I’m sure some on here use NAS at home.

What recommendations for reliable (cheapish) options.

Looking for at least 1TB and wireless access

Cheers

7

Up to this point[/quote]wireless access

, I was ready to say ReadyNAS Duo or NV+. Cheap, robust, and easy to slot whatever HDDs you have in. But they can’t do wireless; you’d have to hardwire it into your router.

yes wireless is just a location issue, as route is in living room and partner not wild about me making it look like a geek haven

so it could be wireless or non geek looking 🙂

I bought one of these the other A £12.50 NAS Enclosure

You do have to plug it into your router and software is basic, but once up and running it’s been fine. Nothing cheaper!

wireless on a nas is bad practice imo, get it directly wired to your router for the best transfer speed.
if the router is in a different room then ethernet over power will still be better than wireless.
using a linux server on hp proliant micro server here

Yep, avoid wifi for a NAS. It’ll be OK for streaming movies and music off the NAS, but an absolute PITA to get them all there in the first place! If you’re after something that looks OK, have a look at the Lacie lot, then wire it to the router.

Recently got a Buffalo Linkstation, 2 x 1TB and will be run as RAID 1.

Can’t comment on reliability, but it was easy to setup and easier to access than the Maxtor Central Axis we had before (which broke).

Setting it up next to the router would surely be the easiest option?

Setting it up next to the router would surely be the easiest option?

yes but NAS arnt silent and my misuss would have a fit if she found a box that made noise in the front room 😉

Any chance of running a UTP cable to another location?

Perhaps a compromise (as streaming should be OK) might be to have it wired whilst you upload lots of content to it, then move it away and run it on wifi for just general use.

Admittedly a faff, but you can blame your partner for that

This is easy, you just tell her that you can put it in the next room, but you need to drill big holes everywhere and run purple cat5e across the place.

I’m sure she’ll see sense 😉

Alternatively – check your router it might be able to accept a usb HDD, will be a bit quieter as it’ll only spin up in use.

I have a ReadyNas Duo wired to my router. Fantastic bit of kit!

Dual mirrored drives mitigate your risk of data lose due to HD failure and it’s idiot proof.

There are many other benefits to this system. Netgear is a significant brand.

Aim to have a wired network if you intend to stream decent resolution video.

Depends on how much you want to spend, however I use a number of Iomega StorCenter ix4-200d to store my clients backups on as they are so reliable.

I have one at home too for my media libraries – iTunes, Windows Media player detects it automatically as a media server. As does my PS3.

Can use it in different RAID configurations, so you’ve got an excellent chance of failover if one of the disks fail. Can use it as an iSCSI drive as well if you want to get really into it. 🙂

Dual mirrored drives mitigate your risk of data lose due to HD failure and it’s idiot proof.

Apart from if the controller fails, or there’s a power surge…

RAID is not a form of backup, and I’ve had far more NAS (or external USB, for that matter) controllers fail, then been able to carry on using the disk perfectly happily in another caddy.

Synology DS411J here. Synology and Qnap consistently get good reviews.

Mine is hard-wired into my Router, but then used exclusively via wifi: by my Macbook pro to save the media to it/manage the media, and then by my apple Tv for steaming 1080p loveliness. The unit is just behind the sofa, and even during movie playback you don’t really notice it whirring.

Files are often >5gb, and transfer rates aren’t an issue unless there are other things happening at the same time on the unit (automated backups).

Cheap too: about 250 quid for the bare unit, I just bunged-in some HDDs from some old externals I had lying about.

Apart from if the controller fails, or there’s a power surge…

No data loss will occur with either of these events.

PS spent over two decades making my living dealing with large scale computer hardware problems.

No data loss will occur with either of these events.

PS spent over two decades making my living dealing with large scale computer hardware problems

In large scale enterprise systems, no. In small home or SOHO grade systems where the RAID controller can’t be replaced, then yes.

In large scale enterprise systems, no. In small home or SOHO grade systems where the RAID controller can’t be replaced, then yes.

Surely the data would still be OK in the event of the actual device failing rather than the HDDs?
You’d just need to replace the ReadyNAS Duo box, wouldn’t you?

exactly, if you are running a mirror set up then both discs should have all the data duplicated. Just put them in a new box or take a disc out and copy it to something as a precaution while you fix everything.

yes but NAS arnt silent and my misuss would have a fit if she found a box that made noise in the front room

They are not that loud.
You can get “silent” hard drives and they have auto power modes which switch it off when its not in use.

Are SSD’s silent? That could be an (expensive) option.

I have a Readynas Duo V2 running Squeezebox. The fan is a bit noisy but overall it’s pretty quiet. Hard Wiring is definitely the way to go to get stutter-free playback ,especially if you have a slow connection.I have 2x1Tb drives in RAID format which protects against a disc going down but not data corruption.You could always use network plugs through your mains wiring to get your signal to & from your NAS drive if it’s in another room.

+1 for using PowerLine adaptors to enable you to stick it another room. Be far more reliable than WiFi. Getting a lot cheaper too – some good deals here:

http://www.misco.co.uk/product/Q522398/NETGEAR-Powerline-200Mbps-Single-Port-Mini-Bundle

In terms of the NAS itself, some good recommendations above.

I use a QNAP in work which is pretty good but also got a couple of Buffalo units which have worked fine for me (firmware is a bit of a pain though), but apparently other people have had problems with disk failure.

I recently got a Synology 212j and I’m very happy with it. It’s near silent, works with very little faff, and has great forums and customer support.

im also interested in this. ive got a squeezebox, and arent there some that dont support that?

I’ve been using 2 different versions of the Buffalo Linkstation for a couple of years now. They’re cheap, have flexible software, and have been reliable so far.

Agree you are better off wiring them to your router – wifi is painfully slow when you are transferring 1 TB across it.

iomega Ix-200 here – great bit of kit. I stream movies & music to ipad, iphone and tv (via raspberry pi running openelec). Plus it’s a TimeCapsule backup and works as a print server (well, it’s supposed to!) and Bittorrent client.

If I was buying now I’d buy a Synology 212 with 2 x 1Tb drives.

Wireless just isn’t reliable enough, especially if you want non interrupted streaming. For backups overnight wireless is ok but mine (admittedly using wireless G) stutters with music and movies if the wife is surfing the web, which is quite annoying. Most of the time it’s fine but I’m planning to wire everything with Cat5e.

Wireless ac (new standard) might solve these problems but claims were made about ‘n’ and ‘G’ that never lived up to the hype.

I’d suggest you look at what formats you want to stream e.g. mp3 or 1080p video, see what the bitrate is, see what wireless can do (and halve the claims). Don’t forget to distinguish between mbits/sec and mbytes/sec!

Don’t forget powerline adapters need their own socket i.e. they don’t work with trailing leads. I think some have mains socket bypasses now though…

Can you move your router somewhere else? Mine is in a spare bedroom connected to the NAS.

Bit more pricy but you can get passthrough powerline adaptors. I use something similar to these at home:

http://www.misco.co.uk/product/164530/D-Link-PowerLine-Homeplug-AV-Passthrough-Starter-Kit

Don’t forget powerline adapters need their own socket i.e. they don’t work with trailing leads

I have two [TP-Link]that are happily working on 4 way trailing sockets, I suspect that are some trailing sockets that won’t play nicely though.

andyl – Member
exactly, if you are running a mirror set up then both discs should have all the data duplicated. Just put them in a new box or take a disc out and copy it to something as a precaution while you fix everything.

You wont be putting the disks into a Windows PC to recover the data – the ReadyNAS systems use an incompatable file system – not sure if you could recover using Linux…most likely you would have to buy another ReadyNAS caddy.

You wont be putting the disks into a Windows PC to recover the data – the ReadyNAS systems use an incompatable file system – not sure if you could recover using Linux…most likely you would have to buy another ReadyNAS caddy.

Indeed. I’ve recently found this out with a LaCie nas, and that’s just a single disk jobby. I can probably find a way, but it’s not easy.

Which brings me back to my earlier point: raid is not a form of backup. What happens when the only option (a replacement caddy) is discontinued and a newer one uses a different file system?

Agreed – Ive just bought a pair of powerline LAN adapters, one to be used in the house, and one in the garage with a Buffalo Linkstation on each end.

What happens when the only option (a replacement caddy) is discontinued and a newer one uses a different file system?

I use mine as a back-up and really don’t think the risk is that great
Everything is on my PC, and backed up to the NAS drive [2x HDD RAID1]
It would have to be a fairly major set of circumstances that rendered all 3 drives useless and unrecoverable, certainly not something that should overly worry a home user IMO.
If you have anything that is really critical you can also have a backup to a cloud somewhere.

It would have to be a fairly major set of circumstances that rendered all 3 drives useless and unrecoverable, certainly not something that should overly worry a home user IMO.

Power surge, theft, fire? Not all that unlikely.

Cloud is fine for small amounts of data, but what about photos, or your music / movie collection?

All I’m trying to point out is that raid shouldn’t be the only form of redundancy people employ, for some fairly obvious reasons. I’m struggling to see why there is any disagreement with this.

I’ve a ReadyNAS Duo wired into my router then running over powerline LAN adapters (with ‘through sockets’)/wifi to devices and it works a treat.

Agree on the failover points made though – I’m running two disks mirrored so if one disk fails the other will take over, but if the NAS itself fails (i.e. the RAID controller) then I can’t just plug the disks into a Windows (or any other) PC and retrieve the data. I’d need another RAID controller (another ReadyNAS Duo box) to plug the disks into to retrieve the data.

*EDIT* and it’s plugged into a surge protector. Fire & theft? I’d have bigger concerns than losing the NAS contents.

Fire & theft? I’d have bigger concerns than losing the NAS contents.

Cant disagree with that, but some things just cant be replaced – photos and videos of your children growing up, for example.

not your children, obviously….

😆

Power surge, theft, fire? Not all that unlikely.

Oh I don’t know
I have surge protection
Fire, I’ve not had a house fire in the 53 years I’ve been around and living in houses, so I’m going to put that one down as unlikely.

ditto the theft TBH

I’m not arguing that RAID is fully redundant in all circumstances, just that it a reasonable option for most home users, like the OP

I’m not arguing that RAID is fully redundant in all circumstances, just that it a reasonable option for most home users, like the OP

I still disagree. Buy a less expensive single nas disk, and periodically back that up to another much cheaper external disk that you can keep in your desk at work or at a friends. Costs a lot less, you lose no storage capacity, and its a lot more certain to keep your data safe should something catastrophic happen than a raid box.

Not cheap but ticks a lot of boxes

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