Small Business Storage Solution

[TheVoiceofExile]

Hey everyone, I'm looking to get an external hard drive to connect through a wireless router for a local business I do tech work for. I was thinking of just going with a normal Western Digital external hard drive and hooking that up. Do you guys have any better ideas? We need to keep it on the cheaper side <$120 (USD). I would honestly prefer something with redundancy so that if this drive goes south they don't lose everything, and I'm sure they are willing to pay more for that kind of protection. 

 

Now here is the kicker, it has to be available at Best Buy. That's the fun part. My idea is still just a western digital external, and a 1TB will do them fine. There will be a local copy saved on their computer as well. So let me know what you guys think, and thanks in advance for any suggestions/help.

[megadarkwood]

maybe a dual drive enclosure in RAID? So they don't lose files if anything goes wrong.

[Reuben]

maybe a dual drive enclosure in RAID? So they don't lose files if anything goes wrong.

1. Not available at Best Buy.

2. Definitely more than $120

 

OP's suggestion is the best solution.

[megadarkwood]

1. Not available at Best Buy.

2. Definitely more than $120

 

OP's suggestion is the best solution.

 

 

and I'm sure they are willing to pay more for that kind of protection. 

Would be around $150-200 if you got 2 externals and used either software raid or found a usb raid card. (Which I have never seen)

 

Just a suggestion.

[Reuben]

usb raid card. (Which I have never seen)

For a good reason. USB doesn't have enough bandwidth for hard drives. The hard drives themselves are over the budget, and the NAS would cost more.

[TheVoiceofExile]

Yeah that is the problem I'm running into, I thought about a dual-bay enclosure but that is too expensive since you generally have to buy the drives separately. NAS is just overall too expensive, and even the cheapest one I found is about $150(USD), which is a Seagate that has bad reviews. Their computers are too old for me to add another drive to both of them and setup an array that way, but a single external doesn't offer that redundancy I'd like to give them. I'm beginning to think this isn't really possible with just using readily available items from the local Best Buy. (They plan on picking the product up and I'll install it)

[TheVoiceofExile]

Also thank you both for the responses I'll keep looking and any further suggestions would be much appreciated. I'm going to talk to the business as soon as I can about maybe getting a larger budget for the sake of redundancy, especially since we are talking about 9+ years of files and official documents. They certainly want it ASAP though, currently everything is backed up on Flash Drives. Gives me the shivers. 

[TheVoiceofExile]

Actually here is another kicker. They need the thing to be network accessible for both computers, and their router has a USB port for such a thing. I would assume if I got them to go with a Dual Bay RAID 1 enclosure that just plugging the drives in would do the trick? I really have 0 experience in this area so I'm certainly using this as a learning experience. Would such a thing even work?

[Reuben]

Actually here is another kicker. They need the thing to be network accessible for both computers, and their router has a USB port for such a thing. I would assume if I got them to go with a Dual Bay RAID 1 enclosure that just plugging the drives in would do the trick? I really have 0 experience in this area so I'm certainly using this as a learning experience. Would such a thing even work?

I'm not sure exactly what you mean, but you could plug the NAS directly into the router and be able connect from other computers.

[AndrewReaganM]

If they have an older machine around you could use that, install a cheaper Intel Gigabit NIC, install FreeNas, put a couple of 3TB WD Red drives in it and call it good. Then you hook up the machine through their router/switch and after some setup steps, they have a NAS. You could also do a different drive config, but 2x3TB drives is what I would do! Also to make it easier for them to connect to the NAS, map it as a network drive, and assign a drive letter, that way it's always connected and there. The idea of only buying from BestBuy is sorta crazy, and you should tell them that in a very nice, and professional way. Just ask if you have any questions about this. It's a bit out of budget, but it if you explain all the awesome stuff it does, they should be more open to the slightly higher price tag.

-Andrew

[wpirobotbuilder]

 My idea is still just a western digital external, and a 1TB will do them fine.

That will be fine, as long as their router supports attached storage.

[TheVoiceofExile]

I'm not sure exactly what you mean, but you could plug the NAS directly into the router and be able connect from other computers.

That's exactly what I wanted to know I haven't done much in the way of network storage and backup so I was unsure. Thanks for answering!

 

If they have an older machine around you could use that, install a cheaper Intel Gigabit NIC, install FreeNas, put a couple of 3TB WD Red drives in it and call it good. Then you hook up the machine through their router/switch and after some setup steps, they have a NAS. You could also do a different drive config, but 2x3TB drives is what I would do! Also to make it easier for them to connect to the NAS, map it as a network drive, and assign a drive letter, that way it's always connected and there. The idea of only buying from BestBuy is sorta crazy, and you should tell them that in a very nice, and professional way. Just ask if you have any questions about this. It's a bit out of budget, but it if you explain all the awesome stuff it does, they should be more open to the slightly higher price tag. -Andrew

I wish they had an old system, but both of their computers are 7+ year old Dell Optiplexes so they are old enough as is. I've told them before that I'm worried about the data they have being stored on such old machines, they finally listened about 6 months later and here we are. I did hint at the fact Best Buy isn't the best place to purchase stuff from, I tried really hard to push a NAS solution or new PCs with RAID 1 and an external backup for another layer of redundancy.

 

That will be fine, as long as their router supports attached storage.

The router they have is a last series D-Link N900+ I believe (will double check). 4-6 gigabit ethernet ports, dual band wireless, USB port on the back, has a big blue button on the side as well. I'm pretty sure it is last year's model of this one: http://www.dlink.com/us/en/home-solutions/connect/routers/dir-855l-wireless-n900-dual-band-gigabit-router

[wpirobotbuilder]

That's exactly what I wanted to know I haven't done much in the way of network storage and backup so I was unsure. Thanks for answering!

No problem. Your budget is the limiting resource here.

[TheVoiceofExile]

Alright so I convinced them to go with a NAS. It looks like finding a dual bay raid box and buying a couple WD reds will be the cheapest route. What do you guys think? A solid long lasting NAS that can handle regular power outages without dying.

[MG2R]

Go with a Netgear ReadyNAS Duo v2. My neighbour has the v1 and it has been running non-stop (and I really mean 24/7 all the time) for more than 3.5 years.  The v2 improves upon the v2 making it way mor quiet, if I may believ @ProGearUk . Throw in a couple of WD reds, seagate barracudas or seagate nas drives and you should be good.

[ProGearUk]

Go with a Netgear ReadyNAS Duo v2. My neighbour has the v1 and it has been running non-stop (and I really mean 24/7 all the time) for more than 3.5 years.  The v2 improves upon the v2 making it way mor quiet, if I may believ @ProGearUk . Throw in a couple of WD reds, seagate barracudas or seagate nas drives and you should be good.

Ye the v2 is beast it is a great option

[TheVoiceofExile]

Go with a Netgear ReadyNAS Duo v2. My neighbour has the v1 and it has been running non-stop (and I really mean 24/7 all the time) for more than 3.5 years.  The v2 improves upon the v2 making it way mor quiet, if I may believ @ProGearUk . Throw in a couple of WD reds, seagate barracudas or seagate nas drives and you should be good.

 

 

Ye the v2 is beast it is a great option

I looked into the Netgear ReadyNAS Duo and found this one:

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822122132

 

I'm pretty sure that is what you guys are talking about. I thought about going with the diskless and getting a couple of 2TB WD Reds, but the price difference isn't worth it. I would assume the drives provided would be chosen to do the job they are intended to do and do it well. Honestly they don't need 2TB or even 1TB of storage for that matter lol.

 

I was reading though that these are pretty hard to setup, do either of you know of any good guides/howtos for it? I'll look around but I think you guys know what's up

[ProGearUk]

I looked into the Netgear ReadyNAS Duo and found this one:

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822122132

 

I'm pretty sure that is what you guys are talking about. I thought about going with the diskless and getting a couple of 2TB WD Reds, but the price difference isn't worth it. I would assume the drives provided would be chosen to do the job they are intended to do and do it well. Honestly they don't need 2TB or even 1TB of storage for that matter lol.

 

I was reading though that these are pretty hard to setup, do either of you know of any good guides/howtos for it? I'll look around but I think you guys know what's up

It is very easy to setup and choose some of your own drives like WD Red because they will be more reliable than the ones in the NAS. Also get more storage than you need. I have 2 3TB Seagate Barracuda Drives in there and I have only used 1.2TB so far and that is with 166gb of itunes backup and also 200gb off my desktop backed-up onto it.

[MG2R]

From what I remember when we set up my neighbour's v1 years ago, it was pretty straightforward..If you know what shares are and if you're not afraid to type an IP-address into a browser, you should be fine.

Always overprovision your storage. They'll need that 2TB sooner than they think they'll do...

[Guest]

Have you looked at cloud based solutions whether it be Dropbox or Drive which offer the redundancy? Otherwise you could setup OwnCloud. 

[MG2R]

Have you looked at cloud based solutions whether it be Dropbox or Drive which offer the redundancy? Otherwise you could setup OwnCloud. 

I would advised against 3rd party cloud solutions if it concerns enterprise files... They would need a server for OwnCloud...

 

Also: I've worked with ownCloud before and, in my experience, it couldn't really cope with multiple users very well. It would have tons of conflict files within one day of usage, without one conflicting work done by the different users. It could be better with the recent update, though, don't use it anymore.

[TheVoiceofExile]

Have you looked at cloud based solutions whether it be Dropbox or Drive which offer the redundancy? Otherwise you could setup OwnCloud. 

I've though about that, because with a single Google Account you get 15GB of free storage and they can just upgrade that. I'll talk to them about that, then they have nothing to maintain and will (to some extent) never lose their information. Thanks for the suggestion.