Recommend me a home NAS w/ RAID

[bmwme]

I've been using a LaCie NAS device for a little over a year now. I've been happy with the performance for the most part once I updated the firmware, but I had a scare about two months ago where it stopped responding. It turned out to be the power supply (common) and they replaced it for free. But since then I've been very worried about losing my data (lots of family pictures and tons of music).

So I think I was to go with a new NAS that has easy to use RAID. Performance isn't a big deal but I'd like to be able to stream BluRay movies. I'd like to spend around $300 and get at least 750gb of storage.

How are the Netgear ReadyNAS units?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822122022
RAID X sounds so easy to use! I just don't want to deal with finicky RAID systems. I want to plug and go.

Thanks

 

[JackMDS]

There is No evidnce that another Brand would do better.

It is just the luck with the specific unit.

If you want a better, faster, more flexible NAS, run a Windows Home Server.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2029756

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2040351

.

 

[Red Squirrel]

More pricy, but I would build a server with like 8 drive bays and use linux MD raid.

I think the drobo NAS enclosures are pretty good too, but I don't have first hand experience with them.

 

[bmwme]

I've considered a DIY solution but I've found in the past it ends up being an endless process of tweaking and trouble shooting. I would also like something that is more efficient than a full size enclosure.

How about the Synology DS410j?

 

[mikeg]

they had a hot deal on the intel ss4200 last month
wish I got in on one of those

 

[TheKub]

<obligatory RAID is not a backup statement>

Any solution has the chance to fail and to take all of your data with it. If your data is really important you need to have backups.

</obligatory RAID is not a backup statement>

 

[bmwme]

<obligatory RAID is not a backup statement>

Any solution has the chance to fail and to take all of your data with it. If your data is really important you need to have backups.

</obligatory RAID is not a backup statement>

Can you explain further? If one drive fails I buy a new one and the remaining drive gets mirrored to the new drive and I'm back on track without losing my data. That's a backup to me.

 

[Treyshadow]

RAID is not a backup, just a partial and I mean partial failsafe.

If you have a 4 Drive RAID 5, if you lose 1 drive it will stay degraded until that drive is replaced, however another drive could crash leaving you with no data.

If you have a hot spare you have a better chance or retaining your data, but it still is not a backup plan. Unless you are sending the data to another system or to tape/DVD/Bluray then you don't have a backup plan. With a good hardware raid you just have your fingers crossed a little better than those without.

Anyway if I was in your shoes I would look at an Acer AH340-UA230N as it is an excellent little box and easy to configure.

http://www.amazon.com/Acer-Aspire-AH...6518072&amp;sr=8-1

WHS has become my storage favorite OS. It delivers duplication for redundancy, but it isn't RAID. It is a software system with xml hashes which has proven to be just as resilient on the small scale. I run a Norch 4220 with 16 1.5 TB drives running WHS as my primary OS (In Hyper-V with Drives passed through). I have had 2 drives fail simultaneously and both were without any data loss.

I have tried QNAP, many linux distros including UNRAID, FreeNAS, Openfiler... ZFS setups, and none have impressed me as much as WHS for my needs. Nothing I have found is better than having WHS backup my family photos, videos, and personal data and then putting in a single 2TB drive to offload everything important to, then pulling that drive and putting it on the shelf. The remaining data is just stuff I have collected so I wouldn't be devastated if I lost it. Though returning 10TB of goodies would be a tough process.

 

[TheKub]

Can you explain further? If one drive fails I buy a new one and the remaining drive gets mirrored to the new drive and I'm back on track without losing my data. That's a backup to me.

As Trey mentioned generally loss of more than one drive will result in loss of ALL data in the array. Lets say you buy a 4 bay NAS type box, sometime down the road the hardware in it craps out (drives are fine). Now you have no access to any of your files until you can find a similar piece of hardware that can read you entire RAID set. Or one day you are cleaning up files on a computer and start deleting stuff and about half way through the process you realize you are on your NAS not on the local file system those files are now gone because you do not have backups. Same with a virus that can access the shared files. What if your place burns down or your storage gets hit by lightning? All gone.



RAID is for redundancy NOT backup. Personally I prefer WHS and duplication to RAID because if for whatever reason my server goes down (hardware\os) I can pull out any of the drives and plug them into any other machine and it will see all the files on that drive just fine. No convoluted RAID groups that you need to import\build. Also depending on the number of drives you have there is a chance that loosing multiple drives will result in no lost files or limited loss file, whereas all your files would be gone in RAID (generally).



Regardless of what option you decide to implement you need to get backups (preferably offsite) if the data is that important. There are a number of inexpensive online backup services, burn a bunch of DVDs\BluRays, or get a large external drive and copy everything off every so often and take the drive to work\friends house\etc.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I will mirror the statemetn of raid != backup. Raid will save you from a failed disk in most cases. Raid 6 is a good as you can loose 2 drives at once, but still.

If you delete a file by accident or something then raid wont save you there. You will want seperate backups.

 

[bf1942]

ReadyNAS from Netgear is great and has a nice price after rebate

search readynas on newegg.com

me and my friend love them.

 

[gramboh]

I've heard the ReadyNAS units are very slow. My friend has one of the NV+ 4 bay units which he bought years ago when they were insanely expensive (over $1k). Given how old they are I would expect faster models with better processing power would be out by now, but the only ones I see are NVX, Pioneer and Pro costing $1,000+.

Why are these damn things so expensive? I know I can build a file server with consumer hardware that will be way faster, but I don't want another mini/tower (need 4 drives minimum) sucking power and taking up space. I guess that is why NAS seems to haev such a premium: small/pretty package.

Anyone know if there are any potential consumer proucts on the horizon (next 6-12 months) that will offer decent speed (say 80mbyte/s read and 30-40mbyte/s write over GigE) and cost $500-600US for 4 bays? Seems like a reasonable product that would be in demand and still have a profit margin for the mfg. I can't believe the hardware for a unit (without drives) costs more than $500 (so 50&#37; gross margin retailing at $1000), seems absurd.

 

[ViviTheMage]

I just built my own windows box, threw in 7 1TB drives and RAID 5'd em...that way I can get some use out of the box as well as storage. I had a copy of 08 server I could use, which was nice too.

Get an Antec 300 case, get some cheaper hardware, get a RAID card (or use the onboard SATA ports if you want..it is what I did and I get wonderful performance..going on 2 months).