Looking for NAS suggestions

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Oct 6, 2001
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I have a customer that is storing data on an old Windows NT based server for their business. The server is just storing files and nothing else. They only have 5 or 6 computers that will share the files at any given time. I am looking to build something with raid one capability to mirror the drive in case of a failure.

Can anyone suggest a good NAS that fits the bill? The drive size would be 2TB max.
 
I have a little Seagate 2-bay NAS I picked up dirt cheap, used on Ebay, been working great for me for a couple years now, has a few different RAID options (I'm running 2x 2TB drives in RAID 1) all web configured, quiet, and I think I paid like $40 for it with the drives heh
 
The Qnap TS-251 is what I run for similar usage, and it's been a bulletproof workhorse. The Synology DS218 would be a similar product from that company. Both are stellar products with good support.
 
Second on Synology, they're more expensive, but the DSM OS is one of the best.
 
For business use, you may want serverclass hardware, more performance, versioning, backup and a crash resistent new generation filesystem. What about a small (Dell or HP or SuperMicro) server class computer with ECC RAM (sadly the HP Gen8 is no longer available)

A system should offer at least 4 GB ECC RAM, 2x 3,5" bays and 1 x 2,5" then add a webmanaged Unix ZFS storage distribution.
I prefer Solarish systems like OmniOS/ my napp-it where ZFS comes from, BSD based solutions may be another option.

If you add more RAM you gain more performance due the rambased read/write caching within ZFS. Use a small 30GB+ SSD as bootdevice and a mirror from Sata NAS 24/7 disks. For reliability I would use a small Intel SSD DC .. as bootdevice and a pair of HGST Ultrastar as dataisk in a Raid-1 config. (4-12 TB). If you want 2TB usable, use at least 4TB as you want versioning with readonly snaps (ransomware save)

Use a second similar/identical, place it in another room/building and ZFS to replicate the data for backup or failover in case the first system fails. Such a replication can keep the systems in sync even under full load, copies open files in current state down to a minute delay.

some SuperMicro build options if you have a good reseller around
http://www.napp-it.org/doc/downloads/napp-it_build_examples.pdf

setup
http://www.napp-it.org/doc/downloads/setup_napp-it_os.pdf
 
Synology has server price units as well.

For a pure filer (SMB, NFS, iSCSI) or from a filesystem performance/ features view a Synology is only average.
Main advantages of Synology are the extra services beyond basic filer service - mainly for a homeservert. Only here it is best.
 
I have offices with 12+ staff file sharing just fine off of 2Bay/dual ethernet SOHO Qnap/Synology NAS boxes. File sharing doesn't take a masses of grunt.
 
A Synolgoy or QNAP box is good. FreeNAS offers an excellent value-for-money proposition if you don't mind rolling your own. Depending on space requirements / number of disks, you might want to look beyond Raid 1 into a Raid 6 (or ZFS Z2) array for redundancy and space considerations.
 
Hello Crazy Chuckster! Seagate here. We just wanted to point out a benefit of pairing IronWolf HDD’s with Synology for IronWolf Health Management. This will provide extra security and peace of mind for your customer. We hope this helps you independently of what you choose.
 
Another endorsement for Synology or Qnap, both are solid and well supported choices for what you are trying to accomplish.
 
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