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here's the beginner NAS to buy!

Marzipan

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moocow

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That looks very similar to the Synology 2 bay lineup. If you're simply serving data, not much of an issue but the lack of ability to upgrade component makes it a toss away appliance a few years down the road. If the user is willing to experiment and play around with stuff, building an mATX media box is much better way to go, IMO. Using freeware VM like XCP-NG, you can build a pfSense + Flex + RAID machine.
 

JD

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I don't fully understand 2 bay units. They're basically throwaway once you're beyond the capacity of a single HDD.

I recently came across this: https://www.asustor.com/product?p_id=63. For the price (roughly $1300 CAD), it seems like a really good value as you can grow into it for many years to come. Support for 2.5G/10G networks, support for M.2 cache drives, and 8 bays to grow into. Synology and QNAP don't offer anything that affordable with those options.

Better to invest in something that you can run for the long haul IMO
 

moocow

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Well I have a DS209J collecting dust for the exact reason JD mentioned. Once I grew out of the RAID 1 limitation on 2 drives, I went with a used RAID card + old machine. There are use cases for it still if you're simply using it as personal photo and document backup in additional to Cloud. But if you're a professional media type, I think 4 bay at the minimum is what you need.
 

Marzipan

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since you two grew out of it, that tells me that you're not the intended target. they can do up to 2x 16TB HDD's...that's a lot of stuff for someone like myself, who would only be backing up pictures, home videos and documents. I stream all my music and video content, so no need. so I'd likely go with much smaller drives than 16TB...which leaves space to add the larger drives if ever needed.

further...can you build those boxes for less than $200 and keep a similar footprint?

I could go that route, but I don't wanna fiddle with software. I've got a couple G4650 Pentiums lying around, they'd be purrrfect for something like that.
 

moocow

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I could go that route, but I don't wanna fiddle with software.

Exactly. This type of device is targeted at those that don't want to fiddle with software and want simple configuration. There's no way to even get to that footprint. Most J1900 boards on Aliexpress are at least thin ITX. A quick look on Aliexpress, I can't even find a 2 drive NAS case that's remotely pretty enough compare to the NAS you posted.
 

JD

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Peoples needs change over time... data storage needs typically only increase overtime as your family grows. Depends on your mindset though, some people are fine deleting stuff they no longer need/use, other people like to hoard data :)

2x 16TB drives is roughly $1300 by the looks of it today. Even with it being mirrored in a 2-bay NAS, that's a lot of data you're trusting to a single drive. Should one fail, you'd have to have $650 on hand to buy another drive.

Comparatively speaking, you can get 4x 8TB for about $1200 and run them in RAID6, offering you protection against 2 drive failures while still having the same 16TB of usable space. Should a drive die, you're looking at only $300 to replace, a bit more reasonable to have in your "rainy day" fund.

What I'm trying to get to, is that with a 2 bay unit, you basically need to start with 2 really big (expensive) drives. With a 4 bay or 8 bay unit, you can start with 2 small drives and build up as your storage needs increase. Your $200 2-bay NAS is actually a $1500 (2x 16TB) purchase out of the gate. A $800 4-bay NAS might only be $1400 out of the gate if you only needed 8TB of space today (2x 8TB) but could easily double that down the road as needed.

Home networks are going to move to at least 2.5G soon too as the new WiFi protocols are exceeding 1G. ISPs in other countries offer Internet speeds >1G as well. Better to have some foresight when buying a NAS rather than only thinking in the moment as it's typically not something you really want to replace routinely.

I still like purpose-built NAS units though, they are definitely packaged much better and generally have custom designed boards. I feel they're a bit more robust than your off-shelf desktop computer.
 

Bond007

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I go with external hard drives and everything in 2 places at once...more manual, but a lot cheaper. I only backup what really matters (photos/videos mainly). One external HDD with everything on it that is usually plugged in, and one that I put the data on occasionally and let it safely on a shelf...no power bumps, or wear (just in case). I recently got an 8TB WD external for $135 shipped off amazon.

I would go to a NAS if the cost was closer to what I can get externals for...I may eventually do some shucking.
 

nToxik

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I still promote looking into an Unraid solution rather than purchasing a NAS. You can use pretty start with any old PC and upgrade over time. Because the software is loaded from a USB flash drive and runs in memory, you can easily port the entire solution from one PC to another with minimal downtime.

The other benefit is it's not an actual RAID so you are not stuck with a propriatory solution where your hardware fails and you can no longer access your data (the data is easily accessible via lynix). The only real downside to Unraid is because it is basically JBOD (with parity), your speed is limited to the physical drive that the data is stored on.

Unraid also supports the use of dockers, VMs, etc. on top of being a storage solution.


30 day free trial as well.
 

Skippman

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I've done it both ways. I was running a dual Xeon server with a LSI PCI-X 8 channel hardware SATA RAID controller with my drives in RAID5. I also own a QNAP TS-421+ and a TS-451+. Having done it both ways I would always choose the NAS over a server.

1.) Smaller footprint.
2.) Less power consumption.
3.) It just works.
4.) Off the shelf support for things like LACP/LAG, FTP, remote backup, DropBox, etc.

My TS-421 did tick me off quite a bit when I realized I couldn't install larger drives in it due to the 32bit proc it was using. When I bought my TS-451+ I made sure it was 64bit and supported expansion. When I need more room I can either mirgrate to larger drives and increase the volume sizes, or I can get something like the QNAP TR-004 which adds 4 more drive bays for $200.

As a professional in this area I completely agree with everyone else that a 2 drive NAS isn't really a NAS, it's an external hard drive with mirroring. You can't do any redundancy levels (Other than RAID 1/Mirroring) with only two drives. I also cannot stress enough that a backup device should ONLY be connected when backing up or restoring data. If it's connected 24x7 it's no more resistant to damage than anything else in your home during a power surge, virus infection, or any other issue that can cause data loss. I can't tell you how many people I've had to tell that barring spending thousands on private data recovery companies their data is just GONE.
 

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