Hi … recently had a thread getting advice on NAS which was much appreciated. To summarise – our need is:

– 2-4 people running W7 laptops, need to share files (ppt, pdf, word – small sizes of 10mb. Occasionally make films .mov files of 200mb) ie. a central filing system
– connect wirelessly, and remotely to the filing system altho we share a space 99% of the time
– we have a Billion router
– I’ll prob back up the files on a separate hard drive every now and then

So if I buy a Synology DS110j + a Seagate drive, will that give us what I’m after, and do I need any other stuff to get it up and running?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Synology-DS110j-Bay-Enclosure-Installed/dp/B002U42XD6/ref=sr_1_2?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1335431092&sr=1-2

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Seagate-ST2000DL003-Barracuda-3-5-inch-5900RPM/dp/B004C0WVP6/ref=pd_bxgy_computers_text_b

I’m new to all this, and not sure I understand RAID and whether that’s worthwhile for our needs, which are pretty basic?

Any guidance would be great, and thanks for the earlier advice too.

Cheers

With only a single drive you need to be prepared to lose all of the data. It will allow you swap stuff and have a handy location for everyone to dump things but when that drive finally fails it could be painful.

Anything which is RAID 1 (two drives both storing the same) or RAID 5 (multiple drives which can cope with one failing) would be preferable if the data isn’t going to be stored anywhere else.

Ye-es…

RAID is a good idea, but it’s not a substitute for a proper backup scheme. (RAID won’t protect you if the building burns down, you’re burgled, the controller mangles the data, a user deletes everything by accident…)

RAID gives you redundancy and availability, so if a disk fails it minimises downtime and admin overheads. Ask yourself, “can I cope if the disk fails catastrophically in the middle of the day”? If the answer is no, you need RAID in addition to your backups. If yes (which is possible, if the data is non-critical, merely a backup itself, or otherwise offline data) then you perhaps don’t, but for the price it’s probably still worth considering in a business environment.

Disks can and do fail, sometimes suddenly (and professional data recovery is really expensive). Also, as the person implementing Something New, are you going to look like an idiot when it curls up its toes?

Bear in mind that you can buy a slower drive (less noise, less heat) because even a slow drive will still be quicker than the NAS, so no negative performance hit. My Synology is so much quieter and cooler now it’s got a 5400rpm drive in.

V8 – fair point. So is it as straightforward as going for the 2 bay option?

Thanks all.

Cougar – so the cheaper single bay option will do what I’m after, and as long as I’m regularly backing up externally to this (via an external hard drive), I’m OK?

Cheers

(Edited my earlier post with more info)

Cougar – thanks … kinda seems the right thing to go RAID from your neat description. Extra cost, but peace of mind and reassurance prob worthwhile.

So it’s the 2 bay equivalent then, and buy 2 drives? (Sorry if idiotic qn!). Is set up reasonably self explanatory?

Cheers

I think it’s worth it for future-proofing if nothing else; it’s just a better solution. The single most common kit failure I see day to day is the disk drive. High-speed, high-precision moving parts, y’see.

Even with backups, restoring data is a pain in the proverbial and usually avoidable.

Whatever you get needs to support RAID1 and the two drives probably need to be identical.

Cougar – thanks (again!).

Sorry to hassle, do you have any pointers/ recommendations of a suitable set up (ideally an eg. Amazon link as there’s so many options and variations I’m confused!?)

Do appreciate the advice

I’ve been running the DS211j for about a year now without any issues.
Synology have a ‘hybrid’ raid called SHR which allows to run raid 1 with two similar driver (as apposed to identical for proper raid 1).
I use it as home for storing photos, docs, movies etc. And also as a automated usenet down loader using sabnzb and sickbeard.
Really pleased with it. Light years ahead of the rubbish bufallo linkstation that it replaced.

Sorry. I’ve never had cause to buy a SOHO type unit (I deal more with enterprise-grade stuff really) so I’m not well up on individual models.

Theres a VPN package for it which allows relatively easy setting up of remote access. It supports PPTP or OpenVPN.

You could do worse than the Western Digital My Book Studio Edition II Raid. I’m getting a 4Tb version, which will be Firewired into my Mac Mini and set up with Time Machine. Currently around £288 on Amazon.

I’ve been running the DS211j for about a year now without any issues.

That looks pretty decent. Will it run something like Peerguardian?

Hi Aus…. I have the 4-bay version of the Synology. It was really easy to set up: put the drives in, start it up, then follow the start-up programme – it’s all very intuative. I just used drives that I took from old external USB drives.

In real terms, the “unit” appears as a single 4tb drive on my computer. I save and access files on it in exactly the same way as I would something stored locally.

My advice would be to buy a unit capable of RAID – every drive will fail at some point…. it’s just a case of when, and how much of a b*ll-ache it will cause you when it happens. With a Raid unit, you just whip-out the faulty drive, and replace it with a new one. The unit then “rebuilds” itself – copying data bck over to the new drive. It seems a false economy to buy a single drive NAS – I would go for at least a dual drive (just IMO)

Hope that helps

Cougar +1

Bear in mind if you do use RAID (and I would recommend you do) if you have a RAID ctl failure you may lose all of your data or at best be paying a huge bill and looking at a delay.
Use RAID but backup at least once daily and keep your tapes offsite. I would also recommend periodic test restores and having a spare machine built, patched and ready.
Bear in mind if you have a fire you have nothing to restore your tapes to etc so it all comes down to how important your data is to the business. Would it fold if you lost it?

Disaster recovery is a scale and you need to work out where you need to sit because it all comes down to money.

Thanks all. Really appreciate the advice.

Now clear that RAID makes sense. The Synology DS211j looks a goodie (and previous thread had lots of pros for Synology).

And Batfink, thanks for the perspective on how tricky (or not) it is. Gives me hope!

And surfer, that makes sense re extra back-ups.

Oh the joy of setting up a small business!

keep your tapes offsite

Online storage is another option. Cost of hardware and media aside, rotating tapes and taking them home every day grows old very fast.

Every IT place I’ve ever worked, it’s the first responsibility given to a new starter. They’re happy because they’re trusted to do something important, I’m happy cos it’s a ballache and I don’t have to do it any more. “Palming off backup duties to someone else” is a bit of a rite of passage in IT.

Cougar – we looked at online storage and google+ but being somewhat tech dim, it seems slightly more reassuring to have hardware, daft as that may be. Hopefully we’ll learn stuff over time (as we’ve no-one to rely on) and gradually embrace the hitech world!

Aus, I was reading an article on storage and backup by a pro photographer, and he had lots of good info. I dont have access to it at the mo’, it was on Flipboard on my Pad, but I’ll look it out when I get home and post a link, as he says a lot about online storage/backup.

that’d be great – thanks.

It’s an interesting experience going from ‘taking the whole lot for granted with zero responsibility’ to, ‘it’s all down to me’!

For what its worth, with my netgear readynas, i’ve started setting up with 1 hard-drive, and will add the 2nd once i’ve got everything on there. It can easily be set to just duplicate the first & everything is automatic after that. The Synology one can possibly do the same, if you want to save on upfront costs.

thanks all for the advice. Just ordered (with some trepidation!) a 2 bay Synology unit + 2 drives. 😯