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NAS Superthread (current deals on NAS devices)

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Deal Expert
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Apr 16, 2001
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Can anyone recommend an inexpensive single SATA drive NAS, suitable for streaming movies and file backups? Must support sleep mode, be quietly cooled, and be plug & play with my multi-partitioned NTFS drive. Thanks.
Blacklisted companies: Roku, Lenovo, Motorola, TP-Link, D-Link, Samsung, HP, LG, Public Mobile, EVGA, Blizzard
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Apr 21, 2004
58648 posts
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Circuit wrote: Yeah, I've got two of the eSATA enclosures. The enclosures are amazing, the eSATA port multiplier with RAID is JUNK if you use their eSATA card!!

If you buy the one you linked, use it in USB 3.0 mode. No problems what's so ever. If you want to read about the crappy RocketRAID 622 card they ship with their other combos, just read some of their support forums. Buy a SiliconImage SATA controller, don't use the Marvel one.

Are you telling me that it's better to buy USB 3.0 products than eSATA San Digital products? Thanked.
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Aug 30, 2005
342 posts
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Is there some boxes which will allow me to create some protected and some unprotected CIFS shares available at the same time ? I've had troubles with this when using my single-bay NASes from Buffalo and LaCie.

Sometime I want a specifiic password protected CIFS share for backups but also other different unprotected CIFS shares for streaming from my HTPC or Boxee Box. These would be different shares/directories.
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Jul 17, 2008
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Looking actually at this
http://www.amazon.com/Synology-DiskStat ... 679&sr=1-1

Does anyone if they ever go on sale? I know its quite quite expensive, but I like the fact you can expand with another 10 bays if you need to by buying the DX510

EDIT: Or should I just get a case like Corsair R500 and get 6 HDD's and just RAID them? Would that be a much better alternative to a backup & storage solution for a much cheaper price? (I actually don't really care about all the apps/functions the majority of NAS'es come with).

I also forgot to mention that I still use a Linksys WRT54GL which as you know only has a 100mbps connection
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Jun 16, 2007
366 posts
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alanbrenton wrote: Are you telling me that it's better to buy USB 3.0 products than eSATA San Digital products? Thanked.

Well what I was trying to say (I probably mixed it up a bit), was that the eSATA PCI card that is shipped with a lot of San Digital products is from HighPoint (http://www.highpoint-tech.com/USA_new/main.htm) They just bundle one of their cards in. San Digital does not make any PCI eSATA or SATA cards. They have some kind of deal going on with HighPoint.

Now what I meant to say was that if you DO buy a San Digital product that comes with one of those HighPoint eSATA cards, stomp on the card, burn it with gasoline and then throw it away. Now go out and buy a cheap eSATA controller, one of those $24 ones with the SiliconImage chipset on it, Syba, Rosewill, Startech, they all make a 2 port external eSATA controller with SiliconImage chipset that supports SATA port multiplier (NOTE: you need port multiplier, thats why 90% of the motherboard eSATA ports will not work, they don't have port multiplier)

So to re-cap. San Digital Tower "Cases" are one of the best for the home market, smart design, look great, and you can get them with more than 4 drive bays, so you can really get some nice Raid5 and Raid6 or 1+0 setups going in one box.
HighPoint controllers I will NEVER touch again, even if you paid me!! So if you buy a San Digital tower with both USB3 and eSATA, save yourself the headache and use USB3 (Plus the performance hit from SATA6gb to USB3 is NOT that much)

Now, your probably asking yourself, what does this lunatic have against HighPoint controllers? Well here is where HighPoint products are giving San Digital a bad name. First of all forget about customer support, they will both blame each other. So whats the big problem with HighPoint? Their cards crap out when you use the onboard-raid or even software-raid if you are using anything but enterprise level harddrives. Windows and Linux. I had a Raid5 Linux Software-Raid running on WD Green power drives for over 3 years inside my Tower case, hooked up to the motherboard SATA connectors. Not one single problem in EVER! I buy the San Digital tower, move all the drives over, plug in the HighPoint controller, and everything shows up great! Fine, everything went smooth. Then I notice that the Software-Raid starts complaining about drives disconnecting? Long story short, if you ran any hard reads or writes, the controller would reboot the drives and you would be timed out for about 90seconds.

Bought a cheap SiliconImage controller, everything works 100% again...

If you want more details: http://www.sansdigital.com/index.php?op ... 10&id=2078

P.S. If anyone wants to buy my RocketRaid622 and RocketRaid2314 PM me..
Newbie
Mar 1, 2005
98 posts
9 upvotes
Ottawa
Messerschmitt wrote: Looking actually at this
http://www.amazon.com/Synology-DiskStat ... 679&sr=1-1

Does anyone if they ever go on sale? I know its quite quite expensive, but I like the fact you can expand with another 10 bays if you need to by buying the DX510

EDIT: Or should I just get a case like Corsair R500 and get 6 HDD's and just RAID them? Would that be a much better alternative to a backup & storage solution for a much cheaper price? (I actually don't really care about all the apps/functions the majority of NAS'es come with).

I also forgot to mention that I still use a Linksys WRT54GL which as you know only has a 100mbps connection

I picked one up on sale just before Christmas and loaded it up with Hitachi 2TB (7200rpm) drives and really like the platform and integration. DSM is nicely
integrated with lots of features. Also went the home built a couple years ago, chenbro case, mini itx MB, CF boot disk and a stripped down linux install with 500G drives (when they were cheap) and recently upgraded those to 1TB drives without issue. IMHO, if you like to tinker and learn as you go, home built is "fun" but in the end I still prefer the DS1511 over the home built. I like the expansion options and "silent" running.
Deal Expert
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Apr 21, 2004
58648 posts
24637 upvotes
Circuit wrote: Well what I was trying to say (I probably mixed it up a bit), was that the eSATA PCI card that is shipped with a lot of San Digital products is from HighPoint (http://www.highpoint-tech.com/USA_new/main.htm) They just bundle one of their cards in. San Digital does not make any PCI eSATA or SATA cards. They have some kind of deal going on with HighPoint.

Now what I meant to say was that if you DO buy a San Digital product that comes with one of those HighPoint eSATA cards, stomp on the card, burn it with gasoline and then throw it away. Now go out and buy a cheap eSATA controller, one of those $24 ones with the SiliconImage chipset on it, Syba, Rosewill, Startech, they all make a 2 port external eSATA controller with SiliconImage chipset that supports SATA port multiplier (NOTE: you need port multiplier, thats why 90% of the motherboard eSATA ports will not work, they don't have port multiplier)

So to re-cap. San Digital Tower "Cases" are one of the best for the home market, smart design, look great, and you can get them with more than 4 drive bays, so you can really get some nice Raid5 and Raid6 or 1+0 setups going in one box.
HighPoint controllers I will NEVER touch again, even if you paid me!! So if you buy a San Digital tower with both USB3 and eSATA, save yourself the headache and use USB3 (Plus the performance hit from SATA6gb to USB3 is NOT that much)

Now, your probably asking yourself, what does this lunatic have against HighPoint controllers? Well here is where HighPoint products are giving San Digital a bad name. First of all forget about customer support, they will both blame each other. So whats the big problem with HighPoint? Their cards crap out when you use the onboard-raid or even software-raid if you are using anything but enterprise level harddrives. Windows and Linux. I had a Raid5 Linux Software-Raid running on WD Green power drives for over 3 years inside my Tower case, hooked up to the motherboard SATA connectors. Not one single problem in EVER! I buy the San Digital tower, move all the drives over, plug in the HighPoint controller, and everything shows up great! Fine, everything went smooth. Then I notice that the Software-Raid starts complaining about drives disconnecting? Long story short, if you ran any hard reads or writes, the controller would reboot the drives and you would be timed out for about 90seconds.

Bought a cheap SiliconImage controller, everything works 100% again...

If you want more details: http://www.sansdigital.com/index.php?op ... 10&id=2078

P.S. If anyone wants to buy my RocketRaid622 and RocketRaid2314 PM me..

Hey Circuit, thanks for the succinct explanation. Yes, I read a few of those reviews relating to the eSATA controller just yesterday afternoon.

Will something like this do but this just says JBOD so no RAID I guess? I just realized one of my notebooks has a 34 mm ExpressCard slot and I might just get a USB 3.0 card if this Sans Digital will work or if it's another product I will need to implement RAID in the future.

http://www.sansdigital.com/towerraid-/tr4uplusb.html
Deal Addict
Dec 24, 2001
2039 posts
1455 upvotes
Toronto
Messerschmitt wrote: Looking actually at this
http://www.amazon.com/Synology-DiskStat ... 679&sr=1-1

Does anyone if they ever go on sale? I know its quite quite expensive, but I like the fact you can expand with another 10 bays if you need to by buying the DX510

EDIT: Or should I just get a case like Corsair R500 and get 6 HDD's and just RAID them? Would that be a much better alternative to a backup & storage solution for a much cheaper price? (I actually don't really care about all the apps/functions the majority of NAS'es come with).

I also forgot to mention that I still use a Linksys WRT54GL which as you know only has a 100mbps connection
DS1511+ is last year model, wait for the DS1812+ which has 8 bay and about $1000. The expansion box DX510 is not worth the money, it's normally about $550. I would take $550 and spent it on a new NAS box instead of the DX510.
Member
User avatar
Jun 16, 2007
366 posts
120 upvotes
alanbrenton wrote: Hey Circuit, thanks for the succinct explanation. Yes, I read a few of those reviews relating to the eSATA controller just yesterday afternoon.

Will something like this do but this just says JBOD so no RAID I guess? I just realized one of my notebooks has a 34 mm ExpressCard slot and I might just get a USB 3.0 card if this Sans Digital will work or if it's another product I will need to implement RAID in the future.

http://www.sansdigital.com/towerraid-/tr4uplusb.html

Short answer; Yes, that will do and work. looks like newegg.ca is having 15% off on Sans Digital enclosures.

Longer explanation, whether it says RAID or JBOD on the "device" shouldn't matter too much in this situation since you are connecting it to a computer. These Sans Digital devices are enclosures that direct connect to a PC (DAS = Direct attached storage) not (NAS = Network attached storage) NAS costs more than DAS, and if you are buying a NAS then it should support and have what you need, ie; RAID. For DAS, you've probably read many posts in the RFD computer forum and on other sites that these non-enterprise RAID devices are what is called "fake" RAID, and if there is an option to choose between Fake-RAID and Software-RAID, go with Software-RAID EVERY SINGLE TIME! :)

Please excuse me if this is already common knowledge to you, just want to cover the bases here:

There are 3 types of RAID controllers/implementation (Not talking about RAID "levels")
1. True Hardware-RAID (Expensive and mostly used in businesses/enterprise markets. These have a RAID ASIC on-board that does ALL the work along with memory cache to speed R/W)
2. Fake-RAID (Your typical motherboard RAID, or these eSATA/SATA controllers. HighPoint crap. They are 50/50 hardware software, you still need a driver on the OS to support the RAID configuration)
3. Software-RAID (Almost all OSes now have this, Windows, OSX, Linux. All RAID is performed on PC CPU and is just a software level)

#2 and #3 are consumer price levels and what we deal with at home. At work I only use #1

So why is Software-RAID better than Fake-RAID? Apart from speed, most software RAIDs have been shown to be faster than Fake-RAID and CPU usage is minimal. Google for proof.. (sorry about that :) )
Hypothetical scenario #1: You have Fake-RAID setup. BAM!! Your SATA Fake-RAID controller dies on you, what do you do? You go out and buy the EXACT SAME controller, for what ever $$amount$$ it costs... Time and money!
Hypothetical scenario #2: Hey, cool! Windows 8 is out now, I'm gonna upgrade. Oh NO! No software driver for my crappy HighPoint Fake-RAID controller, guess I'm not reading that array.. Frustration, fist through monitor.. Time and money!
Hypothetical scenario #3: I've got a whole bunch or empty harddrives, I'll just throw them into this Fake-RAID, error! WTF? What do you mean you don't support these harddrives in this configuration?? Hmm.. reminds me of HighPoint!
Hypothetical scenario #4: Ok, I've filled up my RAID and want to expand. WHAT? This version of Fake-RAID only supports 4 or 6 drives? I'm maxed out!! GRRRRH!
Hypothetical scenario #5: Hmm, I have all my important data on this RAID5 and want to be extra carefull, lets turn it into RAID6 or RAID1+0 with the data still in place, BAM!! What do you mean I have to reformat to the new RAID level in Fake-RAID!!
etc.. etc..

Software-RAID does not have these issues.. And all of these QNAP and Synology NAS boxes run Software-RAID on the embedded OS controllers as well. Just goes to show you...
The only issue would be if you created the RAID in windows and then plugged it into OSX, it would not be recognized, but then again that would be an issue with Fake-RAID as well...

Just an FYI, I run Linux Software-RAID on a tiny little Atom server, so you don't need a 6-core CPU for software RAID...
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Dec 24, 2004
119 posts
58 upvotes
tomw wrote: NCIX seems to have a sale on now:

QNAP TS-112 for $149.99 (free ground shipping for this item only)
http://www.ncix.ca/products/?sku=58628&promoid=1396

QNAP TS-212 for $169.99
http://www.ncix.ca/products/?sku=58629&promoid=1396

QNAP TS-412 for $379.99
http://www.ncix.ca/products/?sku=58630&promoid=1396

The QNAP TS-419P+ is also on sale, $40 instant rebate ($480.98) ends Feb 1/12.
http://www.ncix.ca/products/?sku=57041& ... s%20Inc%2E
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Jul 17, 2008
11042 posts
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hdefjunkie wrote: I picked one up on sale just before Christmas and loaded it up with Hitachi 2TB (7200rpm) drives and really like the platform and integration. DSM is nicely
integrated with lots of features. Also went the home built a couple years ago, chenbro case, mini itx MB, CF boot disk and a stripped down linux install with 500G drives (when they were cheap) and recently upgraded those to 1TB drives without issue. IMHO, if you like to tinker and learn as you go, home built is "fun" but in the end I still prefer the DS1511 over the home built. I like the expansion options and "silent" running.
How much did you got it on sale? It wasnt a special sale like boxing day right?

I'm not really interested in a "home built" as my alternative thinking is to just buy a corsair carbide case which has 6 HDD slots and just RAID them internally.
lurker99 wrote: DS1511+ is last year model, wait for the DS1812+ which has 8 bay and about $1000. The expansion box DX510 is not worth the money, it's normally about $550. I would take $550 and spent it on a new NAS box instead of the DX510.

Good info. Any link regarding this new DS1812+?
WildParadise wrote: Big difference between the TS-412 and 419P?

I got 4x 2tb in raid 5 in my tower and looking to put a nas and something smaller with the tv.

It's to load one by one movies, nothing demanding.

This one is dirty cheap... http://www.ncix.ca/products/?sku=60865& ... omoid=1375
Thats what I'm wondering, if its not better to just buy a case with lots of HDD space like corsair carbide and just RAID 5 my HDD internally. I'm not using external tv's or anything like that.
That Javelin NAS is pretty tempting, but I don't think the reviews are all that great compared to Synology DS1511+, etc
Deal Addict
Feb 10, 2007
1743 posts
265 upvotes
Montreal
Messerschmitt wrote: How much did you got it on sale? It wasnt a special sale like boxing day right?

I'm not really interested in a "home built" as my alternative thinking is to just buy a corsair carbide case which has 6 HDD slots and just RAID them internally.



Good info. Any link regarding this new DS1812+?



Thats what I'm wondering, if its not better to just buy a case with lots of HDD space like corsair carbide and just RAID 5 my HDD internally. I'm not using external tv's or anything like that.
That Javelin NAS is pretty tempting, but I don't think the reviews are all that great compared to Synology DS1511+, etc

5 times the price...
Deal Expert
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Apr 21, 2004
58648 posts
24637 upvotes
Circuit wrote: Short answer; Yes, that will do and work. looks like newegg.ca is having 15% off on Sans Digital enclosures.

Longer explanation, whether it says RAID or JBOD on the "device" shouldn't matter too much in this situation since you are connecting it to a computer. These Sans Digital devices are enclosures that direct connect to a PC (DAS = Direct attached storage) not (NAS = Network attached storage) NAS costs more than DAS, and if you are buying a NAS then it should support and have what you need, ie; RAID. For DAS, you've probably read many posts in the RFD computer forum and on other sites that these non-enterprise RAID devices are what is called "fake" RAID, and if there is an option to choose between Fake-RAID and Software-RAID, go with Software-RAID EVERY SINGLE TIME! :)

Please excuse me if this is already common knowledge to you, just want to cover the bases here:

There are 3 types of RAID controllers/implementation (Not talking about RAID "levels")
1. True Hardware-RAID (Expensive and mostly used in businesses/enterprise markets. These have a RAID ASIC on-board that does ALL the work along with memory cache to speed R/W)
2. Fake-RAID (Your typical motherboard RAID, or these eSATA/SATA controllers. HighPoint crap. They are 50/50 hardware software, you still need a driver on the OS to support the RAID configuration)
3. Software-RAID (Almost all OSes now have this, Windows, OSX, Linux. All RAID is performed on PC CPU and is just a software level)

#2 and #3 are consumer price levels and what we deal with at home. At work I only use #1

So why is Software-RAID better than Fake-RAID? Apart from speed, most software RAIDs have been shown to be faster than Fake-RAID and CPU usage is minimal. Google for proof.. (sorry about that :) )
Hypothetical scenario #1: You have Fake-RAID setup. BAM!! Your SATA Fake-RAID controller dies on you, what do you do? You go out and buy the EXACT SAME controller, for what ever $$amount$$ it costs... Time and money!
Hypothetical scenario #2: Hey, cool! Windows 8 is out now, I'm gonna upgrade. Oh NO! No software driver for my crappy HighPoint Fake-RAID controller, guess I'm not reading that array.. Frustration, fist through monitor.. Time and money!
Hypothetical scenario #3: I've got a whole bunch or empty harddrives, I'll just throw them into this Fake-RAID, error! WTF? What do you mean you don't support these harddrives in this configuration?? Hmm.. reminds me of HighPoint!
Hypothetical scenario #4: Ok, I've filled up my RAID and want to expand. WHAT? This version of Fake-RAID only supports 4 or 6 drives? I'm maxed out!! GRRRRH!
Hypothetical scenario #5: Hmm, I have all my important data on this RAID5 and want to be extra carefull, lets turn it into RAID6 or RAID1+0 with the data still in place, BAM!! What do you mean I have to reformat to the new RAID level in Fake-RAID!!
etc.. etc..

Software-RAID does not have these issues.. And all of these QNAP and Synology NAS boxes run Software-RAID on the embedded OS controllers as well. Just goes to show you...
The only issue would be if you created the RAID in windows and then plugged it into OSX, it would not be recognized, but then again that would be an issue with Fake-RAID as well...

Just an FYI, I run Linux Software-RAID on a tiny little Atom server, so you don't need a 6-core CPU for software RAID...

Thanks again Circuit, I didn't know about DAS and you saved me some serious dough. Actually, the only files worth backing up are photos and some documents. I have a 500GB portable hdd for the photos and documents so it's mainly file/media sharing that I needed.
Deal Guru
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Nov 21, 2002
12014 posts
4369 upvotes
Winnipeg
oldskool75 wrote: Is that Javelin actually a NAS? It looks like DAS (i.e. enclosure.. it only lists eSATA/usb2 connections)..

its a nas

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