Which NAS unit should I buy?

[vong]

So after reading and seeing people lose data I thought it's time I go into the NAS game. I'd really hate too lose 8TB+ of videos and I don't really have a backup solution at the moment and don't want to risk it any longer.

 

I'll either be buying from:

PC Case Gear

PLE

 

Requirements are:

8 or more bays (preferably more for the future)

Needs to support 4TB+ drives

 

I don't want to spend thousands on a unit. I'm really leaning towards this 12 bay unit but I don't know anything about NAS' to know if it's any good/worth the money.

[79wjd]

It would be cheaper to build something yourself and could be done for $250-$500 depending on how you go about doing it/what you specifically need. 

 

Would you want to run a Plex server and stream from it? if so, how many users would there be at any one time? 

[AMICLG]

A that price point it will be far better and more cost effective to build a FreeNAS.

 

A Haswell i3 supports ECC RAM, you just need a server board and an old LSI card flash with HBA firmware or a sever board with enough SATA ports to support the amount of drives your using. I'd recommend an Asrock server board. Most server boards have two Gigabit Intel NICs so you likely will never need to buy one unless you want 10GbE or quad 1GbE

 

HGST (Hitachi/WD) have Deskstar NAS drives that are very competitively priced and are fantastic drives.

 

The other thing to mention is those all-in-one NAS units only use ARM or Atom processors 99% of the time so the transfer speeds usually suck unless you spend an asinine amount of money on them.

 

ZFS is far better than Raid for data integrity as well and the array can be rebuilt much easier most of the time plus the redundancy is usually better.

[79wjd]

11 minutes ago, AdamIsaacLang said:

A that price point it will be far better and more cost effective to build a FreeNAS.

 

A Haswell i3 supports ECC RAM, you just need a server board and an old LSI card flash with HBA firmware or a sever board with enough SATA ports to support the amount of drives your using. I'd recommend an Asrock server board. Most server boards have two Gigabit Intel NICs so you likely will never need to buy one unless you want 10GbE or quad 1GbE

 

HGST (Hitachi/WD) have Deskstar NAS drives that are very competitively priced and are fantastic drives.

 

The other thing to mention is those all-in-one NAS units only use ARM or Atom processors 99% of the time so the transfer speeds usually suck unless you spend an asinine amount of money on them.

 

ZFS is far better than Raid for data integrity as well and the array can be rebuilt much easier most of the time plus the redundancy is usually better.

I just looked into Australian prices, and an i3 build with 16gb of ECC would be like $700~ vs $350~ for a non-ECC build (PCPP might just have a lousy server selection in Australia....I mean, it's not great in the US, so it's possible). So depending on the data and how important it is, ECC may or may not be worthwhile (although my vote is still for ECC). 

 

Supermicro boards are also excellent, and I would actually suggest going with a Supermicro board with IPMI as it becomes immensely useful. He also wouldn't need an LSI card, he could use a simple PCIE sata controller card ($20~ new) for more sata ports. 

[vong]

15 minutes ago, djdwosk97 said:

It would be cheaper to build something yourself and could be done for $250-$500 depending on how you go about doing it/what you specifically need. 

 

Would you want to run a Plex server and stream from it? if so, how many users would there be at any one time? 

$250-$500 seems pretty cheap. Hope you factored in that I'm in Australia

 

It'll just be me.

2 minutes ago, AdamIsaacLang said:

A that price point it will be far better and more cost effective to build a FreeNAS.

 

A Haswell i3 supports ECC RAM, you just need a server board and an old LSI card flash with HBA firmware or a sever board with enough SATA ports to support the amount of drives your using. I'd recommend an Asrock server board. Most server boards have two Gigabit Intel NICs so you likely will never need to buy one unless you want 10GbE or quad 1GbE

 

HGST (Hitachi/WD) have Deskstar NAS drives that are very competitively priced and are fantastic drives.

 

The other thing to mention is those all-in-one NAS units only use ARM or Atom processors 99% of the time so the transfer speeds usually suck unless you spend an asinine amount of money on them.

 

ZFS is far better than Raid for data integrity as well and the array can be rebuilt much easier most of the time plus the redundancy is usually better.

I'm going to be honest and say I understood almost nothing of what you said, sorry. I have a sound idea but most just flew over my head.

 

I'd prefer an all in one unit as it's already got everything I need whereas building one I'll have to do a bunch of research and source parts as best as I can. I don't need something that's blazing fast as it'll be mostly for backups.

[79wjd]

5 minutes ago, vong said:

$250-$500 seems pretty cheap. Hope you factored in that I'm in Australia

 

It'll just be me.

I'm going to be honest and say I understood almost nothing of what you said, sorry. I have a sound idea but most just flew over my head.

 

I'd prefer an all in one unit as it's already got everything I need whereas building one I'll have to do a bunch of research and source parts as best as I can. I don't need something that's blazing fast as it'll be mostly for backups.

I did, but server boards/ECC memory is more overpriced then everything else you've got (unless PCPP's database for those is just awful in Australia). 

 

Something like a Haswell Pentium, C222/C224/C226 board, 16gb of ECC memory, an NZXT Source 210, and a decent 80+ bronze psu is what I would look into. 

 

The issue with all in one units is that they will be VERY expensive once you get above 4 drives. In the US an 8-bay NAS is like $1000 (without the drives).

[AMICLG]

Just now, djdwosk97 said:

I just looked into Australian prices, and an i3 build with 16gb of ECC would be like $700~ vs $350~ for a non-ECC build (PCPP might just have a lousy server selection in Australia....I mean, it's not great in the US, so it's possible). 

 

Supermicro boards are also excellent, and I would actually suggest going with a Supermicro board with IPMI as it becomes immensely useful. He also wouldn't need an LSI card, he could use a simple PCIE sata controller card ($20~ new) for more sata ports. 

Technically speaking you don't need ECC but with that much storage it is highly recommended.

 

Supermicro is a superb manufacture. It's just that they're not as user friendly as the mainstream Asrock server boards also those also have IPMI too.

 

As long as the SATA card fully supports HBA and is compatible with Linux. The LSI cards or onboard controllers for server boards are made to work fully under Linux and give complete access. Without proper compatibility your risking your data which is why in this case I'd go with what's known to work in professional applications.

 

For that much physical storage you'd want 32GB of ECC.

[tt2468]

5 hours ago, vong said:

So after reading and seeing people lose data I thought it's time I go into the NAS game. I'd really hate too lose 8TB+ of videos and I don't really have a backup solution at the moment and don't want to risk it any longer.

 

I'll either be buying from:

PC Case Gear

PLE

 

Requirements are:

8 or more bays (preferably more for the future)

Needs to support 4TB+ drives

 

I don't want to spend thousands on a unit. I'm really leaning towards this 12 bay unit but I don't know anything about NAS' to know if it's any good/worth the money.

That Synology is a good buy. Since you are just starting out in the nas market, I would recommend not building your own nas yet. The synology software is easy to use, yet feature rich. I have owned Synologys for the past 5 years, and I have never had any problems. That specific model has a cpu powerful enough to stream probably 2 sessions at once.

[techguru]

5 hours ago, vong said:

So after reading and seeing people lose data I thought it's time I go into the NAS game. I'd really hate too lose 8TB+ of videos and I don't really have a backup solution at the moment and don't want to risk it any longer.

 

I'll either be buying from:

PC Case Gear

PLE

 

Requirements are:

8 or more bays (preferably more for the future)

Needs to support 4TB+ drives

 

I don't want to spend thousands on a unit. I'm really leaning towards this 12 bay unit but I don't know anything about NAS' to know if it's any good/worth the money.

the synology is the best NAS

but for the price you want it at..probably to expensive

[vong]

4 hours ago, Kyle Manning said:

That Synology is a good buy. Since you are just starting out in the nas market, I would recommend not building your own nas yet. The synology software is easy to use, yet feature rich. I have owned Synologys for the past 5 years, and I have never had any problems. That specific model has a cpu powerful enough to stream probably 2 sessions at once.

Exact answer I was looking for. Building one seems a bit to complicated at the moment. I see building one is cheaper but I'd rather have something that's all done and ready to go with little to zero hassles.

 

If I wanted to add more ram would this be compatible or will any ram do?

[Guest]

Just a word from experience, we see more issues with Synology than I do with QNAP. The QNAP specs are also offten a little better.

[tt2468]

3 hours ago, vong said:

Exact answer I was looking for. Building one seems a bit to complicated at the moment. I see building one is cheaper but I'd rather have something that's all done and ready to go with little to zero hassles.

 

If I wanted to add more ram would this be compatible or will any ram do?

I would say go on the safe side and use normal ddr3, not ddr3l. I have not worked with qnap before, but my personal preference is Synology, and I have never had any issues with any of their products.

[tt2468]

3 hours ago, vong said:

Exact answer I was looking for. Building one seems a bit to complicated at the moment. I see building one is cheaper but I'd rather have something that's all done and ready to go with little to zero hassles.

 

If I wanted to add more ram would this be compatible or will any ram do?

Also, make sure you are using 4gb sticks, as it doesn't appear to support 8gb sticks.