Small Office NAS Setup

[SinghKing]

Hey Guys,

 

 

I have spent the past few days learning about networking and NAS, although I learnt a lot I still consider my self a noob. So I am reaching out to you guys for advice.

 

I am going to tell you guys my situation so you can better understand me and in result give me better advice for my needs. So my Mom's office has 8-10 computers, they are mainly used for used for document work (Acrobat Pro, Excel, Word, etc), not video streaming or anything intensive. My mom perviously had a contract with a guy who managed our computers and networking, but I am taking over since she is moving into a new office and her contract with him is over, and I will be in charge of the computer setups and networking. I have little to no networking experience so bear with me if I ask stupid questions in this thread.

 

What I am looking for:

 

• Should I build my own system and use FreeNAS (Or any other recommendations?), or buy a prebuilt solution like a WD EX4?
• 4TB Storage: Which drives do you recommend?
• Have a network printer (It's one of those huge Pitney Bowes Printers) (So anyone who connects to the Network can print) (Have it connected to the NAS maybe? Is this a stupid question? Or is there a better way of doing it?)
• Have the NAS password protected, so not anyone who connects to the network can access the documents. What would be the best way to secure them?
• If I build my own system, would I need a gigabit NIC Card? Gigabit switch? Or just a normal switch and NIC? If I do need them, which ones do you recommend?

Also how should I wire this whole thing up? I am going to take a shot at it right now, let me know if this is correct or if there is a better way of doing it. Image attached.

 

P.S. Sorry for the bad English, I am English as fourth language.

 

[wpirobotbuilder]

Looks fine. If you don't want to deal with hardware issues then I recommend a prebuilt NAS from Synology, Netgear, QNAP etc. You can get some models with two Ethernet ports.

[alpenwasser]

Should I build my own system and use FreeNAS (Or any other recommendations?), or buy a prebuilt solution like a WD EX4?

Given that you say you're not very experienced, I'd say this depends on how

much time you can and are willing to invest in learning. If the primary goal

is getting it set up sooner rather than later and not having to invest a ton

of time in figuring out the basic things, a prebuilt NAS is probably not a bad

idea, as wpirobot has suggested.

My brother works in IT and says he's had excellent experiences with Synology,

and they have very good support according to what I've read from @d33g33 's

experiences.

They are not the cheapest units, and not the only alternatives though.

You can try out a live demo of their software on this page, check if you like it.

Having said that, building your own NAS is not all that difficult, it's

basically just a PC. Regarding FreeNAS, I think @Vitalius has experience

with that and might be able to provide some insight about how suited it

might be, how easy it is to set up and all that.

 

4TB Storage: Which drives do you recommend?

I've had good experiences with WD Red drives, but Seagate also

make NAS drives, and the differences between the two probably

isn't that large in practice.

If you wanted to invest a bit more, you could also go with WD's

SE drives, they have some additional measures to lessen the impact

of vibrations, which can be of relevance if you have lots of

drives in your NAS.

 

Have a network printer (It's one of those huge Pitney Bowes Printers) (So anyone who connects to the Network can print) (Have it connected to the NAS maybe? Is this a stupid question? Or is there a better way of doing it?)

Network printer is a good idea. How you integrate it into your

network will in the end depend on your printer model, for example

ours is connected as a simple network device (so you could just

hook it up to the switch). I'm not very knowledgeable when it

comes to printers though, somebody else might have more input.

 

Have the NAS password protected, so not anyone who connects to the network can access the documents. What would be the best way to secure them?

You'll need to set that up on the NAS itself, but any good NAS

will offer you the ability to have specific user accounts to

protect your data AFAIK.

 

If I build my own system, would I need a gigabit NIC Card? Gigabit switch? Or just a normal switch and NIC? If I do need them, which ones do you recommend?

Gigabit networking will be OK, and components for that infrastructure

are pretty affordable these days as long as you don't need managed

switches and fancy stuff like that (for your setup, you don't, I'd say).

Since you say that network load will be rather light (mostly office

files), I wouldn't necessarily say you need an extra networking card

for the NAS. If you want to combine networking ports on the NAS, you'll

also need a switch which supports that AFAIK, and those can be rather

costly.

 

Also how should I wire this whole thing up? I am going to take a shot at it right now, let me know if this is correct or if there is a better way of doing it. Image attached.

 

Looks good, I have a similar network plan at home.

[d33g33]

Note the DSM that you can 'try out' in my experience is a piece if crap and in no way give an accurate experience of DSM, however it does show you what it looks like. For a small business environment like that the CPU might play a bigger part than at home so a decent dual core and 2gb+ ram might be a good idea. LACP would also be very beneficial so make sure your switch supports this. Netgear and HP offer decent gbit managed switches in the 200-300 mark.

Synology can be set up to manage the domain and all the PC credentials if you wish or just have individual accounts to access the NAS services.

For the network printer it's very easy. Just give it a static IP, if your not hosting the drivers on a print server you just add the printer in windows by IP and you will have to supply a driver. Synology unit may actually be able to act as a print server so it auto downloads the driver when adding it though I haven't looked at this.

Sorry this is a dirty reply from my phone very late at night. If anything is unclear please say so or PM. Me and I will try and elaborate.

[alpenwasser]

Note the DSM that you can 'try out' in my experience is a piece if crap and in no way give an accurate experience of DSM, however it does show you what it looks like.

Yeah, you don't have all features and performance is nowhere

near representative of what you'll get on your own network

and device, but it gives at least some idea of what the software

looks like and some of its features.

[Vitalius]

Hey Guys,

 

I have spent the past few days learning about networking and NAS, although I learnt a lot I still consider my self a noob. So I am reaching out to you guys for advice.

 

I am going to tell you guys my situation so you can better understand me and in result give me better advice for my needs. So my Mom's office has 8-10 computers, they are mainly used for used for document work (Acrobat Pro, Excel, Word, etc), not video streaming or anything intensive. My mom perviously had a contract with a guy who managed our computers and networking, but I am taking over since she is moving into a new office and her contract with him is over, and I will be in charge of the computer setups and networking. I have little to no networking experience so bear with me if I ask stupid questions in this thread.

 

What I am looking for:

• Should I build my own system and use FreeNAS (Or any other recommendations?), or buy a prebuilt solution like a WD EX4?
• 4TB Storage: Which drives do you recommend?
• Have a network printer (It's one of those huge Pitney Bowes Printers) (So anyone who connects to the Network can print) (Have it connected to the NAS maybe? Is this a stupid question? Or is there a better way of doing it?)
• Have the NAS password protected, so not anyone who connects to the network can access the documents. What would be the best way to secure them?
• If I build my own system, would I need a gigabit NIC Card? Gigabit switch? Or just a normal switch and NIC? If I do need them, which ones do you recommend?

Also how should I wire this whole thing up? I am going to take a shot at it right now, let me know if this is correct or if there is a better way of doing it. Image attached.

 

P.S. Sorry for the bad English, I am English as fourth language.

 

Fourth? DANG!

That entirely depends on your budget and time. I personally prefer to build my own machines because I have the time and it's fun. However, check my reply to @wpirobotbuilder in regards to this.

I recommend WD Reds for a budget build.

Just leave it shared on the network. For 8-10 computers, I wouldn't bother getting fancy with server stuff personally.

Simple, using FreeNAS, have a good root password and have it encrypt everything on it. Not hard to set up honestly.

Most NIC's/Switches are already Gigabit. Only old stuff is 10/100 and not 10/100/1000. I wouldn't worry about this at all. Built-in should be fine and a basic router/switch should be fine as well.

That picture looks fine. Nothing fancy is needed I think. 

 

Looks fine. If you don't want to deal with hardware issues then I recommend a prebuilt NAS from Synology, Netgear, QNAP etc. You can get some models with two Ethernet ports.

Just saying. The FreeNAS Mini is a thing. Here's the datasheet. For $900 (no HDD's), it's pretty good. For $1,300 with 4x1TB WD Reds it's nice I think. Primarily because it comes pre-assembled.

 

I love their phone number. 1 (855) grep 4 iX; I loled.

[wpirobotbuilder]

Just saying. The FreeNAS Mini is a thing. Here's the datasheet. For $900 (no HDD's), it's pretty good. For $1,300 with 4x1TB WD Reds it's nice I think. Primarily because it comes pre-assembled.

Never knew about that. SinghKing I recommend that if it's within your budget, ZFS-based solutions have much better data protection.

 

 

I love their phone number. 1 (855) grep 4 iX; I loled.

They know what they're doing

[SinghKing]

First off, thanks all for the GREAT responses. Linus wasn't kidding when he said ask the forums. 

 

Given that you say you're not very experienced, I'd say this depends on how
much time you can and are willing to invest in learning. If the primary goal
is getting it set up sooner rather than later and not having to invest a ton
of time in figuring out the basic things, a prebuilt NAS is probably not a bad
idea, as wpirobot has suggested.

My brother works in IT and says he's had excellent experiences with Synology,
and they have very good support according to what I've read from @d33g33 's
experiences.

 

I have loads of time, as will have 4 months off after University. I can spend weeks if required, just need a place where I can start. Where do you recommend I go to learn more in regards to what I need to learn? I also want to setup some IP camera, let me know where I should start there as well.

 

The Synology solution does look pretty compelling. 

 

For a small business environment like that the CPU might play a bigger part than at home so a decent dual core and 2gb+ ram might be a good idea. 


For the network printer it's very easy. Just give it a static IP, if your not hosting the drivers on a print server you just add the printer in windows by IP and you will have to supply a driver. Synology unit may actually be able to act as a print server so it auto downloads the driver when adding it though I haven't looked at this.

 I do have a few old PC just sitting around. They are pretty old (around 8 years). Pentium 4 dual core 3.0 GHz and AMD Althon 64 dual core @2.0 GHz. I have tons of DDR2 ram just sitting, waiting to be used. But I don't think it would be a reliable option.

 

Talking about reliable options, I have a scenario for you. Say I configure a RAID 5 setup with a Synology Solution or a self built FreeNAS, and the unit were to fail. Would i be able to fully recover my data? I know they are on the hard drives but I don't know why but I think the data being encrypted, might not be recoverable. 

 

For the printer, I have no idea how to assign a printer a static IP, or even host the driver on the printer server. Where would be a good place to start learning about this? I am willing to invest how ever much time is required.

 

 

Fourth? DANG!

That entirely depends on your budget and time. I personally prefer to build my own machines because I have the time and it's fun. However, check my reply to @wpirobotbuilder in regards to this.

I recommend WD Reds for a budget build.

Just leave it shared on the network. For 8-10 computers, I wouldn't bother getting fancy with server stuff personally.

Simple, using FreeNAS, have a good root password and have it encrypt everything on it. Not hard to set up honestly.

 

Oh stop it you *blushes*

 

As I said before, I can spend weeks if required to learn about this. I am genuinely interested into this stuff, so this should be fun. And for the budget I am estimating I want to spend around $500 on just the NAS solution (whether it is a solution on Synology or self built (I have load of cases, and PSUs, so I would just need the HDD, CPU, RAM. I don't think it would cost a lot.)) and maybe around 300-400 on hard drives (Most likely going for WD red NAS drives). I am hoping to get this all done for around $1200? Does that sound reasonable?

 

And again, I don't know a lot about this topic, and I know how it feels to meet a person that doesn't know what you expect the person to know, and take it for granted. I don't want to bother or leech on you guys by PMing you a lot. I tend to do that without noticing. So again, where would a good place to start learning all this? 

[IdeaStormer]

You are not posting enough information as to what is required? The business needs 4TB of storage? (not clear to me) How many computers? How much data is flowing?

 

No sense in building a NAS if you only have 4TB of storage to save, you're better off (money-wise) just having a RAID 1 in one of the computers, then a backup to tape or other different media. Does the business require backups? Is there any legal mumbo jumbo in regards to data being secure?

 

Not sure how anyone is answering with out any details. List what it has now (assuming its working and fine?)

 

No need to break the bank just because the business is moving, in fact all the more reason to not change anything till the dough rolls in, so to speak.

[Vitalius]

I have loads of time, as will have 4 months off after University. I can spend weeks if required, just need a place where I can start. Where do you recommend I go to learn more in regards to what I need to learn? I also want to setup some IP camera, let me know where I should start there as well.

 

 I do have a few old PC just sitting around. They are pretty old (around 8 years). Pentium 4 dual core 3.0 GHz and AMD Althon 64 dual core @2.0 GHz. I have tons of DDR2 ram just sitting, waiting to be used. But I don't think it would be a reliable option.

 

Talking about reliable options, I have a scenario for you. Say I configure a RAID 5 setup with a Synology Solution or a self built FreeNAS, and the unit were to fail. Would i be able to fully recover my data? I know they are on the hard drives but I don't know why but I think the data being encrypted, might not be recoverable. 

 

For the printer, I have no idea how to assign a printer a static IP, or even host the driver on the printer server. Where would be a good place to start learning about this? I am willing to invest how ever much time is required.

 

 

 

Oh stop it you *blushes*

 

As I said before, I can spend weeks if required to learn about this. I am genuinely interested into this stuff, so this should be fun. And for the budget I am estimating I want to spend around $500 on just the NAS solution (whether it is a solution on Synology or self built (I have load of cases, and PSUs, so I would just need the HDD, CPU, RAM. I don't think it would cost a lot.)) and maybe around 300-400 on hard drives (Most likely going for WD red NAS drives). I am hoping to get this all done for around $1200? Does that sound reasonable?

 

And again, I don't know a lot about this topic, and I know how it feels to meet a person that doesn't know what you expect the person to know, and take it for granted. I don't want to bother or leech on you guys by PMing you a lot. I tend to do that without noticing. So again, where would a good place to start learning all this? 

No idea on either of those. I've never found a "one stop shop" style go-to source for NAS info. Remember, a NAS is just a PC specifically for sharing data. That's it. So anything you'd want to do from a NAS' perspective would be the same from a normal PC's perspective (mostly). The only exception is when you deal with other OS' (not Windows). 

Though the IP camera is obviously different. I think that would entirely depend on the camera and if you got software for it.

You could use them, but as you said, "I don't think it would be a reliable option". I wouldn't do that honestly unless you really were trying to save money.

Define "The unit". The CPU/Motherboard/RAM? The PSU? The HDDs? The whole thing? 

If the answer is "the whole thing", then you would have to pay a data recovery firm to get your data off the HDDs since they failed. For reference, the place I work had to do this with a RAID 5 array with 7 drives in it. It cost $15,000 to get 1.8TB of data back. YMMV. 

if the answer is "The CPU/Motherboard/RAM" or "The PSU", then you just replace those and rock-on because FreeNAS doesn't care as long as the drives are reconnected when it boots. Even if it's encrypted, as long as you have the password (Or encryption key), and FreeNAS can import the volume, you can access the data. 

Be sure to keep a copy of either the password (or in FreeNAS' case, the encryption key) in multiple secure places (i.e. USB drive locked in a safe, encrypted and stored in the cloud with a simple password, tape backup, floppy backup, CD/DVD backup, etc).

Again, I think you should be able to simply attach the printer to the network, go into it's settings and assign it an IP address, then connect each computer to it via IP or name. If it's even half-decent, it can do that. No need for a server.

I think that's kind of lopsided personally. $500 on the rest of the hardware and $300-$400 on the HDD's seems excessive for only 4TB of data.

Yes, overall, $1,200 sounds reasonable.

For FreeNAS specifically, start reading the forums at forums.freenas.org. Specifically the "FreeNAS 4 noobs" section which is in the "Help and Support" sub-forum. 

Just saying. The FreeNAS Mini is a thing. Here's the datasheet. For $900 (no HDD's), it's pretty good. For $1,300 with 4x1TB WD Reds it's nice I think. Primarily because it comes pre-assembled.

 

I love their phone number. 1 (855) grep 4 iX; I loled.

This then^.

Buy the $900 bare system, then buy two 3TB WD Red drives. Total is $1,150 or so without tax.

It comes prebuilt, and you have the FreeNAS forums (and me) to ask questions or read about other things. Feel free to PM me. I don't mind. I like talking about it and helping people.

[SinghKing]

You are not posting enough information as to what is required? The business needs 4TB of storage? (not clear to me) How many computers? How much data is flowing?

 

No sense in building a NAS if you only have 4TB of storage to save, you're better off (money-wise) just having a RAID 1 in one of the computers, then a backup to tape or other different media. Does the business require backups? Is there any legal mumbo jumbo in regards to data being secure?

 

Not sure how anyone is answering with out any details. List what it has now (assuming its working and fine?)

 

No need to break the bank just because the business is moving, in fact all the more reason to not change anything till the dough rolls in, so to speak.

 

Sorry about not providing enough info. Here is the info you asked for.

 

• There are 8-10 computers
• There is around a 1TB of data, and it increases quite a bit each year hence the 3-4 TB. I was thinking raid 5 as the config, but would raid 1 be a better option? I am sort of paranoid with losing data because a lot of work goes into creating 1 client's file and we have about over 250 active clients and we keep documents for inactive clients incase they need it. So is it possible to do (may be stupid, forgive me) raid 1 with 3-4 drives, and eliminate backing up? Since there are 3-4 identical copies? 
• 4TB because I wanted to do RAID 5 and I can't really find good drives under 1 TB where I live.
• This data includes confidential info suck as scans of passports, permanent resident cards, and other legal information. So it has to be secure as possible.
• I do require backups, but no one at the office has enough technical knowledge to do it while I am gone to university (I study in a different province). 
• The situation right now: We are constantly having problems with the server (It's an pre-i3,i5,i7 quad core, 4 GB of DDR 2 Ram, 1.5 TB of storage). And the guy we had a contract with was ripping us off (charging us $150 for a 500 GB "enterprise" drive (It was a WD Green) + labour), and the passwords to the user accounts "mysteriously" keep changing. Its currently running windows server 2008.
• We need a need to add another PC to the office, so I am thinking of turning the server into a normal PC (Should be more than enough) and build or buy a NAS.
• So I have decided to take over, remove the user accounts, just keep it simple and have have network storage.

I think that's kind of lopsided personally. $500 on the rest of the hardware and $300-$400 on the HDD's seems excessive for only 4TB of data.

Yes, overall, $1,200 sounds reasonable.

For FreeNAS specifically, start reading the forums at forums.freenas.org. Specifically the "FreeNAS 4 noobs" section which is in the "Help and Support" sub-forum. 

This then^.

Buy the $900 bare system, then buy two 3TB WD Red drives. Total is $1,150 or so without tax.

It comes prebuilt, and you have the FreeNAS forums (and me) to ask questions or read about other things. Feel free to PM me. I don't mind. I like talking about it and helping people.

 

Thanks for the info! Appreciate it!

[Vitalius]

Sorry about not providing enough info. Here is the info you asked for.

 

• There are 8-10 computers
• There is around a 1TB of data, and it increases quite a bit each year hence the 3-4 TB. I was thinking raid 5 as the config, but would raid 1 be a better option? I am sort of paranoid with losing data because a lot of work goes into creating 1 client's file and we have about over 250 active clients and we keep documents for inactive clients incase they need it. So is it possible to do (may be stupid, forgive me) raid 1 with 3-4 drives, and eliminate backing up? Since there are 3-4 identical copies? 
• 4TB because I wanted to do RAID 5 and I can't really find good drives under 1 TB where I live.
• This data includes confidential info suck as scans of passports, permanent resident cards, and other legal information. So it has to be secure as possible.
• I do require backups, but no one at the office has enough technical knowledge to do it while I am gone to university (I study in a different province). 
• The situation right now: We are constantly having problems with the server (It's an pre-i3,i5,i7 quad core, 4 GB of DDR 2 Ram, 1.5 TB of storage). And the guy we had a contract with was ripping us off (charging us $150 for a 500 GB "enterprise" drive (It was a WD Green) + labour), and the passwords to the user accounts "mysteriously" keep changing. Its currently running windows server 2008.
• We need a need to add another PC to the office, so I am thinking of turning the server into a normal PC (Should be more than enough) and build or buy a NAS.
• So I have decided to take over, remove the user accounts, just keep it simple and have have network storage.

 

Thanks for the info! Appreciate it!

Your situation describes our own except that we are larger (more clients, and we have 50 employees with 70 PCs and 12-15 servers) and we handle different confidential information.

I would avoid RAID 5 in general personally. I just don't like it as it's strong point is keeping server running when a drive fails, and that's it. It's not backup. It doesn't improve performance, and it costs you drive space (albeit less than RAID 1). WD Reds can handle it fine, but even then, I don't see the benefit for a small company l like yours.

I would either do RAID 1 or no RAID at all and just backup to external drives every week or so. RAID 1 can be done with as many drives as you want IIRC. FreeNAS is intelligent at reading with ZFS, so RAID 1 is RAID 0 for reads (not writes) which is nice for performance reasons.

 

RAID 1 means that even if a drive dies, no one has to touch the server until you get a chance to help them with it. Whereas, RAID 5 means you need to replace the drive ASAP. Chance wise, they are the same in terms of risk, but if you just have multiple (3 or 4) drives in RAID 1, then that risk changes (i.e. if two drives fail while you don't have time to help them replace one with RAID 5, you are hosed. If two fail with a RAID 1 of two drives, then you are hosed, but not so if you have 3-4 drives in RAID 1). 

Backups. Backups. Backups. If I were you, I would get a 4TB external drive at some point and teach someone at the company how to Copy and Paste on a Friday so it can do it's job over the weekend, then take that external drive home on Monday (rinse repeat every week). 

Even if the building burns down, you are current up to a week's time.

[d33g33]

If you mean SHR not exactly Raid 5 on the Synology, SHR is Synology's expandable RAID-5 that is done through software, where true RAID-5 is done at a hardware level. If's confusing don't worry too much.

 

if you have a Synology DS413 for example. And the unit dies completely, you can buy a another DS413 and throw the drives in, in the same order and you should be fine. Depending on how crucial your Data is you could have a DS413 and then a DS213j or something similar for your main unit to sync back to... all comes down to how important the data is, and how much you're able to spend. Using SyncToy and an external drive for critical data is another option. If something goes wrong with your Synology OS or Config, their tech support has been exceptionally good to me. Being a home user I would think they would treat their business users even better.

 

I haven't used FreeNAS so I cant comment, but if you build your own then you are the support for the hardware and the OS/Config, the only help you will get is from forums I would assume.

 

Adding a network printer is easy, just give it an IP that makes sense and falls into your standard IP addressing of your network. 192.168.1.100 or something like that, it will be done through the config menu on the device somewhere. As you shouldn't need any special functions in an office environment just download the manufacturers PCL6 drivers and have them installed on each computer. Then just go to printers and drivers on each computer, add printer, by network, put in the IP you set on the printer, the rest should be straight forward.

 

I have used a couple of NAS devices. A QNAP, Thecus and Synology. In my mind the Synology is the best price for performance. Usernames and Passwords for the data shares can be created on the NAS for secure access. Going off what you've told me probably best not to take a managed domain approach so this should server you perfectly.

[SinghKing]

I ended up going with Synology, and it ended up being a dream to work with! It was the perfect solution for me. Thanks all of you guys for help!

[d33g33]

I ended up going with Synology, and it ended up being a dream to work with! It was the perfect solution for me. Thanks all of you guys for help!

Nice, which one did you get?

[SinghKing]

I got the Synology DS414 with 4 x 2 TB WD RED. I have 3 x 2TB running in raid 1 for redundancy (I am kinda a paranoid about losing data) and the other one storing the camera footage from the 5 ip cameras I have.