I'm considering an NAS, anyone have experience?

Hello all,

My home system is getting to the point where it is going to need more storage soon, and I am thinking it would be great to have access to some of my home files while at the office and vice versa. I could continue adding external drives like I do now as backup but I hate carrying them around, and acknowledge that moving them around all the time like I do puts them at enhanced risk of damage.

I have a budget of around $500 and would want at least 4TB of storage with some redundancy. I'm not opposed to buying a pre-built system or buying a case and drives separately I could probably spend a little more if I really need to but would love to keep it under the $500 mark if at all possible. The system I am currently considering is the WD My Cloud EX2 http://www.newegg.com …ud-_-22-236-655-_-Product with a couple of WD Red 4TB drives http://www.newegg.com …aspx?Item=N82E1​6822236599 just because I have had a lot of good experience with WD in the past, I am not opposed to using something from another brand either though.

Can anyone think of a system that would perform better or give me a little more storage capacity in that kind of price range?

Edit: I also want something with USB 3.0 support so I can plug one or two of my existing external HDDs in there to expand storage for non- esential stuff.

Have a read

https://photography-on-the.net …showthread.php?​p=17433844

I have Synology myself and when I was researching it came down to the NAS OS and throughput. I also have a separate 3tb drive connected to it that backs up the NAS and I have a separate external that's hooked up to my Mac via USB3.0 that's my working drive because I find it too slow to work off the NAS.

I've used a homebrew NAS for years. It's just an old PC with tons of disk hanging off the home network. Not all the advantages of a full blown NAS, but a convenient way to keep things backed up and accessible from all the machines at home.

flowrider wrote in post #17434461
Have a read

https://photography-on-the.net …showthread.php?​p=17433844

That looks pretty good, what was your total investment into the system if you don't mind my asking? I have heard a lot of good things about Synology, and apparently they have the best suit of apps for connecting/streaming to a mobile device which I think would be extremely useful. I am afraid the DS214+ would be ouf of my price range however and would push me into the DS214se which is supposedly very very slow when it comes to read/write speeds, although otherwise quite capable.

gjl711 wrote in post #17434470
I've used a homebrew NAS for years. It's just an old PC with tons of disk hanging off the home network. Not all the advantages of a full blown NAS, but a convenient way to keep things backed up and accessible from all the machines at home.

I have thought about going this route. I have build my last two computers and have quite a few spare parts lying around but the ones not currently in use are pretty old. I think I will want something a little less power hungry and noisy in the long run. It is tempting to just buy a couple drives and slap them into the old case though.

solepatch wrote in post #17434494
That looks pretty good, what was your total investment into the system if you don't mind my asking? I have heard a lot of good things about Synology, and apparently they have the best suit of apps for connecting/streaming to a mobile device which I think would be extremely useful. I am afraid the DS214+ would be ouf of my price range however and would push me into the DS214se which is supposedly very very slow when it comes to read/write speeds, although otherwise quite capable.

I have thought about going this route. I have build my last two computers and have quite a few spare parts lying around but the ones not currently in use are pretty old. I think I will want something a little less power hungry and noisy in the long run. It is tempting to just buy a couple drives and slap them into the old case though.

I have the 214SE and it's not too bad. I try not to work off of it though for my main editing. For that I work off my main drive with an immediate backup to the USB3.0 disk. I don't use it to store and transcode movies though so I don't overly tax the NAS.

flowrider wrote in post #17434656
I have the 214SE and it's not too bad. I try not to work off of it though for my main editing. For that I work off my main drive with an immediate backup to the USB3.0 disk. I don't use it to store and transcode movies though so I don't overly tax the NAS.

That's good to hear, I'll have to check it out. I don't intend to try to work off of the drive itself I would be using it for storage only, although I would want to move all of my video work to it.

I'd suggest Synology. I recently posted a thread in this forum looking for a NAS solution. I ended up getting a Synology 214+ with 2x 4Tb drives. It works like a charm. File transfers are dropbox-like. The software is what makes it stand out from the rest of the NAS devices. You can also backup your phone's photos to it with Photo+ app, videos, file transfers, e.t.c. Setup is less than 30min. And what won me over was an ability to use CrashPlan to backup externally. It gives yet one more level of redundancy, since the system already has what it's called "hybrid" RAID, which is essentially RAID 1 (mirroring).

Good luck!

Thanks for the info, I'm looking more strongly into the 214se now. I really need to come up with a solution pretty soon otherwise I am going to be completely out of space.

solepatch wrote in post #17436289
Thanks for the info, I'm looking more strongly into the 214se now. I really need to come up with a solution pretty soon otherwise I am going to be completely out of space.

Keep in mind that you actually lose a bit of space with Raid 1. I have 3tb drives in mine and only have 2.8 tb of usable space on them.

flowrider wrote in post #17436390
Keep in mind that you actually lose a bit of space with Raid 1. I have 3tb drives in mine and only have 2.8 tb of usable space on them.

Good to keep in mind. Whatever I get I'll be using two 4 TB drives + one of my 2TB external drives or two if I get a unit with multiple USB 3 ports. 200GB seems like a lot to lose to the formatting though.

Well, if you're on the budget, then I'd recommend to look into raid 1. Otherwise, 415+ is a solid option in my opinion, but you'd have to purchase 4x drives plus the $600 cost of the enclosure.

The 4Tb WD RED drives, which are perfect for NAS, are $160 a pop. This puts you at $320 + $360 cost of the enclosure. It's over your budget by $580, but you're getting redundancy. You could also set them w/out raid, and have 8tb. However, you'd lose redundancy in case one of your drives goes kaput. And they will!

For $1200 you can have a Raid 5 array with 4x TB drives + enclosure. You'd then have 12Tb of storage with 1 redundant 4tb drive. If cost is an issue, go my route and do 214+. I'd also try to stay away from "SE" models due to the following reasons: 1) they're not as fast 2) cpu will max out easily even on regular file transfers.

For me personally, I only had 1.2Tb of photos. So I still have ways to go, even with a big sensor of 5Ds and 50mpx files. After 3 years, I'll then worry about expanding and possibly adding a secondary array.

Think what's best for you in terms of cost and value that you're getting. If you need more than 4Tb of storage, go higher from the start, so you won't have to replace the drives in the near future.

bikfoto wrote in post #17436595
Well, if you're on the budget, then I'd recommend to look into raid 1. Otherwise, 415+ is a solid option in my opinion, but you'd have to purchase 4x drives plus the $600 cost of the enclosure.

The 4Tb WD RED drives, which are perfect for NAS, are $160 a pop. This puts you at $320 + $360 cost of the enclosure. It's over your budget by $580, but you're getting redundancy. You could also set them w/out raid, and have 8tb. However, you'd lose redundancy in case one of your drives goes kaput. And they will!

For $1200 you can have a Raid 5 array with 4x TB drives + enclosure. You'd then have 12Tb of storage with 1 redundant 4tb drive. If cost is an issue, go my route and do 214+. I'd also try to stay away from "SE" models due to the following reasons: 1) they're not as fast 2) cpu will max out easily even on regular file transfers.

For me personally, I only had 1.2Tb of photos. So I still have ways to go, even with a big sensor of 5Ds and 50mpx files. After 3 years, I'll then worry about expanding and possibly adding a secondary array.

Think what's best for you in terms of cost and value that you're getting. If you need more than 4Tb of storage, go higher from the start, so you won't have to replace the drives in the near future.

I'm planning on using two 4TB drives in RAID 1 for redundancy, I'm also planning on using the WD red drives. From what I have seen in benchmarks the EX2 gives a pretty decent performance boost over the 214se, it also offers hot swapable drives but the Synology has better software. For a little more cash I could go with a 214+, and in the long run its not really that much more money, which would give me a pretty significant performance boost, hot swapable drives, and Synology's software suit. I don't think I'm quite ready to pony up for a 4 or 5 drive setup just yet.

I could actually swing the 214+ if I hang on and watch my money a bit. I guess my question for now would be is the extra processing power and Synology's App system worth the extra wait time and cash? I'm going to be shooting an informational video for a local medical company on march 23rd which is going to necessitate me having an addition to my storage situation worked out by then, so I probably need to order no later than the end of this month.

if your budget can stretch then id always recommend higher than a 2 bay unit as they can become limiting very quickly on a rapidly expanding dataset. then run it in R5 (you still get disk failure protection) to lose less data to raid overheads.

neil_g wrote in post #17437092
if your budget can stretch then id always recommend higher than a 2 bay unit as they can become limiting very quickly on a rapidly expanding dataset. then run it in R5 (you still get disk failure protection) to lose less data to raid overheads.

I don't think the budget can stretch quite that far lol. The cheapest current 4 bay enclosure I have seen is the DS412 which is $200 over my budget just for the enclosure. The DIY approach is looking more enticing by the minute lol. I am thinking I am going to end up with a DS214+ it seems to be the most widely recommended 2 bay NAS that is just slightly outside my budget.

The DIY solution, especially using FreeNAS, is a good one as well. However, it will most likely take more space, take more electricity, and take more work. The good thing about NAS in general is that you no longer have to mess with external drives. I've put my 1.5Tb wd passport back on the shelf, as all my file transfers and backups are now done over wifi. With a decent router, I'm transferring approximately 2Gb per minute onto Synology. This is with Airport Extreme 6G. My MacBook is on wifi, Synology is plugged in using a Cat 7 cable directly into the router.