NAS or big fat external SSD?

[guiohme]

i’m debating on getting an external SSD or a NAS. i would need about 2-4TB (maybe more idk). it’s basically just going to used to dumb files (such as word/excel/ppt documents, music, photos) and a place to back up my 2 computers. i want easy access to it, and i don’t think i know how to access a NAS out of my home network. 

 

anyone can help:)?

[Radium_Angel]

SSD is nice, until it dies and poof everything goes away.

NAS provides some measure of redundancy against a failed disk.

If the data is important, back it up.

If the data is critical, back it up twice.

 

I have 6 NAS in my house, because my data is critical.

They are easy to set up and provide peace of mind.

[Windows7ge]

If you need to backup multiple systems to a central location and access it when you're away from home a NAS/File Server would be the way to go.

 

How you setup a NAS for off-site access is dependent on the type of NAS you want. I believe pre-builds from companies like Synology, QNAP have their own implementations but you can also build a NAS from scratch and install whatever you want.

 

You could also setup a VPN and access your entire home network in addition to the NAS. So you have a lot of options here.

[dkoudijs]

A nas would offer more options for backup/use case for local networks.

The ssd would work if you want to take large amounts of data with you, but that is not common as much anymore.

 

I would recommend a qnap, simple interface for new comers, and can do quite a bit. Research a little what you goals may be in the future (plex?) so you have some expansion later.

[guiohme]

7 hours ago, Windows7ge said:

If you need to backup multiple systems to a central location and access it when you're away from home a NAS/File Server would be the way to go.

 

How you setup a NAS for off-site access is dependent on the type of NAS you want. I believe pre-builds from companies like Synology, QNAP have their own implementations but you can also build a NAS from scratch and install whatever you want.

 

You could also setup a VPN and access your entire home network in addition to the NAS. So you have a lot of options here.

i like the idea of a NAS. i’m a student in business technology and i wanna learn about them. i’m just wondering which one would be “better”; a prebuilt or one that i built myself.

[guiohme]

7 hours ago, Radium_Angel said:

SSD is nice, until it dies and poof everything goes away.

NAS provides some measure of redundancy against a failed disk.

If the data is important, back it up.

If the data is critical, back it up twice.

 

I have 6 NAS in my house, because my data is critical.

They are easy to set up and provide peace of mind.

hmm that’s true. i once had to pay a data recovery service to recover my data because my old hard drive went kaboom. i would say that my data is critical and i definitely learned about double backups 

[guiohme]

45 minutes ago, dkoudijs said:

A nas would offer more options for backup/use case for local networks.

The ssd would work if you want to take large amounts of data with you, but that is not common as much anymore.

 

I would recommend a qnap, simple interface for new comers, and can do quite a bit. Research a little what you goals may be in the future (plex?) so you have some expansion later.

that’s a good point. i wanted a plex server put a lot of my content is drm protected since it was bought on itunes. i’m looking for easy access to my data. i’ll definitely do more research

[Windows7ge]

10 minutes ago, patate126 said:

i like the idea of a NAS. i’m a student in business technology and i wanna learn about them. i’m just wondering which one would be “better”; a prebuilt or one that i built myself.

That depends on what you're looking to get out of it.

 

Do you just want something that plugs in and works?

Do you lack interest in hardware/software deployment?

Do you just not have the time to build/manage/troubleshoot hardware/software?

Are you afraid of what you're going to do in the event of data loss?

 

Buy a pre-build.

 

Do you want to have an opportunity to explore something new?

Do you have an interest in component level hardware/software?

Do you have the availability to put it together?

Are you willing to take responsibility and manage proper backups?

 

Build your own.

 

Or at least that's my philosophy.

[cmndr]

I'd say IF you have critical data you should have a NAS - either RAID1 or RAID5 (or the ZFS equivalents).

If you're just getting started in the world of NASes, prebuilt solutions from the likes of Synology and QNAP tend to be easier to get started with.

One thing to note - 2 HDDs in RAID will be a bit snappier than just a regular HDD as a boot drive (since the OS won't be taking up IOPs and there's more throughput from the 2 drives). You could potentially get away with 2x4TB enterprise drives off of ebay. I paid around $37 per drive a while back.
 

16 minutes ago, Windows7ge said:

That depends on what you're looking to get out of it.

Do you want to have an opportunity to explore something new?

Do you have an interest in component level hardware/software?

Do you have the availability to put it together?

Are you willing to take responsibility and manage proper backups?

 

Build your own.

It's pretty easy to go wrong with configuring a NAS. I'm still trying to get mine to work again after an update. I know my data is fine but it can definitely be a hassle if you're not pretty familiar with *nix based OSes.

[Windows7ge]

6 minutes ago, cmndr said:

It's pretty easy to go wrong with configuring a NAS. I'm still trying to get mine to work again after an update. I know my data is fine but it can definitely be a hassle if you're not pretty familiar with *nix based OSes.

You're not wrong but you don't want to scare people away from broadening their horizon if it's something that interests them. Of course their are risks involved but it's all part of the learning process.

 

Follow standard practices and anyone should be fine. Once you grow confident you can expand into other avenues like adding features and other functionality to the system/network.

 

And I mean I'm not planning on telling him to jump strait into something like FreeBSD 13.0 and expect him to figure out how to setup a storage pool, configure vdevs, snapshots, scrub jobs, enable SSH for users, and configure SAMBA. There are many user friendly varmints of Linux/*NIX for beginners. He could play with any number of them in a VM if he want to practice.

[cmndr]

43 minutes ago, Windows7ge said:

You're not wrong but you don't want to scare people away from broadening their horizon if it's something that interests them. Of course their are risks involved but it's all part of the learning process.

 

Follow standard practices and anyone should be fine. Once you grow confident you can expand into other avenues like adding features and other functionality to the system/network.

 

And I mean I'm not planning on telling him to jump strait into something like FreeBSD 13.0 and expect him to figure out how to setup a storage pool, configure vdevs, snapshots, scrub jobs, enable SSH for users, and configure SAMBA. There are many user friendly varmints of Linux/*NIX for beginners. He could play with any number of them in a VM if he want to practice.

I'm feeling pain on my NAS and I have installed Ubuntu... configured SAMBA, enabled scrubbing, tweaked ZFS configs... then shifted to using TRUENAS Scale... then updated it and...

There's a lot of stuff to tweak and I'm not a system admin, I'm a number cruncher with a tech hobby. The QNAP and Synology and Buffalo stuff I've used mostly just worked.

[Windows7ge]

1 hour ago, cmndr said:

I'm feeling pain on my NAS and I have installed Ubuntu... configured SAMBA, enabled scrubbing, tweaked ZFS configs... then shifted to using TRUENAS Scale... then updated it and...

There's a lot of stuff to tweak and I'm not a system admin, I'm a number cruncher with a tech hobby. The QNAP and Synology and Buffalo stuff I've used mostly just worked.

I'm an avid tech enthusiast and actually run FreeBSD in a virtual machine with 6 PCIe devices hardware passed through to it. This manages a 30 drive ZFS RAID60 and has been rock solid since day 1. I couldn't ask for more.

 

That's not to say everything I explore goes according to plan. I couldn't even begin to count the number of times I've tried something new and failed. More often than not though perseverance got me through. Instead of giving up and taking the easy way out it taught me a lot of new things over the years.

 

Sometimes doing things the hard way and getting your hands dirty is the fastest way to learn. Not that that's necessarily OP's objective.

[SansVarnic]

-= Topic moved Storage Devices =-

[cmndr]

18 minutes ago, Windows7ge said:

I'm an avid tech enthusiast and actually run FreeBSD in a virtual machine with 6 PCIe devices hardware passed through to it. This manages a 30 drive ZFS RAID60 and has been rock solid since day 1. I couldn't ask for more.

 

That's not to say everything I explore goes according to plan. I couldn't even begin to count the number of times I've tried something new and failed. More often than not though perseverance got me through. Instead of giving up and taking the easy way out it taught me a lot of new things over the years.

 

Sometimes doing things the hard way and getting your hands dirty is the fastest way to learn. Not that that's necessarily OP's objective.

At some point you want things to work, consistently.

hence why it might be worthwhile for someone just getting in to start with a pre-canned solution.

I vaguely recall about a decade ago feeling mildly frustrated setting up a fairly simple NAS. I could only imagine the issues if I had to add in MANY more layers of complexity to the situation and you're, your own tech support.

[Windows7ge]

5 minutes ago, cmndr said:

I could only imagine the issues if I had to add in MANY more layers of complexity to the situation and you're, your own tech support.

Although I do fix the overwhelming majority of the issues I run into on my own I'm not omnipotent. I will, when my back is against the wall and I'm out of options, ask for help from the tech community. This doesn't always pan out but it has helped at times.

 

I would make the argument that if OP has an interest in this field a plug'n'play NAS that "just works" isn't going to teach him anything worthwhile. This brings me back to my original post about why he should go one direction or the other depending on his best interests and availability.

 

You're not wrong though. DIY-ing it is a time consuming emotional investment with risks if done improperly. It's up to him if he wants to make that commitment. If he just wants something up and running quick a pre-built solution is fine too.

[cmndr]

10 minutes ago, Windows7ge said:

Although I do fix the overwhelming majority of the issues I run into on my own I'm not omnipotent. I will, when my back is against the wall and I'm out of options, ask for help from the tech community. This doesn't always pan out but it has helped at times.

 

I would make the argument that if OP has an interest in this field a plug'n'play NAS that "just works" isn't going to teach him anything worthwhile. This brings me back to my original post about why he should go one direction or the other depending on his best interests and availability.

 

You're not wrong though. DIY-ing it is a time consuming emotional investment with risks if done improperly. It's up to him if he wants to make that commitment. If he just wants something up and running quick a pre-built solution is fine too.

I see the pre-built approach as a stepping stone (and possibly more than good enough). Op would learn about shares and permissions, configuration, etc.

I'm also biased as I recently walked my mother through swapping out a drive on a QNAP system (pull out old drive, put new drive on sleigh, put sleigh back in). If it were ZFS based it'd be... WAY more painful.

 

Learning is good but there's an infinite number of things to learn so to speak.

I also don't do IT as a profession and my experience with most students in "business" programs is that they're not willing to spend HOURS and HOURS tweaking for its own sake the same way engineers often are.

[Windows7ge]

Let's wait for OP to return and tell us where he wants to go.

 

6 hours ago, cmndr said:

If it were ZFS based it'd be... WAY more painful.

Exaggeration. I've had to do this myself on more than one occasion.

1. Locate failed disk by serial number. Multitude of ways to go about that depending on your setup. If you have drive LED indicators that can give it away too.
2. Replace disk. You can do a live swap.

3. zpool replace PoolName Device
   ex.
   zpool replace storage sdc

4. Wait for resilver to finish. Done.

Even easier with a WebUI plus Google is your friend and answers a lot of questions whenever you have them.

 

[cmndr]

On 1/30/2022 at 3:53 AM, Windows7ge said:

Let's wait for OP to return and tell us where he wants to go.

 

Exaggeration. I've had to do this myself on more than one occasion.

1. Locate failed disk by serial number. Multitude of ways to go about that depending on your setup. If you have drive LED indicators that can give it away too.
2. Replace disk. You can do a live swap.

3. zpool replace PoolName Device
   ex.
   zpool replace storage sdc

4. Wait for resilver to finish. Done.

Even easier with a WebUI plus Google is your friend and answers a lot of questions whenever you have them.

 

I can't walk my mother through that without worrying about errors. If i do it entirely remotely a la team viewer, I'd still be half worried.
I can tell her how to use a screwdriver and swap a drive and allow the machine to auto rebuild the array.

Part of the reason I have them using a dumb RAID1 set up.

I don't want to run into something like THIS -

 

[wseaton]

Being entirely blunt building a home NAS on Linux is like repairing VHS players or setting up a home dark room. The skills you learn are pretty much obsolete and you do so because you want to tinker around. 

 

Get a 2 or 4 bay Synology or QNAP, use RAID 1 and do something more productive with your time.