Looking at a NAS. Need a couple of questions answered, please

J

jordan12

[H]F Junkie
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Hey so if I were to get this,

http://www.amazon.com/Synology-DiskStation-Diskless-Attached-DS1815/dp/B00P3RPMEO

And install drives in it, could I simply plug it into my wireless router and then be able to access it from my desktop computer plugged into the same router?

Also would I be able to access it from laptops, tablets, etc?

And would it also protect my data from loss, data rot, etc?

I appreciate the help.
 
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Yes to all beside
- silent data errors/ data rot
- raid write hole problems
- problems added in the chain OS > driver > cabling > backplane > disk
- corrupted filesystems due a powerloss during a wríte
- data versioning (previous versions)
as Synology is Linux + ext4

These problems can only be adressed with newer filesystems with CopyOnWrite, snaps and checksums
(btrfs, ReFS or ZFS as the current champion)
 
_Gea said:
Yes to all beside
- silent data errors/ data rot
- raid write hole problems
- problems added in the chain OS > driver > cabling > backplane > disk
- corrupted filesystems due a powerloss during a wríte
- data versioning (previous versions)
as Synology is Linux + ext4

These problems can only be adressed with newer filesystems with CopyOnWrite, snaps and checksums
(btrfs, ReFS or ZFS as the current champion)
Click to expand...

Is there a NAS box that you might find that is better?
 
The key is not the hardware but the software.
The hardware does not matter, can be any Dell, HP or SuperMicro or...
Can range from a 200 $/Euro HP Microserver G8 with 4 bays up to a 72 bay SuperMicro case.

The key is the software or storage appliance software,
look at FreeNas, Nas4Free or ZFSFGuru (based on BSD) or
Oracle Solaris, NexentaStor or the free OmniOS (based on Solaris where ZFS comes from)

For OmniOS or Solaris, I offer napp-it - a Web-UI so I would not comment the options.
 
Jordan, Don't let _Gea scare you. Almost any commercial (almost) NAS would be fine for most needs. But being this is [H]ardforum, you are going to get enthusiast answers. It's expected!

A roll-your-own NAS will be better in some ways (I like NAS4Free), but a commercial NAS will have better support and application plugins, should that be relevant.

Yes, the underlying OS of some NAS's are better than others in regards to data protection, but that is like saying some cars are better than others in regards to crashing - such as the number of air bags or a better crumple zone. Unless you need it, you don't need it.
 
I do not know of any appliances you could buy off the shelf that include what you really want.

You really kind of need to build it yourself.

All I personally did was build a small unraid box for large storage and then replicate the important things to cloud via Crashplan.


If you really want to be protected I agree ZFS is a good choice if you are willing to build a server grade system, learn how to properly use it and maintain it. FreeNAS seems to be popular right now

This would be the perfect opportunity for one of the ZFS gurus to point out how cheap and easy it could be and show us how.

Most people can get by with much less
 
zaniix said:
This would be the perfect opportunity for one of the ZFS gurus to point out how cheap and easy it could be and show us how.
Click to expand...

You can look at enterpirse class turnkey systems from IXSystem, NexentaStor, Oracle or netApp. They offer ready to use commercial systems with hardware, full support and service level agreements. Price range is from a few thousands up to nearly no limit for Petabyte storage.

Based on any server class hardware, you can install some of the ZFS storage appliance distributions for free. Download the installer on dvd or usb, boot, answer a few questions like you do on a Windows setup and you are done. Management is done via Web-UI.

With my napp-it, you install a enterprise OS like Oracle Solaris or OmniOS and add a single CLI command to setup the appliance. On a crash, you can redo the setup and import the datapool.

If you can install Windows, you can install a ZFS web-appliance.
 
Based on this question, the OP should just go with an off the shelf solution. Its more suited to the users level. I use an old HP NL36 Micro Server (5-6 year old hardware) with FreeNas and 5 7200RPM 1TB drives without issues. Once setup everything just works.
 
I will give you my experience with Synology hardware (have an ds1511+ and dx510 expansion unit for a total of 10 drives.

- I initially populated all the bays with cheap 3tb Seagate drives.
- I used their Synology Raid with 2 drive failure protection and setup one giant volume with all 10 drives. You lose 2 drives worth of storage to parity. So total left was 24tb of usable space
- I ended up losing 4 drives within a period of 6 months. Never two at one time. I started buying WD 6tb drives to replace these drives. It was pretty much plug and play. Synology rebuilt the volume and all my data was there. It takes a few days to do all the parity checking and in my case since I was putting in bigger drives to expand the volume but all of that was done by the software. During this time all your data is accessible.
- I started replacing the remaining Seagate drives with WD 6tb reds. I will have all 10 drives filled with 6tb Red Drives by the end of next week.
- It easy to setup network shares and create user accounts. Other than data storage I also have the Plex Server software installed and I have no had any issues.
 
Synology is Linux + ext4 with best of all comfort.

Not best of all regarding data security like the systems with 3rd gen filesystems
like btrfs, ReFs or the current champion ZFS with CopyOnWrite, Snaps or checksums
with self healing features, end to end data protection and online scrubbing for bit rot problems
 
ZFS is great. No denying that.

BTRFS is coming on strong. One hopes that the Synology appliances switch to BTRFS soon. I only wish they'd pack some more RAM, and a CPU that didn't ride in on the retarded children bus.

Supermicro and Synology should cooperate and conquer the SOHO NAS world.
 
I know this is an enthusiast forum and all, but man, some of you are getting carried away. OPs pitch sounds like a home user with minimal requirements, not an industrial server blade. OP your original pitch already seems overkill. I run a 2 bay synology at home for the wife and I. Can easily pull 30MB/s over wifi. I work with enterprise grade NAS solutions that can saturate 40Gbe. Know your market, don't overspend, and sometimes, off the shelf cheap Chinese knockoffs are more than adequate.
 
jordan12 said:
Is there a NAS box that you might find that is better?
Click to expand...

Look for the FreeNAS Mini on Amazon. A little pricey, but it will be ready to goout of the box (or after you add drives if you get a diskless one), with ZFS.

I was aking questions about building my own NAS with and 8-core Atom (Avaton) processor from Intel. Sounds very similar to the FreeNAS Mini, but I could build an 8TB FreeNAS box with a 64GB SSD for the OS and 32GB of ECC RAM for what they are charging for the 4TB Mini with an 8GB USB flash drive for the OS and 16GB of ECC RAM.

BUT, their box is ready to go, no fuss. It'sa also a very nice looking case with 4 hot swap bays.
 
Meh most of these comments....

Get the Synology. I've had 2 DS412+ in HA mode with 4x4TB with over 8TB of data on em in RAID5, running for 3 years and they never failed me. Had to find files and restore some stuff from TM on occasion from months back. They do everything I need it to do, camera storage, Time Machine, Crashplan, Plex, Video Station, iTunes Server and all that kind of crap. Never had any problems.

I've used open source ZFS based NAS software solutions with homegrown hardware and they worked well also, but it's another level of maintenance and knowledge.

You'll be fine with the Synology products.
 
Let us not forget the that OP should have his data backed up too as a NAS with RAID is not a backup. I have several NAS's, both Synolgy and Qnap and they are fine for the OP's needs. Sure if you want a bulletproof solution and have have the time to learn something like ZFS and the money to build the solution, go for it. Otherwise, off the shelf solution such as those offered by Synology and others are just fine.
 
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