NAS for small studio

[evildii]

Hey! I run a small digital design studio, we create websites, branding, etc., facing a storage/server problem, have no idea how to go about it so i figured i'd rather ask the great ltt community

So, to date our use case has been very light so Google Drive was enough, we upload/download docs and small files, the biggest is around 600mb, we currently use less than 100gb of space total.

Now it became inconvenient to use, it lags, it doesn't always work fast, there are access control issues, scheduling backups is inconvenient, we plan to work with video which means higher bandwidth, and the most important is it doesn't allow to work with files directly without downloading them. So we look for a NAS solution to run in the office, i never used it and have a very general idea about it but here's what we kinda expect it to be:
- Fast, stable, secure

- Access both from LAN and WAN

- Setup and schedule backups of certain folders/drives of all office PCs (and Macs)

- Work directly from NAS with PSD, AI and other files without downloading

- Manage access rights for various users, allowing access to certain folders, certain rights

- Very easy to setup and use/administer, shouldn't require an expert

- Should allow for at least 2 drives (we plan to use 1-2tb for a start and then possibly expand), not sure if it should be hdd or ssd though. Would appreciate a storage advice as well.

- As cheap as possible. We can't pay premium but we'd rather pay a bit extra for something easy to use and reliable than some chinese copy-crap.

 

Hope you guys can give a couple advises and thank you in advice
Cheers!

 

[samcool55]

Before i start, i'm not an expert and this is probably not the best option, but it's what i think would do the job

 

What i would do is get a Synology DiskStation DS216play or something simillar.

Nothing special but as far as i can see, a decent option. (again i'm not an expert so i might be wrong)

 

HDD wise, i would get 2 1TB drives, that should be plenty for now and gives you the option to use raid-1.

In case 1 drive fails, you haven't lost any data, just replace the broken HDD, let it rebuild and everything should work again.

 

Of course, backups are a must, but again trying to be cheap i would just get an external drive (probably 1TB) and manually make backups every week. What i mean with that is, connect the drive to a pc, do a 1:1 copy of the NAS and disconnect it again.

Just don't leave the HDD connected if you don't need it, if a virus starts messing with your stuff and the hdd is connected, your backups are very likely gone as well. So make sure to physically remove the drive unless you are making a backup.

 

I would say do it every week because it gives you the option (keeping in mind you have 100GB data now) to get 9-10 weeks worth of backups, should be enough, but again i'm not an expert

[Captain_WD]

2 hours ago, evildii said:

~snip~

Hi there

 

Working with files directly on the NAS would require something quite powerful and take quite the bandwidth to handle real-time editing ,etc. 

Though downloading the file locally isn't the best idea, price-wise it may be better (and still far quicker compared to online cloud storage) to get a simple NAS and download locally the files on which you are working and then upload them back on the NAS when done. 

If you are looking fora more economical solution I could suggest checking out WD My Cloud Mirror as it covers all your expectations so far.  

- It works pretty well for shared data storage and backup purposes.

- It is accessible over the network and Internet.

- Very easy and straightforward to setup and manage both in terms of users and shares.

- Compatible with PCs and Macs.

- Very user-friendly and simple to use.

- Supports RAID1 for redundancy, RAID0 for speed and JBOD/Span modes for the storage drives.

- Comes with WD Red drives. 

 

For better performance and more capabilities you could check our EX, DL an PR NAS series, but they do come at a bigger price. It's up to you to decide on the budget. 

 

Regarding the use of SSDs in a NAS it really depends on the workload you are putting on the NAS. If you are doing a lot of writes you will wear them out rather quickly while HDDs will last much longer. SSDs on the other hand will give you faster transfer speeds and access times. 

 

Let me know if you have any questions! 

 

Captain_WD. 

[evildii]

Thanks for the advises

[ssfdre38]

Now if you really want some more options, you can setup a windows server with file share with only certain users to access certain shared folders. Also this way you can keep on the files on the server and they can just access it with a network dirve or a shared folder and wont require a backup at night during off hours

[evildii]

2 hours ago, ssfdre38 said:

Now if you really want some more options, you can setup a windows server with file share with only certain users to access certain shared folders. Also this way you can keep on the files on the server and they can just access it with a network dirve or a shared folder and wont require a backup at night during off hours

4

That's an option though in this particular case we really don't have time/resources/will to setup and manage that, i'd rather get some out-of-the-box solution that's nearly perfect. From what I have learned Synology seems cool, i suppose WD Red drives will go well with it.

[Emmien]

3 hours ago, ssfdre38 said:

Now if you really want some more options, you can setup a windows server with file share with only certain users to access certain shared folders. Also this way you can keep on the files on the server and they can just access it with a network dirve or a shared folder and wont require a backup at night during off hours

UnRaid or FreeNAS is easier to setup than Windows Server, and it is free, but that is one option.

 

The OP is probably looking for something that comes complete and just needs drives though.

 

 

Synology is probably easiest.