nas server backup NAS or Server?

[Brian Furious]

Hello guys. I need some suggestions about getting a NAS or SERVER. First of all I know that RAID is not a backup, however a friend is photographer and works with .raw files (which is like 80MB / photo ) and needs a place to store the files in. Now, is better having a NAS or Server and I need many bays and obviously a RAID configuration maybe 5? For backup he has many WD Elements and will backup the files in there so he will slowly fill up the external HDD with the work shared on other external HDDs. (e.g Photos from March to July in 1 external HDD and from July to November in a 2nd and 3rd external HDD) but all those files have to stay in a NAS / Server. What do you suggest me to buy? I'd like to have many bays and a good RAID redundancy. 

[SidneySmith]

What's your budget?

 

[Electronics Wizardy]

a NAS is a server.

 

Id get something like a qnap 4 or 5 bay nas. Plug and play and fairly cheap.

 

https://www.amazon.com/QNAP-TS-451-Personal-Transcoding-TS-451-US/dp/B00KXP9RJC/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1485884197&sr=1-1&keywords=qnap+4+bay

 

Then fill it with something like 4tb drives.

[techmattr]

As @Electronics Wizardy said a NAS is a server. Both QNAP and Synology have built in synchronization with Amazon Cloud Drive and if they have Amazon Prime they can store unlimited photos at no extra cost. That includes the listed RAW files: https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201649930

 

I have a Synology DS1815+ and really like it. I'm an amature photographer and sync all my photos to Amazon. I've run out of space on the DS1815+ though so I'm most likely going to upgrade to the RS2416+.

 

I also have a 24 Bay Supermicro / FreeNAS server but I'm guessing you're looking for prebuilt solutions.

[EmoChipmonk]

3 minutes ago, techmattr said:

As @Electronics Wizardy said a NAS is a server. Both QNAP and Synology have built in synchronization with Amazon Cloud Drive and if they have Amazon Prime they can store unlimited photos at no extra cost. That includes the listed RAW files: https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201649930

 

I have a Synology DS1815+ and really like it. I'm an amature photographer and sync all my photos to Amazon. I've run out of space on the DS1815+ though so I'm most likely going to upgrade to the RS2416+.

 

I also have a 24 Bay Supermicro / FreeNAS server but I'm guessing you're looking for prebuilt solutions.

I hear lots of good things about  Synology  NAS soulutions. I plan on doing the same thing at some point.

[techmattr]

2 minutes ago, EmoChipmonk said:

I hear lots of good things about  Synology  NAS soulutions. I plan on doing the same thing at some point.

They are the only ones that offer containerized encrypted backup to Amazon Cloud Drive natively with their Hyper Backup. That may get stripped away at some point because it seems to violate ACD's terms of use for the APIs but so far it works great. 

 

As far as Synology vs QNAP. Synology for ease of use and low power configurations. If you're looking at more power Core i3 or above I'd probably go with QNAP.

[Ramaddil]

Synology is defiantly the way to go, ease of use and setup.  Can be setup fairly easy and expanded by adding more drives.I considered one for along time before I built my server.   

[Brian Furious]

5 hours ago, techmattr said:

As @Electronics Wizardy said a NAS is a server. Both QNAP and Synology have built in synchronization with Amazon Cloud Drive and if they have Amazon Prime they can store unlimited photos at no extra cost. That includes the listed RAW files: https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201649930

 

I have a Synology DS1815+ and really like it. I'm an amature photographer and sync all my photos to Amazon. I've run out of space on the DS1815+ though so I'm most likely going to upgrade to the RS2416+.

 

I also have a 24 Bay Supermicro / FreeNAS server but I'm guessing you're looking for prebuilt solutions.

I left a comment before you posted but it failed (?). However, for server I meant a dedicated server with a linux managed by me. I have already dealt with linux enviroments and backup softwares, however I just wanted your toughts. I have never used a NAS and I wanted to know your opinions, so yes a more powerful NAS would be good anyway with many bays prefered. As for the amazon questions he does have Amazon Prime, however the place where I live there's only a DSL line (I know it's a shame in 2017) so the upload speed is not higher than about 100 - 110 KB/S which would upload JUST 1 photo in about 3 - 4 minutes. Another question, does QNAP has some sort of redundancy like RAID 1 or 5 ?

[techmattr]

17 hours ago, Brian Furious said:

I left a comment before you posted but it failed (?). However, for server I meant a dedicated server with a linux managed by me. I have already dealt with linux enviroments and backup softwares, however I just wanted your toughts. I have never used a NAS and I wanted to know your opinions, so yes a more powerful NAS would be good anyway with many bays prefered. As for the amazon questions he does have Amazon Prime, however the place where I live there's only a DSL line (I know it's a shame in 2017) so the upload speed is not higher than about 100 - 110 KB/S which would upload JUST 1 photo in about 3 - 4 minutes. Another question, does QNAP has some sort of redundancy like RAID 1 or 5 ?

QNAP supports standard RAID modes. Good info on their FAQ here: https://www.qnap.com/en-us/before_question/list.php?cat=2

 

That's rough for the upload speed. Not much you can do about that. I'd definitely recommend getting 2 NAS devices whether it be pre-build or home built and make sure they are backing each other up. Or even something like a WD My Book Duo  and take it offsite and do weekly/monthly backups or something. With two NAS devices you can configure snapshots and then use snapshot replication to the 2nd NAS. It's a much simpler way to do backups and gives you some additional protection against things like ransomware. Unfortunately with that upload speed even differential snapshots would most likely take too long so the two devices would still be in the same location. It's better than nothing though.

 

[Brian Furious]

7 hours ago, techmattr said:

QNAP supports standard RAID modes. Good info on their FAQ here: https://www.qnap.com/en-us/before_question/list.php?cat=2

 

That's rough for the upload speed. Not much you can do about that. I'd definitely recommend getting 2 NAS devices whether it be pre-build or home built and make sure they are backing each other up. Or even something like a WD My Book Duo  and take it offsite and do weekly/monthly backups or something. With two NAS devices you can configure snapshots and then use snapshot replication to the 2nd NAS. It's a much simpler way to do backups and gives you some additional protection against things like ransomware. Unfortunately with that upload speed even differential snapshots would most likely take too long so the two devices would still be in the same location. It's better than nothing though.

 

Thanks for the answer, however the NAS will not be placed where I live but under fiber ISP. The DSL speed is ONLY at home and using a cloud like Dropbox or Amazon would be hard to upload. And the backups will be done only localy, like getting the HDD and copying the photos directly on the NAS.