First NAS server need help

You should be able to run the box without any drives installed. The only problem is that they also don't have video output(usually) so you have to connect it to a network and open its Webgui.

Also I've never heard of installing a third party OS on a prebuilt box from Synology or QNAP. They usually have that stuff locked down.

Just curious, what are you reasons for using a NAS versus the Cloud?

Local storage is very expensive and prone to failure. Some people have trust issues and think photos of grandma or junior will pop up on the NSA's radar. With the shift to online services and away from commodity hardware, I'm interested in hearing the arguments for a home NAS as I have 10+ 500GB drives doing nothing at home, and I work for a cloud provider, but I'm still on the fence about what to do.

Would I be able to hook up a monitor and keyboard and check that way? The seller has agreed to have come over and check it out.

Its a enterprise grade server, you can run anything(unraid, freenas) all from a usb key

I have all my movies ripped onto multiple hard drives that are linked to my media box. I dont see the need to upload to a cloud system.

Sledgebrah wrote: ↑Finally got the go ahead from the missess to build a nas. I have been looking at many different options and have narrowed it down to the lenovo TS140.

TS410 doesn't have a lot of external or internal drive bays; it's not really a storage server. I would consider another server with a better case design.

Or, buy a Synology device it will be turnkey.

that is a great little system, enterprise the class, at a very low price.in there, and watch it boot up. enjoy!

coolspot wrote: ↑TS410 doesn't have a lot of external or internal drive bays; it's not really a storage server. I would consider another server with a better case design.

Or, buy a Synology device it will be turnkey.

It holds about 4-5hd in there. Thats more then enough for me.

mr_yellow wrote: ↑You should be able to run the box without any drives installed. The only problem is that they also don't have video output(usually) so you have to connect it to a network and open its Webgui.

Also I've never heard of installing a third party OS on a prebuilt box from Synology or QNAP. They usually have that stuff locked down.

The TS140 is an Intel i3 server. You can easily hook up a monitor and keyboard to it

It is not a NAS appliance.

$300 for that server is a good price

Gee wrote: ↑The TS140 is an Intel i3 server. You can easily hook up a monitor and keyboard to it

It is not a NAS appliance.

$300 for that server is a good price

Do you think just watching the server POST screen enough? Or should I run something like linux live cd?

Prime95 it

Kor770 wrote: ↑that is a great little system, enterprise the class, at a very low price.in there, and watch it boot up. enjoy!

I would hardly call this enterprise. It is a small business server.

It is an i3, not a Xeon, no hot swap, no redundant power supplies, no ECC memory.

This is a small departmental server designed for 25 users or less.

nickscott wrote: ↑Just curious, what are you reasons for using a NAS versus the Cloud?

Local storage is very expensive and prone to failure. Some people have trust issues and think photos of grandma or junior will pop up on the NSA's radar. With the shift to online services and away from commodity hardware, I'm interested in hearing the arguments for a home NAS as I have 10+ 500GB drives doing nothing at home, and I work for a cloud provider, but I'm still on the fence about what to do.

Cloud is great until you hit the issue of how to get a few TB onto it cheaply and easily. Then there's the issue of bandwidth usage, speed, flexibility etc.

There's a plethora of other concerns like where do I keep my sensitive data meaning you'll still end up with a local solution.

Ooops.. I thought OP had bought a qnap... got the model number confused with the ts-451...

OP is actually in a very similar boat I'm in right now.

I recently bought an HP ML310e for ~$440CAD new. I'm going to use it as a hardware refresh for my EX495 box. Basically going from a dinky dual core pentium with no vga and only 2gb of ram and going to a 4-core haswell xeon with dual nics, iLO management, 4GB ECC ram (will add more), 4-bay drive cage + dvd-rom. I'm going to get a 4 bay 2.5" cage for the last 5.25" slot and build an SSD array for some fast storage. These econo-servers are great for what they're worth but it does require quite a bit of management compared to stand alone NAS boxes.

Regarding cloud storage, it's a perfectly fine solution but never use it in isolation. Always use it in conjunction with other methods. My cardinal rule of backups is you need at least 2 copies of your files on at least 2 types of media in at least 2 locations. I have a drivepool with duplications on important docs and I have a crashplan subscription. Everything is automated so I never have to manually go and backup a drive or touch anything. I know everything is "safe" the second I copy the file onto my server. I've currently backed up ~700gb of data to crashplan. I pay for unlimited internet so I don't care about bandwidth issues.

Sledgebrah wrote: ↑Do you think just watching the server POST screen enough? Or should I run something like linux live cd?

POST is not going to be enough. Unless you have a lot of time, there is no way to stress test the system.

You could have bad memory, anything could be wrong. A Live CD won't tell you much either but it is better than nothing

Gee wrote: ↑POST is not going to be enough. Unless you have a lot of time, there is no way to stress test the system.

You could have bad memory, anything could be wrong. A Live CD won't tell you much either but it is better than nothing

In fact sometimes you need to run it on hours on end before the issue shows up - this is one of the reasons why I don't buy used hardware, especially off Kijiji, unless the seller has a good return policy or item has a low risk of failure.

nickscott wrote: ↑Just curious, what are you reasons for using a NAS versus the Cloud?

Local storage is very expensive and prone to failure. Some people have trust issues and think photos of grandma or junior will pop up on the NSA's radar. With the shift to online services and away from commodity hardware, I'm interested in hearing the arguments for a home NAS as I have 10+ 500GB drives doing nothing at home, and I work for a cloud provider, but I'm still on the fence about what to do.

You have some valid arguments

I think that most people that want a NAS has one because they simply don't want their data in the wind. Once it is online, you don't really own your data.

Real data takes very little space. But a majority of users that buy a large NAS are using it for movie collections, music etc

That is bandwidth intensive.

Thanks for the replies, and I hope I'm not hijacking this thread.

Stress-testing hardware and dealing with failures is a big PITA. But I agree that if you have TBs of movies or very large files, the network infrastructure is not fast enough to readily access these files.

I've been trying out Google Photos recently and have been wowed by the ease of use and features. I think for now, consumer cloud storage is best for pictures and smaller files.

nickscott wrote: ↑Just curious, what are you reasons for using a NAS versus the Cloud?

Don't get me wrong, I use the cloud for some things, but never for something as large scale as a NAS.
It's FAR too expensive. And no, the $5/month "unlimited" places don't count.
Very few are truly unlimited.

Local storage is very expensive and prone to failure.

Online storage is FAR more expensive, especially with a reputable company.
Think of it this way: If it's expensive for you to put up 1TB, how much do you think it costs them?
On top of that, they have to have hosting and most likely pay someone to manage things.

As for failure, I've never lost data locally that I didn't intend to lose.
You shouldn't lose any data on a cloud provider either assuming they're reputable.
But the issue nowadays is that most aren't reputable. Google/Amazon won't go out of business but they're also the most expensive storage options.
There was a cloud provider that I can't recall the name of that had a great unlimited plan. Then they changed it and gave everyone a week to either buy a hilariously more expensive non unlimited plan or get their data off/face deletion.

This is why those Chinese "10TB" sites are a joke. I know exactly how much it costs to support 10TB. Or 100TB. Or 1PB.
There's no way to do it for free or even freemium.

Some people have trust issues and think photos of grandma or junior will pop up on the NSA's radar.

I couldn't care less about trust issues. All my data in the cloud is encrypted.
Whether or not the NSA can decrypt my encryption is another matter.

Stress-testing hardware and dealing with failures is a big PITA.

What? No it's not. Run like 3 commands and it'll test the hell out of it. Come back in a day or two.
Same with failures. ID the drive (easy if you're set up right, it lights up) and pluck it. Replace with cold spare.
Wait. You don't even have to shut down.

With the shift to online services and away from commodity hardware, I'm interested in hearing the arguments for a home NAS as I have 10+ 500GB drives doing nothing at home, and I work for a cloud provider, but I'm still on the fence about what to do.

It really depends on the volume of data you have. 5GB of photos? Sure. That's easily manageable.
But with ISPs thinking that upload speed still doesn't matter it becomes a real issue if you have to move any more than 1TB.
I have the fastest line I can get with cable: 100/5. That means I'm capped at an absolute maximum of 1.5TB per month upload.
If I were to upload every single bit of data I have, I'd be looking at 20 months. Probably 30 to account for the additional data I'm acquiring in the first 20 months.
And that's solid upload too. I'd leave nothing else for any other activity.

Then there's cost. For me to store 100TB at Google would cost me $2600 per month. Operational costs for 100TB for me are around $50/month.
Build cost for 100TB is only about $5000 plus $1500 if you want all new parts instead of used.
In 3 months I'd have it paid for. It's actually cheaper for me to build out a server and colo it for $300/month.
Plus I retain full control of my data.

"But you can store unlimited files at X for $10/month!"
I'd like to see anyone upload anything significant (even a TB or 2) without them complaining somehow.
A LOT of cloud providers will throttle you to oblivion if you cross certain thresholds. Or cut you off outright.
Microsoft is the only one I really want to test because of the name behind it.

That's not to say I don't use cloud hosting. I use S3/Glacier as offsite storage. I don't store everything on there but the most important things are mirrored there automagically.