NAS choices. Tell me what I want.

[Nashemon]

I have been really wanting a NAS for a long, long time. I haven't pulled the trigger though because:

A. They are expensive.
B. They are really expensive.
C. They are unbelieveably expensive!

I mean, what exactly am I paying for with one of these?
https://www.amazon.com/Synology-Station-Network-Attached-DS1815/dp/B00P3RPMEO

~$100 per SATA port seems to be the going rate. For the price they run I can't see buying more than an 8-bay. I'm not interested in RAID, as it seems more trouble than it's worth. Mainly just want something that can house my ever growing number of hard drives that allows me to have my data at my fingertips instead of having to swap them around every couple of days as my current computer only holds 5 drives (6 if I unplug my optical). I've tried USB docks, which seemed to be the solution for a while, but transfer rate is slow, and they seem to corrupt my data frequently (5 times in 1 year) for unknown reasons.

Because of the prices, would I be better off building my own NAS? What am I missing out on if I did that? Is there something different I should be looking at for my needs?

 

[dave_the_nerd]

If you only are accessing the data from a single computer and don't need RAID, the two primary reasons for a NAS appliance fly right out the window. Look for a DAS enclosure instead:

https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-Hot-Swap-3-5-Inch-Enclosure-S358BU33ERM/dp/B00MN4CY1Y

No brains, no RAID, it just holds a bunch of hard drives.

USB 3 is generally fast enough for this. Use eSATA for best performance (although I don't personally like the connectors - too easy to knock loose.) Get a SAS enclosure and a used SAS controller/cable on eBay if you want to go high end.

edit: speaking of hard drives, maybe spend the money on consolidating your existing data onto a smaller number of larger HDDs?

 

[Nashemon]

Excellent. I was not aware of DAS or SAS. That actually looks perfect for my needs. Thank you.

As far as consolidating, I'm afraid there's not much I can do about that. Besides a single 3TB drive I use for holding temporary data that I move things to before I swap hard drives out of my system, all of my drives are already 4TB. My largest files are spread across several external 8TB drives. I'm desperately looking forward to the next breakthrough in HDD capacity.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Geez. You have, like, ALL of the porn, don't you?

 

[Nashemon]

No, those drives got corrupted.