NAS, Looking for a simple one.

[Dujith]

Looking for a NAS to have a remote backup for various stuff like pictures, videos ect. Basically all the family things, which with 2 kids is up to 1TB already . My wife loves taking pictures and videos of our 2 girls

Thing is, i cannot seem to find just a simple one which has 2TB storage with network that just does storage. They all offer various extra services i will not use. *oldmanmode* I just want to store my stuff, not any of this new stuff... get off my lawn! *endoldmanmode*

So A. is there an simple network drive? or B. a simple one which i can disable all the extra crap?

 

[BlueWeasel]

Are you looking for a diskless NAS like Synology, Qnap, etc. where you provide the hard drives? You could disable all the features and remove all the extra packages for a minimalistic setup.

Alternatively, there are the networked drives that come with embedded/fixed storage (Buffalo Linkstation, WD Personal Cloud, etc.). I'd probably go this route as it would certainly be cheaper than a dedicated NAS.

 

[rchunter]

Maybe just buy an external drive and plug it into your router? That would be a lot cheaper than buying a real nas, providing you have a router that supports nas like features.

 

[JimKiler]

I have and recommend the WD My Cloud NAS. it is fast, although i think all of them are decent performers these days. It has software but you do not need to use it. Actually i prefer using Microsoft's SyncToy for backups and using windows i schedule it to run every evening. It is free software as well.

http://store.westerndigital.com/sto...qyCSzgRBdIhOrBtnXhuzS5UdGKlcAqpRRzBoCckbw_wcB

I am sure you can find it cheaper at a lot of other places. It has apple and andriod apps as well if you want to view your pictures.

 

[Dujith]

Maybe just buy an external drive and plug it into your router? That would be a lot cheaper than buying a real nas, providing you have a router that supports nas like features.

I tried that, but transfer speeds were horrible at the time with a Fritzbox.
I now have an Engenius ESR600H since i switched providers and would have to look up performance. But seems the NAS feature on routers (normal budget) is an afterthought.

So far i would agree with the rest that i should look at one of the WD ones as the price / storage seems good.

And yes, i am looking for a NAS with HDD's already in it.

Edit: quick test puts the write performance around 1,9MB/sec read performance is around 8-10MB/sec
Which for uploading RAW images is too slow (average burst shot of 10 @ 9-12MB per picture)

 

[exar333]

I tried that, but transfer speeds were horrible at the time with a Fritzbox.
I now have an Engenius ESR600H since i switched providers and would have to look up performance. But seems the NAS feature on routers (normal budget) is an afterthought.

So far i would agree with the rest that i should look at one of the WD ones as the price / storage seems good.

And yes, i am looking for a NAS with HDD's already in it.

Edit: quick test puts the write performance around 1,9MB/sec read performance is around 8-10MB/sec
Which for uploading RAW images is too slow (average burst shot of 10 @ 9-12MB per picture)

WD MyCloud is a pretty good option.

As an alternative (and one that I have setup for my parents) was getting a REALLY good router and just connecting a HDD in a cheap enclosure.

Linksys WRT1900AC is a great choice....you can pair that with a cheap enclosure and a 3-4TB HDD (sweet-spot for $/TB IMHO) and it handles all the sharing you want + eSata speeds.

A side benefit here is a GREAT router with awesome capabilities, not just NAS stuff. Just throw the drive in a $20 enclosure, plug in to wall and plug-in eSata cable. Done...

 

[Dujith]

€250
Seeing as a WD 4TB is €235 and my router is doing its simple job atm. I'll get the WD But a good idea if i ever feel the need to upgrade my router to pick one more high end.

 

[SeanFL]

If they are within 30% of the cost, here's a vote for Synology. A DS214 or DS214+ will give you great performance. Will this be your backup box (so all pictures continue to reside on another machine?) or will this be your main storage box? If main storage, then you'll want a 2 drive unit for redundancy.

I store about 1TB of pictures and then backup all machines to a DS214+ and it's performed quite well. Also found it easy to setup. I use many of the more advanced features (remote access, external backup etc), you could leave those untouched.

Sean

 

[Dujith]

It will be my backup unit. Keeping my eye open for a good deal on one.
Better question regarding that is what are ones i have to avoid, since the crap ones tend to be in the folders to

 

[Dujith]

A small update and experience with the drive:

Got a 3TB WD MYcloud which was easy enough to setup. Kinda ignored the whole WD suite and handled it like a SMB drive which works perfectly.

I did setup 1 online account for easy access when i'm on the go which also was easy todo.

Atm i am writing all my photo's to the drive at a steady 78 MB/s (wired gigabit network)
This seems like every other network drive i see in this segment, even a tad faster. Read speeds i havent test yet, but with this upload speed it should be fine.

ps. Checked the Anandtech review and according to users this drive sucks badly
But when i read the 1.0 reviews most of them seem to have network issues and always blame the drive itself, so taking it with a grain of salt.

 

[Dujith]

Update: Like predicted in some of the bad reviews the thing is starting to buckle under its own bloatware.
Streaming is a pain and writing to it suffers from smb disconnects. Seems ALOT of ppl have problems with this thing if your not just using it as a backup drive.

Tried downgrading firmware but no luck. Till i installed Openmediavault on it.
0 Issues right now, very fast and low cpu usage. No disconnects so far.

Seems hardware is decent enough but WD software is really crap