NAS- Never Amazes (me how) Stupid (it can be)

[adwilk]

Ok.. I have a network storage solution in place.. for a home- with say- three tv's and a total of 6 devices that need access, whats really the BEST solution? I'm tired of trying to come up with a few ideas that could work. I have one that kind of works. I need one that simply always works. Ideally (future proof) 12+ TB of data, and at least a couple apps to run on the main machine. Budget? Eh.. whatever it takes to know it will always work. I have a variety of media devices that need to access it and I just want it to always work. What do I need? What would you try to do? Whats the perfect home NAS media solution? Tablets, smartphones included. Much appreciated.

 

[Alex2507]

It's spelled NASA you space cadet.

 

[psbfan9]

This?

Drobo FS

DroboStore - Welcome

 

[ratso]

way expensive though. i just bought two of these - small, quiet, relatively cool running and best of all - much more simple and stable than my NAS. cheaper too. my synology will soon be up on ebay. i just don't see why i need the complexity, noise, slow speeds and cost of network storage. i can do almost everything i could do before with dropbox, alternate drive saves, online storage, etc.

 

[adwilk]

Two of what, ratso? They sound wonderful...

 

[Lordhumungus]

Build your own machine and use a combination of Flexraid and whatever flavor of Windows you want to accomplish the job (WHS, Server 2011, regular Vanilla 7/8 etc). It's what I do and I find it's absolutely unbeatable unless you need the massive throughput of hardware RAID solutions. Where speed isn't a factor (i.e. home servers that are just serving up media) it can't be beat on price, flexibility, or expandability.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

This?

Drobo FS

DroboStore - Welcome

Do you keep the power on all the time? Is a single fan enough to cool five 3TB HDDs? And how loud is this single fan?

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

Build your own machine and use a combination of Flexraid and whatever flavor of Windows you want to accomplish the job (WHS, Server 2011, regular Vanilla 7/8 etc). It's what I do and I find it's absolutely unbeatable unless you need the massive throughput of hardware RAID solutions. Where speed isn't a factor (i.e. home servers that are just serving up media) it can't be beat on price, flexibility, or expandability.

Wow, so you & I both have a 30TB (15 x 2TB) NAS?

Except mine has no RAID.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

Whatever you go, don't go with Drobo. I heard nothing but horror stories from the pros.
I has successfully used SMB NAS from Qnap in small biz and it works great and does everything including crashplan engine onboard. It's not most cost effective route (DIY is) but it promise to you it will be the most headache-less
http://www.qnap.com/useng/index.php?lang=en-us&sn=862&c=355&sc=688&t=2751&n=13705 with 3TB Drives (or 4tb if you want) will give you 18Tb raw storage or 15Tb useful with Raid5

If I would build home nas I would for sure go with DIY, but then again I'm a propellerhead

 

[ratso]

whoops duh im an idiot.

two of these:

Macsales.com - OWC Mercury Elite Pro USB 3.0/2.0, FireWire 800/400, eSATA External Hard Drives

however, if that is a no go for you, this might work better (raid):

OWC Mercury Pro Qx2 4-Bay RAID 0/1/5/10 eSATA, FireWire 400/800, USB2 Desktop Removable Bay Storage Solution - up to 16.0TB

 

[BMXTRIX]

I can say that I've been very happy with my Thecus units. The ones I have are the 4 drive models in a RAID configuration so I only get about 5TB per unit. I'm currently using FOUR of these units at once and I've left them on now for quite a while.

Looks like about 18 months now and I've really had no issue with them. I just use them to serve up my media and they have a bunch of apps that can be run on them if you would like. Their manual is something like 100+ pages and is very well written with screen shots.

I wrote up a review here:
Thecus N4100PRO - My Review - MPC Club Community Board

I'm not up to four of these units and have purchased a fifth. I keep them in a separate area of my home in the basement to keep the noise down as they are always on and running.

Zero issues and phenomenally easy to setup. That was a biggie for me since I'm not an IT guy and I just don't have the time to sit down and spend three weeks doing research on setting up a RAID NAS. This was up a running within a couple of hours.

 

[adwilk]

Build your own machine and use a combination of Flexraid and whatever flavor of Windows you want to accomplish the job (WHS, Server 2011, regular Vanilla 7/8 etc). It's what I do and I find it's absolutely unbeatable unless you need the massive throughput of hardware RAID solutions. Where speed isn't a factor (i.e. home servers that are just serving up media) it can't be beat on price, flexibility, or expandability.

What would be the recommended minimum system requirement? Ideal operating system setup? I'm leaning toward the DIY route again.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

Freenas or Nas4Free really easy to build and cost much less aka free

 

[adwilk]

Is there a recommended minimum hardware requirement?

I really like the idea of standalone boxes- like the on bmxtrix posted. I honestly can't decide. Also- is a raid configuration necessary at all for a media server. Whats the advantage other than redundancy?

 

[yettitheman]

While a DIY solution would probably be slightly cheaper, and possibly easier to work bugs out of, the dedicated boxes are usually smaller, take less power, and have enough adequate cooling to sufficiently keep the drives from cooking. This means that there is less noise. Notice I did not say less heat; that's dependent on drive selection, quantity, and the design of the box overall.

I haven't had a need to look at NAS for personal use, yet.... but maybe sometime soon I will.
One overlooked thing are the drives; I recommend enterprise level drives; they should be built better, and last somewhat longer, as well as have supportive features for raid controllers.
I'm a WD guy through and through, and I would get either RE4's or the new Red series. Personally, I'd get the RE4's. If you feel a bit spendier, you can get SSD's as well, but honestly, unless time is of the absolute essence (which in your home, I think data accessibility, reliable reads, and data integrity are more important), mech drives are still cheaper and still plenty reliable. Not to mention, to me, some SSD's seem inconsistent with performance, as well as the ability to do really strange things. Samsung 840 Pro secure erase anyone? No thanks, I've never had a mech drive fail from just erasing it, but I have had them fail when they were hit with a sledgehammer while running

 

[UnxpectedError]

Get a Qnap, you wont regret it. Small, quiet, Reliable, can do pretty much anything you can think of. Lots of apps for etc.

I've had mine for 2 years now and would never go back. I've heard the Synology's are good too.