Which NAS make to go with? QNAP, Netgear or Synology?

[exxoid]

Hello,

I am looking to replace my existing PC (running ubuntu) with a more complete NAS solution that I do not have to fiddle with all the time.

Currently, I am looking at..

QNAP TS-419PII - 4-BAY iSCSI NAS HOT-SWAPPABLE Marvell 2.0GHZ CPU 512MB Ddrii RAM Cloud Ready
http://ncix.com/products/?sku=64220&vpn=TS-419PII&manufacture=QNAP Systems Inc.

Synology Disk Station DS411 4-BAY SATA NAS RAID Server RAID 0/1/5/6/10 JBOD Black
http://ncix.com/products/?sku=64026&vpn=DS411&manufacture=Synology Inc.

Or any of the Netgear NAS models? With a budget of about $400.

Looking for something that I can put 4 disks in (2x4TB), and also use the NAS (iscsi) for playing around with VMWare ESXi. Streaming (videos/audio), remote control (iphone?), FTP, HTTP, Share (Samba), etc.

Any proud owners want to give me some ups/downs with their units?

I did setup a QNAP last month (2-bay version) for a friend's business, was extremely happy with it but I am not convinced as there are other big players in the NAS category.

Thanks

 

[JoeMcJoe]

I have QNAP NASes.

Stick with either QNAP or Synology, both really good.

If you are quick, you can get a good open box price from Newegg. http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=50011165%2040000124%204809&IsNodeId=1&name=Open%20Box&SpeTabStoreType=0&Order=PRICE&Pagesize=100

The dual atom pro 459 Pro+ is a lot faster than the two you mentioned.

 

[aceO07]

I have the Synology Disk Station DS411+. I picked Synology over a QNAP since it was cheaper for the features and speed. No complaints so far.

I briefly tried VMware Workstation to use iscsi on it, but it wasn't great. I would suggest another faster model with VMware certification if you need VMware to work with it.

Aside from VMware, my NAS is fast. Reads and writes are over 80MB/s.

 

[kevnich2]

I have the Synology Disk Station DS411+. I picked Synology over a QNAP since it was cheaper for the features and speed. No complaints so far.

I briefly tried VMware Workstation to use iscsi on it, but it wasn't great. I would suggest another faster model with VMware certification if you need VMware to work with it.

Aside from VMware, my NAS is fast. Reads and writes are over 80MB/s.

I wouldn't judge an ISCSI device with vmware workstation. That is an application installed within windows so performance simply with that will be limited. If you're receiving 80mB/s from your NAS - the ISCSI is probably going to give just as good if not better performance as iSCSI is block level technology. Try out esxi on a dedicated machine and see what the performance is.

 

[FireWire2]

I have a eBOX-N been running over 2yrs...

Current housing 5x 2TB RAID5 (usable 8TB), Thinking add another 15TB (usable 12TB) when 3TB drop to $180/ea

Or you can DIY wiht freeNAS and Openfiler. It is not that hard