Home NAS Question

[aimforsilence]

Hey Everyone,

 

I'm looking to get a home NAS backup solution. I want to be able to have all my photos, some documents, and around 20 movies on the device. I want to be able to connect to the device via computer and mobile devices. And lastly I want to be able to have the NAS backup to a cloud service like Amazon. Currently I'm looking at WD My Cloud devices. It seems to tick all the boxes I have, but I'm unsure what it's options are for backing up data from the My Cloud to Amazon or Google etc. I'm aware that it does support backing up to Amazon S3, but I don't currently use S3 and am not sure if it'd be cost effective for me. Currently I use Amazon Photos as my cloud based photo backup, but I would be open to using something else if it was cost effective. I'm also open to the idea of just buying a QNAP NAS or Synology NAS and building it all myself. My only gripe with that option is I'm worried the device is going to be loud. In the past I've has an ASUSTOR NAS and I found that it constantly made hard drive crunching sounds that I found to be quite audible. I'd like a near silent solution. Hopefully someone with more NAS experience can point me in the right direction.

 

Thanks everyone :) 

[Electronics Wizardy]

Id look at synology or qnap for the normally better software.

 

I think synology supports b2, and thats cheaper than s3. You can see s3 and most other could providers pricing online.

 

The hdd noise depends on the hdds used, but id just stuff it in a closet where you won't hear it. Some drivers are quieter than others, but there is no easy way to find quiet/loud drives.

[Bacon soup]

I use nextcloud on the cheapest intel NUC I could find and a SSD. I highly recommend it. Super quiet and low power. And secure coz its running a linux OS that gets regular updates.

[Master Disaster]

I've got a Ras Pi 4 with an 8TB USB 3 HDD running OMV and it works great.

[aimforsilence]

14 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Id look at synology or qnap for the normally better software.

 

I think synology supports b2, and thats cheaper than s3. You can see s3 and most other could providers pricing online.

 

The hdd noise depends on the hdds used, but id just stuff it in a closet where you won't hear it. Some drivers are quieter than others, but there is no easy way to find quiet/loud drives.

Yeah I'm pretty familiar with QNAP stuff as I use and maintain it for work. I do like that they give you way more options via HBS for backing up your data to various different services. As far as noise goes though, what brand drives are typically known for being more quite...and I guess possibly more important is, what model QNAP has good vibration dampening and sound insulating? I would love to just be able to shove it in a closet, but unfortunately I live in a small apartment and am stuck having it in my living room which is where my internet modem is.  

[aimforsilence]

5 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

I've got a Ras Pi 4 with an 8TB USB 3 HDD running OMV and it works great.

Oh, that is an interesting option. How does OMV work? I'm not to familiar with it. 

[aimforsilence]

So after doing some quick math, It looks like I have less than 150GB total for my photos and documents. And then if I add in the few movies I want to have on there it'd be around 200GB... So I could probably get away with having a 500GB or 1TB SSD. I was looking at the WD Blue SSDs as they are pretty cost effective. So I could get a 1-bay NAS from QNAP or Synology, pop in the SSD and I should be good and dead silent too! Does this sound feasible? 

[Master Disaster]

16 minutes ago, aimforsilence said:

Oh, that is an interesting option. How does OMV work? I'm not to familiar with it. 

Its very similar to FreeNAS, it supports EXT3, EXT4, ZFR or BtrFS, RAID 0, 1 and 10 and out of the box it supports FTP/SSH, Samba/CIFS, NFS and Apples protocol plus with the OMV Extras plugin it also supports many other things like a NGINX Webserver, MySQL Server, DLNA Server, Transmission Bit Torrent Client, multiple different backup options, a DNS Server, PXE network boot server..

 

Its super easy to setup, you simply download a premade image, flash to an SD Card and boot. Once its running you access it through a web browser and configure your shares however you want them. Theres loads of video tutorials on YouTube.

 

The only issue I encountered was it not being able to sleep my USB drive and I worked around this by disabling OMVs built in power saver and installing an app called hd-idle. One config file and a reboot later and it worked.

 

I've also got Pi Hole running alongside OMV with no issues at all so I have network wide ad blocking.

 

I would stronly recommend you get an active cooling case for your Pi 4 though as they run hot. I've got mine sat in a cupboard next to my bed and with the door closed its silent when the drive is in sleep, obviously you can hear the drive when accessing it but you'll have this issue with anything.

[Electronics Wizardy]

10 minutes ago, aimforsilence said:

So after doing some quick math, It looks like I have less than 150GB total for my photos and documents. And then if I add in the few movies I want to have on there it'd be around 200GB... So I could probably get away with having a 500GB or 1TB SSD. I was looking at the WD Blue SSDs as they are pretty cost effective. So I could get a 1-bay NAS from QNAP or Synology, pop in the SSD and I should be good and dead silent too! Does this sound feasible? 

For the small amount of storage that looks like a good way to go. The one bay units are pretty gut less normally though, so you might want a higher end model for the faster cpu

 

25 minutes ago, aimforsilence said:

Yeah I'm pretty familiar with QNAP stuff as I use and maintain it for work. I do like that they give you way more options via HBS for backing up your data to various different services. As far as noise goes though, what brand drives are typically known for being more quite...and I guess possibly more important is, what model QNAP has good vibration dampening and sound insulating? I would love to just be able to shove it in a closet, but unfortunately I live in a small apartment and am stuck having it in my living room which is where my internet modem is.  

I haven't noticed much correlation between brands and noise, but some drives are almost silent, and some are pretty loud. I think the high rpm ones are lougder, but there are exceptiosn.

[aimforsilence]

Alright, so here is what I'm looking at getting.

 

Synology DS119j NAS

and either a 500GB or 1TB WD Blue SSD. I'm not sure if I should get the 1TB over the 500GB. My total file size for the data I'm going to be storing on it is 290GB. And the only thing that will ever get added are new photos from time to time and the odd document. My photo library is currently 70GB and that's me adding to it for over a decade. So I think 500GB should be fine... I'm not sure if it's worth paying the extra $65 for the 1TB SSD when I really don't feel like I'm ever going to need the space. What do y'all think?