Help me pick a NAS

[SurajBlue]

Hi,

My family and I are looking for a NAS to buy,

-We have 3 people

-Need to backup 3 computers totaling 2.5TB of data

-Need an easy way to store and access family pictures and videos

-Need a stable way to back up the family pictures as we don't want to lose them

-Need a NAS which is fast and can runs apps like PLEX

 

 

[desertcomputer]

Budget? 

[GDRRiley]

get an old core 2 quad or core i3/i5 add 4-8gb of ram and get 4 3tb hdd run in raid 5. 

[SomethingOrOtherThing]

PS: Don't forget to use google photos on the simple quality. Gives unlimited storage space that way.

[desertcomputer]

Just now, FIXXX said:

PS: Don't forget to use google photos on the simple quality. Gives unlimited storage space that way.

When the product is free and unlimited you're the product. 

 

 

[SomethingOrOtherThing]

3 minutes ago, MrUnknownEMC said:

When the product is free and unlimited you're the product. 

 

 

Does it really matter? 

If your NAS fails catastrophically even that RAID setup wont help.

So an additional backup simply won't hurt. A backup is a backup.

You're probably not a professional photographer/videographer - so not like copyright is an issue. Practicality for an average person is a good thing to strive for. IMO

[desertcomputer]

12 minutes ago, FIXXX said:

Does it really matter? 

If your NAS fails catastrophically even that RAID setup wont help.

So an additional backup simply won't hurt. A backup is a backup.

Well i never said you shouldn't have backup? 

 

RAID/ZFS would help and the chances of 2 or more drives dying is very unlikely if you buy your hard drive from different batches. You're data isn't save with google as well, recently there were know to delete backups when device has been inactive over a month period. 

 

My NAS has been acting as my family "google photo" (Plex Mobile Upload), "Netflix" (Plex and Sonarr) for over 2 and half years now. I mean the initial investment was high but the end result is, i don't have relay on services who has control over my data. I have multiple different backup location which in event i failure at my main server i still can get majority of my data back. 

[SomethingOrOtherThing]

4 minutes ago, MrUnknownEMC said:

Well i never said you shouldn't have backup? 

 

I raid would help and the chances of 2 or more drives dying is very unlikely if you buy your hard drive from different batches. You're data isn't save with google as well, recently there were know to delete backups when device has been inactive over a month period. 

 

My NAS has been acting as my family "google photo" (Plex Mobile Upload), "Netflix" (Plex and Sonarr) for over 2 and half years now. I mean the initial investment was high but the end result is, i don't have relay on services who has control over my data. I have multiple different backup location which in event i failure at my main server i still can get majority of my data back. 

But OP didn't strike me as that determined for invest a lot - but did mention backing up twice and easy access to family video and photo. *shrug*. And I just mentioned google photos as a very easy but working solution.

[SurajBlue]

20 minutes ago, FIXXX said:

PS: Don't forget to use google photos on the simple quality. Gives unlimited storage space that way.

We want to store the photos in full quality

[SurajBlue]

23 minutes ago, MrUnknownEMC said:

Budget? 

Well... Max $400-500

[SurajBlue]

If I wanted to build a NAS what components should I use, what OS should I use and what would the total be

[desertcomputer]

3 minutes ago, FIXXX said:

But OP didn't strike me as that determined for invest a lot - but did mention backing up twice and easy access to family video and photo. *shrug*. And I just mentioned google photos as a very easy but working solution.

 

Plex app supports pretty much all platforms and have remote access. It has mobile upload and than you could create scripts to backup that folder diectory and create a library for each users. 

 

If you won't pay plex pass, there is other options such as NextCloud/Emby which has similar options which has more control/customization. 

 

Just now, SurajBlue said:

Well... Max $400-500

For new parts = No

Drives alone will cost around 300 dollars by itself. 

Second server = Sure 

 

1 minute ago, SurajBlue said:

If I wanted to build a NAS what components should I use, what OS should I use and what would the total be

FreeNAS = It free and it has ZFS but that could mean you have aim for at least 8GB of ram which your budget won't able to fit. 

[Greg2895]

I would take a look at unraid. That is what I use for my home server and nas. Depending how many drives you want will dictate the one time license for the OS. There is a trial version that allows a limited number of drives. 

[geo3]

On 10/15/2017 at 1:27 AM, SurajBlue said:

If I wanted to build a NAS what components should I use, what OS should I use and what would the total be

Get a low end APU/CPU, like some 25W TDP AM1 platform thing. Stick 4GB of ram in it, a small boot drive, and stick it all in a mATA or ITX case.  This can be done for under $200.

 

Then just populate it with drives and install Ubuntu server on it.

If this will server as a primary storage, don't do RAID in it, make it back up one drive to the another. If you already have back ups elsewhere or are using it as a back up RAID is fine.