Best 2 to 4 bay NAS

[jacoporicci]

Hi everyone, I come from a Lacie 2Big nas that is just too old and slow and I need something new to upgrade my storage situation.

I'm not that NAS expert so I need an advice from the bottom. I'm considering both 2 and 4 bays solutions and it needs to be as future proof as possible in terms of features and speed.

 

I've heard good things about QNAP and Synology but can't decide on what's best right now.

Do you guys have any suggestion? Let's just not consider price right now, I'll narrow my options later considering prices.

It needs to be media center, plex ready, remotely controllable, remotely accessible (even tho I'm planning to set a VPN server for that), download machine and other cool stuff you can suggest.

Above all, it needs to be fast, lacie one is slow as hell and I want to be able to stream 4k content wirelessly. Right now my lacie has problem even with 1080 contents.

 

Drivewise: Right now I've two 4TB WD Gold in Raid 1 but they're way too noisy for an home environment so I will repurpose those in my office. I wanna go with Reds but I can't see the difference between the regular ones and the pros. Can somebody shed a light on that?

 

Thanks

 

 

Edit:

Also, I'm looking for a way to encrypt the actual NAS in case it gets stolen. Is there any product that can do this?

This one is mainly because I'll buy a second NAS that is gonna be the off-site backup for the NAS i've to buy for the house and the second NAS is going to be placed at my office where there were already been two security breaches so I want to consider having the second one encypted. Does anybody knows the way to go?

 

Thanks a lot

[BloodKnight7]

Hy! Well, if money is not a problem personally I like the brand Buffalo (model called Linkstation) a lot, dont have any specific reason (another personal favorite is a brand called Asustore). QNap is definitely a good one as well (more $$$) they got a cool AMD based solution perfect for 4k (TVS-473e), if you are not very tech savy and want "out of the box" you could also go with Western Digital (my personal experience with warranty on the units has been great). I have never used Synology equipment so I cant comment on those.

 

Obviously not mattering the solution you go with you should have a 1Gb network (atleast) available which means investing in a good router/switch (if you plan to share content with a lot of users go for a non-blocking switch) and cat 5e/6 cabling... for wireless again I would recommend one of those newer models with characteristics like 5Ghz, Multi MIMO and 802.011ac standard.

[jacoporicci]

Hey thanks for the reply. The whole network is already gigabit. Thanks for your input, I'll check that stuff out!

[jacoporicci]

Also, I'm looking for a way to encrypt the actual NAS in case it gets stolen. Is there any product that can do this?

This one is mainly because I'll buy a second NAS that is gonna be the off-site backup for the NAS i've to buy for the house and the second NAS is going to be placed at my office where there were already been two security breaches so I want to consider having the second one encypted. Does anybody knows the way to go?

 

Thanks a lot

[seagate_surfer]

Second the recommendations on looking into QNAP, ASUSTOR, & Synology. Another one to toss into the ring is Thecus.

Encryption process links:

QNAP: How do I encrypt the data on a QNAP NAS?
ASUSTOR: How do I encrypt shared folders on my NAS?

Synology: How to encrypt and decrypt shared folders on my Synology NAS
Thecus: How to Add Encryption to a RAID Volume on Thecus NAS

If you would like to look into our NAS drives, IronWolf & IronWolf Pro, one of the nice things about them is that when paired with compatible, enabled models of ASUSTOR, Synology, & Thecus NAS products, you gain a feature called IHM (IronWolf Health Management) which takes drive health monitoring beyond what standard S.M.A.R.T monitoring provides.

Good luck, regardless of which route you decide to go in the end!

[BloodKnight7]

9 hours ago, seagate_surfer said:

Second the recommendations on looking into QNAP, ASUSTOR, & Synology. Another one to toss into the ring is Thecus.

Encryption process links:

QNAP: How do I encrypt the data on a QNAP NAS?
ASUSTOR: How do I encrypt shared folders on my NAS?

Synology: How to encrypt and decrypt shared folders on my Synology NAS
Thecus: How to Add Encryption to a RAID Volume on Thecus NAS

If you would like to look into our NAS drives, IronWolf & IronWolf Pro, one of the nice things about them is that when paired with compatible, enabled models of ASUSTOR, Synology, & Thecus NAS products, you gain a feature called IHM (IronWolf Health Management) which takes drive health monitoring beyond what standard S.M.A.R.T monitoring provides.

Good luck, regardless of which route you decide to go in the end!

Hey Seagate Surfer! I remember that not long ago Iron Wolf had this warranty where if you loose the data in your drives (because of hardware malfunction) you would get brand new drives and data recovery services for free! I this still going on? or did I dreamed about it? 

[seagate_surfer]

10 hours ago, BloodKnight7 said:

Hey Seagate Surfer! I remember that not long ago Iron Wolf had this warranty where if you loose the data in your drives (because of hardware malfunction) you would get brand new drives and data recovery services for free! I this still going on? or did I dreamed about it? 

Hey BloodKnight7. Thanks for reaching out. 

So the way the warranty works with the IronWolf and IronWolf Pro lines is this:

standard IronWolf: 3 year warranty which would replace the drive if the RMA conditions are met/RMA is accepted, no data Rescue Services program by default

IronWolf Pro: 5 year warranty, would replace drive if RMA conditions met/accepted, includes 2 years of free data Rescue Services

The Rescue Services program is like a subscription which you can sign up for on any drive for a fee, it's just that the IronWolf Pro comes with the service free for 2 years. Learn more here:

Seagate Rescue Plans

Thanks for your interest!

[jacoporicci]

Thanks a lot, now I have a clearer idea on this world.