I'm about to buy a NAS - (Need reassurance)

[Flashie]

Hey guys; (I'm aware I've got another topic on this thread - but its got a different overall idea).

I'm about to buy a NAS for our home network. We plan to use it for our Steam Libraries (Which we will play from the NAS using our gaming computers), as well as Movies, Files and Document storage.
The NAS I'm about to buy is the QNAP TS431P 4-Bay NAS (Click to view).

I plan on running  4x 4TB SSHD's in a RAID 5 array.

Would this be capable of serving 4 computers on the network all at once (At most, 2 playing games from the NAS; and 1 editing a Word Document)?

How would security work on this? (Say I have a word document that says 'hello' but I do not want User2 to have access to this document)
Would we be able to see and use this 12TB Raid 5 Volume (4TB as a failover because of RAID 5 requirements) as we do a regular external hard drive/logic drive on Windows?

All the computers in this scenario are Windows

Thanks in advance

Would appreciate any reassurance at this stage as its a tonne of cash x)
Flashie

[ARikozuM]

Good choice. Yes, it will serve 4 (and some more) computers at once. Security depends on the device itself but you should be able to limit shares to users on a predefined basis with one share being public for all. 

 

You'll be setting the NAS as a network share within Windows. 

[Oshino Shinobu]

Why SSHDs? The network is going to limit the speed of normal HDDs, buying SSHDs would just be throwing money away. 

 

If you're going to have multiple users accessing it at once, you'll probably want to invest in a managed switch and set up LACP on the switch and the two ethernet ports on the NAS. It will double your bandwidth for multiple transfers (you will still be limited to 1Gbps per session though, LACP does not change that, but it can allow two PCs to use 1Gbps each for example. 

 

For permissions, you have a few options. You should be able to set up permissions through QNAP's software, or you can just use CIFS shares and set the permissions through Windows to allow or deny users access. 

 

You can map the shares created on the NAS as a network drive on Windows, which then basically treats the network share as a local drive. 

 

Here's mine for example. I have two network shares mapped, giving them a drive letter like any other drive (in my case, S and Z drives). 

 

[manikyath]

18 minutes ago, Flashie said:

 4x 4TB SSHD's in a RAID 5 array.

dont... please for the love of god dont..

get 4 nice and fast regular old 7200RPM HDDs.

 

on the topic of security.. i'm sure there'll be some form of permissions built in, trough samba, FTP, or whatever else this system uses.

[ProjectBox153]

As pointed out above, why SSHDs? That's just a waste of money. 

[Oshino Shinobu]

4 minutes ago, manikyath said:

dont... please for the love of god dont..

get 4 nice and fast regular old 7200RPM HDDs.

 

 

I'd say go for 5400RPM. The network will limit any improvements of 7200RPM over 5400RPM, but 5400RPM drives tend to run quieter, cooler and produce less vibrations. 

[manikyath]

Just now, Oshino Shinobu said:

I'd say go for 5400RPM. The network will limit any improvements of 7200RPM over 5400RPM, but 5400RPM drives tend to run quieter, cooler and produce less vibrations. 

when you do randoms (which is what games mostly are), having the extra floppedy speed of 7200RPM (which *tend* to have faster seek times) is a nice bonus, even in a raid. my server is currently only a single "active" drive, which easily fills out gigabit doing sequentials, but randoms are a horrible shitshow.

[domandric034]

24 minutes ago, Oshino Shinobu said:

I'd say go for 5400RPM. The network will limit any improvements of 7200RPM over 5400RPM, but 5400RPM drives tend to run quieter, cooler and produce less vibrations. 

I'd say he goes with WD Red. Most reliable at the current moment.

[Flashie]

48 minutes ago, Jamiec1130 said:

As pointed out above, why SSHDs? That's just a waste of money. 

48 minutes ago, manikyath said:

dont... please for the love of god dont..

get 4 nice and fast regular old 7200RPM HDDs.

 

on the topic of security.. i'm sure there'll be some form of permissions built in, trough samba, FTP, or whatever else this system uses.

57 minutes ago, Oshino Shinobu said:

Why SSHDs? The network is going to limit the speed of normal HDDs, buying SSHDs would just be throwing money away. 

17 minutes ago, domandric034 said:

I'd say he goes with WD Red. Most reliable at the current moment.

42 minutes ago, Oshino Shinobu said:

I'd say go for 5400RPM. The network will limit any improvements of 7200RPM over 5400RPM, but 5400RPM drives tend to run quieter, cooler and produce less vibrations. 

Apologies - We were originally planning to get the SSHD's when we were solely looking at replacing the failed HDD's in our desktop systems; Looks like it wasn't taken out of the checkout by the time i wrote this.
What would be the next best option for these NAS drives that would at the very least (most likely) get 4 years + out of them; but without hindering performance to the 2 gaming PC's that will be making use of them? - I was recommended the WD Reds twice now; But now I see one reply recommending 5400RPM over 7200RPM; Could somebody link a newegg example of a good drive to use in the NAS that wont hinder the performance/speed that the gaming computers will be running from when playing games from the NAS?

 

 

[manikyath]

Just now, Flashie said:

Apologies - We were originally planning to get the SSHD's when we were solely looking at replacing the failed HDD's in our desktop systems; Looks like it wasn't taken out of the checkout by the time i wrote this.
What would be the next best option for these NAS drives that would at the very least (most likely) get 4 years + out of them; but without hindering performance to the 2 gaming PC's that will be making use of them? - I was recommended the WD Reds twice now; But now I see one reply recommending 5400RPM over 7200RPM; Could somebody link a newegg example of a good drive to use in the NAS that wont hinder the performance/speed the gaming computers will be running from the games?

 

 

depending on your budget there's a few options:

- WD red

- WD gold (that's a thing, but as the name suggests, it's probably out of budget)

- seagate NAS

- seagate enterprise NAS

- toshiba -some specific really stupid model number-

- HGST

- ...

[Oshino Shinobu]

3 minutes ago, Flashie said:

Apologies - We were originally planning to get the SSHD's when we were solely looking at replacing the failed HDD's in our desktop systems; Looks like it wasn't taken out of the checkout by the time i wrote this.
What would be the next best option for these NAS drives that would at the very least (most likely) get 4 years + out of them; but without hindering performance to the 2 gaming PC's that will be making use of them? - I was recommended the WD Reds twice now; But now I see one reply recommending 5400RPM over 7200RPM; Could somebody link a newegg example of a good drive to use in the NAS that wont hinder the performance/speed the gaming computers will be running from the games?

 

 

WD Reds are designed for NAS use. Most are 5400RPM because the network is typically the limiting factor. That being said, there are Red Pro drives that are 7200RPM. They will load games slightly faster due to better random read/writes, but it's not going to be a great difference. Once the game is loaded, it won't make a difference to performance at all. Red Pros are quite a bit more than regular Reds too. Personally, I would just stick to normal Reds. The main benefit you'll get from them is the protection from vibrations and that they're designed to run 24/7. 

 

EDIT: There's also the Seagate NAS drives which are about the same as Reds. Don't let the WD bias and unjustified bad rep that Seagate sometimes gets sway you, Seagate's NAS drives are good. 

[Flashie]

4 minutes ago, Oshino Shinobu said:

WD Reds are designed for NAS use. Most are 5400RPM because the network is typically the limiting factor. That being said, there are Red Pro drives that are 7200RPM. They will load games slightly faster due to better random read/writes, but it's not going to be a great difference. Once the game is loaded, it won't make a difference to performance at all. Red Pros are quite a bit more than regular Reds too. Personally, I would just stick to normal Reds. The main benefit you'll get from them is the protection from vibrations and that they're designed to run 24/7. 

The protection from vibrations - is that now in reference to the 5400RPM or the 7200RPM (or both?)? I'd have thought that the NAS have its own system in place to counter-act that too though.
You mention they're designed to be run 24/7; would this mean that their lifespan is generally greater than that of a regular desktop drive; say a WD Black? (Minding that there is always a chance it will crash, from day 1 till day 9002, etc.) Because Ultimately we're looking for something that will at least last longer than 4 years. This networks had some terrible losses in data due to the 2 failed drives this quarter (Both not mine though; I actually back up my data offsite ); The one being 3 years old and the other only 2 years.

[scottyseng]

1 minute ago, Flashie said:

-snip-

The 7200 RPM (red pro) and the enterprise lineup (RE / Gold) have anti vibration. The Red does not, but WD rates it fine for 8 bay NAS systems (Though I have mine in a 24 bay server without issues).

 

There's no guarantee on drive life...they can die at any time. Make sure you thoroughly scan the drives (If WD, use Lifeguard Diagnostics extended test / SeaTools Long Generic test) before adding them to the NAS (so you're not wasting time rebuilding).

 

Also, the main reason to get a NAS drive is the RAID support (TLER). My WD Blacks died shortly after the five year mark, though I abused the crap of them.

 

I have both WD Red and WD Re drives, they are both very reliable. I'd personally also go WD Red (Unless you have a lot of random IO) because it runs cooler and quieter. My WD Re drives are not for the faint of heart. They run hot too, even hotter than my Black drives.

[Flashie]

23 minutes ago, manikyath said:

depending on your budget there's a few options:

- WD red

- WD gold (that's a thing, but as the name suggests, it's probably out of budget)

- seagate NAS

- seagate enterprise NAS

- toshiba -some specific really stupid model number-

- HGST

- ...

22 minutes ago, Oshino Shinobu said:

WD Reds are designed for NAS use. Most are 5400RPM because the network is typically the limiting factor. That being said, there are Red Pro drives that are 7200RPM. They will load games slightly faster due to better random read/writes, but it's not going to be a great difference. Once the game is loaded, it won't make a difference to performance at all. Red Pros are quite a bit more than regular Reds too. Personally, I would just stick to normal Reds. The main benefit you'll get from them is the protection from vibrations and that they're designed to run 24/7. 

 

EDIT: There's also the Seagate NAS drives which are about the same as Reds. Don't let the WD bias and unjustified bad rep that Seagate sometimes gets sway you, Seagate's NAS drives are good. 

 

I've just checked out the WD Red and the WD Gold; both are available on the site im shopping from. The WD Red and Red pro being 5.4k RPM and the Gold being 7.2k RPM.
If I buy 4 of the WD Reds; I'll be able to afford a 5th in the case of failure of one of the drives (Then theres no need to wait on an order come the time one fail's - they arnt regularly available here locally). But if i go for the WD Gold I'll be able to afford only 4 of them as they are only slightly cheaper than those SSHD's that were shown earlier. (The SSHD's also being 7200RPM and then giving the functionality of being used with decent performance on a regular PC after its life as a NAS drive (Not saying the WD Gold's wont though).

Would the 7200RPM improvement in game-load times and randoms be worth investing in the WD Gold's over the WD Reds at the cost of 1 extra-spare drive?

 

The Seagate Enterprise drives are far out of my budget (Being more expensive than the damn SSHD's ); but the Seagate IronWolf NAS drive looking like a great option (Coming in cheaper than even the WD Reds; as well as being 5900RPM instead of 5400RPM)

[Oshino Shinobu]

7 minutes ago, Flashie said:

The protection from vibrations - is that now in reference to the 5400RPM or the 7200RPM (or both?)? I'd have thought that the NAS have its own system in place to counter-act that too though.
You mention they're designed to be run 24/7; would this mean that their lifespan is generally greater than that of a regular desktop drive; say a WD Black? (Minding that there is always a chance it will crash, from day 1 till day 9002, etc.) Because Ultimately we're looking for something that will at least last longer than 4 years. This networks had some terrible losses in data due to the 2 failed drives this quarter (Both not mine though; I actually back up my data offsite ); The one being 3 years old and the other only 2 years.

That's down to the actual drives, not the RPM. They have additional firmware features to adjust themselves to cope better with the increased vibrations (and heat) that comes from running multiple drives in close proximity. 

 

They are designed to run 24/7 rather than being repeatedly being started and stopped like a normal desktop drives. They go through testing to ensure they can deal with those conditions, while something like a WD Black will not. Doesn't mean it will last longer than a WD Black will, but a WD Black is going to be more vulnerable to NAS and RAID environments as they're not designed for it. If you put WD Blacks in a NAS, you'd likely find you void their warranty by doing so (probably, I haven't read though it myself). 

 

You can never be certain how long a drive will last. Things can slip through QA and end up dying before their warranty is up. If you wanted ones that WD stands by a bit more, WD Red Pros are better, with a 5 year warranty compared to the normal Reds' 3 years. 

 

Losing 2 drives shouldn't be enough to permanently lose data with a good system/ Regardless of how good your redundancy is, you're not protected from data loss unless you have a good backup solution. If you have to choose between a backup and redundancy, go for the backup. Even with multiple drives worth of redundancy, if you get a power surge, fire, water damage etc. that takes out all the drives in the NAS, you've lost all the data and redundancy if you don't have a good backup. Ideally you'd want a backup that is connected to the NAS externally and is updated automatically. Then you'd want an offsite backup that is done periodically. 

[Oshino Shinobu]

2 minutes ago, Flashie said:

 

I've just checked out the WD Red and the WD Gold; both are available on the site im shopping from. The WD Red and Red pro being 5.4k RPM and the Gold being 7.2k RPM.
If I buy 4 of the WD Reds; I'll be able to afford a 5th in the case of failure of one of the drives (Then theres no need to wait on an order come the time one fail's - they arnt regularly available here locally). But if i go for the WD Gold I'll be able to afford only 4 of them as they are only slightly cheaper than those SSHD's that were shown earlier. (The SSHD's also being 7200RPM and then giving the functionality of being used with decent performance on a regular PC after its life as a NAS drive (Not saying the WD Gold's wont though).

Would the 7200RPM improvement in game-load times and randoms be worth investing in the WD Gold's over the WD Reds at the cost of 1 extra-spare drive?

 

The Seagate Enterprise drives are far out of my budget (Being more expensive than the damn SSHD's ); but the Seagate IronWolf NAS drive looking like a great option (Coming in cheaper than even the WD Reds; as well as being 5900RPM instead of 5400RPM)

Red Pros are 7200RPM, the normal reds are 5400RPM. I wouldn't go for WD Golds. They're datacentre drives and are unnecessary for your application. WD Red Pros would be a better middleground. 

 

https://www.wdc.com/products/business-internal-storage/wd-red-pro.html

 

[domandric034]

31 minutes ago, Flashie said:

Apologies - We were originally planning to get the SSHD's when we were solely looking at replacing the failed HDD's in our desktop systems; Looks like it wasn't taken out of the checkout by the time i wrote this.
What would be the next best option for these NAS drives that would at the very least (most likely) get 4 years + out of them; but without hindering performance to the 2 gaming PC's that will be making use of them? - I was recommended the WD Reds twice now; But now I see one reply recommending 5400RPM over 7200RPM; Could somebody link a newegg example of a good drive to use in the NAS that wont hinder the performance/speed that the gaming computers will be running from when playing games from the NAS?

 

 

Games can be played from NAS but with couple thousand dolars spend on 10 Gbit network equipment if you want to not load for 10 minutes.

Here is most reliable NAS drive (They use that shit in WD My Cloud) - https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822236344&cm_re=WD_Red-_-22-236-344-_-Product 

And if you want to have nice performance and reliability slap them into ZFS.

Here is WD Red Pro that @Oshino Shinobu talked but they are much more expensive for a reason : https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA9HJ3JJ6489&cm_re=WD_Red_Pro-_-22-236-740-_-Product

[Flashie]

1 minute ago, Oshino Shinobu said:

Red Pros are 7200RPM, the normal reds are 5400RPM. I wouldn't go for WD Golds. They're datacentre drives and are unnecessary for your application. WD Red Pros would be a better middleground. 

 

https://www.wdc.com/products/business-internal-storage/wd-red-pro.html

I was looking at the WD Red Pro on the site I'm on but that was actually the drive that turned out being more expensive than the SSHD - But i noticed you mentioned that they are designed to be running 24/7 and not turned on and off the entire time like a desktop does (Considering that the NAS will more likely than not, be on and stationary in the network room). 

The WD Golds run at 7200RPM as well and cost $62 (where im living) less than that of the WD Pro's. (Under the assumption that the Datacenter drives are also meant to run 24/7) Wouldn't the Gold's run at better randoms than the regular Reds; meaning better Price/Performance against the Red Pro's? Or is there a factor I'm being ignorant toward here in the gold drives? (Apologies to my lack of knowledge about hard drives; Not really my field of expertise)

[Flashie]

5 minutes ago, domandric034 said:

Games can be played from NAS but with couple thousand dolars spend on 10 Gbit network equipment if you want to not load for 10 minutes.

Here is most reliable NAS drive (They use that shit in WD My Cloud) - https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822236344&cm_re=WD_Red-_-22-236-344-_-Product

Is it really going to take that long to load up a game from the NAS ?

[domandric034]

Just now, Flashie said:

Is it really going to take that long to load up a game from the NAS ?

Yep

[Oshino Shinobu]

10 minutes ago, Flashie said:

I was looking at the WD Red Pro on the site I'm on but that was actually the drive that turned out being more expensive than the SSHD - But i noticed you mentioned that they are designed to be running 24/7 and not turned on and off the entire time like a desktop does (Considering that the NAS will more likely than not, be on and stationary in the network room). 

The WD Golds run at 7200RPM as well and cost $62 (where im living) less than that of the WD Pro's. (Under the assumption that the Datacenter drives are also meant to run 24/7) Wouldn't the Gold's run at better randoms than the regular Reds; meaning better Price/Performance against the Red Pro's? Or is there a factor I'm being ignorant toward here in the gold drives? (Apologies to my lack of knowledge about hard drives; Not really my field of expertise)

If they're cheaper, go for the Golds over WD Red Pros. They're enterprise grade drives so they're often much more expensive than the small business types like Red Pros. 

 

Still, for your application, I'd personally go for Reds and either buy the 5 or use the money for a backup solution. There will be a slight difference between 5400RPM and 7200RPM for random read/writes, but it's not big. IMO, it's not worth the extra money. 

 

EDIT: I was thinking of RE drives I think. Red Pros are more than Golds. 

[Flashie]

1 minute ago, Oshino Shinobu said:

If they're cheaper, go for the Golds over WD Red Pros. They're enterprise grade drives so they're often much more expensive than the small business types like Red Pros. 

 

Still, for your application, I'd personally go for Reds and either buy the 5 or use the money for a backup solution. There will be a slight difference between 5400RPM and 7200RPM for random read/writes, but it's not big. IMO, it's not worth the extra money. 

How would the Regular WD Reds of 5400 rpm compare to the likes of a Seagate Ironwolf 5900RPM drive? The seagate coming in evens cheaper than the regular WD Red; as well as being a NAS drive itself

[Oshino Shinobu]

7 minutes ago, Flashie said:

Is it really going to take that long to load up a game from the NAS ?

It depends what games you're playing really. If we're talking games that are only a couple of gigabytes, it's not too bad. I run some uhhh... Eroge.... from my NAS and they load up decently quickly (they load up instantly from my SSD though and quite a bit faster on my local drives). Most are around 2-3GB in size. 

 

EDIT: If we're talking Battlefield type games, the match is going to be over before the game loads. 

[Oshino Shinobu]

Just now, Flashie said:

How would the Regular WD Reds of 5400 rpm compare to the likes of a Seagate Ironwolf 5900RPM drive? The seagate coming in evens cheaper than the regular WD Red; as well as being a NAS drive itself

No noticeable difference. The difference between 5400RPM and 7200RPM is already small, between 5400RPM and 5900RPM it's negligible. I wouldn't be surprised if they went for 5900RPM just because it sounds better than the WD Reds' 5400RPM. Marketing is a big thing for stuff like that. 

 

 

[ARikozuM]

The Golds are a bit louder than the Reds from my trials with them, but if noise isn't a concern they're a bit cheaper.