NAS - Recommendations

Chunkford

I'm finding that i am storing more and more stuff, e.g. Music, photos, documents etc and I am starting to panic about losing all this stuff as getting it back again is either impossible or will take way too much time.

I've been looking at NAS using RAID1 and i'm looking at this http://www.ebuyer.com/product/149338

Anyone used this before, or have any recommendations for other units?

Darren

obviously using raid configurations makes your back ups extra secure but you have decide if you really need it.

i keep everything on the pc's and laptops then use cobian to copy everything to a NAS drive at night using ftp. It does the job as it does a full backup when i set the amount of days and i differential back ups all other times.

i have no experience with that drive though

pinbrook

i've got a buffalo 500gb linkstation NAS, but single disk. I've had it forover a year and its still going strong.

however i wish i had RAID, i dont know why i didnt buy 2xdisk/raid - to me its fairly pointless nowadays not too.

If my disk were to fail, i'd lose all my music and have to rip it all again. Its not feasible to backup music to online storage.

even with a 2xdisk/raid i'd still backup data to online storage too - for access home/work/outandabout and thus leave nas on closed network

Gabriel Crowe

if you have money to burn, and want pure undefeatable reliability, get a drobo

if you're finding yourself too much free time and on a tight budget then try this: FreeNas

:)

Mike

I haven't used the buffalo but it gets a good review here: http://www.trustedreviews.com/networking/review/2008/05/07/Buffalo-LinkStation-Mini-NAS-Appliance/p1

It sounds like you can't go far wrong.

Mike

consciouspnm

I use a Freecom NAS drive to backup my Windows Home Server, so I have three copies of anything that's on any of my PCs or laptops.

Chunkford

Thanks guys, i will look into the info.
Just want something i can trust, as my data is so important nowadays. (It's taken me ages to build it up)

malbro

chunkesolutions said:
Thanks guys, i will look into the info.
Just want something i can trust, as my data is so important nowadays. (It's taken me ages to build it up)

You can call me paranoid but both our Dell PC's have a 500Gb raid array (2 drives mirrored) built in, as well as a single C: drive. We have a 1Tb Nas drive which is also a raid array (2 more drives mirrored) with auto backup overnight from the two PC's using Allways Sync to ensure latest copies are held on the NAS drive.

We lost a lot of data when a drive went down and this lot is still cheaper than a tape drive backup and gives multiple copies.

jont

We have 3+1 drive raid on the server with a Ultrium tape drive for the offsite backups.... don't forget no amount of NAS drives will protect you from fire or theft if the NAS is in the same venue as the PC.

Ruralweb

As gabe says Drobo is the dogs bollocks

teclan

Another one to look at is QNAP

It has a bunch of different products and the functionality these boxes can provide can be pretty useful as well.

Depends on what scale you are going for.
We have 2 x 1Tb drives with RAID1 config using drive as network file share for all users on network - with correctly configured security we can enable file access across the WAN as well as the LAN enabling the team to work/share from multiple locations.
We back this up to separate USB?firewire 1Tb disk which syncs up daily and is taken off site each night.

Chunkford

Been looking at the Drobo.
Looks nice and easy, but the QNAP looks like a techie's wet dream!!
I will have a look in more depth later tonight.

Cheers guys!

Darren

Im playing with my new Buffalo linkstation quad today lovely pice of kit, small and quiet. Has some neat features including syncing to the ups

Im going to test this out and make sure its exactly what i need then probably purchase more later if it fits the bill.

Silliams

We use a Qnap Raid1 - 2 x 250 gig drives I think.
It works perfectly - don't even know it's there.
Fast enough not to notice, over a 100 cabled network.

Plus, all databases, snapshots, accounts and email are backed up onto a QNAP backup disc and removed from site every evening.

Darren

i have configured the unit to raid10 and setup scheduled backs on the network so will check it all monday to see if its worked properly

drounding

Why did you choose RAID10 instead of RAID1?
Are yo uusing 4 drives in your NAS?

Darren

the only real reason for choosing raid 10 is slightly better performance over raid 5 although i cant offer any hard facts just something i picked up.

I use all 4 drives each is 500gb so i get 1tb of storage using raid 10, although the unit does not have hot swap i can power down and replace a drive and it will rebuild it. Obviously the down side with raid 10 is i only have the data duplicated however this is for backups rather than as a db server or file server anyway.

I like the unit especially as it has a 10/100/1000 ethernet as standard so data transfer is good

Chunkford

I NEED YOUR HELP

Can someone put me out of my misery and tell me what to do. I've gone past the point of caring now!

I brought a Netgear ReadyNAS Duo with 2x 1TB hard drives in and received it Friday.
But i have a niggly feeling that i should of gone for a different device, and as i have 7 days (the "Cooling Off Period"), i still have time to sort it.

The options i have given myself are (with the same drive capacity):
1) Keep the Netgear ReadyNAS DUO (Not very fast compared to others on the market, just a medioka system)
2) Send it back and get the QNAP 219P for an extra £50 (creme de la creme, but slightly nosier than the others)
3) Send it back and get the Synolgy DS210j for £100 less (A new budget NAS, with not much info on it as yet)

Also, i have found that i shouldn't use RAID 1 as a backup (DOH!) as i will be using this as a main storage for music, photos, videos etc, so i will be having to get a simple USB (eSATA if i went for the 219P) external hard drive to do periodic backups, so extra cost hence the DS210j being considered:rolleyes:

BTW - I've upgraded my network to a gigabyte to give me speed needed ;)

Gabriel Crowe

holy shit, i looked that that qnap and had a little sex wee.

what a magnificent piece of kit.

Chunkford

Right it's done then, 219P it is, i knew i should of stuck to my guns! I read up on things too way much!

Gabriel Crowe

Very much like some of the other offerings on the market at the moment has installable apps.

I can think of squillions of ways to make cool things happen. I particularly like that it can download via ftp, making it cool to back up your site root.

it can also host a local sql mirror for your site, i can think of lots of uses for that.

also, bittorrent, so i can download my...err....ubuntu.... again.

Chunkford

Gabriel Crowe said:

also, bittorrent, so i can download my...err....ubuntu.... again.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8604602.stm
As you would say - EPIC FAIL! :curse:

Darren

http://www.qnap.com/pro_application.asp?ap_id=70 neat idea

drounding

Darren said:
http://www.qnap.com/pro_application.asp?ap_id=70 neat idea

Interesting - need to look into that myself for the new place.

Chunkford

All this NAS stuff is starting to get exspensive.
I need an ext USB/eSATA hard drive e.g. icy dock with hard drive to match the NAS), to back up the NAS.
Additional music players (probably 2) to stream from the NAS e.g. Squeezebox Boom.
A network camera.
Not meantion the cost of the NAS, plus the hard drives!
I suppose i have the PS3, and the upgraded network to a gigabit in place, but that's also an expense if i didn't!

My head is starting to hurt. I want my hole to crawl into!

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