Advise on NAS? Synology / FreeNAS

I'm looking for an advice on the NAS server. I have an aging desktop that I built 5 years ago with the following specs:

- Intel Core i7 - 920 OC'd to 3.2GHz
- Samsung EVO 840 SSD 250Gb
- 6Gb OC'd Corsair Dominator RAM
- CoolerMaster HAF 922 tower case
- ThermalTake R2 850W PSU
- nVidia GTX 285 Video Card
- EVGA Classified X58 Motherboard
- CoolerMaster V8 CPU cooler

Now, I've wanted to get rid of the extra clutter, and actually sell the desktop by parts in favor of the dedicated NAS box. I've found way too many difficulties between sharing my photos between MAC/Win systems, and therefore choosing MAC OS to prevail. I've recently bought a 15" MBP, which is pretty maxed out with 4th gen i7, 16Gb RAM, 512 SSD. So it has already replaced my desktop for all of my photo editing. I do, however, plan to get an additional 27" 4k display for heavy PS'ing.

I've been thinking of either getting a dedicated Synology DS214 NAS box with 2x 4Tb RED drives, or to keep the existing desktop and run FreeNAS on it. Looking for any help and/or suggestions. My major point of going with Synology is saving desk space and extra clutter / wires / low noise / electricity. It's my understanding that it runs on only 23W when low use, and 44W when in full use. Obviously it won't have the same specs as a desktop with Core i7, 6Gb...e.t.c.

Please share your suggestions or experience.

I have a 212j with dual 2TB WD Red drives that I sync my workstation to. I like it, it's plenty fast enough for one user. It goes to sleep when not in use, when you try to access it via desktop shortcut (Win 8.1) it's boots up in less then 5 seconds. I'm using Goodsync to copy my workstation to the NAS, it updates every hour. Definitely quiet and takes up very little space.

I can highly recommend a Qnap branded device. I would say an SMB model, 8 bay. You don't need to populate all the bays. But you will run out of room with just two (1 in raid).

Chris

I looked into this recently, in depth. With FreeNAS it's STRONGLY recommended that you use ECC RAM, along with a processor that supports it. If you don't then you run the risk of corrupting all of your data, and there are no data recovery tools for ZFS. Suggest you go with a commercial box instead.

What I did: I'm in the process of putting W10 onto my main PC, formatting two new 4TB HGST disks in ReFS, and using storage spaces to create a mirror pair.

I would suggest that Synology is a far better solution than Qnap. The user interface on synology just makes sense and the menu items are clearly layed out and easy to follow. I have tried a Qnap once and simply had to take it back as I could not figure it out easily.

As far as performance goes. The Synology will work and the added bonus over FreeNAS is that Synology has a whole bunch of 3rd party apps that it can run to do other stuff. Like they have one that automatically uploads to Glacier at a specific time so you can get offsite backup happening when you are fast asleep. I also use their photo server to catalog all my jpeg images. it is very slick and works with both ios and andriod over the cloud so it makes showing your work very easy and very slick without having to have local copies of images.

The only down side that I found is I under estimated how much I would use my NAS and bought one that simply turned out to be way too small. I use my NAS for doing Timemachine and found that I like the ability to have a backtrack point in time backup of my mac going back so I need drive space for that. Plus found it far easier to put all my music on the nas so I can stream anything I want to hear easily.

FreeNAS all the way. No issues with my self built box using a Via C7!!!
I never had any issues using non ecc ram or ZFS.

I've got a Synology NAS storing my photos. It's doing really well, it's quiet and easy to set up. I don't really notice it's there. I don't use a lot of sophisticated features and my only issue is that I do too much photography and fill it up too quickly . Guess I'll have to upgrade it to 2x2GB drives soon.

DoughnutPhoto wrote in post #17397547
I've got a Synology NAS storing my photos. It's doing really well, it's quiet and easy to set up. I don't really notice it's there. I don't use a lot of sophisticated features and my only issue is that I do too much photography and fill it up too quickly . Guess I'll have to upgrade it to 2x2GB drives soon.

I know what you meen. I started off with a 2 drive unit with 1tb drives as that was the largest you could get a the time. Then changed them over to 2tb drives, then broke the mirror to get 4tb. Then figured that I'd just buy a 4bay as that will fill my needs for a long while. Well, everything gets stored on that drive, and the 4x3tb drives are now sitting at 90% full. The cost of getting 4x6tb drives is about the same cost as getting 4 more 3tb drives and another 4bay nas.

I figured that it makes more sense for me to get a new 8bay and sell my 4. That way I'd gain an extra 3tb from the RAID5 and in 2 years the cost of the 6tb drives hopfully will have fallen and I will look into moving over to them.

Another vote for the Sinology here. The user interface is excellent. Easy to setup. Once you set it up, you forget that it is there. Now it just sits in a closet in the basement. I have the 4-bay with 4 WD Red 2TB. At some point the drives will get bigger, and I will put another one off site somewhere. They really are handy machines and make a great storage and remote access a breeze. Good luck with your decision.

So it looks like Synology is a way to go. I've decided to put my desktop for sale, and get the DS214+ first. I will pull one of the hard drives that I have from my desktop, which is a new Seagate 4Tb 5200rpm, and get an additional 4TB RED drive as well. I think MBP can pretty much handle being a desktop replacement, especially that I haven't spent any time on my desktop lately.

Thanks for all of the recommendations!

bikfoto wrote in post #17396953
I'm looking for an advice on the NAS server. I have an aging desktop that I built 5 years ago with the following specs:

- Intel Core i7 - 920 OC'd to 3.2GHz
- Samsung EVO 840 SSD 250Gb
- 6Gb OC'd Corsair Dominator RAM
- CoolerMaster HAF 922 tower case
- ThermalTake R2 850W PSU
- nVidia GTX 285 Video Card
- EVGA Classified X58 Motherboard
- CoolerMaster V8 CPU cooler

Now, I've wanted to get rid of the extra clutter, and actually sell the desktop by parts in favor of the dedicated NAS box. I've found way too many difficulties between sharing my photos between MAC/Win systems, and therefore choosing MAC OS to prevail. I've recently bought a 15" MBP, which is pretty maxed out with 4th gen i7, 16Gb RAM, 512 SSD. So it has already replaced my desktop for all of my photo editing. I do, however, plan to get an additional 27" 4k display for heavy PS'ing.

I've been thinking of either getting a dedicated Synology DS214 NAS box with 2x 4Tb RED drives, or to keep the existing desktop and run FreeNAS on it. Looking for any help and/or suggestions. My major point of going with Synology is saving desk space and extra clutter / wires / low noise / electricity. It's my understanding that it runs on only 23W when low use, and 44W when in full use. Obviously it won't have the same specs as a desktop with Core i7, 6Gb...e.t.c.

Please share your suggestions or experience.

I'd build a Linux based server with software RAID.
The number one advantage is that the drives can be read by any equal or never version of the software (mdadm) - i.e. just set up a new Linux install.
A dedicated server also offers greater flexibility than a ready built NAS and can be cheaper (I got a Dell box for 168€ - the cheapest NAS would start over 200€).

Potentially lower performance of software RAID over a dedicated RAID card is a nonissue for home office or small business use - you'd have to run a large database or something equally performance demanding to see a difference.

I have used Qnap devices for ip cctv installations, the company I worked for at the time insisted on using them , but I found them to be less than reliable, however Synology devices seem to get more favourable reviews.
That being said I have WD my cloud , and find it to be very good , but I suspect not as good as the Synology , however, half the price.

bikfoto wrote in post #17397877
So it looks like Synology is a way to go. I've decided to put my desktop for sale, and get the DS214+ first. I will pull one of the hard drives that I have from my desktop, which is a new Seagate 4Tb 5200rpm, and get an additional 4TB RED drive as well. I think MBP can pretty much handle being a desktop replacement, especially that I haven't spent any time on my desktop lately.

Thanks for all of the recommendations!

Echoing what one person mentioned earlier, I would really advise a 4 bay NAS, putting in two 4TB HDD, then you have the potential to expand later. You can easily add another 4TB HDD later when prices drop. Adding three or more drives lets you do raid 5 much easier.

Another alternative is to build the Linux system. Unraid is something I toyed with and the concept of just stacking up many HDD of different sizes is very appealing and using your old hardware as well. I only had an issue with the power supply and fan being noisy if placed at home. The ready built QNAP that I have is really quiet and doesn't use much power. It's a 4bay that originally had 4x2TB. It was a real pain to go to 4x4TB to get the system to recognise all the new drives. At the time of the upgrade, I really considered getting the 8 bay. When you need to upgrade an NAS, it will take many hours/days to transfer the data across!

urbanfreestyle wrote in post #17397543
FreeNAS all the way. No issues with my self built box using a Via C7!!!
I never had any issues using non ecc ram or ZFS.

The reason to use ECC is if a RAM stick goes bad it can corrupt the whole volume because of the scrubbing mechanism. You may choose to take the risk, and I am using ReFS and Storage Spaces too.

Thanks everyone. After playing with the decision, and being tempted by the G-Technology thunderbolt drive, I've decided to opt out for a Synology DS214+ in raid 1 configuration. I've got 2 4TB drives to go along with it. The idea of having access to my files from anywhere was something that I couldn't give up. I've also thought about getting a G-tech drive which would be stuck at home due to size/weight, and act as a filestore for all my photography images. Then it would be synced up with CrashPlan. However, having to attach an MBP to it just to do the backup and upload to CP was too much.

Thanks for all of the suggestions!