NAS storage

B

Bumzilla

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jun 3, 2005
Messages
364
Reaction score
0
Location
JHB
What's a decent user friendly NAS to purchase?
Needs to have user security so users don't see each other's backup files etc.
Will be for small office of about 7 users. Want to get 2x 1 terabyte drives running.
 
Can I hijack this thread and ask something about freeNAS? How hard is it to upgrade a drive? Can I run 2 x 2TB disks, then add a 3TB disk, then another, and still access my data, or must I backup the data and start from scratch each time? On a related note, do I need to replace dead disks with the identical type? Is Windows home server any easier? Drobos seem ideal, but they've got a few bad reviews and they're slow and expensive.

The Microserver seems ideal - four tool-free disk trays, a fifth SATA port for a caching SSD and an internal USB port for a flash drive holding the system. And I've already got one. On the other hand, I have no clue how to set it up, and it'll cost another R 8 000 for the required kit.

Surely there's a "normal" way to set up a NAS?
 
Drunkard #1 said:
Can I hijack this thread and ask something about freeNAS? How hard is it to upgrade a drive? Can I run 2 x 2TB disks, then add a 3TB disk, then another, and still access my data, or must I backup the data and start from scratch each time?
Click to expand...

I think that would depend how you set it up in the beginning - i.e. RAID 0/1/5

If you used RAID 0 (which I presume is what you want), essentially you would need to back up the data and rebuild the entire array from scratch. If you just install the drives into the NAS box as is and don't use any RAID, then you would be able to add or remove disks as you please, as there is no array that will be broken and needs to be rebuilt. The downside to this is that you will then have to set up many shares in the NAS interface so that you can access each drive independently - whereas if you have RAID0, it would just be one big drive and one share to access the entire drive contents, but then you can't add/remove disks as you please.

As for the rest of your question, maybe someone else has the answers? :confused:
 
Thanks. Did play with freeNaS a few years back...but am getting lazy. Got to whip out my old pc again. I really pity myself with a cs degree.... LOL
 
Bumzilla said:
What's a decent user friendly NAS to purchase?
Needs to have user security so users don't see each other's backup files etc.
Will be for small office of about 7 users. Want to get 2x 1 terabyte drives running.
Click to expand...
As much as this crowd will clamour to go the homebrew route, that's probably not ideal in this usage case: you want an appliance built to Just Work(tm), rather than something you (may) have to work at. Also, don't even bother with the 1TB drive, you nigh on double your R/MB by going with 1TB drives instead of 2TB. As to shares not showing up for each other, I know ReadyNAS does this and would be amazed to see that the others don't. Also, see PM. ;)
 
After trying freenas, I couldn't get it to work with nicely with when a windows 7 machine was added to the network. So I tried unraid and it works great for me the free version. Just it does put the drives to sleep and takes a while to wake them up. Also on the free version it only reads 3 drives 1 parity and 2 normal.
 
FreeNAS is dead simple to use - I am a user of FreeNAS and had no clue how to set it up BUT found this setup video by Too Smart Guys on how to setup the entire system.

It is not as difficult as everyone thinks or makes it out to be since the initial release there have been significant GUI and CLI enhancements.

Once this is setup you have zero maintenance on the box unless you like tinkering around with plug-ins and advanced features. I have been running my FreeNAS box now for 3 years - started with FreeNAS 0.7 and recently migrated to FreeNAS 8.2 - wow what a huge leap.

On the hardware front, you could use just about any old PC components however; it is recommended to check the hardware compatibility listing on the FreeNAS website.
I have been using an AMD Crosshair II motherboard, with a Phenom II x4 and 6GB of memory, an Adaptec 5805 RAID card which allows me to to perform hot swapping should a drive fail. Yes this maybe overkill but I am a pedantic guy :p

One very happy FreeNAS customer here :D
 
Last edited:
Very happy with my synology NAS. Great 3rd party apps and many simple raid options.
 
If you care about your data, FreeNAS. FreeNAS is easy to setup but not as simple as say a QNAP, Synology or whatever. (I'm guessing that is the reason ppl buy it).

So if you want something more expensive and you don't care that you might lose your data if there is a hardware failure, go with QNAP, Synology, etc.
 
Gnome said:
If you care about your data, FreeNAS. FreeNAS is easy to setup but not as simple as say a QNAP, Synology or whatever. (I'm guessing that is the reason ppl buy it).

So if you want something more expensive and you don't care that you might lose your data if there is a hardware failure, go with QNAP, Synology, etc.
Click to expand...

We do care, which is why we're looking at RAID and NAS, but using FreeNAS is still a mystery to us. How does it handle expansion and repair, and is it the best option? It's not the only option, but most of us know too little to make an informed decision.
 
Gnome said:
If you care about your data, FreeNAS....

So if you want something more expensive and you don't care that you might lose your data if there is a hardware failure, go with QNAP, Synology, etc.
Click to expand...

I dont see your point scaring us like that.
There's no hardware differences between a ready made NaS like synology and a freeNAS setup so why should we lose our data with a ready made NAS with correct raid setup
 
tRoN said:
I dont see your point scaring us like that.
There's no hardware differences between a ready made NaS like synology and a freeNAS setup so why should we lose our data with a ready made NAS with correct raid setup
Click to expand...

If the hardware running a "ready made" NAS fails then you are probably screwed if it's using a hardware based RAID setup. You would have to find the exact same controller, same firmware etc. in order to get your data back, i.e. there's a single point of failure.
 
Drunkard #1 said:
We do care, which is why we're looking at RAID and NAS, but using FreeNAS is still a mystery to us. How does it handle expansion and repair, and is it the best option? It's not the only option, but most of us know too little to make an informed decision.
Click to expand...
The great thing about the NAS boxen you buy is all the mystery and magic is removed: you feed it drives and tell it how to share and that's that. And, as long as your needs are basic ...and at the LOW END of the hardware spectrum, life is just dandy.

But as soon as you go above the >4 drives in a box it gets entertaining; those boxen come at a price, and just maybe at enough of a price to start considering self-build options. Which is where something like FreeNAS ..and others.. come up for consideration. At which point it gets complicated to answer and you need real expert input, setup and management to keep it trucking right.

Also 'best' is relative to YOUR setup, here's an example: much as I would have *loved* to go with FreeNAS or any commercial NAS box for a central file store on which the accounts data lives I can't because just about the one (admin) shortcoming of QuickBooks is that it simply MUST live on an NTFS partition for multiple users to have access to it. Which means I'm stuck with some kind of 'doze 'server' for the company file and that becomes *my* 'best' solution. I suspect yours would be different. It comes down to formulating the questions for your use case correctly. Which is always fun. :p
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X