Recommend a NAS or Build one?

[Majoram]

Looking to purchase or build a NAS but I really don't know too much about what's good or not.

Based on what I've read and some of these threads, I've gathered:
- Good Brands to buy: QNAP or Synology
- Possibilities for Building: unRAID & XFS
- http://forums.redflagdeals.com/nas-alternative-my-unraid-server-build-553514/
- http://forums.redflagdeals.com/build-your-own-nas-thread-zfs-howto-1141014/


Requirements:
- Streaming Media (Photos, Movies, TV, Music)
- Good amount of Storage (I can be happy with 4 bays)
- Higher end "prosumer" level device
(something more powerful than a Synology DS411+ (http://www.synology.com/us/products/DS411+/spec.php))
- Don't really NEED the power immediately but I may experiment with it later on.
I really like the feature set of the Synology DS412+ (http://www.synology.com/products/spec.php?product_name=DS412%2B&lang=us#p_submenu)
- Possible future use as:
- Directory Server
- Security Cam recording
- Bittorrent / downloading
- Automated backup of connected PCs
- Automated upload of backups to offsite storage/online


So any suggestions or comments to Build or Buy Prebuilt?

[Mark77]

Are you good at Linux or not? If you are, then I can't think of even a single reason in the world to buy those pre-made machines.



I personally have an i7-2600, around 7Tb worth of hard drives, a 5-drive hot-swap bay, on a machine that runs Linux. It does all the NAS stuff, has RAID, etc. If the motherboard fails in the middle of the night, I just wake up, go down to the local computer store, plunk down a hundred or so dollars, and have a new one. I'm not quite sure you could do that with many of the "consumer" NAS machines. Plus I can support basically any new protocol I want because there's no proprietary lock in -- its just Linux!

[death_hawk]

Unless you need a single or dual slot NAS with zero requirements, I would ALWAYS build one.

Even if you're not good with Linux, it's not that hard to learn basic commands.

And for a NAS, you don't need anything powerful. My most powerful storage server runs a whopping E5200 with 1GB RAM. I barely get 20% utilization of either RAM or CPU.
I'm actually "upgrading" to a Q6600 Xeon in the near future because I want IPMI. I don't need the processing power or RAM.
Oh and my file server (currently) runs 24 drives with the option of expanding later.

[Octavius]

I had a DNS-323 for a few years. It did the job for a little while, but atrociously low transfer fees, a lack of support for larger HDD's, and the fact that it was only 2 drive bays began to annoy me sooner rather than later.

I ended up building an unRAID server out of spare parts. Very happy with this solution.

[nyik]

I personally didn't have time to building one myself so I bought the DS 410. Very happy with it, and has tonnes of features built in.

So if you don't have the time to spend researching, building, configuring, troubleshooting a RAID machine, buying a prosumer one from Synology/QNAP is the way to go.

I spent $400 getting it from BST, and was up and running in a few hours. Performance and quality is awesome. I can stream to multiple locations around the house simultaneously, no lag (Cat 6 wiring). Backups and RAID are awesome.

[Majoram]

Thanks for all the replies. Great info. Please keep it coming!


Are you good at Linux or not? If you are, then I can't think of even a single reason in the world to buy those pre-made machines.
I personally have an i7-2600, around 7Tb worth of hard drives, a 5-drive hot-swap bay, on a machine that runs Linux. It does all the NAS stuff, has RAID, etc. If the motherboard fails in the middle of the night, I just wake up, go down to the local computer store, plunk down a hundred or so dollars, and have a new one. I'm not quite sure you could do that with many of the "consumer" NAS machines. Plus I can support basically any new protocol I want because there's no proprietary lock in -- its just Linux!

I used to be good with Linux. I was into Gentoo distro. It's been more than 6 years though since I delved into that stuff.
Would you mind sharing the general specs for your build?



Unless you need a single or dual slot NAS with zero requirements, I would ALWAYS build one.

Even if you're not good with Linux, it's not that hard to learn basic commands.

And for a NAS, you don't need anything powerful. My most powerful storage server runs a whopping E5200 with 1GB RAM. I barely get 20% utilization of either RAM or CPU.
I'm actually "upgrading" to a Q6600 Xeon in the near future because I want IPMI. I don't need the processing power or RAM.
Oh and my file server (currently) runs 24 drives with the option of expanding later.

Do you do anything else with it other than use it as a file server?




I had a DNS-323 for a few years. It did the job for a little while, but atrociously low transfer fees, a lack of support for larger HDD's, and the fact that it was only 2 drive bays began to annoy me sooner rather than later.
I ended up building an unRAID server out of spare parts. Very happy with this solution.

Other than Media Server, can you do anything else with unRAID? Such as the stuff I mentioned in my main post?




I personally didn't have time to building one myself so I bought the DS 410. Very happy with it, and has tonnes of features built in.
So if you don't have the time to spend researching, building, configuring, troubleshooting a RAID machine, buying a prosumer one from Synology/QNAP is the way to go.
I spent $400 getting it from BST, and was up and running in a few hours. Performance and quality is awesome. I can stream to multiple locations around the house simultaneously, no lag (Cat 6 wiring). Backups and RAID are awesome.

I'm not sure if I will have the time either to build but I want to consider all my options.
Maybe I won't delve into tweaking it but I should be able to handle a basic build.

Got my house wired to Cat 6 as well. Hence why I want a NAS.
Plus I want to finally have an automated backup system as opposed to copying things redundantly onto HDs.

Problem is the NAS I want is around ~$700, which is a bit high to me for a closed solution.
I know a custom build might be more but it would be infinitely more upgradable and feature flexible.

[SecuritySick]

Take a peek over here: http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1393939&page=83

Will give you some inspiration :)

[Calmuser]

I use WHS v1.

it will work great for most of the things you mentioned.

The problem with v1 is it doesn't support 3TB or larger HDs.

If you goto v2, you lose the main selling point of the Drive Extender. though there are 3rd party add-ons that are supposed to fix that.

I have 15 hds in mine at the moment. my main acer whs and pluged in 3 external enclosures via esata.

I use it for streaming all my media content, and backing up my windows machine automatically each night.

[r1lee]

WHS v1 is awesome, i heard you can get it to work with 2tb+ drives but it requires a slight work around.

I recently switched to v2 and it does the job quite well.

Drive Extender in v1 is quite fantastic though.

[apn64]

WHS v1 is awesome, i heard you can get it to work with 2tb+ drives but it requires a slight work around.

I recently switched to v2 and it does the job quite well.

Drive Extender in v1 is quite fantastic though.

+1 to this, but caution that v2 removed DE, which for me was a major reason for building a WHS.

Any info on the >2TB workaround, since I'd like to extend my current 6x2TB array with 3TB drives?

[Mark77]

I used to be good with Linux. I was into Gentoo distro. It's been more than 6 years though since I delved into that stuff.
Would you mind sharing the general specs for your build?


Basically I use:

old Enlight EN-7237 case
Supermicro hot-swap rack (http://www.supermicro.com/products/accessories/mobilerack/cse-m35t-1.cfm)
Asus P8H67-M-Evo motherboard
i7-2600 CPU
4x4gb DDR3 SODIMM (Mushkin, cheapest NCIX was selling)
Intel PCI-E Gig-E NIC
3 x 2Tb Hitachi HDDs, 1 x 500gb Seagate ATA HDD
Samsung/TSST DVD-RW drive
650W Antec PSU
2 x Atheros AR9280 WiFi cards (Apple and Ubiquiti) for wireless connectivity
Samsung 570V 15" LCD display

I run a heavily modified build of Slackware Linux.

Some of the above is obviously severe overkill. Some of it is parts I've had around for years. I run a bunch of VMs on the same machine, so the RAM is for that.

[Majoram]

Thanks everyone.
I have a lot more to read on that hardOCP thread now.

Thanks for your system specs as well.

If anyone has anymore suggestions other than Linux, unRAID, or Synology, please post.

Also does Anyone user their NAS for anything else other that serving Media???

[mparsons]

freenas is a good free alternative. bsd > linux ... ;)

and you can use the machine to do all sorts of stuff, torrents, nntp, backups, blah blah

[Gee]

freenas is a good free alternative. bsd > linux ... ;)

and you can use the machine to do all sorts of stuff, torrents, nntp, backups, blah blah

I also use FreeNAS. I Prefer it to the Linux offerings

Take a look at it. ZFS is the main reason for me

[Majoram]

I also use FreeNAS. I Prefer it to the Linux offerings

Take a look at it. ZFS is the main reason for me

Sweet. I'll read up on it!
Keep the tips coming!

So let's say I want to build a NAS for:
- Media Streaming
- bitorrent / downloading
- automated backups
- LDAP

Any suggestions on good Mobo/CPU, Case etc to get?
I know my stuff when it comes to the high end user but not so much when compatibility and stability are required.