Explain NAS to me?

[Vectraat]

Can someone explain NAS to me? I've watched numerous NAS videos but I feel that I'm entirely oblivious to certain things.... or maybe just everything. I know NADA about the internet/networking, so explain it to me like I've been huffing glue all my life.

So with a NAS you put the HDDs in and use a GIGABIT cord (not sure what the appropriate name for the cord would be). And you plug that cord into your modem/router GIGABIT port? Or can you also plug the NAS into the GIGABIT port on your desktop computer? But then I'm not really sure how you get wired internet to your desktop anymore.

So once you have the NAS plugged into whatever you've plugged it into you can a.) Stream over your Wifi or b.) Over LAN through your network which is different than Wifi. Using Wifi to stream would take up data whereas LAN wouldn't. 
Then with the NAS set up properly on WIFI/LAN you can stream movies to any device that has something like Kodi/Plex (you just need to look for shares on the NAS). Streaming over Wifi would be slow and not recommended - LAN is better?
As far as streaming to devices outside of your home - this can be done even if you're half way across the world? How does that work? Also, I assume you need a NAS that is good at transcoding when streaming 1080 Blu-ray rips and UHD 4K? Or maybe Plex (with a subscription) is good enough to handle the transcoding?

 

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

11 minutes ago, Vectraat said:

So with a NAS you put the HDDs in and use a GIGABIT cord (not sure what the appropriate name for the cord would be). And you plug that cord into your modem/router GIGABIT port? Or can you also plug the NAS into the GIGABIT port on your desktop computer? But then I'm not really sure how you get wired internet to your desktop anymore.

Your NAS will act as a standalone client in your network, similar to your desktop. You can still get wired Ethernet to your desktop when you have a NAS attached to the router, you'll just need another Ethernet cable and a available port on your router.  

[Radium_Angel]

28 minutes ago, Vectraat said:

Can someone explain NAS to me? I've watched numerous NAS videos but I feel that I'm entirely oblivious to certain things.... or maybe just everything. I know NADA about the internet/networking, so explain it to me like I've been huffing glue all my life.

So with a NAS you put the HDDs in and use a GIGABIT cord (not sure what the appropriate name for the cord would be). And you plug that cord into your modem/router GIGABIT port? Or can you also plug the NAS into the GIGABIT port on your desktop computer? But then I'm not really sure how you get wired internet to your desktop anymore.

So once you have the NAS plugged into whatever you've plugged it into you can a.) Stream over your Wifi or b.) Over LAN through your network which is different than Wifi. Using Wifi to stream would take up data whereas LAN wouldn't. 
Then with the NAS set up properly on WIFI/LAN you can stream movies to any device that has something like Kodi/Plex (you just need to look for shares on the NAS). Streaming over Wifi would be slow and not recommended - LAN is better?
As far as streaming to devices outside of your home - this can be done even if you're half way across the world? How does that work? Also, I assume you need a NAS that is good at transcoding when streaming 1080 Blu-ray rips and UHD 4K? Or maybe Plex (with a subscription) is good enough to handle the transcoding?

 

A NAS is simply a collection of hard drives in a RAID format.

Windows/Linux/Mac will see it as a network drive, and you can use it for anything you would be able to a normal networked drive. Store data, stream video (depending on the capabilities of the NAS, you may or may not need special software), play music, etc.

You can do this over WiFi (I do it in my home) but wired is better

[Vectraat]

39 minutes ago, BlueChinchillaEatingDorito said:

Your NAS will act as a standalone client in your network, similar to your desktop. You can still get wired Ethernet to your desktop when you have a NAS attached to the router, you'll just need another Ethernet cable and a available port on your router.  

So any kinda Ethernet cable connected to my desktop and router will be able to use gigabit? Is there a simple way to figure out which ports on my modem/router use gigabit? It's not labeled.
So when my NAS is connected via Ethernet to my router/modem I can then browse the NAS with my Nvidia Shield TV via Kodi/Plex or my Computer from another room and play movies to a TV? By LAN or what?

[Vectraat]

29 minutes ago, Radium_Angel said:

A NAS is simply a collection of hard drives in a RAID format.

Windows/Linux/Mac will see it as a network drive, and you can use it for anything you would be able to a normal networked drive. Store data, stream video (depending on the capabilities of the NAS, you may or may not need special software), play music, etc.

You can do this over WiFi (I do it in my home) but wired is better

Hmm what's the difference between the wired and wifi setup?

By default, aren't you always plugging the NAS into your modem/router? Then from there by "wired" I assume you mean connecting your computer/Shield TV into the modem/router that your NAS is connected to? 

[Radium_Angel]

46 minutes ago, Vectraat said:

Hmm what's the difference between the wired and wifi setup?

By default, aren't you always plugging the NAS into your modem/router? Then from there by "wired" I assume you mean connecting your computer/Shield TV into the modem/router that your NAS is connected to? 

Wired will give you the full bandwidth the router will provide.

Wifi (or wireless) will be dependent on range, etc.

And yes, a NAS is useless sans a router, there would be no way to get to it (well, correction, there are some low range ones that connect via USB, but the very point of the "N" is "Networked" so...yeah, you need a router)

[Radium_Angel]

53 minutes ago, Vectraat said:

So any kinda Ethernet cable connected to my desktop and router will be able to use gigabit? Is there a simple way to figure out which ports on my modem/router use gigabit? It's not labeled.
So when my NAS is connected via Ethernet to my router/modem I can then browse the NAS with my Nvidia Shield TV via Kodi/Plex or my Computer from another room and play movies to a TV? By LAN or what?

All ports will either be gigabit to 10/100 depending on the model of your router. A simple google search for the specs will reveal this info.

If you set up the NAS correctly, and depending on age of the NAS, then it should be accessible from all your devices, but since you haven't mentioned models of the NAS yet, I can't say for certain.

[Vectraat]

12 minutes ago, Radium_Angel said:

All ports will either be gigabit to 10/100 depending on the model of your router. A simple google search for the specs will reveal this info.

If you set up the NAS correctly, and depending on age of the NAS, then it should be accessible from all your devices, but since you haven't mentioned models of the NAS yet, I can't say for certain.

Here's the NAS: DiskStation DS418play

So once the NAS is connected to your router/modem via Ethernet cable - If you have your playback device in another room (Shield TV) then you are essentially streaming from the NAS to the Shield via WIFI and not able to use a wired connection for full bandwidth? I'd probably want to use a setup involving full bandwidth because I have 4k movies. 

[Razor Blade]

2 hours ago, Vectraat said:

Can someone explain NAS to me? I've watched numerous NAS videos but I feel that I'm entirely oblivious to certain things.... or maybe just everything. I know NADA about the internet/networking, so explain it to me like I've been huffing glue all my life.

To understand what a NAS is you need to understand what a network really is. A network is a collection of hardware and software that allows computers, phones, tablets, smart TVs, X boxes, PS4s, etc. to communicate. This can be done through a wired connection using physical Ethernet cables connecting one device to another, or wireless using wifi components which connect devices with radio waves instead of a physical cable. Each have advantages and drawbacks...but they both have one thing in common. They connect those devices together.

 

Most use cases for home networks are all devices request access to the internet. This is likely why you could be having trouble with the concept of a NAS. But think of it this way... your home network can do more than connect all of your devices to the internet...it connects your devices to each other. So to expand our use case lets say you want to have a folder of your music collection you want to access on your X box, your phone, your tablet, and your livingroom receiver. What you would do is create that share on your computer, move your files into the share, then you tell your devices where that share is on your network. This is a gross simplification because many operating systems setup in different ways. However there are a couple issues with this... you will have to leave your computer on all the time you want to access those files which consumes a lot of power depending on how your computer is. If you stream files form it, there will be overhead on that computer which will consume system resources which would suck if it affects you while you're trying to play a game or get some sort of work done...

 

This is where a NAS comes in. A NAS or Network Attached Storage is a computer that sits on your network with one job. To serve files to devices on your network. Generally they use less power and it takes that load off of your main computer. You use software to tell your NAS what to share and how you want to share it. Once your NAS is setup your devices can just connect to your NAS to get the file you want. Yes you can use media services like Plex or Kodi to stream outside the household also. Depending on your NAS you can also setup outside access using the manufacturer's website (western digital's my cloud or netgear's ready cloud are a couple examples)

[Radium_Angel]

51 minutes ago, Vectraat said:

So once the NAS is connected to your router/modem via Ethernet cable - If you have your playback device in another room (Shield TV) then you are essentially streaming from the NAS to the Shield via WIFI and not able to use a wired connection for full bandwidth? I'd probably want to use a setup involving full bandwidth because I have 4k movies. 

Steaming chews up bandwidth, and trying to do anything else will impact this, so be aware.

52 minutes ago, Vectraat said:

DiskStation DS418play

Synology is a good company, so if the specs say you can do "X", "Y", and "Z", then you can believe this.

[Spotty]

2 hours ago, Radium_Angel said:

A NAS is simply a collection of hard drives in a RAID format.

That's incorrect. There's absolutely no need to use RAID in a NAS. You could have a single HDD and it would still be a NAS.
In systems with multiple hard drives, RAID is typically used to provide a level of redundancy in the storage array or to improve performance, however it is not necessary.

NAS = Network Attached Storage

It's a storage device that you can access via your local network (wifi or wired ethernet). If I were to explain it to someone who has very little knowledge of computing, I would explain a NAS as being like an external hard drive that connects to your network instead of connecting to your computer by USB cable.

 

1 hour ago, Vectraat said:

So any kinda Ethernet cable connected to my desktop and router will be able to use gigabit? Is there a simple way to figure out which ports on my modem/router use gigabit?

There are different standards of ethernet cable available that are rated for different speeds at different distances. For your use I will recommend either Cat5e or Cat6, as they will be capable of gigabit speeds and be the most readily available and best priced.
Check your device manual or the support page on your device manufacturers website to find which ports support gigabit speed.

 

53 minutes ago, Vectraat said:

So once the NAS is connected to your router/modem via Ethernet cable - If you have your playback device in another room (Shield TV) then you are essentially streaming from the NAS to the Shield via WIFI and not able to use a wired connection for full bandwidth? I'd probably want to use a setup involving full bandwidth because I have 4k movies. 

I would strongly recommend using a wired connection over wifi, especially if you are planning on using it to stream 4k content.

If you're worried that streaming movies over the ethernet cable will impact your internet speeds, unless you have gigabit internet, you shouldn't notice any impact from streaming a movie over a wired connection. There should be more than enough bandwidth available on a gigabit ethernet connection to support [local] 4k streaming as well as your internet connection. However, if you're trying to write to the hard drives at the same time as streaming (reading) from the hard drive, then you will notice that your write speeds will be slower than your normal write speeds when you're not watching content, however this will be due to the limitations of the hard drive and not the network.

[Vectraat]

1 hour ago, Spotty said:

I would strongly recommend using a wired connection over wifi, especially if you are planning on using it to stream 4k content.

I'm kinda just looking for real simple explanations. 

Such as: 

NAS ------> Connect to Modem/Router via Gigabit port using Cat5e or Cat6 Ethernet cable. ------> Plug another Cat5e or Cat6 Ethernet cable into another Gigabit Modem/Router port ------> Plug that cable into a Desktop Computer or Nvidia Shield TV's Gigabit port ------> Search for NAS folders from Desktop Computer or Nvidia Shield TV ------> This is called utilizing a wired connection for full bandwidth ------> This will allow you to play 4K content 

NAS ------> Wifi? 

So just this kinda stuff. And maybe I explained it incorrectly, but this is all I'm looking for.  

[Radium_Angel]

7 hours ago, Spotty said:

That's incorrect. There's absolutely no need to use RAID in a NAS. You could have a single HDD and it would still be a NAS.
In systems with multiple hard drives, RAID is typically used to provide a level of redundancy in the storage array or to improve performance, however it is not necessary.

Funny, I've never run across a NAS that doesn't use multiple drives in some kind of RAID config, but looking over my NASes, it turns out you can use them as JBOD, which strikes me as silly, but you point is taken.

 

[AbsoluteFool]

6 hours ago, Vectraat said:

I'm kinda just looking for real simple explanations. 

Such as: 

NAS ------> Connect to Modem/Router via Gigabit port using Cat5e or Cat6 Ethernet cable. ------> Plug another Cat5e or Cat6 Ethernet cable into another Gigabit Modem/Router port ------> Plug that cable into a Desktop Computer or Nvidia Shield TV's Gigabit port ------> Search for NAS folders from Desktop Computer or Nvidia Shield TV ------> This is called utilizing a wired connection for full bandwidth ------> This will allow you to play 4K content 

NAS ------> Wifi? 

So just this kinda stuff. And maybe I explained it incorrectly, but this is all I'm looking for.  

NAS -> router

Computer -> router

Plug-and-play

[Spotty]

23 minutes ago, Radium_Angel said:

Funny, I've never run across a NAS that doesn't use multiple drives in some kind of RAID config, but looking over my NASes, it turns out you can use them as JBOD, which strikes me as silly, but you point is taken.

DiskStation DS118

High-performance 1-bay NAS for small office and home users
https://www.synology.com/en-global/products/DS118

 

Any single bay NAS enclosure won't support RAID - for obvious reasons. In Synology product line up which uses product names with the DSYXX format, the Y represents how many bays it has. So anything in the DS1XX range will be a single bay enclosure. Plenty of other 1 bay NAS enclosures out there as well and that isn't including anything home built running FreeNAS on an old dell shitbox or the like.

There are advantages to using RAID on a NAS system, and for many would be the preferred choice on how to set it up, however it isn't necessary.

[Vectraat]

16 hours ago, AbsoluteFool said:

NAS -> router

Computer -> router

Plug-and-play

Ok great! That is the kind explanation I'm looking for.

So from there I just access my movies/TV shows from the NAS on my desktop computer.

What would I do in this situation? If my NAS/modem/router is located in one room and my Nvidia Shield TV is located in another---and that other room is fairly far away (There are no Ethernet cables in that room). I suppose you could get a very long ethernet cable, plug it into the router > drag it through your house and plug it into the Shield TV and it'll work the same way? Otherwise, I'd need to use WIFI and stream from my NAS to the Shield TV which would use ISP upload data? *shrugs*

[Spotty]

2 hours ago, Vectraat said:

What would I do in this situation? If my NAS/modem/router is located in one room and my Nvidia Shield TV is located in another---and that other room is fairly far away (There are no Ethernet cables in that room). I suppose you could get a very long ethernet cable, plug it into the router > drag it through your house and plug it into the Shield TV and it'll work the same way? Otherwise, I'd need to use WIFI and stream from my NAS to the Shield TV which would use ISP upload data? *shrugs*

You can get ethernet cables on ebay for only a few dollars. They come in a bunch of sizes ready to go, typically 1m, 2m, 3m, 5m, 10m, 15m, 20m, 30m, 50m, 100m. Run the ethernet cable along the edges of the walls so they're not a trip hazard. Tape over any that cross walkways so people don't trip.
If you own the house, you can install ethernet wall jacks throughout the house with cables routed through the ceiling and wall cavities. Get a licensed cabler to do it. Call around and ger a few quotes, it will vary depending on the type of house and what you need done. If you're renting then you'd have to talk to your landlord about the possibility of getting them put in and perhaps sharing the cost.

Your ISP data will only be used when you're connecting to the outside world. Using wifi or ethernet for a home network (connecting devices within your home to one another) won't consume any of your monthly data.

[Vectraat]

1 hour ago, Spotty said:

You can get ethernet cables on ebay for only a few dollars. They come in a bunch of sizes ready to go, typically 1m, 2m, 3m, 5m, 10m, 15m, 20m, 30m, 50m, 100m. Run the ethernet cable along the edges of the walls so they're not a trip hazard. Tape over any that cross walkways so people don't trip.
If you own the house, you can install ethernet wall jacks throughout the house with cables routed through the ceiling and wall cavities. Get a licensed cabler to do it. Call around and ger a few quotes, it will vary depending on the type of house and what you need done. If you're renting then you'd have to talk to your landlord about the possibility of getting them put in and perhaps sharing the cost.

Your ISP data will only be used when you're connecting to the outside world. Using wifi or ethernet for a home network (connecting devices within your home to one another) won't consume any of your monthly data.

Yeah, I'm probably gonna need 20-30M easily. Does the length of a cable---a LONG cable for example--have any sort of detrimental impact? And should I get Cat5e or Cat6 Ethernet cable?

"Using wifi or ethernet for a home network won't consume any of your monthly data."

This seems so odd to me. Ethernet not using data makes sense, but for some reason WiFi doesn't. I'm always using WIFI in my house and it always uses data, but in this case it doesn't? I realize that's a very dumb question, but like I said, I know nada about networking/internet.  

[Spotty]

48 minutes ago, Vectraat said:

Yeah, I'm probably gonna need 20-30M easily. Does the length of a cable---a LONG cable for example--have any sort of detrimental impact? And should I get Cat5e or Cat6 Ethernet cable?

Ethernet cables are typically rated for up to 100m. 20-30m won't be an issue at all.
Preferrably get Cat6, just because it's the newer/better standard. If you already had Cat5e cables or Cat5e installed in your walls, then that would be fine to use and you wouldn't need to change it. But since you're buying new cables then go Cat6.

 

 

48 minutes ago, Vectraat said:

This seems so odd to me. Ethernet not using data makes sense, but for some reason WiFi doesn't. I'm always using WIFI in my house and it always uses data, but in this case it doesn't? I realize that's a very dumb question, but like I said, I know nada about networking/internet.  

The wifi itself isn't using the data. The wifi is connecting your device to your router/modem. Your modem is then connecting to the internet via your internet line (DSL, Cable, Fibre, etc) and that is what your ISP is charging you for.

When you're browsing the internet on your device on wifi, it goes like:
Device > Wifi > Router/Modem > Internet line (DSL, Fibre, etc) > Internet

Your ISP is providing the service of access to the internet by the internet line. They will charge you for the traffic (upload/download) on that line when you access the internet.

When you're using wifi on a home network, it goes like
Device > Wifi > Router/Modem > Ethernet/Wifi >  Device

(Worth noting that your Modem and Router may be built in to the same device which is common for most household modem/routers. They perform their own individual functions they're just built in to the same box instead of being in two separate boxes connected by a cable)
 

Your routers job is to direct the traffic of all the devices to where it needs to go. Whether that data needs to go over your internet connection to the outside world, or to another computer locally in your home. If you try to load up a website on a device over wifi, your router will go "Oh, I need to access the internet for that" and send the traffic through the internet line and send the data back to you over wifi back to the device. If you are trying to access a movie on your other computer, your router will go "Oh, that's on this device here, I need to send that traffic over this ethernet cable".