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

[domandric034]

4 minutes ago, Oshino Shinobu said:

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. 

It took me 15 mins to load Black Ops 3 from my server with all dlcs and mods (60 maps modded) 1 Gbit speed.

[Flashie]

3 minutes ago, domandric034 said:

It took me 15 mins to load Black Ops 3 from my server with all dlcs and mods (60 maps modded) 1 Gbit speed.

4 minutes ago, ARikozuM said:

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.

5 minutes ago, Oshino Shinobu said:

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. 

 

 

36 minutes ago, scottyseng said:

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.

46 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

- ...

 

Thanks for all the help tonight guys; Taking all of you guys' advice in mind i've decided to  go with 5 of the Western Digital Reds (Regular ones 5400RPM); 4 in use of the NAS and 1 as a spare in the case of failure (to ensure the systems back up as soon as possible). Thanks for all the replies guys I've learnt a lot tonight; Just a pity it isnt the Business Studies i was meant to be learning for tomorrows exam  

[Pixel5]

i really think it has not been pointed out enough here how terrible the idea of using the NAS for the Steam library is.

 

you are basically at least doubling the load times compared to having the game on a normal 7200rpm internal HDD in the same computer the game is being played on.

This is the best case at which you are utilizing 100% of your 1gbit/s connection for a single computer.

 

unless you are going for full 10gbit/s connections between nas and PC´s you are slowing yourself down at all times.

[Flashie]

4 hours ago, Pixel5 said:

i really think it has not been pointed out enough here how terrible the idea of using the NAS for the Steam library is.

 

you are basically at least doubling the load times compared to having the game on a normal 7200rpm internal HDD in the same computer the game is being played on.

This is the best case at which you are utilizing 100% of your 1gbit/s connection for a single computer.

 

unless you are going for full 10gbit/s connections between nas and PC´s you are slowing yourself down at all times.

Thanks for the reply

 

We will still have our regular desktop storage drives in the Gaming PC's. My PC still having its 6TB of storage and SSD; and the other gaming PC only having 4TB.
Worst case scenario - we play the games from the NAS; but I'd like to make assurance in the case of that (Which is the purpose of this topic). 
The majority of the time; the games we will primarily be playing will either be installed on our SSD's or internals with a backup on the NAS. If ever we would like load times to be better; we could just copy the files from the NAS and have them locally on our systems.

The majority of the On-NAS usage would be for movies, series and music. Like i say - The gaming on the NAS would be a bad/worst case scenario that i'd like to have made assurance for in the case that we do resort to that

[Flashie]

On 6/13/2017 at 9:09 PM, Oshino Shinobu said:

-snip-

Whats your opinion on a switch as such for the job of the LACP connection for the NAS;

http://www.wootware.co.za/dell-x1018-managed-16-port-gigabit-switch.html

Again - A really cheap alternative to the other switches that are available and the specs are to match; Would this be capable of the LACP connection you mentioned in your first post? Why is this switch so cheap compared to all the others with similar specs?

16GbE ports; 2SFP ports and its managed; for basically $50 new

[Oshino Shinobu]

20 minutes ago, Flashie said:

Whats your opinion on a switch as such for the job of the LACP connection for the NAS;

http://www.wootware.co.za/dell-x1018-managed-16-port-gigabit-switch.html

Again - A really cheap alternative to the other switches that are available and the specs are to match; Would this be capable of the LACP connection you mentioned in your first post? Why is this switch so cheap compared to all the others with similar specs?

16GbE ports; 2SFP ports and its managed; for basically $50 new

Yep, that switch supports LACP. It may just be a matter of availability of the switch compared to others, it's not bad. 

 

I would double check to see if it's used or refurbished or anything, as it does seem cheap. 

[Flashie]

Just now, Oshino Shinobu said:

Yep, that switch supports LACP. It may just be a matter of availability of the switch compared to others, it's not bad. 

 

I would double check to see if it's used or refurbished or anything, as it does seem cheap. 

It's got a 24-port variant on the site as well:

http://www.wootware.co.za/dell-x1026-managed-24-port-gigabit-switch.html
This one is $97 (currency converted). Just about the only difference between these and the others are that they lack POE - which at this stage is not something needed in my household. Everything on that site is new unless its in the 'Open Box' section