Where to start Local Network NAS?

[Tehkast]

Evening all

 

Rather broad question but not sure where else to ask, I need to build a NAS for our Local network for storage and ease of access use and not sure what to aim for.

 

I used to just run a gen 1 pi with an external drive but that melted and was the end of that.

 

The write speed was horrific also maybe 2mb at best assume that was the limitation of the pi?

 

My goal would be to have a network drive I can access at good speeds as may need to upload large files fairly regularly to get to get them to the correct PC for use in media creation.

 

Any suggestions or even path ideas where to aim would I be better trying to throw something together myself again or shell out for a prebuilt self contained thing?

 

Are there even better options like throwing a few drives in a cheap optiplex and leaving that on (This worries me for power use)

 

Any guidance would be very helpful 

 

Kind Regards 

 

Bruce.

[mahyar]

13 minutes ago, Tehkast said:

Evening all

 

Rather broad question but not sure where else to ask, I need to build a NAS for our Local network for storage and ease of access use and not sure what to aim for.

 

I used to just run a gen 1 pi with an external drive but that melted and was the end of that.

 

The write speed was horrific also maybe 2mb at best assume that was the limitation of the pi?

 

My goal would be to have a network drive I can access at good speeds as may need to upload large files fairly regularly to get to get them to the correct PC for use in media creation.

 

Any suggestions or even path ideas where to aim would I be better trying to throw something together myself again or shell out for a prebuilt self contained thing?

 

Are there even better options like throwing a few drives in a cheap optiplex and leaving that on (This worries me for power use)

 

Any guidance would be very helpful 

 

Kind Regards 

 

Bruce.

you can use a pi 4 2gb version and install openmediavault on it and connect drives via sata to usb3 converter

[Hairless Monkey Boy]

If you want to go the "prebuilt self contained" route, I love my Synology NAS. Was easy to setup and never really gives me any trouble. Even remote access was fairly simple to setup. The UI of the OS is good and there are a whole lot of settings and options if you want to be an advanced user.

[Tehkast]

9 minutes ago, HairlessMonkeyBoy said:

If you want to go the "prebuilt self contained" route, I love my Synology NAS. Was easy to setup and never really gives me any trouble. Even remote access was fairly simple to setup. The UI of the OS is good and there are a whole lot of settings and options if you want to be an advanced user.

 

You able to link it to take a look?

 

Ignore that found your signature bit out of my price range

[Tehkast]

23 minutes ago, mahyar said:

you can use a pi 4 2gb version and install openmediavault on it and connect drives via sata to usb3 converter

 

Any idea what write speeds would get when moving files around?

[mahyar]

1 minute ago, Tehkast said:

 

You able to link it to take a look?

 

Ignore that found your signature bit out of my price range

how much is your budget(for system only not drive)

[Senzelian]

Used Synology and QNAP NAS are a good solution. Easy to set up and performance is good.

 

If you want to build something yourself, try FreeNAS. It's free. What more to ask for?  

 

Both are really good solutions and will get you going for not a whole lot of money.

[mahyar]

Just now, Tehkast said:

 

Any idea what write speeds would get when moving files around?

gigabit ethenet

[Tehkast]

3 minutes ago, mahyar said:

how much is your budget(for system only not drive)

at push £150 think I've misunderstood how important the brain would be to actually get something viable.

[Hairless Monkey Boy]

3 minutes ago, Tehkast said:

 

You able to link it to take a look?

 

Ignore that found your signature bit out of my price range

Well you shouldn't buy the same one I have because at this point it's old (unless you get it used I guess). But Synology has this nifty "NAS Selector" tool that might help you figure out which one is best for you.

 

https://www.synology.com/en-us/support/nas_selector

 

It sounds to me like the ones you should look at are the DS220j, DS420j, or FS1018 depending on how many drives you want to use in the NAS.

[Tehkast]

4 minutes ago, mahyar said:

gigabit ethenet

Local network is all gig but when used previous setup with a Pi (Gen 1) and external drive as getting 2mb at most took a long time to get anything done.

 

Was something maybe setup wrong that would cause such slow speeds ? 

 

The speed is my main concern when going back to using a pi and external drive and ofc the previous external drive going up in smoke didn't help confidence.

[mahyar]

1 minute ago, Tehkast said:

at push £150 think I've misunderstood how important the brain would be to actually get something viable.

as i said you can get a raspberry pi 4 2GB 4GB or 8GB ram for 35 55 and 75 USD

and you can overclock a good bit

[Tehkast]

3 minutes ago, HairlessMonkeyBoy said:

Well you shouldn't buy the same one I have because at this point it's old (unless you get it used I guess). But Synology has this nifty "NAS Selector" tool that might help you figure out which one is best for you.

 

https://www.synology.com/en-us/support/nas_selector

 

It sounds to me like the ones you should look at are the DS220j, DS420j, or FS1018 depending on how many drives you want to use in the NAS.

DiskStation DS218j does seem like a viable option ty for link.

[mahyar]

1 minute ago, Tehkast said:

Local network is all gig but when used previous setup with a Pi (Gen 1) and external drive as getting 2mb at most took a long time to get anything done.

 

Was something maybe setup wrong that would cause such slow speeds ? 

 

The speed is my main concern when going back to using a pi and external drive and ofc the previous external drive going up in smoke didn't help confidence.

pi 1  is from 2012! pi 4 came last year!

[Hairless Monkey Boy]

7 minutes ago, Tehkast said:

DiskStation DS218j does seem like a viable option ty for link.

I have the DS216J [Disk - Station - 2 bay - 2016 - entry level]. It works quite well for my needs, mainly storing BluRays and file backups. Transfer speeds are limited only by the Gigabit ethernet. Might be worth buying used if you can find a good price. Otherwise go for the DS220j new. From what I see, is goes for the same price new as the DS218j, but it is the newer model.

[jj9987]

There's a lot of unknown in this thread. Let's start out:

- How much drives do you plan on connecting?

- How much storage do you need?

- Do you need SSD cache?

- How important is the data? Do you need redundancy, where are you storing backups? How much data loss can you afford?

- How many concurrent users are accessing the data?

- What's your budget?

- Do you intend to only access files directly (e.g. SMB share) or do you want to run additional applications (e.g. something in containers/VMs/Docker) on it?

- How much are you willing to spend on setup/maintenance/uptime? Do you want to build your own system or would you rather want to have a box, that you plug drives into and call it a day?

 

Raspberry Pi 3 and below used to share USB bus with Ethernet (and that was 100 Mbps too), hence it was so slow. Raspberry Pi 4 is much better in that regard, but still rather limited in terms of I/O.

[Tehkast]

19 minutes ago, jj9987 said:

There's a lot of unknown in this thread. Let's start out:

- How much drives do you plan on connecting?

- How much storage do you need?

- Do you need SSD cache?

- How important is the data? Do you need redundancy, where are you storing backups? How much data loss can you afford?

- How many concurrent users are accessing the data?

- What's your budget?

- Do you intend to only access files directly (e.g. SMB share) or do you want to run additional applications (e.g. something in containers/VMs/Docker) on it?

- How much are you willing to spend on setup/maintenance/uptime? Do you want to build your own system or would you rather want to have a box, that you plug drives into and call it a day?

 

Raspberry Pi 3 and below used to share USB bus with Ethernet (and that was 100 Mbps too), hence it was so slow. Raspberry Pi 4 is much better in that regard, but still rather limited in terms of I/O.

1-2 Drives but ability to upgrade and add later always nice.

Storage needs low end guess 2TB but ofc anything over would be lovley

No idea if I need a SSD cache tbh wouldn't think so as anything big that i need I would actually pull off the NAS and work on locally on the machine that needs it.

At this time redundancy isn't the end of the world I have a spare  PC just backup the important stuff every now and then.

Budget £200

- Do you intend to only access files directly (e.g. SMB share) or do you want to run additional applications (e.g. something in containers/VMs/Docker) on it? 

This one is beyond my knowledge I just require a solid network drive really with good speeds for uploading and downloading from and too it.

After previous XP think I may wanna go with a all in one lazy solution but ofc if have to work within budget can take that route and bodge a job learn as I go.

 

 

Raspberry Pi 3 and below used to share USB bus with Ethernet (and that was 100 Mbps too), hence it was so slow. Raspberry Pi 4 is much better in that regard, but still rather limited in terms of I/O.

 

Any idea what speeds would realistically what speeds would see moving say a 10gig video file to a Pi4 NAS solution?

[mahyar]

1 hour ago, Tehkast said:

1-2 Drives but ability to upgrade and add later always nice.

Storage needs low end guess 2TB but ofc anything over would be lovley

No idea if I need a SSD cache tbh wouldn't think so as anything big that i need I would actually pull off the NAS and work on locally on the machine that needs it.

At this time redundancy isn't the end of the world I have a spare  PC just backup the important stuff every now and then.

Budget £200

- Do you intend to only access files directly (e.g. SMB share) or do you want to run additional applications (e.g. something in containers/VMs/Docker) on it? 

This one is beyond my knowledge I just require a solid network drive really with good speeds for uploading and downloading from and too it.

After previous XP think I may wanna go with a all in one lazy solution but ofc if have to work within budget can take that route and bodge a job learn as I go.

 

 

Raspberry Pi 3 and below used to share USB bus with Ethernet (and that was 100 Mbps too), hence it was so slow. Raspberry Pi 4 is much better in that regard, but still rather limited in terms of I/O.

 

Any idea what speeds would realistically what speeds would see moving say a 10gig video file to a Pi4 NAS solution?

around 100MB

[Tehkast]

4 hours ago, mahyar said:

around 100MB

That would do wonderful so think will go that route now just to sort a reliable external drive that would be happy to sit on 24/7 in an external enclosure.