here are running servers. I'm an electronics student that begins to be used to Linux and I know very well Windows, so OSes are not scaring me. But I'm asking myself why so much people go with servers ?

Is it really only for customization ? Because I personally find the Synology OS fully featured and I have misery to find something's missing. I want also the system which would give me the highest number of functionality. Does a server could give me everything a Synology NAS has ? I mean, Synology has the TIme Machine backup, itunes server, video station, mobile support, while having all the features of virtualization. I think a server cannot have more features that that ...

So am I missing something ?

A lot of people here are also adept of the ZFS file system. I made some researches and found that this is a very nice file system. But is this file system on its own can make the choice of a NAS not as good as expected ?

I must say that I have some critical data to keep. After Tran1981's input, I started looking at the 1513+ from Synology which seems to be even better than the 412+ (and the expansion possibility with DX513 unit is very attractive) and I think I would go with the 1513+. But is it better than a server ? This is my primary question.

One thing is almost sure, I don't expect my storage needs to be more than 15 TB for at least the next 5 years. I mean... I currently have 2.5 TB and I can still live with it.

So sincerly, I don't know anymore lol ! NAS or server ?

Thanks a lot !
 
A lot of people need more storage than a off-the-shelf NAS would provide. I've got 50TB worth of raw diskspace now, but running out of space all the time.

My question is - how do people get by with 6-bay NAS boxes without ECC or any good way of knowing if their data is safe...? :)
 
Ok. So more storage means you would go with a server (eventually a rackmount server).

But your last phrase makes me perplex. You mean a NAS would not be safe enough ? RAID 5 in a NAS do redundancy. This method of storing data is not enough safe for you ?

Just want to go deeper in the subject :)

Thank you !
 
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No RAID-5 without ECC ram is not safe for me. Google "raid 5 write hole". And the fact that everything is lost if another drive dies during recovery situations should worry you (I've been there recently, where two drives died in a raid!)

The components required to build a NAS with server grade parts using a ZFS compatible os is not that expensive.The posibility to have a few 12,000 geekbench windows VMs as a bonus (ESXi) makes for a bargain. I use this to run Plex server, AirVideo transcoder etc.

But what's good enough for me might be overkill for you.
 
Googled the write hole thing. I did know this concept but didn't know the exact name :p

I understand your point. But the NAS will be plugged into a UPS. Already, I cut chances of a such phenomenon drastically. And I always use an external USB3.0 HDD for the most critical data (work, homework, project, really critical data I must keep).

I would use my workstation as an ESXI server (motherboard and NIC are ESXI ready, so hardware is not a problem), but if I do this, I cannot use anymore my desktop locally. The other solution is to have a Windows Server 2012 with Hyper-V (license is not a problem, I'm MSDN). But then, I tell myself why I would not deport my storage into a dedicated server instead... If I keep the storage locally on my workstation, I must buy a RAID card (and probably a SAS expander for more drives) with HDDs, so the final cost is practically the same as a NAS + HDDs. And the NAS does everything out of the box.

Thank you for your patience and explanations :) It's really appreciated !
 
Flintstone said:
No RAID-5 without ECC ram is not safe for me. Google "raid 5 write hole". And the fact that everything is lost if another drive dies during recovery situations should worry you (I've been there recently, where two drives died in a raid!)

The components required to build a NAS with server grade parts using a ZFS compatible os is not that expensive.The posibility to have a few 12,000 geekbench windows VMs as a bonus (ESXi) makes for a bargain. I use this to run Plex server, AirVideo transcoder etc.

But what's good enough for me might be overkill for you.
Click to expand...

Do you need ECC if your not running RAID? I don't believe Drive Pool, or drive Bender require ECC.

Ghost26 said:
Googled the write hole thing. I did know this concept but didn't know the exact name :p

I understand your point. But the NAS will be plugged into a UPS. Already, I cut chances of a such phenomenon drastically. And I always use an external USB3.0 HDD for the most critical data (work, homework, project, really critical data I must keep).

I would use my workstation as an ESXI server (motherboard and NIC are ESXI ready, so hardware is not a problem), but if I do this, I cannot use anymore my desktop locally. The other solution is to have a Windows Server 2012 with Hyper-V (license is not a problem, I'm MSDN). But then, I tell myself why I would not deport my storage into a dedicated server instead... If I keep the storage locally on my workstation, I must buy a RAID card (and probably a SAS expander for more drives) with HDDs, so the final cost is practically the same as a NAS + HDDs. And the NAS does everything out of the box.

Thank you for your patience and explanations :) It's really appreciated !
Click to expand...

I haven't played with ESXi yet so you might know more than I do, but if I was you I would certainly look at Server 2012 with Drive Bender or Drive Pool. No raid needed folder level redundancy etc. If your just streaming media to a few computers this should be ok, if your server 100's or thousands of computer and VMs etc then a raid style solution is going to offer more performance.
 
Everyone would view this subject differently I guess. It all depends on how important the data is, what capacity you need, and how bad a disaster scenario would play out. Offsite backups is a must whatever you choose.

I have a solution that is far beyond most companies storing much more valuable data than I do, but I tend to think that I need to be able to live with:

* All my computer equipment at home stolen
* A fire or other disaster
* Two drive failures within the same array, since a replacement of a faulty harddrive takes 12-24h and stresses the other drives
* If my hardware dies the array should be usable somewhere else (ie no hardware raid)
* Power failures - 80% of mine are self inflicted (yes I have a UPS - no it's not solving everything, I still manage to get a unplanned power cut from time to time...)

ZFS (raidz2) and daily site-to-site replication to an off-site ZFS server solves most of these issues for me.
 
True for offsite backups. I plan to get a locker at the bank to store a couple of HDDs there in case of disaster or thief.

Tried to make me a small server box with hardware. The price is roughly about the same as a NAS. Sure with better hardware though :

Fractal Design case
Seasonic PSU
Asus P8H77-I
8 GB Kingston RAM
Intel I350-T4
Core i3 3220T

With 3x Seagate NAS HDD (for beginning)

Price is 1350 $ + tax

Another thing I haven't said. I have a computer repair workshop. I often have to push a lot of data to these computers while installing programs, making their image backup, etc... That's why I have the quad NIC interface. I can save up a lot of time with a faster network.
 
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