Buying my first NAS

[FRD]

I'm interested in buying my first NAS, but I don't have any clue about servers and NAS yet. Here at home want one, so we can easily access the data and so we can connect our tv and watch photos, videos, maybe also stream movies. The main purpose is to use as a backup for (holiday) photos and videos.

Maybe one day we also would like to use it for surveillance data, but not anytime soon yet. We still have an older Full HD tv. Will it be able to connect to a NAS and access the data to stream/watch? Or it won't work with an older tv?

 

We already have 2x 3TB NAS drives laying around here. I'm doubting if I should get a 2-bay NAS or 4-bay NAS. 2-bay might be the best for a starter, since 4-bay ones seem really expensive. 6TB is not too much storage nowadays though.

Which NAS should I buy? Recommend me some types. Let's say it has to be easy in use, preferably plug and play, simple software and not too expensive as a first NAS. I have no clue which model is fast enough, has a good cpu, is upgradable, etc.

 

I also heard that ransomware attacks can happen. Should I be afraid of this? I read a review about a WD model that has bad software and easily gets attacked.

Finally, another thought that I had. Of course I will buy new, but how about secondhand? Will you get a dated model if it's "cheap"? Will it be too slow or have clumsy software?

Please give me some advice and recommendations.

[Bob1733]

What’s your budget?

 

2 hours ago, Bob1733 said:

What’s your budget?

And also how much storage will you want

 

2 hours ago, FRD said:

I'm interested in buying my first NAS, but I don't have any clue about servers and NAS yet. Here at home want one, so we can easily access the data and so we can connect our tv and watch photos, videos, maybe also stream movies. The main purpose is to use as a backup for (holiday) photos and videos.

Maybe one day we also would like to use it for surveillance data, but not anytime soon yet. We still have an older Full HD tv. Will it be able to connect to a NAS and access the data to stream/watch? Or it won't work with an older tv?

 

We already have 2x 3TB NAS drives laying around here. I'm doubting if I should get a 2-bay NAS or 4-bay NAS. 2-bay might be the best for a starter, since 4-bay ones seem really expensive. 6TB is not too much storage nowadays though.

Which NAS should I buy? Recommend me some types. Let's say it has to be easy in use, preferably plug and play, simple software and not too expensive as a first NAS. I have no clue which model is fast enough, has a good cpu, is upgradable, etc.

 

I also heard that ransomware attacks can happen. Should I be afraid of this? I read a review about a WD model that has bad software and easily gets attacked.

Finally, another thought that I had. Of course I will buy new, but how about secondhand? Will you get a dated model if it's "cheap"? Will it be too slow or have clumsy software?

Please give me some advice and recommendations.

also about the ransomware attacks they happened for wd cloud devices NOT your own nas that you built yourself so i won't be worried about that

 

2 hours ago, FRD said:

I'm interested in buying my first NAS, but I don't have any clue about servers and NAS yet. Here at home want one, so we can easily access the data and so we can connect our tv and watch photos, videos, maybe also stream movies. The main purpose is to use as a backup for (holiday) photos and videos.

Maybe one day we also would like to use it for surveillance data, but not anytime soon yet. We still have an older Full HD tv. Will it be able to connect to a NAS and access the data to stream/watch? Or it won't work with an older tv?

 

We already have 2x 3TB NAS drives laying around here. I'm doubting if I should get a 2-bay NAS or 4-bay NAS. 2-bay might be the best for a starter, since 4-bay ones seem really expensive. 6TB is not too much storage nowadays though.

Which NAS should I buy? Recommend me some types. Let's say it has to be easy in use, preferably plug and play, simple software and not too expensive as a first NAS. I have no clue which model is fast enough, has a good cpu, is upgradable, etc.

 

I also heard that ransomware attacks can happen. Should I be afraid of this? I read a review about a WD model that has bad software and easily gets attacked.

Finally, another thought that I had. Of course I will buy new, but how about secondhand? Will you get a dated model if it's "cheap"? Will it be too slow or have clumsy software?

Please give me some advice and recommendations.

and also i wouldn't buy second hand drives because you don't want to lose your data from a sketchy drive 

[Kid.Lazer]

For a starter system, A 2-bay NAS should suit you well. Albeit a bit old now, I run a Netgear ReadyNAS V2 at home and it works great for my uses. As for storage, that's up to you to decide. I only have 2TB of storage and it's plenty for me.

[Bob1733]

oh okay then i would say get get a synology ds720+ and 2*2tb nas certified drives and run it in raid 5 so if one drive fails then the you won't lose your data, that would be around £540 on amazon with a configuration of 2* ironwolf 2tb drives and the nas

 

if you want to be really future proof then get 2*4tb drives and run it in raid 5 aswell

 

wait i just realised you can only run raid 5 in with 3 drives, if you have two bay setup use raid 1 where it mirrors the data, this does have a speed penalty but it probs won't matter in your use case

 

[FRD]

1 hour ago, Bob1733 said:

What’s your budget?

No budget set, but actually spending $500 (converted) seems a bit much, especially if it's only a 2-bay NAS. I'd say about $300 for now.

1 hour ago, Bob1733 said:

and also i wouldn't buy second hand drives because you don't want to lose your data from a sketchy drive 

I was talking about a secondhand NAS actually, not secondhand HDDs. I'm looking for the NAS enclosure, since I already have 2x 3TB drives.

1 hour ago, Bob1733 said:

oh okay then i would say get get a synology ds720+ and 2*2tb nas certified drives and run it in raid 5 so if one drive fails then the you won't lose your data, that would be around £540 on amazon with a configuration of 2* ironwolf 2tb drives and the nas

Thanks for the recommendation, but it's a bit steep for my liking. And like I said, I just need the NAS enclosure. As for the backup, the NAS will be used for a backup as well along with my normal external HDD backups. Raid is a possibility, but I didn't have it in mind yet. I prefer a lot of storage over data protection in this case.

[FRD]

1 hour ago, Kid.Lazer said:

For a starter system, A 2-bay NAS should suit you well. Albeit a bit old now, I run a Netgear ReadyNAS V2 at home and it works great for my uses. As for storage, that's up to you to decide. I only have 2TB of storage and it's plenty for me.

Thanks. I've checked for the NAS you have, it's not sold anymore. They still have the Netgear ReadyNAS 422, 214 and 424. The last two are 2-bay NAS, which cost like $350 (converted). The 2-bay one is $300. I actually have a Netgear router, but it seems like the Netgear NAS are not so popular in here. Top brands that I found are Synology and QNAP.

[Bob1733]

42 minutes ago, FRD said:

No budget set, but actually spending $500 (converted) seems a bit much, especially if it's only a 2-bay NAS. I'd say about $300 for now.

I was talking about a secondhand NAS actually, not secondhand HDDs. I'm looking for the NAS enclosure, since I already have 2x 3TB drives.

Thanks for the recommendation, but it's a bit steep for my liking. And like I said, I just need the NAS enclosure. As for the backup, the NAS will be used for a backup as well along with my normal external HDD backups. Raid is a possibility, but I didn't have it in mind yet. I prefer a lot of storage over data protection in this case.

i would say buying a second hand nas is alright but unistall and remove the os on it if there is one so they have pretty much no way to access your data, i would say also for a cheaper option you could buy a 2 bay synology ds218 https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1370967-REG/synology_ds218play_2_bay_nas_diskstation.html, will you reuse your old drives or do you want to get new drives

 

The good thing about synology is the os that comes with it is really user friendly, if you were to buy a second hand nas i would install truenas (formally freenas) as the os, truenas is a user friendly software that has loads of tutorials about it because it is so commonly used, it can be used for more advanced uses but i would run a vm on it

[FRD]

1 minute ago, Bob1733 said:

i would say buying a second hand nas is alright but unistall and remove the os on it if there is one so they have pretty much no way to access your data, i would say also for a cheaper option you could buy a 2 bay synology ds218 play https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1370967-REG/synology_ds218play_2_bay_nas_diskstation.html, will you reuse your old drives or do you want to get new drives

I've seen that one before, looks pretty good. Only gets 3.5 stars on BH though. What's the difference between the DS218 play, DS220j and DS218? I think I rather get a new NAS after all, just to make sure. I will use my old drives. Actually they were never used before yet, just tested on a PC only.

[Bob1733]

1 minute ago, FRD said:

I've seen that one before, looks pretty good. Only gets 3.5 stars on BH though. What's the difference between the DS218 play, DS220j and DS218? I think I rather get a new NAS after all, just to make sure. I will use my old drives. Actually they were never used before yet, just tested on a PC only.

ok also what drives are they 

[FRD]

Just now, Bob1733 said:

ok also what drives are they 

They are WD NAS 3TB drives. Not the newest release, the generation before they were colored red.

[Bob1733]

ok that should be alright

 

26 minutes ago, Bob1733 said:

What's the difference between the DS218 play, DS220j and DS218

i think the difference is just newer models

[FRD]

Just now, Bob1733 said:

i think the difference is just newer models

Hmm okay. The prices are pretty different from each other. The DS220+ is like $100 more expensive. I will have to research it a bit more before I decide.

[Slayerking92]

Also need to remember, If you care about the data you are putting on the NAS,  You will need a place to back it up to.

[FRD]

Just now, Slayerking92 said:

Also need to remember, If you care about the data you are putting on the NAS,  You will need a place to back it up to.

I do know about that. I'm planning to use the NAS as my 2nd or 3rd backup. I use external drives, it will be my only online backup.

[WkdPaul]

* thread cleaned *

[jwwagner25]

I would suggest something from Qnap so that you have room to grow, they offer more advanced options for control. I got a synology DS218J and had it for all of three months before realizing I wanted more versatility and upgradability. Got the 4 bay Qnap TS451D2 and love it. it uses celeron CPU which is able to handle plex transcoding, and you can upgrade RAM. price around $500 USD after tax. also includes HDMI port so you can hook it up direct to a monitor and use it as it's own PC in a pinch, although I haven't used that personally. 

[FRD]

22 hours ago, jwwagner25 said:

I would suggest something from Qnap so that you have room to grow, they offer more advanced options for control. I got a synology DS218J and had it for all of three months before realizing I wanted more versatility and upgradability. Got the 4 bay Qnap TS451D2 and love it. it uses celeron CPU which is able to handle plex transcoding, and you can upgrade RAM. price around $500 USD after tax. also includes HDMI port so you can hook it up direct to a monitor and use it as it's own PC in a pinch, although I haven't used that personally. 

Thanks for the info. How about the QNAP TS-230? It's under $200, but is it a bit good?

In general, is 2GB ram good enough? Can it handle video playback? I don't think I will use Plex myself though.

I checked out the QNAP that you mentioned. It comes in 2GB and 4GB versions, the 4GB version is about $50 more expensive here. That HDMI is nice to have actually, didn't know they had that kind of feature.

 

In general, to everyone.

Are the Synology DS420J (4-bay NAS) or ZyXEL NAS326 (2-bay NAS, but very cheap) any good?

[pcnerd_8684]

I built my nas for free out of an old computer and it was very easy the user interface is great as well. 

Turn Old Computer into a Network Attached Storage (NAS) with FreeNAS! - Bing video