Hi, I cannot decide between the two. Mainly for home use myself. No plan to grant access to outside use. Also no plan to RAID as it is not 100% fail-proof. In this case, is there any good reason to pay more to get a NAS?
Because the NAS OS doesn't give direct access of its filesystem to the other devices. Over the network, filesystem doesn't matter. What matters is the network protocol being used to share files and all the devices share that common protocol.
Introduction to File Transfer Protocols - ASUSTOR NAS
An overview of the file transfer protocols supported by ASUSTOR NAS.www.asustor.com
View attachment 75097
Using SMB/ CIFS, all three OSes can access the NAS.
Thanks. Is this also why I could share files from different OS when transferring among different platforms via cloud services such as Dropbox?
Is exFAT one of Microsoft based options? So one advantage of using NAS rather than a drive formatted to exFAT is that the former has better file integrity?
For cloud storage, the common denominator is your internet browser like Chrome or Firefox. They serve as the agents helping you transfer the file from the DropBox servers to your devices.
Most NAS will also have a web interface so you can add/download files to the NAS storage using just your internet browser.
- Sep 13, 2008
- 8,124
- 3,059
- 146
Direct internal connections are always better. USB and thunderbolt etc are fine for attaching an external drive quickly for file transfering / sharing on a desktop or laptop, but IMO shouldn't be left plugged in indefinitely. USB will generally be slower and introduce more latency, and it also depends on what USB bridge controller the enclosure or adapter is using. Also, not all of them will support SMART and some other features. Also flaky cables can be an issue, particularly with NVMe devices that can utilize higher speeds.
For a basic NAS, you will probably want 2 or more 3.5 inch HDDs connected directly with SATA. Remember to avoid SMR drives.
File integrity is important and you wonder why windows has so many disk apps to fix things.
EXT2/3/4 and other file systems don't have as many issues. While Linux has a plugin to read NTFS windows doesn't know how to handle ext. There are ok plenty of file systems though to choose from that have different perks and quirks to each of them. Some are fast and some aren't. Some offer encryption and others don't.
OK. I will go for a NAS rather than DAS.
Is it a bad idea to use 2.5" SSD instead of HDDs?
I am very sensitive to noise and I have experience with HDDs failed suddenly and quickly. At first I considered to use Samsung NVMe but it looks like they do not have SMART you mentioned. Then I considered the 870 Evo SSDs but there seems to be some complaints about them failing quickly either because of a bad batch or they are not meant to be used in NAS. Checked Synology 2.5" SSD and they are super expensive.
Is it true that if one does not use 2.5" SSD made for NAS applications, then expect fast and high failure rate?
@tablespoon
For bulk storage a spinner makes more sense for cost per TB.
SATA SSD vs NVME have come to about parity for $100/TB at this point. The issue then becomes finding or building something that supports multiple M2 drives since they require a ton of PCIE lanes in comparison to SATA SSDs. So, from this perspective you can still get a 8TB SSD using SATA and plan more like a traditional NAS vs needing something more substantial for a bunch of M2's and dealing with the huge increase in drive temps when they're under load. The trade off is speed SATA will max out at 550MB/s whereas NVME's can hit up to 7GB/s but, for this kind of use I would be getting the cheapest NVME options since your network will be the bottleneck.
Even with a 10GE NIC you would still only get about 1/3 of the NVME speed of a Gen3 drive.
When I got my 8TB drives they were $160/ea. If I went SSD today an 8TB SSD runs $680/ea or NVME $1000+
So, needing 4 drives was only the price of a single SSD and I have mirror + stripe and get the same speed as an SSD + twice the capacity.
Since you're going NAS instead of DAS noise shouldn't be an issue if you put the box somewhere not near where you use your PC / laptop.
For bulk storage a spinner makes more sense for cost per TB.
SATA SSD vs NVME have come to about parity for $100/TB at this point. The issue then becomes finding or building something that supports multiple M2 drives since they require a ton of PCIE lanes in comparison to SATA SSDs. So, from this perspective you can still get a 8TB SSD using SATA and plan more like a traditional NAS vs needing something more substantial for a bunch of M2's and dealing with the huge increase in drive temps when they're under load. The trade off is speed SATA will max out at 550MB/s whereas NVME's can hit up to 7GB/s but, for this kind of use I would be getting the cheapest NVME options since your network will be the bottleneck.
Even with a 10GE NIC you would still only get about 1/3 of the NVME speed of a Gen3 drive.
I don't know as most NAS applications go with cheaper spinners for more storage at a cheaper price. Based on my 24/7 operation though with NVME drives for years with no issues I don't see why a SATA SSD would fail sooner. The issue is expense with them though when you get some 2/4/8TB options. When you should be using more than a single drive for protection against data loss if one fails.
When I got my 8TB drives they were $160/ea. If I went SSD today an 8TB SSD runs $680/ea or NVME $1000+
So, needing 4 drives was only the price of a single SSD and I have mirror + stripe and get the same speed as an SSD + twice the capacity.
Since you're going NAS instead of DAS noise shouldn't be an issue if you put the box somewhere not near where you use your PC / laptop.
- Sep 13, 2008
- 8,124
- 3,059
- 146
A decent/good 2.5" SATA SSD should be fine for a NAS. I have a volume of 4 2TB Crucial MX500 SSDs in my TrueNAS, in 2.5" bays. But as mentioned, they are faster, but still more expensive for bulk storage. This is why I also use 5 4TB WD Red Pros.
If you don't get QLC drives, I wouldn't worry too much about excessive writes to the drives, and even then, it is likely not an issue. If you don't need a whole lot of storage, a single mirror of 1TB or 2TB SSDs might be sufficient, or you could go with 2 mirrors for more speed and capacity (RAID 10 or equivalent).
@tablespoon
All you need is a "PC" to connect the drive to and then share it.
I would take the NUC and put Linux on it for the "NAS" portion w/ Samba to share the drive. From there any device on the network will be able to pass data to the drive.
CPU really only matters when it comes to things like transcoding video from one format to another. The basics of file sharing don't really do much to the CPU unless there's a ton of users doing it at the same time. If you have tons of users though you're going to do something different on the storage side since you'll need faster disks / controllers to get decent speeds from them.
Intel NUC, Linux, Pi-Hole, and NAS – Part 1: The Hardware and Xubuntu 19.10
📅 November 2, 2019 Have you heard of an Intel NUC? A NUC (Next Unit of Computing) is a full-fledged computer system packed in a small — SMALL! — compact case that utilizes minimal power…delightlylinux.wordpress.com
Building a Budget Homelab NAS Server (2022 Edition)
How I chose parts, built, and configured my first custom home storage server.mtlynch.io
The basics are the same. Pick an OS you're comfortable with using. Add drives / NIC and configure sharing.
Static IP would be advisable since DNS isn't always the best internally for finding the share.
Thanks for the excellent guides. Could you please clarify the following?
1. Why the author at delightlylinux used Xbuntu rather than Ubuntu?
2. Is the just released M2 Mac Mini running Mac OS a good replacement for NUC running Xbuntu? It has the latest interface ports for external storage.
I have not decided whether to repurpose the NUC I have or keep it solely for the project I bought it for. Either way, I don't intend to keep the system on 24/7.
3. So basically the systems presented in the links can do the job of Synology NAS but in the case of Synology NAS, people pay the money to get a better GUI and easier to use system?
Last edited:
Do you find the 10Gbps connection speed of the OWC product sufficiently fast enough? What is the CPU of your Mac Mini? Is SoftRAID 100% reliable? I think somewhere I read that hardware RAID is more reliable. Not sure if it is true. I have considered the product you got. If I buy that, I may run the drives independently. I don't need to do video editing while having large movie files on a remote drive.
How about getting a Drive Dock with 2.5" SSD and connect it to a M2 Mac Mini. Then run SMB/Semba?
OWC Drive Dock
Last edited:
Personal preference? Less space / resources consumed"?
Don't know but, it should work just fine.
Any NAS you're mostly paying for the GUI since the HW isn't all that special or performant.
It's all about the drives being reliable not the method of raid. I've been running mine for 5+ years using the OS raid version without any issue. I looked into a HW raid setup though to play with and the only real difference is using the card to do raid makes it OS agnostic and in some cases offers better speed depending on the underlying system.
Somewhere I read that in case of software raid, if there is a system hang on the PC during RAID operation, one could lose all the data while for NAS, they could continue the operation with hardware RAID. Is this true?
Apparently one has GNOME and the other has Xfce desktop environment.
I don't know the Ubuntu ecosystem, but I still bet that one can install both DEs to both.
That Xbuntu is just a convenience method to install certain set of packages. There seems to be more of them: Kubuntu, Lubuntu, ...
Desktop environments are integral part of GUI and therefore very much about personal preference.
The point of the card is to make it available to any OS running on the system and bot depend on the FS on the drives to be compatible with a particular OS.
There's always a chance for data loss no matter the method.
Bingo. Both options work it's just the initial install that scripts which DE to use when it finishes installing.
I've dropped Gnome and put XFCE on my setup before and it works just fine. Most of what I do though is through SSH and the prettiness doesn't make a difference since I don't see it anyway.
Cheap NAS do not have hardware RAID.
* Software RAID: CPU does all the work. Media is on regular SATA/NVMe controllers
* Hardware RAID: dedicated RAID controller does RAID-operations. The OS sees "a drive", but requires driver for the controller to do so. Controller usually has cache memory with battery, so it can keep latest transactions even on powerout. Cache and hardware can make more compute intensive modes, like RAID-6, not slow
* fakeRAID: essentially software RAID, but some array initialization utilities are also in firmware. More tied to specific version of fakeRAID
Regardless of RAID type, the common filesystems do have "journaling" that keeps transactions more coherent. If the system hang corrupts filesystem, then it does that whether you have just one drive or RAID.
In terms of file sharing and backup across different OS, besides speed, what is the difference between connecting a DAS directly to whichever computer/iOS device I use whenever I need to perform such tasks vs. connecting a DAS to a dedicated computer which serves as a file/smb server and allow different computers/iOS devices to connect to it?
The main difference is the FS you use. If you use EXT then only the Mac / Linux will be able to read it. If you put NTFS/exFAT on the drives then any would be able to read it. If you hook it up to a Linux NUC or whatever you choose and use SMB/samba then any device can read it across the network.
I'm sure you can share it from a Mac but, I haven't done it that way and refuse to pay Apple for their OS / HW to try it. The underlying core OS is similar to Linux though and should have similar options to add SMB to the mix and share the DAS that way.
How is this approach difference from formatting the drive as exFAT and hook up directly to whatever computer/device I use?
If currently the PC is my main computer but besides backing it up, I need to also backup photos from my iPhone and iPad. In this case, what is the best way to do it given that exFAT is unreliable for data? Is it better to do it in two separate drives formatted in respective file system rather than one drive formatted in exFAT?
Given that the PC is my main work computer, is it better to set up smb file server on it than on a Mac?
Given that the PC is my main work computer, is it better to set up smb file server on it than on a Mac?
I'm using an old 2012 Mac Mini, i think it's an i5 CPU model, i upgraded it with a SSD for local storage and 10GB memory.
I am only using it as a backup device, i do not actively read and write files on the disk, so access speeds are fine. Something like 30-50MB/s and up depending on how I'm accessing the volume (SMB mount vs ssh , Ethernet vs WiFi).
For data and projects in actively working on I copy it locally to my MacBook or PC first. The OWC device is just a repository for my home dir backups and a Time Machine volume.
Stay away from hardware RAID. I am using the RAID1 as built in to macOS with both drives formatted as HFS+.
You could certainly use a drive dock instead of an enclosure but docks are really meant more for temporary access to drives you're swapping a lot, if the drives are intended to stay attached you really might want an enclosure since it gives better physical protection. Ymmv though
I've been looking at upgrades myself lately and something I've been considering is trying the OWC U.2 drive enclosure with one or two U.2 data center grade Intel SSD's (used on eBay) since they've got capacities over 8TB if you have the budget for it. Otherwise OWC has a range of SATA and M.2 enclosures as well. I've been happy with their products so far so if i make any upgrades on external storages it will probably be with their adapters and enclosures.
TRENDING THREADS
-
Discussion Zen 5 Speculation (EPYC Turin and Strix Point/Granite Ridge - Ryzen 9000)- Started by DisEnchantment
- Replies: 24K
-
Discussion Intel Meteor, Arrow, Lunar & Panther Lakes Discussion Threads
- Started by Tigerick
- Replies: 21K
-
Discussion Intel current and future Lakes & Rapids thread- Started by TheF34RChannel
- Replies: 23K
-
-
Facebook
Twitter