NAS advice

[MattRoberts]

Hi guys - I know we have a few techies here, so I'm hoping I may be able to get some advice about upgrading my NAS.

Currently, I have a QNAP TS210 2 bay NAS. It's pretty old (almost 10 years), plus its limited on storage (2TB).

In terms of what I'm looking for:

- high storage: - 6 - 8 TB minimum
- media capability: I primarily use my NAS as a movie server and play movies over DLNA
- would prefer a windows OS because I know it better, but Linux is fine if that's the best / only option
- would like it to be as energy efficient as possible

Anyone have any good recommendations?

Thanks

 

[SteveF]

as an IT Engineer I have been through most of the Nas suppliers and keep go back to the QNAPs
and the fact yours has lasted 10 yrs is a testament to that
maybe time to just get a larger one and setup RTRR between the 2 for your most important stuff, until it dies

Steve

 

[Eric The Viking]

I've got two HP microservers (gen 7). I like them, but with caveats:

Limited PSU capacity. Fine if you're not too demanding.

4x 3.5" SATA bays, plus optical storage (need to supply your own SATA cable and Molex-SATApower adaptor!).
Can add external SATA or USB3 storage. NOTE: no RAID capability, and nominally no hot-plug capability apart from what SATA itself provides.

Mine have two PCIe slots, and one of them has a graphics card added (it's supposed to be my wife's desktop machine). Using the HDMI output from that card I have a multimedia capable machine.

Gigabit network port.

Small cheap and quiet.

The net says the PSUs overheat and die. The Gen 8 ones apparently only have one PCIe slot (not seen one myself). At work we've put quite a few into small businesses and they've been reliable, as have my two after four or five years.

Linux is fully supported (wot I run). Ridiculously easy to set up and use.

I like them and I've built two good servers, each for under 200 quid (incl 8GB memory and mostly new parts). You don't need a screen + keyboard on them to adminster them, but it's faster initially. Forget Windows: it's a horrible OS. They'll easily be DLNA servers or whatever.

I'd check the power consumption of your disks carefully though, and consider an external SATA box if you're using old mechanical disks because of the startup load.

We still offer them to clients, implying it's basically a good machine. I'm ex-HP, so a bit biased (although these are ex-Compaq division products), but I really liked the build quality and attention to details such as the disk carriers and cooling (very good for the the disks). Very easy boxes to work on. I'd rout the cables carefully over the PSU though, as that is a bit constricted and the better the airflow, the more reliable it will be.

Hope that helps.

[edit]Note: I've just had a quick look at the Gen8 online - doesn't look as good value as the Gen7, especially if the optical drive needs a proprietary bezel! Worth downloading the manuals to check. Still at a reasonable price, although it looks like they're in "cost-reduction" mode now - the Gen 7 was really well built. [/edit]

 

[mbartlett99]

We invariably use Qnap for multimedia, have yet to have one fail. I've got a three bay Thecus at home (it was cheap) and its ok but noisy and their tech support is crap.

 

[No skills]

Didn't understand a ******* word if it.

 

[Eric The Viking]

Didn't understand a pineapple word if it.

Excellent! At least those of us in IT can still continue to make money

 

[MattRoberts]

Thanks for the advice guys.

Eric - those servers look interesting. What Linux have you installed? I know very little about it - is it a friendly GUI version? I'd like to steer clear of all of the command line side of Linux if possible!

Good to hear others have had good experiences with qnap - my only hesitation with them is hdd compatibility. I don't really understand why only certain drives are compatible (in my head, a drive is a drive).

 

[SteveF]

a NAS is used for constantly changing data rather than just accumulating data and an OS

the "special" drives survive a bit longer for their intended use 24\7 as opposed to an 8hr desktop

Steve

 

[MattRoberts]

That's 'optimal', as opposed to 'compatible'. The qnap site lists a bunch of drives that are compatible, which indicates that some aren't.

 

[Eric The Viking]

One is running an older version of Ubuntu. The one I'm typing on now is running xubuntu, because I prefer its desktop (cross between Windows and MacOS, I guess).

Xubuntu is my default nowadays, I've had it running nicely on five machines here, including a brand-new laptop (64-bit version), and a 16-year-old laptop (32-bit version), and my Microserver(s). it's very popular but there are other Linux desktops out there. The most mainstream Ubuntu one is "Unity" which I don't like - I find it slow and unproductive in a desktop role.

For email though I'd recommend Evolution over Thunderbird (latter is pre-installed).

Hope that helps.

E.

 

[RogerS]

.... I don't really understand why only certain drives are compatible (in my head, a drive is a drive).

Type of interface for one.

Some drives are designed for AV type applications (as in PVRs) and required to spin all the time. Others like the one inside your computer is designed to spin on and off.

Seek times (ie how fast the heads can move between tracks) is also a factor.

Rotation speed is another.

Sector/block size is another....

I could go on and on and on

Just looked at the prices for QNAP :shock:

 

[woodpig]

Didn't understand a pineapple word if it.

This explains it pretty well.

http://uk.pcmag.com/network-attached-st ... es-of-2016

Remember the sad bloke up the road who used to have a whole wall filled with VHS video tapes? These days he uses a NAS. :wink:

 

[paulrockliffe]

Another running HP Micro Server with Ubuntu. I recommend that approach and also have a look at using Plex as your media server. I use the Plex phone app and a Chromecast to get stuff onto the TV, but there are also independent Plex media players that are very good, or addons for things like the Amazon fire stick too.

I run an SMB server too so I can access the hard drives directly fit from PC etc.

 

[LancsRick]

I'm a huge fan of going the hybrid route. Microservers can often be picked up cheap and are extremely versatile and powerful for the money (I've got an N54L), and if you then slap on XPenology via a USB stick the setup is simple and you get the benefit of superb interfaces.

In the past I've tried Windows 7, Windows 10, Ubuntu, FreeNAS, OpenMediaVault, and in my opinion none of them compare to this solution.