NAS recommendation

[Z3Dreamer]

A while ago, I asked the forum about switching to the cloud vs NAS. You convinced me to go with a new NAS. You see, my current NAS is 5 1/2 years old and Lacie is not longer updating firmware. A few days ago the ability to access my NAS from outside my home network stopped. Tech support says they have asked the parent company if and when they are going to fix it.

So, here is what I see as a good new NAS: the Synology DS718+ with 2 drives configured as mirrored drives and upgraded memory. Total cost would be $700. This is about my max price. My storage is mainly photos and music. Maybe some PC backups. I only have 200 GB on my old NAS. You have convinced me that using my NAS as a Plex server is the way to go, so this will do the trick. I have a 1 TB external drive that I will use to backup the new NAS.

PC mag also likes the Asustor brand but I have not heard that name before. I like WD hard drives but had bad experience with their NAS products years ago. A few sources like the QNAP TS-251A NAS drive. What do you think?

What other suggestions do you have?

 

[Z3Dreamer]

Wanted to add that camera recording is really good, but they charge for licenses. System comes with 2. Each 4 pack of additional licenses is $200. Apparently, you can use Blue Iris but the vendor program could/should integrate better.

 

[OldShooter]

I just added a second NAS: Synology DS218+ with a mirrored pair of 6tb drives. Total was about your $700 number. Amazon Warehouse and eBay. My first NAS was a Synology DS212+ with a pair of 3tb drives.

I wouldn't even think about buying another brand because the Synology software is so good. Minimal obsolescence, too; my 5YO box still gets updates with the latest stuff. The little tech support that I have needed was excellent as well.

Re backing up to a 1tb drive that implies that there are small drives on the NAS box. Don't do it! You will run out of space if you use the NAS for backups and a local Cloud Station. Which you will want to do. When I bought a month ago, 6tb seemed to be the sweet spot for price. IIRC my WD Gold Ultrastars (HUS726T6TALE6L4) were about $200 each.

 

[OldShooter]

Another thought: To back up the NAS you don't need that external drive on the network. If you plug a USB SATA USB dock into the Synology box and just plug in a bare drive, the Synology box plus a few mouse clicks will do the backup for you. That's what I do and the bare drive lives in my fire-resistant gun safe.

Docks on eBay look to be under $20.

 

[The Cosmic Avenger]

I have a QNAP TS-451 and I'm quite happy with it. Before that I had a TS-409. I upgraded because I wanted to run a Plex server, and to handle the streaming and transcoding I needed a faster processor and more RAM. I've heard good things about Synology, though.

 

[CoolRich59]

Very timely thread for me as I am just getting started down this path.

I've pretty much decided on the Synology DS218+ with two Seagate IronWolf 4TB drives.

Is there any other hardware or software I need to get started?

 

[braumeister]

I've pretty much decided on the Synology DS218+ with two Seagate IronWolf 4TB drives.

Is there any other hardware or software I need to get started?

No, that will take care of you. I also have the DS218+ and it has been great. You'll just pop the hard drives in the two bays, turn it on, and plug it into your router. IIRC, they even provide an Ethernet cable for that. Happy storage!

 

[OldShooter]

Very timely thread for me as I am just getting started down this path.

I've pretty much decided on the Synology DS218+ with two Seagate IronWolf 4TB drives.

Is there any other hardware or software I need to get started?

IMO you should be buying bigger drives. When I bought my second (DS218+) NAS a couple of months ago, the cost sweet spot was 6tb. Above that the cost started to rise sharply.

You will never regret having too much disk space the way you will regret finding that you have too little.

As @braumeister says, it's pretty much plug and play. Once you are on the air I'd encourage you to spend some time studying the various tools that Synology includes. IMO Cloud Station is particularly useful.

 

[CoolRich59]

IMO you should be buying bigger drives. When I bought my second (DS218+) NAS a couple of months ago, the cost sweet spot was 6tb. Above that the cost started to rise sharply.

You will never regret having too much disk space the way you will regret finding that you have too little.

Thanks. I agree with you but thought I was in good shape with the 4TB drives.

I checked all our devices and we have just less than 1TB in docs, photos and music (920GB). I read that a good rule of thumb for capacity is to double your current size then round up to the next size drive.

Based on that, I was looking at 3TB drives. They are $90 on Amazon and Newegg. But, the 4TB drive is only $10 more which I why I chose it even thought I think it's more space than I will need for the foreseeable future.

 

[gauss]

I have been satisfied with my roll-my-own solution with open-source XigmaNAS (formerly NAS4free (formerly FreeNAS) ) system.

I have a compact Dell Optiplex GX270 serving as the hardware from ~15 years ago and I use two external portable (2.5") USB drives in a Raid 1 (mirroring) configuration. I upgrade the hard drives every couple of years or so.

-gauss

 

[The Cosmic Avenger]

Thanks. I agree with you but thought I was in good shape with the 4TB drives.

I checked all our devices and we have just less than 1TB in docs, photos and music (920GB). I read that a good rule of thumb for capacity is to double your current size then round up to the next size drive.

Based on that, I was looking at 3TB drives. They are $90 on Amazon and Newegg. But, the 4TB drive is only $10 more which I why I chose it even thought I think it's more space than I will need for the foreseeable future.

If you're ever going to use it as a media server, you'll need more space. I currently have about 3TB of video on mine, and I didn't even rip all my movies; most of that is SD TV shows. And I use RAID 10, because I've already had one failure where I had to re-rip everything.

 

[OldShooter]

All I can say is that my rule of thumb for drives is to buy as much space as I reasonably can. My DS212+ spec said its max was 2x3tb, so that's what I bought. They filled in about three years, hence my second NAS.

This is one of those decisions where the consequences of a mistake are very asymmetric. Buy too much and you've unnecessarily spent a small amount of money. Buy too little and eventually there will be a day or more of grief plus spending of much more money.

One thing to know: Cloud Station keeps older versions of files as backups when the file is updated. IIRC the default is 24 revisions. This nifty feature eats disk space. I have revised my setup to save only 2 files but that's still 3x file storage space. Cloud Station Backup does more or less the same.

Good luck! You're going to like your new box.

 

[KenZ71]

For those like myself who like to tinker with electronics you could build your own.

For software
https://forum.level1techs.com/t/how-to-create-a-nas-using-zfs-and-proxmox-with-pictures/117375

Also possible to download Synology software on your own hardware

For the hardware if buying parts
https://forums.serverbuilds.net/t/n...efficient-and-flexible-starting-at-125/667/13

 

[CoolRich59]

Thanks everyone. I really appreciate your insights. I'm looking forward to moving forward with this.

 

[target2019]

Many QNAP NAS have been hit with significant malware.
https://www.zdnet.com/article/thous...-have-been-infected-with-the-qsnatch-malware/

ANother device to watch and protect...

 

[Z3Dreamer]

OP here. About a week ago, I bought the Synology DS718+ with 2 Iron Wolf Pro 4TB drives (mirror) and upgraded 4GB memory. Why DS718+ vs DS218+? The CPU is a quad core. Total of about $700.

Have transferred all data from old Lacie NAS to new Synology NAS. Have added and begun playing with: DS Cloud, DS Photo, DS Audio, and Plex. All 3 DS's were easy to install and get working on cell phones. DW is happy. Plex was not so easy. It doesn't see the libraries. Have done a few searches. Also the Surveillance thing doesn't work with all of my cameras. I only have 2 licenses, anyhow. Will put those aside until my patience is built back up. I am sidetracked trying to get some old ipods, fitbits and the like to working.

As far as space, my old NAS had 2 TB, but I used 200 GB or 10%. Doubling that with the new NAS is more than enough. If I ripped movies, that would be different.

 

[Z3Dreamer]

Reviving this old thread to give an update. Have worked on Plex and it seems to do the trick. Understanding how the libraries work was quite a learning curve. Getting used to different layouts on the Windows 10 app, vs the android app vs the Roku Channel took some time. Also, getting Alexa to play with Plex was easy but after a few songs, the music stops, even though the playlist is 200 songs.

Cameras not so much. The Surveillance thing will do many, many cameras, except 2 of my 4. I believe my oldest cameras are only about 4 years old - I have a Foscam, a D-link and 2 Phylinks. Newest ones are 1 to 2 years. The add camera manually thing didn't seem to work. I am kind of hazy as I tried this a month ago and gave up.

Have not done backup as most of my data is on my still functioning Lacie.

 

[KenZ71]

Plex is awesome

I really don't like the clutter of DVDs & CDs not to mention the ones you like always seem to get lost or damaged.

So Plex, to me, is awesome. I rip all the content to my NAS then donate the disc to Library or Senior Centers.

Also possible to purchase on-line but those tend to be more rental like Netflix or Amazon that can be not available later so I prefer to have my own Electronic library.

 

[The Cosmic Avenger]

I really don't like the clutter of DVDs & CDs not to mention the ones you like always seem to get lost or damaged.

So Plex, to me, is awesome. I rip all the content to my NAS then donate the disc to Library or Senior Centers.

Also possible to purchase on-line but those tend to be more rental like Netflix or Amazon that can be not available later so I prefer to have my own Electronic library.

I only ripped my TV shows on DVD/Blu-ray because the Netflix-like experience is so much better than switching discs multiple times per season when binge-watching. But we also have a 300-disc player that is big enough for all my movies that I don't own the streaming rights to, although maybe I should work on the movies, too. Thing is, I have trouble getting the extras to show up properly, and I like the movie extras. TV shows don't come with them as often, and when they do, I usually care less about those anyway.

 

[pj.mask]

Plex is ok, has some bugs that I’ve found. I just use my NAS like a hard drive and open the video like a file. Easier when running computer to computer but I didn’t want to deal with a handicapped mobile system running my media.

No issues with search or transcoding. Plex is nice for mobile devices though.

 

[camfused]

Does anyone back up from their Windows laptop to their Synology NAS? I would like to set this up, and am looking for experiences with Synology Drive (on NAS) and Synology Drive Client (on Windows box). Does it work well, and is it totally in the background (no annoying windows) on the Windows box? Thanks.

 

[OldShooter]

Sure. I have been doing it for years. Acronis works. I am currently using the Synology backup gadget. It is real-time backup so every time a file gets touched the NAS has to work. Instead of backing up everything, all the temp and other files W10 messes with I have cut back on the scope of the backup. Probably I will go back to Acronis or other batch-type backup tool as I don't like the discs (mirrored) clattering all the time and I don't really need real-time backup.

 

[KenZ71]

Not running Synology but rather a Linux server.

All data lives on the Linux box which has redundant drives. Mobile data such as spreadsheets I use Google Drive so they are backed up their.

Nothing is saved to laptop or desktop drives so I don't bother with backups. If the OS acts weird I just factory reset.