NAS box recommendations

[mrapoc]

Hello

Our family is looking at getting a NAS box for all the family photos to be backed up onto.

Also looking at all the other benefits such as media streaming etc.

Which ones are recommended? Are there other cool features worth looking out for? Such as remote backup and torrenting?

thanks

 

[tinytomlogan]

Id always just build a basic machine matey and have it hidden somewhere and accessed via home plugs on the network.

 

[airdeano]

ive bought a couple of NAS solutions and always had limitations on what drives or capacity
i could use. Tom's answer is prolly the best, to build your own as it is a better idea for upgradability
in the future and you won't have to spend money on a new NAS when you outgrow the older one.

airdeano

 

[mrapoc]

hmm ok

what kind of specs/price would I be looking at for a low power media server/storage device

 

[andrewmchugh]

Have you not got an old machine that you can just throw ubuntu server on and leave on 24/7. Then you can just make cron jobs for torrents and stuff so that it downloads when you are not needing the bandwidth. You could have the machine starting up and shutting down at specific times to save power. Then use WOL if you need access out of hours.

 

[Fez]

if your looking for something you can just chuck drives in and leave then i suggest synology as they have some pretty decent NAS boxes that can do anything from itunes server to hosting a website direct from the device its self, we have just recently put 2 of the 5 drive ones in the school that i manage the IT for and they are pretty nice Dual gigabit lan ports so nice transfer speed currently we have around 12tb but could easilly boost that by double with such ease

 

[sonrise]

I'm about to build myself one for the same purposes, I will tell you how i think im gonna make it.
I might go on and install Debian on it, and configure everything properly using Samba, but i have been looking after Windows Home Server 2011, and it has pretty cool features.
1) I got a Core 2 Duo E8400 with an Matx ASUS board, thats what im gonna use.
2) For a case, a small one, i have been looking at some matx cases fractal has, they are pretty cool, and look really good.
3) For CPU cooling I will use a low profile silent air cooler, as the cpu wont be under much stress, the most cpu intensive thing might be streaming video.
For Case cooling and Hard Drive cooling, i will use some really good, silent fan which undervolts well, i still dont know which one, but I want it to be really silent.
4) For Hard Drives, I will be using WD Red's, those are pretty good, close to enterprise grade hard drives, designed to run in RAID configurations.
What I still havent decided.
5) If I'm using RAID 5, 6 or 1, yes 1 might be an option
6) which RAID card im going to buy.
7) If I'm finally going to get an Intel lan card, and use that feature that allows you to run multiple cables and create just 1 connection with them, getting for example a 4gbit link (max)

 

[Whaler_99]

For easy use - set it and forget it, DLink has some pretty basic ones, Netgear and their ReadyNAS series, Synology as mentioned above, all work. Anywhere from 2 to 5 disks with some basic RAID. Windows 8 and Server 2012 have a new feature called Storage Spaces for combining disk - but beware, there are issues with it, and it is software based RAID. Another option that I use is unRaid server, old box, lots of disk, 40TB, boom.

Sonrise - you hijacked. RAID1 is only two disks. RAID10 is multiples of 2, great performance, loose lots of space. RAID5, good compromise of space and performance. RAID6, similar to RAID5, but can sustain 2 simultaneous disk failure, but performance hit. RAID card, LSI are good, also SuperMicro.... A 4 port card like that can only do 4GB outbound, you are still limited to 1GB inbound, unless you have a advanced switch that supports something like LACP protocol.

 

[Crion]

If you're looking at a dedicated box, Synology is a very good NAS brand but they also tend to be more expensive. A 4-bay diskless system could run you anywhere between $300-800 USD. Add on HDDs and you're spending probably over $1000. If you've got spare hardware lying around, that's definitely going to be your best bet for the cost.

 

[spasme]

I've been trying to convince myself (still thinking about it) to get a NAS for quite some time now but i just can't see the benefit - other than lower power consumption, maybe.

I've been using my old Core 2 Duo 2.33gHz, 4GB RAM, running on Windows 7, as a NAS/seebox for almost 1year now. Running a real OS on it (not necessarily Windows) gives you all the flexibility you would ever need. For ex. most NAS have problems with loading subtitles while streaming video to a smart TV, when un-RARing files on a NAS you do it over the LAN and if you don't have Gigabit it will take for ever, not sure if support for smart TV's are that great for NAS devices, and those are just some of the popular issues.

Windows 7 is stable enough, only need to reboot for updates, and it does that automatically anyway.

With a basic machine you can remote access it or even (if your monitor supports it) have both machines on a single screen and just get a secondary wireless mouse for it.

Before the Core 2 Duo i was using a P4@3.0 with 1GB of RAM, could not complain much, it was doing it's job just fine, so any machine will do, depending one you needs.