Jump to content

Looking for a NAS

Jonza
By Jonza
in Storage Devices
 Share
Posted

Hello guys,

 

I am looking in to buying a NAS but have no idea what brands are good ect. I am looking to get a 4 bay NAS was going for 16TB this is going to be used for storaging movies and tv shows and other sort of files so that everyone can access them, everyone else in my house will only be accessing the movies which will be played on XBMC media hub setups in my house so any recommendations would be great. I am hoping to use a RAID 0 configurations I am not so bothered about loosing movies but may consider a backup solutions too.

 

my budget is around £200 or lower 

 

Hope someone can help me.

 

Kind regards

-Jonathan

Link to comment
https://linustechtips.com/topic/345162-looking-for-a-nas/
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted

Hello guys,

 

I am looking in to buying a NAS but have no idea what brands are good ect. I am looking to get a 4 bay NAS was going for 16TB this is going to be used for storaging movies and tv shows and other sort of files so that everyone can access them, everyone else in my house will only be accessing the movies which will be played on XBMC media hub setups in my house so any recommendations would be great. I am hoping to use a RAID 0 configurations I am not so bothered about loosing movies but may consider a backup solutions too.

 

my budget is around £200 or lower 

 

Hope someone can help me.

 

Kind regards

-Jonathan

 

 

Hey TehJonny,
 
I could recommend checking out WD's 4-bay solutions. They offer a number of useful features and are pretty reliable with good speeds. Here are the 4-bay models that WD has:
 
Feel free to ask if you happen to have any questions :)
 
Captain_WD.

If this helped you, like and choose it as best answer - you might help someone else with the same issue. ^_^
WDC Representative, http://www.wdc.com/ 

Link to comment
https://linustechtips.com/topic/345162-looking-for-a-nas/#findComment-4725304
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted
  • Author

Hello, 

 

Thanks for the suggestion Captain_WD just have a few questions if that is okay?

 

Just wondering if this NAS will be able to handle around 5 people streaming videos and such as the same time over the network? and should I buy drives separate and add them my self or buy a all in one package that includes drives. if I buy drives separate would I be better off buying WD red or green?

 

Hope to hear from you soon.

 

Kind Regards

-Jonathan

Link to comment
https://linustechtips.com/topic/345162-looking-for-a-nas/#findComment-4736832
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted

Hello, 

 

Thanks for the suggestion Captain_WD just have a few questions if that is okay?

 

Just wondering if this NAS will be able to handle around 5 people streaming videos and such as the same time over the network? and should I buy drives separate and add them my self or buy a all in one package that includes drives. if I buy drives separate would I be better off buying WD red or green?

 

Hope to hear from you soon.

 

Kind Regards

-Jonathan

Should depend on the video streams resolution and bit-rate. Are we talking 50GB video files or ~1-2GB. It will also depend on the RAID level and if anything else is running on the NAS.

 

I have a HP MicroServer G7 N54L with 4x 6tb WD Reds in RAID5 and it works fine for ~3 1080p streams (could be more, haven't tested, gets about 1gbps read 20mbps writes, I can test later if you like), so I would be fairly confident that 5 streams should be fine with the WD EX4.

Link to comment
https://linustechtips.com/topic/345162-looking-for-a-nas/#findComment-4742056
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted

Hello, 

 

Thanks for the suggestion Captain_WD just have a few questions if that is okay?

 

Just wondering if this NAS will be able to handle around 5 people streaming videos and such as the same time over the network? and should I buy drives separate and add them my self or buy a all in one package that includes drives. if I buy drives separate would I be better off buying WD red or green?

 

Hope to hear from you soon.

 

Kind Regards

-Jonathan

 

 

Hey again :)
 
As @Blake pointed out, it really depends on the type, size and overall demands of the files that you are going to stream. 
The NAS can support up to a certain amount of connections and the amount of streams depends heavily on the network. Also the RAID type can determine the speed of the whole storage pool. I believe you shouldn't have problems streaming to 5 different locations with moderate quality with these three suggestions. 
 
Captain_WD. 

If this helped you, like and choose it as best answer - you might help someone else with the same issue. ^_^
WDC Representative, http://www.wdc.com/ 

Link to comment
https://linustechtips.com/topic/345162-looking-for-a-nas/#findComment-4743333
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted

Build your own. Freenas and Plex

 

That would be another viable option. :)
Building your own NAS is a great experience and you have the freedon to choose your own parts and possibly get longer warranties on the different parts. You won't have official support and setting up is usually harder and trickier, but it is more upgrade-able and more expandable. 
I would advise you, however, to still use NAS/RAID class drives in such a build for more reliable and safe performance (like WD Red).
 
Captain_WD.

If this helped you, like and choose it as best answer - you might help someone else with the same issue. ^_^
WDC Representative, http://www.wdc.com/ 

Link to comment
https://linustechtips.com/topic/345162-looking-for-a-nas/#findComment-4750404
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted

 

That would be another viable option. :)
Building your own NAS is a great experience and you have the freedon to choose your own parts and possibly get longer warranties on the different parts. You won't have official support and setting up is usually harder and trickier, but it is more upgrade-able and more expandable. 
I would advise you, however, to still use NAS/RAID class drives in such a build for more reliable and safe performance (like WD Red).
 
Captain_WD.

 

HGST and WD Reds are great. And they are a pretty darn good price right now. ( http://www.amazon.com/Red-3TB-NAS-Hard-Drive/dp/B008JJLW4M/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1429197488&sr=8-1&keywords=wd+red+nas)  (http://www.amazon.com/HGST-Deskstar-3-5-Inch-Internal-0S03660/dp/B00HHAJU7K/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1429197682&sr=8-2&keywords=hgst ) 

 

I personally don't like the WD Mycloud stuff. I don't think they give enough flexibility or features for the price. For example, you cant run PLEX on the mycloud NAS servers. They are however the easiest to setup and have virtually no learning curve. 

 

Avoid seagate like the plague ( https://www.backblaze.com/blog/best-hard-drive/ )

 

You can build a NAS that is far superior to the Qnap, WD and Synology drives for a much better price. Those pre-built NAS server are essentially just really terrible computers running as a basic server. Even the most basic Pentium is going to be better than what you get in a pre-built system. For media transcoding (streaming) a good rule of thumb would be 2000 Passmark score for the CPU per person using the NAS concurrently. 

 

The guys over a Tek Syndicate have made some good videos on the topic. ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1n3rHlUY3k ) ( 

)
Link to comment
https://linustechtips.com/topic/345162-looking-for-a-nas/#findComment-4752512
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share
Go to topic listing Storage Devices

×