NAS recommendations
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I'm planning to update my home network and thought I'd throw out the more than a decade old "server" and exchange it for a NAS. Thing is that I'm out of touch with hardware. I don't know what to look for or what to avoid, neither in features nor in brands. What I do want is obviously file sharing. But also streaming over DLNA and whatever the fruit uses. <edit>And also a low noise level</edit>
Wrong is evil and must be defeated. - Jeff Ello
FYI JOSP wrote an excellent article Build Your Own NAS Device[^]. And I'll add a shameless plug here; I wrote and article about using Ubuntu as an NAS FreeNAS or Ubuntu[^], I used mine at home for quite a while and it worked well until the grand kids needed a computer. :)
New version: WinHeist Version 2.1.0 My goal in life is to have a psychiatric disorder named after me. I'm currently unsupervised, I know it freaks me out too but the possibilities are endless.
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FYI JOSP wrote an excellent article Build Your Own NAS Device[^]. And I'll add a shameless plug here; I wrote and article about using Ubuntu as an NAS FreeNAS or Ubuntu[^], I used mine at home for quite a while and it worked well until the grand kids needed a computer. :)
New version: WinHeist Version 2.1.0 My goal in life is to have a psychiatric disorder named after me. I'm currently unsupervised, I know it freaks me out too but the possibilities are endless.
It's one of those that will go into pension now. And for that kind of project to be profitable cheap you basically need to have the hardware more or less lying around. Which I don't. But it's plan B.
Wrong is evil and must be defeated. - Jeff Ello
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It's one of those that will go into pension now. And for that kind of project to be profitable cheap you basically need to have the hardware more or less lying around. Which I don't. But it's plan B.
Wrong is evil and must be defeated. - Jeff Ello
I hear ya, usually when I upgrade now the grand kids are waiting to take it or it ain't worth taking in which case everyone loses. Sometimes I've seen older machines in pawn shops and/or Craigslist for pretty cheap, I don't know what the equivalent in your part of the world would be?
New version: WinHeist Version 2.1.0 My goal in life is to have a psychiatric disorder named after me. I'm currently unsupervised, I know it freaks me out too but the possibilities are endless.
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It's one of those that will go into pension now. And for that kind of project to be profitable cheap you basically need to have the hardware more or less lying around. Which I don't. But it's plan B.
Wrong is evil and must be defeated. - Jeff Ello
The machine you use doesn't have to be a fast cpu or have a lot of RAM. What matters most is the number of sata connectors it has, as well as how big the case is that contains it. I use a case that's 18-inches square and has room for 18 hard drives, and the motherboard I use has FIVE sata connectors, and has room for any a number of add-on sata controller boards. When you figure you can add 3tb drives relatively cheaply, you can imagine the storage space you can accumulate in a single box. Right now, I have 9tb of storage in mine, and it's almost time to get another hard drive.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
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You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
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When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013 -
I'm planning to update my home network and thought I'd throw out the more than a decade old "server" and exchange it for a NAS. Thing is that I'm out of touch with hardware. I don't know what to look for or what to avoid, neither in features nor in brands. What I do want is obviously file sharing. But also streaming over DLNA and whatever the fruit uses. <edit>And also a low noise level</edit>
Wrong is evil and must be defeated. - Jeff Ello
Don't forget to get the NSA approved NAS!
I'd rather be phishing!
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Don't forget to get the NSA approved NAS!
I'd rather be phishing!
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I'm planning to update my home network and thought I'd throw out the more than a decade old "server" and exchange it for a NAS. Thing is that I'm out of touch with hardware. I don't know what to look for or what to avoid, neither in features nor in brands. What I do want is obviously file sharing. But also streaming over DLNA and whatever the fruit uses. <edit>And also a low noise level</edit>
Wrong is evil and must be defeated. - Jeff Ello
I did much research a couple of years ago, and decided Synology was the way to go. Good reputation, slightly on the expensive side, but not overly so, very easy to administer and use, lots of 'apps' to download etc. I'd buy one again.
PooperPig - Coming Soon
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I'm planning to update my home network and thought I'd throw out the more than a decade old "server" and exchange it for a NAS. Thing is that I'm out of touch with hardware. I don't know what to look for or what to avoid, neither in features nor in brands. What I do want is obviously file sharing. But also streaming over DLNA and whatever the fruit uses. <edit>And also a low noise level</edit>
Wrong is evil and must be defeated. - Jeff Ello
Anandtech favors Synology and QNAP as offering the largest feature set among off the shelf NASes. If all you need is a basic file share most of the competition will work too, but the price savings are fairly modest. IF you're really trying to pinch penny's a DIY solution will be cheaper; but unless you've got an old box to repurpose you're still looking at a few hundred for a case/mobo/ram/psu; and you'll still end up with something significantly larger than an off the shelf NAS (whose volume tends to be only slighly larger than that of the disk trays). The DIY option really comes into its own price wise if a 4 bay model won't fit your needs; all the NAS vendors assume 8+ bay customers are SMBs and price accordingly (presumably you're getting a better support contract if something goes wrong; but otherwise you're paying a disproportionate share of the salary for the dev team). Since other people have already linked to articles about using Penguinware to build a server, I'm going to offer the counterpoint about how to build a home server on Windows 8.[^]. A few bits of that article have been pulled from the main site to try and sell their ebook; but you can find them all on archive.org by going back to the first posted copy. :cool: Having used WHSv1 and WHS 2011 (+3rd party tool) to create easily expandable storage pools, I'll probably be using the storage spaces to build my next home server on regular Windows, similar to this[^] but probably based on top of Win 10 instead.
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, waging all things in the balance of reason? Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful? --Zachris Topelius Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it.
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I'm planning to update my home network and thought I'd throw out the more than a decade old "server" and exchange it for a NAS. Thing is that I'm out of touch with hardware. I don't know what to look for or what to avoid, neither in features nor in brands. What I do want is obviously file sharing. But also streaming over DLNA and whatever the fruit uses. <edit>And also a low noise level</edit>
Wrong is evil and must be defeated. - Jeff Ello
I have a D-Link DNS-321 NAS since 5+ years ($60.00). It works just fine. I would recommend the newer version of that same NAS[^]. And then buy 2 WD Red (Get the Red one, it's specially build for NAS) HDD and you are all set. In my research this was the cheapest option available.
Remind Me This - Manage, Collaborate and Execute your Project in the Cloud
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I'm planning to update my home network and thought I'd throw out the more than a decade old "server" and exchange it for a NAS. Thing is that I'm out of touch with hardware. I don't know what to look for or what to avoid, neither in features nor in brands. What I do want is obviously file sharing. But also streaming over DLNA and whatever the fruit uses. <edit>And also a low noise level</edit>
Wrong is evil and must be defeated. - Jeff Ello
I have 2 synology nas at home. Highly recommend them. Easy enough to set up. Works with streaming over DLNA (haven't found any format yet that it doesn't do). Lot's of options (you can disable / enable them as you wish). It is a bit on the expensive side but well worth it in my opinion. (ofcourse I did buy the company grade ones and not the cheaper one's so...)
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I'm planning to update my home network and thought I'd throw out the more than a decade old "server" and exchange it for a NAS. Thing is that I'm out of touch with hardware. I don't know what to look for or what to avoid, neither in features nor in brands. What I do want is obviously file sharing. But also streaming over DLNA and whatever the fruit uses. <edit>And also a low noise level</edit>
Wrong is evil and must be defeated. - Jeff Ello
I have 2 synology nas at home. Highly recommend them. Easy enough to set up. Works with streaming over DLNA (haven't found any format yet that it doesn't do). Lot's of options (you can disable / enable them as you wish). It is a bit on the expensive side but well worth it in my opinion. (ofcourse I did buy the company grade ones and not the cheaper one's so...)
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I'm planning to update my home network and thought I'd throw out the more than a decade old "server" and exchange it for a NAS. Thing is that I'm out of touch with hardware. I don't know what to look for or what to avoid, neither in features nor in brands. What I do want is obviously file sharing. But also streaming over DLNA and whatever the fruit uses. <edit>And also a low noise level</edit>
Wrong is evil and must be defeated. - Jeff Ello
It would seem your message is still in moderation queue (yet I did get the email and notification already) And since I deleted my second message (I posted it twice seeing the first post didn't come thru (should have checked sugs and bugs first but...)) I might have deleted your reply as well. Anyway I can read the mail so... The noise level is well different. The older one (4 or 5 years) has some issue causing it to make some noise (I turn it off for the most part), I need to dig into it to find out what it is (my first thought of a faulty hdd was wrong so now I'm thinking it's a lose wire hitting the fan or something) but haven't had the time yet. The newer one (2 or 3 years) makes almost no noise. It's placed in a closet right next to my bedroom and I can't hear it, also after x amount of inactivity it goes to sleep and makes no noise at all (just going to the nas then wakes it up, takes about half a minute or so to be fully awake). I have to say I demand very high quality from my hardware (my supplier goes nuts when he has to find me something) and synology (so far) has met every demand. They saved my data on several occasions already. Tip when setting up a nas (goes for every nas). Get 2 different hdd's. Or at the very least make sure they weren't made in the same batch, hdd's do tend to brake at the same time when used equally, if you get different one's they won't brake within days of each other.
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I'm using older version of this: http://www.zyxel.com/products_services/nsa310s.shtml?t=p[^] Works fine, quiet enough. After installing ffp[^] you get almost anything Linux can offer if you need extra features. Edit: just for reference - better zyxel+ffp link: http://zyxel.nas-central.org/wiki/FFP_as_zypkg[^]
Noise level is a good point to consider.
Wrong is evil and must be defeated. - Jeff Ello
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I have 2 synology nas at home. Highly recommend them. Easy enough to set up. Works with streaming over DLNA (haven't found any format yet that it doesn't do). Lot's of options (you can disable / enable them as you wish). It is a bit on the expensive side but well worth it in my opinion. (ofcourse I did buy the company grade ones and not the cheaper one's so...)
That makes three votes for Synology. How's the noise level?
Wrong is evil and must be defeated. - Jeff Ello
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I did much research a couple of years ago, and decided Synology was the way to go. Good reputation, slightly on the expensive side, but not overly so, very easy to administer and use, lots of 'apps' to download etc. I'd buy one again.
PooperPig - Coming Soon
How's the noise level?
Wrong is evil and must be defeated. - Jeff Ello
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It would seem your message is still in moderation queue (yet I did get the email and notification already) And since I deleted my second message (I posted it twice seeing the first post didn't come thru (should have checked sugs and bugs first but...)) I might have deleted your reply as well. Anyway I can read the mail so... The noise level is well different. The older one (4 or 5 years) has some issue causing it to make some noise (I turn it off for the most part), I need to dig into it to find out what it is (my first thought of a faulty hdd was wrong so now I'm thinking it's a lose wire hitting the fan or something) but haven't had the time yet. The newer one (2 or 3 years) makes almost no noise. It's placed in a closet right next to my bedroom and I can't hear it, also after x amount of inactivity it goes to sleep and makes no noise at all (just going to the nas then wakes it up, takes about half a minute or so to be fully awake). I have to say I demand very high quality from my hardware (my supplier goes nuts when he has to find me something) and synology (so far) has met every demand. They saved my data on several occasions already. Tip when setting up a nas (goes for every nas). Get 2 different hdd's. Or at the very least make sure they weren't made in the same batch, hdd's do tend to brake at the same time when used equally, if you get different one's they won't brake within days of each other.
Tom Deketelaere wrote:
Or at the very least make sure they weren't made in the same batch, hdd's do tend to brake at the same time when used equally, if you get different one's they won't brake within days of each other.
If I'm buying two at once, I buy them from different vendors. That's the only way to be fairly certain they weren't made in the same batch.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
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You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
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When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013 -
How's the noise level?
Wrong is evil and must be defeated. - Jeff Ello
SORRY - CAN'T HEAR YOU! :) Mine sits on my desk about 1/2 meter from my head. I really don't notice any noise - If I listen carefully I can hear the fan, just (it is speed controlled, so when it gets really hot & I am, say, streaming, the fan does speed up a bit & that is noticeable - but then when I'm streaming I'm not sitting next to it!)
PooperPig - Coming Soon
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SORRY - CAN'T HEAR YOU! :) Mine sits on my desk about 1/2 meter from my head. I really don't notice any noise - If I listen carefully I can hear the fan, just (it is speed controlled, so when it gets really hot & I am, say, streaming, the fan does speed up a bit & that is noticeable - but then when I'm streaming I'm not sitting next to it!)
PooperPig - Coming Soon
Sounds reasonable enough. I'll investigate Synology. They're a bit more expensive, but not by that much.
Wrong is evil and must be defeated. - Jeff Ello
