Need a good NAS drive

[mrdogcat]

Hi,

I currently have two external Western Digital drives (2TB & 4TB) and need more space and need my data on one drive. I initially looked at the My Cloud EX2 8TB but after reading some reviews I'm wondering if it'd be worth going for a drive that can be expanded... Perhaps maybe a 4 bay NAS drive.

At this point I'm happy to have my data stored across multiple drives acting as one (RAID 0) with the potential to have a backup mirror drive in the future.

So my question and requirements:

- What's a good NAS drive that has 4 bays that can go up to 12TB and is reasonably priced? To get up to 8TB I don't really want to go over £400 (is that even possible?!) and would like to leave 2 bays empty for now (ie. only have 2 x 4TB drives in there ready to expand to 12TB - 16TB when I need to.

- For the time being could I buy a diskless NAS and use both the hard drives in the existing WD drives in the bays? Or do the drives need to be identical (model and size) if they're going to be part of a RAID? Could I at least use one of them?

- I'm on a Mac so would have to be Mac compatible first and foremost.

Thanks for your help and sorry if this post makes me sound like a noob.

Steve

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Hi,

I currently have two external Western Digital drives (2TB & 4TB) and need more space and need my data on one drive. I initially looked at the My Cloud EX2 8TB but after reading some reviews I'm wondering if it'd be worth going for a drive that can be expanded... Perhaps maybe a 4 bay NAS drive.

You have external hard drives now - those will tend to be better performing than a NAS (which means Network Attached Storage - it's a file server.)

At this point I'm happy to have my data stored across multiple drives acting as one (RAID 0) with the potential to have a backup mirror drive in the future.

Do not, ever, ever, use RAID-0. Ever. No. A single HD failure kills EVERYTHING THE DATA ALL OF IT NEVER DEATH AGH!

So my question and requirements:

- What's a good NAS drive that has 4 bays that can go up to 12TB and is reasonably priced? To get up to 8TB I don't really want to go over £400 (is that even possible?!) and would like to leave 2 bays empty for now (ie. only have 2 x 4TB drives in there ready to expand to 12TB - 16TB when I need to.

Buffalo makes a 4-bay Linkstation 441e that is fairly inexpensive for a NAS enclosure without disks. But then you have to put in disks. You probably won't be able to hit that £400 mark after dropping in four hard disks too.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822165611

- For the time being could I buy a diskless NAS and use both the hard drives in the existing WD drives in the bays? Or do the drives need to be identical (model and size) if they're going to be part of a RAID? Could I at least use one of them?

You could do that. But yes, if they're part of a RAID, they'll need to be the same size.

- I'm on a Mac so would have to be Mac compatible first and foremost.

Any NAS is going to be more or less mac-compatible, but there's a reason for it - using network file sharing protocols which are, again, slower than direct access.

Thanks for your help and sorry if this post makes me sound like a noob.

Steve

If you only have one computer, I don't think you need a NAS, I think you need a JBOD.

Something like this guy:

http://www.amazon.com/Sans-Digital-E.../dp/B005JW6VXY

Holds four hard drives and uses USB 3. You can populate it with whatever drives you want, and use OS X Disk management to deal with them. RAID if you want, or don't, doesn't matter.

 

[Cerb]

At this point I'm happy to have my data stored across multiple drives acting as one (RAID 0) with the potential to have a backup mirror drive in the future.

How is the data backed up now?

What is your typical use for your data?

 

[mrdogcat]

Yeah after reading up on NASs I've come to realise I don't need it to connect to a network. I just need something that houses 4 x hard drives (is JBOD the technical term?!) that's capable of expanding as and when I need it, up to 12TB - 16TB

If I can use the existing 4TB disk in there that's currently in my WD My Book drive along with a new 4TB, that'd be even better.

I would want a decent quality 'JBOD'... Something that's not going to cook or damage my disks in anyway.

Thanks for your help so far guys.

 

[Cerb]

What happens if one of those drives dies, or some of the data corrupts? It's always a risk, but you're now exposing yourself to it several times over for a single volume, with any utilization, but that exposure increase the more you utilize that storage, especially if you write a lot to it.

Unless all the data can be easily thrown away at a moment's notice, just adding the space should not be your sole concern.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Yeah after reading up on NASs I've come to realise I don't need it to connect to a network. I just need something that houses 4 x hard drives (is JBOD the technical term?!) that's capable of expanding as and when I need it, up to 12TB - 16TB

DAS JBOD.

DAS = Direct Attach Storage (not a NAS)
JBOD = Just a bunch of disks. (Not RAID, no striping.)

DAS is how your USB externals are connecting already. Directly to the computer.

JBOD is how you probably have your hard drives configured now - each HD is a seperate volume and file system.

So if you like what you're doing, more DAS JBOD is what you want.

If I can use the existing 4TB disk in there that's currently in my WD My Book drive along with a new 4TB, that'd be even better.

I would want a decent quality 'JBOD'... Something that's not going to cook or damage my disks in anyway.

The USB one I linked should be fine. But you're in the UK, so... local computer store should be able to offer some advice. Multi-drive enclosures are pretty common anyway.

In case you haven't realized, we are very interested in your backup strategy, so we can yell at you for not backing up. Back up your files.