Should I use a NAS, file server, other?

[corinthos]

I recently got 2 x 8TB drives to use as my primary repositories for pretty much everything I want to preserve and also have access to (photos, original video files, edited videos, movies, audio files, system backups, etc, etc).

I'd like to be able to upload and download from this repository from home and on the road. i'd likely want to encrypt the entire drives and want to keep them as secure as possible (which might be only possible if I keep them off any network) or have certain things kept offline and other things allowed online to manage risk.

I've considered just putting the 2 drives into external drive trays on my main workstation and accessing them from there.. but since i want to make them available 24/7 from anywhere, I probably would do better with something that consumes less power.. yet has solid encryption and security features..

What's the best solution to go with, keeping in mind price sensitivity?

 

[Elixer]

If you are looking to RAID those up, that isn't a very good idea, unless you throw in a parity drive (so, if 1 HD dies, you can still rebuild the array). Though, keep in mind that you still need to make backups in case during the rebuild, another HD dies, and you would be SOL.
Seems a NAS would be the most logical choice for you as well.

 

[corinthos]

what about a cheap file server using old parts? nas seems to cost like $400-500..

 

[tracerbullet]

what about a cheap file server using old parts? nas seems to cost like $400-500..

You could start in the $150 range for a 2-bay box.

 

[Elixer]

what about a cheap file server using old parts? nas seems to cost like $400-500..

You can build your own NAS box, using something like FreeNAS.
http://www.freenas.org/

 

[dave_the_nerd]

File servers and NAS are the same thing.

IMO, get a QNAP TS-251+ and follow their documentation/directions to set up your "private cloud" for remote access.

 

[corinthos]

You could start in the $150 range for a 2-bay box.

Someone later in thread recommended QNAP TS-251+, which is about $299 (2GB RAM) to just under $400 (8GB RAM) . It's 2-bay. Which do you recommend at $150 range?

Is it really worth it to have 8GB of RAM?

 

[tracerbullet]

Someone later in thread recommended QNAP TS-251+, which is about $299 (2GB RAM) to just under $400 (8GB RAM) . It's 2-bay. Which do you recommend at $150 range?

Is it really worth it to have 8GB of RAM?

It'll be $260-ish at Newegg this coming Monday, check their BF flyers. But don't take the last one, I am planning to get one too!

2GB RAM is fine if it's used as a NAS. 8GB if you want to run virtual machines and do other stuff with it.

BY the way it'll be a great NAS and great at streaming files. BUT if you want it to transcode for you, it'll choke on anything big (i.e. blu-ray). So just be sure you plan to use it as a NAS, and let your other devices do the converting (Shield TV, 4k blu-ray player, etc.) or plan to knock those files down manually first so that transcoding isn't needed.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

2GB RAM is fine if it's used as a NAS. 8GB if you want to run virtual machines and do other stuff with it.

Even if you're not running VMs, a system with 4 or 8GB will perform better than a system with 2GB, because that RAM will be used as a read/write cache.

But I agree, 2GB is going to be just fine 99% of the time.

 

[corinthos]

Thanks, last 3 questions:

1. to run VMs using the NAS, is it using its CPU or would it be using the CPU of the desktop/laptop? Would I basically be simply pointing VirtualBox or the like to the path on the NAS where the virtual machine files are located, to load them?

2. Do you guys use RAID 6 or something to help ensure you don't lose your data due to disk failure, corruption, or other?

3. How secure are NAS? safe to leave online 24/7? and do they use encrypted drive containers out of the box?

 

[corinthos]

It'll be $260-ish at Newegg this coming Monday, check their BF flyers. But don't take the last one, I am planning to get one too!

2GB RAM is fine if it's used as a NAS. 8GB if you want to run virtual machines and do other stuff with it.

BY the way it'll be a great NAS and great at streaming files. BUT if you want it to transcode for you, it'll choke on anything big (i.e. blu-ray). So just be sure you plan to use it as a NAS, and let your other devices do the converting (Shield TV, 4k blu-ray player, etc.) or plan to knock those files down manually first so that transcoding isn't needed.

You mean if I want to transcode I should do it on my PC first and then copy over to NAS, rather than try to have the source and target both pointing to the NAS?

 

[VirtualLarry]

Thanks, last 3 questions:

1. to run VMs using the NAS, is it using its CPU or would it be using the CPU of the desktop/laptop? Would I basically be simply pointing VirtualBox or the like to the path on the NAS where the virtual machine files are located, to load them?
You can do that with any NAS - using the NAS for VDISK storage, but some NAS units (QNAP is what I'm familiar with), have also support for running certain flavors of VMs ON the NAS unit directly. My TS-451 does that, it has an Atom CPU in it.
2. Do you guys use RAID 6 or something to help ensure you don't lose your data due to disk failure, corruption, or other?
I use either RAID-1 (mirroring) with two drives, or RAID-5 (stripe with parity) with three or four or five drives
3. How secure are NAS? safe to leave online 24/7? and do they use encrypted drive containers out of the box?
That's a really good question. My QNAP NAS units support directory and volume-based encryption, but it's not an on-access thing, you have to log into the NAS and supply a password to "unlock", and then the content is unlocked, and accessable via shares and associated share permissions.

 

[XavierMace]

Thanks, last 3 questions:

1. to run VMs using the NAS, is it using its CPU or would it be using the CPU of the desktop/laptop? Would I basically be simply pointing VirtualBox or the like to the path on the NAS where the virtual machine files are located, to load them?

2. Do you guys use RAID 6 or something to help ensure you don't lose your data due to disk failure, corruption, or other?

3. How secure are NAS? safe to leave online 24/7? and do they use encrypted drive containers out of the box?

You mean if I want to transcode I should do it on my PC first and then copy over to NAS, rather than try to have the source and target both pointing to the NAS?

1. You should treat the NAS as just a hard drive. Point your virtualization platform of choice to the NAS for storage, but run the VM's on something with more CPU/RAM.
2. RAID is not a backup. With larger drive sizes, RAID5 become problematic due to rebuild times. RAID6 gives you a bit more leeway due to a second parity drive. But those both require more than two drives. If you're only running two drive as mentioned in your original post, just mirror them.
3. That's largely dependent on you and how you configure it. Encryption is rarely turned on by default (when it's even offered) because it adds CPU overhead.
4. It's not a matter of where the file is stored it's a matter of which device is transcoding it.

 

[Elixer]

3. How secure are NAS? safe to leave online 24/7? and do they use encrypted drive containers out of the box?

Since the other questions were basically answered, if you are going to leave it online 24/7, then I would get a UPS unit, and run it off that.

Oh, and there are some NAS units that have hardware encryption (no CPU hit), however, I strongly suggest you don't use encryption for home use, since it ends up being a huge PITA if something goes wrong with the NAS controller, and you need to access the drives.

 

[hoangcf]

You could start in the $140 range for a 2 bay box

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Thanks, last 3 questions:

1. to run VMs using the NAS, is it using its CPU or would it be using the CPU of the desktop/laptop? Would I basically be simply pointing VirtualBox or the like to the path on the NAS where the virtual machine files are located, to load them?

In all cases I'm familiar with, the NAS runs the VM using its CPU and the local-to-it storage on the NAS, and you access the VM using traditional network management tools like VNC, SSH, Remote Desktop, etc. You could run a VM on your desktop with the data stored on the NAS, but unless you can fully articulate why that's a terrible idea, you shouldn't do it.

2. Do you guys use RAID 6 or something to help ensure you don't lose your data due to disk failure, corruption, or other?

I do, but you can't do that with a 2-bay NAS. It's either striped or mirrored. Use mirrored.

3. How secure are NAS? safe to leave online 24/7? and do they use encrypted drive containers out of the box?

As safe as any other computer. They don't use Bitlocker or similar software encryption, but you could encrypt the data if you want. Don't bother.

 

[tracerbullet]

You mean if I want to transcode I should do it on my PC first and then copy over to NAS, rather than try to have the source and target both pointing to the NAS?

As usual "it depends". It depends on how high quality the file is to start with, and what it is being sent to. Transcoding a DVD rip to a phone may work fine, transcoding a blu-ray rip to a 1080 TV not very well. You're better off not needing to transcode to start with... You could do that two ways: 1) Transcode ahead of time, save to a new file, and play that file directly. Or 2) let something else like a blu-ray player do the transcoding work on the fly.

It's basically how much CPU is needed, and does the NAS have that CPU. The budget approach is to do the transcoding ahead of time and just play the files that have already been worked on. Keep in mind that some NAS boxes can do that work offline for you, and that often a file won't actually need to be transcoded to start with.

*** I have limited experience in this so I'm open to correction but this is my take on it so far ***