Hunter~SPARTA~ Posted June 6, 2012 Share Posted June 6, 2012 So, I'm back looking to purchasing a NAS. My 4TB external HDD is down to its last TB of free space and I've been growing skeptical of its remaining lifespan. I think I've found a NAS that suits my needs pretty well. Figured I'd run it past you guys to see what input or advice you have to offer. Features that I was looking for: 4 disk bays 4TB drive capability (I don't want to have to replace this thing for quite some time) RAID support Media streaming (DNLA required; Web was on the wishlist) Remote access Try to stay under $500 I think I've decided on the Synology DS411j. Available on Newegg for $360 (diskless). Bonus features I really like about the DS411j: Mobile device support and apps Integrated download center (torrent, NZB, FTP, HTTP, and eMule) Multiple user accounts with variable access privileges Not only backs up PC's, but then can back itself up onto another NAS or to an external HDD Built in web server with PHP and MySQL Can serve as a DVR for IP Cameras Synology provides a free DDNS service Various others; Check out the product page for full feature list (Be sure to read about the Synology Hybrid RAID, pretty sweet stuff) So yea. There's that. Let me hear your thoughts, suggestions, advice, etc. If you know of a better product or have bad experience with Synology, I'd like to hear that too. Thanks guys. - JHunter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MH6~SPARTA~ Posted June 6, 2012 Share Posted June 6, 2012 I personally love the Drobo. While it's not exactly feature packed, and a little on the expensive side, nothing beats being able to have a RAIDed NAS setup where you can plug and play hard drives with ease. Hard drive failed? Click it, remove it, put a new one in its place. Need more storage space? Remove the lowest capacity drive and plop a larger one in. Drobo takes care of all the RAID striping and duplication for you. I love it. I don't own one, but we use them at work for map data and hard drive images and so forth. The Ethernet model is out of your price range though (~$699), and I highly doubt you'd want the USB version. That Synology NAS looks pretty sweet though, I must say. It's also a lot cheaper. I may look into getting of those myself in the future. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hunter~SPARTA~ Posted June 6, 2012 Author Share Posted June 6, 2012 Hard drive failed? Click it, remove it, put a new one in its place. Need more storage space? Remove the lowest capacity drive and plop a larger one in. Drobo takes care of all the RAID striping and duplication for you. The Synology Hybrid Raid does just that. In their own words: The Synology Hybrid RAID (SHR) automatically builds an optimal RAID volume with data protection based on the hard drives installed, eliminating the need to have hard drives of identical size, while still offering a manual setup option for advanced users. - JHunter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MH6~SPARTA~ Posted June 6, 2012 Share Posted June 6, 2012 The Synology Hybrid Raid does just that. In their own words: - JHunter Yeah I read that after the fact, glad to see Drobo isn't the only one doing it. Especially since Drobo is fairly damn expensive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NoScream~SPARTA~ Posted June 7, 2012 Share Posted June 7, 2012 I like your choice. DNLA is a must, you will find out as time goes on. Also the ability to have 2 network ports can improve things. I steam movies to my TV, PC, music, data, photos, Internat radio via NAS (Squeezebox software on NAS). One thing not to overlook is a UPS for your NAS. If there is a power cut or disturbance most NAS connected to a UPS will do a controlled shutdown. Saving you damage to the unit hardware (PSU etc) and data. Check out APC http://www.apc.com/products/category.cfm?id=13 A small 500W unit is plenty. There normally is a link cable (USB or similar) that talks to the NAS & UPS NAS is the way to go, it's never cheap, recently I replaced my 1.5 TB x4 drives with 3TB x4, but the security and reassurance is paramount. The key to remember is how valuable is the info? Another factor to remember is disk age, I change my NAS drives every 2 years, to combat unexpected failures, I run XRAID which is a on the fly expandable raid system. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hunter~SPARTA~ Posted June 7, 2012 Author Share Posted June 7, 2012 Viiiper, I did consider dual NIC's for link aggregation. However, without getting into the pricier NAS options with more powerful processors and more RAM, I don't foresee the need. The redundancy is nice, but with the DS411j having only a 1.2 GHz CPU and 128 MB of RAM, I doubt it would max out the gigabit ethernet port anyway. Good point about the UPS, though, I hadn't considered that. Synology's website lists far more Cyberpower UPS models on their known compatibility list... anyone have experience with them? I only have experience with APC, personally. - JHunter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MH6~SPARTA~ Posted June 7, 2012 Share Posted June 7, 2012 Viiiper, I did consider dual NIC's for link aggregation. However, without getting into the pricier NAS options with more powerful processors and more RAM, I don't foresee the need. The redundancy is nice, but with the DS411j having only a 1.2 GHz CPU and 128 MB of RAM, I doubt it would max out the gigabit ethernet port anyway. Good point about the UPS, though, I hadn't considered that. Synology's website lists far more Cyberpower UPS models on their known compatibility list... anyone have experience with them? I only have experience with APC, personally. - JHunter Cyberpower isn't that great. I'd choose APC any day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hunter~SPARTA~ Posted June 7, 2012 Author Share Posted June 7, 2012 Sweet, order placed. 1x Synology DS411j 4x Samsung 2TB Drives (Will give me 6TB of usable storage on the NAS) 1x APC BE750G UPS Thanks for the input guys. - JHunter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zeno~SPARTA~ Posted June 11, 2012 Share Posted June 11, 2012 Let me know how this goes, a NAS will be my next computer purchase. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hunter~SPARTA~ Posted June 11, 2012 Author Share Posted June 11, 2012 Parts just got delivered today, will be setting it up when I get home. From the reviews I saw, will probably take about 24 hours for the NAS to parity check all four drives and make them available to start transferring data off of the old external HDD. - JHunter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NoScream~SPARTA~ Posted June 11, 2012 Share Posted June 11, 2012 Parts just got delivered today, will be setting it up when I get home. From the reviews I saw, will probably take about 24 hours for the NAS to parity check all four drives and make them available to start transferring data off of the old external HDD. - JHunter Correct, depending on the size it's around a day, start it & goto bed. Same with upgrading drives, one by one, it can take 6-10hrs for a 3TB drive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hunter~SPARTA~ Posted June 12, 2012 Author Share Posted June 12, 2012 Viiiper, what kind of read/write speed do you get on your NAS? The parity check completed this morning and I've begun moving my data over. - JHunter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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