how does a nas work?

[echy]

for example when i buy a nas, will it come with pre-installed harddrives such as a 2 tb hdd

and will i be able to swap that with a 8tb hdd

 

and what does the memory in a nas do? 

 

also is the software that comes with the nas easy to navigate with?

[Guest]

You can get a NAS w/ disks pre-installed or buy it diskless.

First, what will you be going with the NAS? That will make it easier to answer your questions.

[echy]

1 minute ago, Den-Fi said:

You can get a NAS w/ disks pre-installed or buy it diskless.

First, what will you be going with the NAS? That will make it easier to answer your questions.

i want to put in some movies and also want to put in some project files around like 8tb

[Guest]

Just now, echy said:

i want to put in some movies and also want to put in some project files around like 8tb

Movies as in just storing them, or running a streaming server like Plex?

Also, what is your budget and country?

[echy]

1 minute ago, Den-Fi said:

Movies as in just storing them, or running a streaming server like Plex?

Also, what is your budget and country?

just to store and watch. i dont have a budget and united states

[Guest]

9 minutes ago, echy said:

just to store and watch. i dont have a budget and united states

You don't need much really. A sub $200 2-bay QNAP or Synology and a couple of shucked 8TB Seagate for $140/ea would do nicely. Both have simple interfaces.

[echy]

Just now, Den-Fi said:

You don't need much really. A sub $200 2-bay QNAP or Synology and a couple of shucked 8TB Seagate for $140/ea would do nicely.

do i need to buy the ram to?

[SupaKomputa]

Most ready to use NAS have HDD preinstalled.

But you can get a barebone NAS (everything but the disk) where you can plug your HDD of choice.

 

A NAS is basically a PC, so it needs a memory to work.

Most NAS nowadays support plex

[SupaKomputa]

Just now, echy said:

do i need to buy the ram to?

No the rams are preinstalled, soldered into the board.

You shouldn't worry about the ram, you should worry about the transfer performance.

Some old NAS with gigabit LAN can only transfer like 40MB/s due to the chipset limitations.

[echy]

1 minute ago, SupaKomputa said:

Most ready to use NAS have HDD preinstalled.

But you can get a barebone NAS (everything but the disk) where you can plug your HDD of choice.

 

A NAS is basically a PC, so it needs a memory to work.

Most NAS nowadays support plex

is it manditory to setup a raid or can i just not have any backing mechanism and just have one 8tb of hdd?

[SupaKomputa]

1 minute ago, echy said:

is it manditory to setup a raid or can i just not have any backing mechanism and just have one 8tb of hdd?

Depend on the NAS OS, some nas allowed JBOD (Just A Bunch Of Disk) where you can throw out any disk sizes and make them work independently.

Look for that function when you don't care about Raid.

[kirashi]

18 hours ago, echy said:

for example when i buy a nas, will it come with pre-installed harddrives such as a 2 tb hdd

and will i be able to swap that with a 8tb hdd

and what does the memory in a nas do? 

also is the software that comes with the nas easy to navigate with?

18 hours ago, Den-Fi said:

You don't need much really. A sub $200 2-bay QNAP or Synology and a couple of shucked 8TB Seagate for $140/ea would do nicely. Both have simple interfaces.

18 hours ago, SupaKomputa said:

Most ready to use NAS have HDD preinstalled.

But you can get a barebone NAS (everything but the disk) where you can plug your HDD of choice.

A NAS is basically a PC, so it needs a memory to work.

Most NAS nowadays support plex

For your use-case, I second using something like an inexpensive Synology or QNAP NAS + whatever size drives you need for your current data + any data expansion you see in the future. Both manufacturers have NAS products that start out in the low end all the way up to higher end pre-server grade stuff, but for most home users their 2 or 4 bay products work just fine.

 

I just received my Synology DS918+ 2 weeks ago and threw 2x 6TB drives into it for the time being, with the possibility of buying a couple of 8TB, 10TB, or larger drives in the near future. I'm using it for streaming media, downloading torrents, and general backup at this time, but may end up buying a DX517 expansion unit down the road if my collection grows - we shall see.

 

Ideally I wanted something like a Dell R610 (or similar 2U or 4U rackmount server) but the space, power, and noise requirements of such a system are absolutely not doable in my current living situation, hence my reliance on something small & quiet. Most of these NAS products are easier to setup & maintain than a full server too because they ship with a dumbed down OS made for less tech-savvy folk.

[Alexey Koznov]

For your purposes you can find something like used Synology 216 (something like 250$ in Russia on used market) - it will be best for small prices and gives you all possibilities to get nice NAS with all functionality that DiskStation have got.