Looking for recommendations for a LAN / WiFi n-ac-ax Storage system that I can just go buy

[RedroOrter]

So I have some Mac and Android and PC devices, of varying ages (devices are compatible with n and ac and ax), and currently a 802.11n home WiFi and Cat6 cabling.

Also plan to use a Linux PC in the future.

I am looking for a way to connect about 5-10 TB of remote storage to my local network, that can keep up with average 802.11ax speeds, and is NOT accessible at all from the internet.  

It needs to support 10/100/1000 Mb/s cabled ethernet and multiple WiFi connections, at the same time.  I plan to upgrade my home WiFi later.

I don’t need RAID, as I am a noob wrt remote storage and that seems to make things more complicated for me.

Removable drives is a bonus.

 

So anyone have any recommendations for me, on what LAN storage solutions I should buy, and where (i.e. BestBuy.ca, or CanadaComputers, etc…) ?

 

Thanks.

RO.

 

P.S. Is this what is called a “File Server”?

[GhostRoadieBL]

38 minutes ago, RedroOrter said:

to my local network, that can keep up with average 802.11ax speeds

802.11ax speeds are between 2-10Gb/s so the rest of your setup would need to be upgraded to 10gig and you are looking at an NVME NAS to even scratch the top end of the rated speeds. (Sata SSDs will saturate a 2gig link) I would recommend against this line of thought unless you use the few specific situations a setup like this would be useful. Even standard harddrives can hit >100MB/s which will saturate a 1000Mb/s link which 99% of networks will be running anyway.

 

 

50 minutes ago, RedroOrter said:

It needs to support 10/100/1000 Mb/s cabled ethernet and multiple WiFi connections

option 1 is using an upgraded router or access point's USB3 header and use the router settings to give access to the drive. This uses a standard desktop USB HDD.

option 2 is a dedicated NAS enclosure, Synology is really the biggest name in consumer NAS boxes but it will run you a few hundred $ for a good one before adding disks (it's basically a full computer with custom software)

option 3 is setup a network share on the PC, Mac or Linux PC (can even do a rasberry pi NAS) and use your existing router and network to access the drive. This is the most common and cost effective as all you are doing is buying/installing a new HDD to the system and clicking through a simple tutorial on setting up a network share (5-10min from start to in use)

 

All of these options keep everything local to your network.

 

52 minutes ago, RedroOrter said:

P.S. Is this what is called a “File Server”?

kind of, a file server is basically a storage pool for files which is the broad definition of Network Attached Storage, it can also be called a media server, game library server, deep archive server etc depending on what type of files you keep on it and what it's primary purpose is. Many people use Plex running on a media server (a file server with media files and the Plex program on it)

[RedroOrter]

On 1/26/2022 at 7:25 PM, GhostRoadieBL said:

option 1 is using an upgraded router or access point's USB3 header and use the router settings to give access to the drive. This uses a standard desktop USB HDD.

Well this option sounds like the one I should choose, as I probably should upgrade my Wi-Fi router too (but that brings up more questions… do basic, old-style, Wi-Fi routers, like Airport Extremes, even exist anymore since I keep seeing “Wi-Fi Mesh routers” ?  I don’t need a mesh network or a wifi network extender or whatever they are.)

 

On 1/26/2022 at 7:25 PM, GhostRoadieBL said:

All of these options keep everything local to your network.

Okay, I see.  I just don’t want to get a USB drive that has some sort of Western-Digital “cloud access” service, that then gets ransomware encrypted

 

 

[GhostRoadieBL]

2 hours ago, RedroOrter said:

do basic, old-style, Wi-Fi routers, like Airport Extremes, even exist anymore since I keep seeing “Wi-Fi Mesh routers” ?  I don’t need a mesh network or a wifi network extender or whatever they are.

"mesh" is a software feature of the router, they are still normal wifi routers but IF you add more than one or add extra extenders they just all use the same network name and act like one big network. Even the ones which come as a kit have a "main" router with all the normal wifi router capabilities and the rest of the parts are just tied into the network to make a larger footprint.

 

for the other part, WD cloud access is an optional service but a normal desktop usb harddrive works just as well as the 'feature added' WD cloud drives which you pay extra for the service when plugged into a router over usb.