Thoughts On Prebuilt NAS solutions

[keleja]

Wondering what the general opinion on prebuilt NAS enclosures, mostly because I'm looking for a budget friendly solution.

I'm looking at a Buffalo Link station 441e. I believe it has a Marvell ARMADA 1.20 GHz with 512 MB of DDR3. Will that be sufficient for a home NAS? Connectivity specss check out for what I need I believe. Just unsure of what else.

[ChineseChef]

For 2-4 bay solutions, it’s easiest to just buy a prebuilt.  They are usually way easier to use or simply more convenient.  4-8 bays are really the wishy washy area, where you have to start actually measuring effort vs cost.  More than 8 bays, and it just gets insanely expensive to buy a prebuilt since you pretty much have to go enterprise grade.

[keleja]

For 2-4 bay solutions, it’s easiest to just buy a prebuilt. They are usually way easier to use or simply more convenient. 4-8 bays are really the wishy washy area, where you have to start actually measuring effort vs cost. More than 8 bays, and it just gets insanely expensive to buy a prebuilt since you pretty much have to go enterprise grade.

Thanks. That makes sense especially with what research I've done so far. I wouldn't need more than 4 drives at this point and even with that its enough scalability for me. Plus I can get the prebuilt plus 2 WD 2TB Reds for under $400.

[Captain_WD]

Wondering what the general opinion on prebuilt NAS enclosures, mostly because I'm looking for a budget friendly solution.

I'm looking at a Buffalo Link station 441e. I believe it has a Marvell ARMADA 1.20 GHz with 512 MB of DDR3. Will that be sufficient for a home NAS? Connectivity specss check out for what I need I believe. Just unsure of what else.

Hey keleja,

 

Prebuilt NAS devices are great for home environment as they are usually easy to set up, configure and use and have full support. They can be costly and people with limited budget sometimes go for self-built NAS devices. Here's a topic that has a good discussion on the matter: http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/274764-nas-vs-homeserver-need-some-advice/.

 

What are your plans for the NAS? What are you going to use it for? Any specific preferences in terms of third party applications, devices that you will be using it with, specific speed, number of drives, RAID type?

 

I could suggest that you check Western Digital's NAS solutions and see if any of them suits your needs and budget: http://www.wdc.com/en/products/catalog/default.aspx?segment=4#jump5.

 

Captain_WD.

[Dimwitted]

This is right in the heart of the NAS market. It seems to be very viable and perfect for your needs. You might also look at Drobo, Synology, Qnap. The difference between all these is the software to manage the drives. See if you can find out about the software that the Buffalo uses and if it's something that you prefer or not.