recommendations for a basic 2-bay NAS

I picked up a Synology 218+ a few months ago after looking for a reasonably priced 2-bay NAS. Wirecutter named it the "Best NAS for Most home users"

https://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best- ... d-storage/

Bought for $349 on sale at newegg. You did say that you won't be streaming media, so maybe the cheaper 218 models would be enough for backups:

https://www.amazon.ca/Synology-DS218j-S ... 076G6YKWZ/

https://www.amazon.ca/SYNOLOGY-Bay-Disk ... 077PJX8TH/

lbmeyer wrote: ↑ I picked up a Synology 218+ a few months ago after looking for a reasonably priced 2-bay NAS. Wirecutter named it the "Best NAS for Most home users"

https://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best- ... d-storage/

Bought for $349 on sale at newegg. You did say that you won't be streaming media, so maybe the cheaper 218 models would be enough for backups:

https://www.amazon.ca/Synology-DS218j-S ... 076G6YKWZ/

https://www.amazon.ca/SYNOLOGY-Bay-Disk ... 077PJX8TH/

if lets say your synology fails to boot up, will you be able to take the hard drive out, plug it into a USB enclosure and still access your files fine from another computer? and are you able to backup files from your (android) phone to the NAS?

chroma_cg wrote: ↑ if lets say your synology fails to boot up, will you be able to take the hard drive out, plug it into a USB enclosure and still access your files fine from another computer? and are you able to backup files from your (android) phone to the NAS?

I would imagine that you could still access your files using a USB enclosure if Synology fails (assuming there aren't any issues with HD itself). As for backing up files from android to NAS, it looks like they have the DS File app that could do this. Haven't tried this myself, so I don't know how well it works.

https://www.synology.com/en-global/know ... le/Android

chroma_cg wrote: ↑ if lets say your synology fails to boot up, will you be able to take the hard drive out, plug it into a USB enclosure and still access your files fine from another computer? and are you able to backup files from your (android) phone to the NAS?

This depends on how you have it setup, if you have it on raid 0, probably not but on raid 1 then yes

chroma_cg wrote: ↑ wanna move on from my 10-yr old acer aspire easystore. looking for a 2-bay headless NAS (to be run at raid 1) to backup 1 pc and 2 mobile phones have about 700GB of NAS data. no need to stream media

any suggestions? qnap and synology, which is better? should i consider other brands such as WD/buffalo/asustor etc? should i wait for black friday for deals?

If you're looking for a basic NAS, most all will do what you want. They will store your file and let you access them remotely. The top two are Synology and qnap. With Synology being more expensive since it can do so much more. The Qnap you will give better hardware for a similar price.

For me, sustain read and write speeds are very important. That's where WD in the past has always been crap. Not sure how they are now, but the top two are guaranteed to be decent and reliable.

r1lee wrote: ↑he top two are Synology and qnap. With Synology being more expensive since it can do so much more. The Qnap you will give better hardware for a similar price

can you enlighten me as to what you mean by "so much more". im not expecting to do alot with the NAS; heck i dont even need remote access (i prefer turning it off and have it cut off from the internet if possible), but im all ears

actually, it seems like synology is abit cheaper than qnap equivalents

chroma_cg wrote: ↑ can you enlighten me as to what you mean by "so much more". im not expecting to do alot with the NAS; heck i dont even need remote access (i prefer turning it off and have it cut off from the internet if possible), but im all ears

actually, it seems like synology is abit cheaper than qnap equivalents

Then get a basic NAS and don't waste your time and money looking. The more you look the more likely you will get something you may never use lol. I was looking at Buffalo before I decided on my Synology, just because I needed remote backup and possibly things I would never use (which I still havent).

You can run VM on the Synology, transcode, there is so much you can do.

chroma_cg wrote: ↑ can you enlighten me as to what you mean by "so much more".

All the NAS brands that you mentioned in your OP will act as a backup location for your files. If that is all you want to do, then save your money and purchase a "cheap" NAS.

The Synology does more than act as a backup location. Check this LINK to see some of the packages that can be installed on the Synology. You can setup your own web server, mail server, or media server to name just a few. I use a package called Cloud Sync which encrypts my data files and keeps a copy on Google Drive or Microsoft Drive.

r1lee wrote: ↑ This depends on how you have it setup, if you have it on raid 0, probably not but on raid 1 then yes

It's more complex than that. Synology uses linux raid, and the way they partition the drive is far from intuitive. Yes you can recover data off a Synology raid drive, but you better be damn good at using Linux and dmraid from the command line.

Don't even try from a windows PC as it won't be able to read the partitions.

mr_raider wrote: ↑ It's more complex than that. Synology uses linux raid, and the way they partition the drive is far from intuitive. Yes you can recover data off a Synology raid drive, but you better be damn good at using Linux and dmraid from the command line.

Don't even try from a windows PC as it won't be able to read the partitions.

seems like both have wikis teaching you how to recover data from raid1 (which is what i will be using) despite using linux, will this be sufficient (as long as there is guide its fine with me)?
https://wiki.qnap.com/wiki/Static_Volume_Recovery
https://www.synology.com/en-us/knowledg ... using_a_PC

chroma_cg wrote: ↑ seems like both have wikis teaching you how to recover data from raid1 (which is what i will be using) despite using linux, will this be sufficient (as long as there is guide its fine with me)?
https://wiki.qnap.com/wiki/Static_Volume_Recovery
https://www.synology.com/en-us/knowledg ... using_a_PC

Both those wikis require you to use some form of Linux, either form a USB live environment or in a virtual machine.

Not the Synology wikis requires you to have all the drives plugged in to a PC to recover the raid array.

mr_raider wrote: ↑ Both those wikis require you to use some form of Linux, either form a USB live environment or in a virtual machine.

Not the Synology wikis requires you to have all the drives plugged in to a PC to recover the raid array.

in the case of synology, if i am on a raid1 (meaning 2 duplicates of the same drives), do i still need to plug both drives via usb for recovery?

using linux startup is fine for me. i dunno how to use it well, but i do know how to boot via usb (i use parted magic frequently to clean/wipe ssd/hdd), and my OS at work is also linux so it's not foreign to me. a few command lines are fine with me as long as its just cut and paste (and they work, of course). obviously not as convenient as having a windows solution, but not the end of the world

chroma_cg wrote: ↑ in the case of synology, if i am on a raid1 (meaning 2 duplicates of the same drives), do i still need to plug both drives via usb for recovery?

It depends on the type of RAID:

https://www.synology.com/en-uk/knowledg ... d_RAID_SHR

If you use hybrid RAID, even on simple 2 drive setup, DSM will break up the volume on several disks.

I guess a classic RAID1 is recoverable with a single drive. You can try with a Linux PC and mounting the RAID array with 1 drive in degraded mode to see if it can be read. I have no experience with this. I tried once to recover a 4 drive array from a dead Synology NAS and I never succeeded. I just went to my backup files.

In that

mr_raider wrote: ↑ It depends on the type of RAID:

https://www.synology.com/en-uk/knowledg ... d_RAID_SHR

If you use hybrid RAID, even on simple 2 drive setup, DSM will break up the volume on several disks.

I guess a classic RAID1 is recoverable with a single drive. You can try with a Linux PC and mounting the RAID array with 1 drive in degraded mode to see if it can be read. I have no experience with this. I tried once to recover a 4 drive array from a dead Synology NAS and I never succeeded. I just went to my backup files.

In that

looks like qnap does not have that "need all drives connected" requirement for recovery?

chroma_cg wrote: ↑ looks like qnap does not have that "need all drives connected" requirement for recovery?

I don't know. I do have a QNAP NAS now, (2 drive RAID 1 array). But it has yet to fail one me.

One thing I've decided, when this NAS fails, I'm just going to go with a standard PC running Linux. I'm done with commercial NASes.

mr_raider wrote: ↑ I don't know. I do have a QNAP NAS now, (2 drive RAID 1 array). But it has yet to fail one me.

One thing I've decided, when this NAS fails, I'm just going to go with a standard PC running Linux. I'm done with commercial NASes.

is it too much if i ask you to take 1 of your drives out, connect it to another (linux PC) try to mount it like the wiki says and see if you are able to read your NAS data off it?

Bumping this. I'm considering the Synology DS218j or QNAP TS-231P with 2x 4TB Reds in RAID1. Looks like they dip down to $180 at Amazon once in a while. Only use case is storage/backup (no transcoding or VM). May also backup to Backblaze B2. The QNAP has a CPU running at a higher frequency, and twice the RAM; but I hear Synology software might be better. Any thoughts?

Thanks,