NAS device questions

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Haole Boy

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Aloha,

I'm contemplating re-doing my bench machine setup. I currently have a 4 TB "drive" that is actually 4 x 2TB RAID 10 array on a Windows 10 machine. The RAID array is defined using the Intel controller on the motherboard. This drive is used primarily to store customer backups.

I'm thinking in my new setup that I will put these drives into a NAS device, and I have a couple of questions...

1) Is there a NAS device that would allow me to just physically move the drives from my Win10 workstation to the NAS and have them work? Or will I have to offload the data and then reload once the NAS is up and running? (I think the answer is offload and reload, but thought I would ask.)

2) Is anyone willing to recommend a NAS device? Obviously, it has to have at least 4 drive bays (3.5") and support RAID 10. Since all I will be using this for is backup, I don't really need a lot of features like DLNA server and cloud sharing, etc. The drives I have are all WD Black WD2003FZEX 3.5" drives

3) I could double the size of my available disk space by switching from RAID 10 to RAID 0. Theoretically, in a RAID 0 array, you can lose one drive, replace it, and rebuild the array without loss of data. How well does this work in the real world?

Mahalo,

Harry Z.
 
1) I'm not sure how possible this is when using real RAID (and it sounds like you're using fake RAID?), but most NAS boxes use software RAID, so the answer is almost definitely no.

2) Synology and QNAP are pretty solid bets, but will have more features than you need. Some people like Buffalo too.

3) In RAID 0, the information on that drive is only stored on that drive, how would it rebuild it? It sounds like you mean RAID 5/6
 
This ^^^
You would not be able to just swap the drives to a NAS and have them "just work."
QNAP is my choice. Drobo have some interesting solutions as well.
The only other concern for me is the WD "blacks".
I would swap them for purpose built WD "Red" NAS drives. Just my 02 cents...
 
trevm999 said:
3) In RAID 0, the information on that drive is only stored on that drive, how would it rebuild it? It sounds like you mean RAID 5/6
Click to expand...

Oops! You are correct. My question should be how well does RAID 5 work in the real world with losing a drive, replacing it and rebuilding the array
 
Barcelona said:
T
The only other concern for me is the WD "blacks".
I would swap them for purpose built WD "Red" NAS drives. Just my 02 cents...
Click to expand...

What's the advantage of the WD Red over the Black? I chose the Black drives as they have a 5 year warranty.

My priority is reliability, then speed.

Harry Z.
 
Haole Boy said:
how well does RAID 5 work in the real world with losing a drive
Click to expand...
I prefer RAID 10. You get the best of both worlds, but you will get a performance hit with "software" RAID and RAID 10.
I've swapped out plenty of drives from both hardware and software Raid 5 setups. The only difference is the time for the rebuild, the hardware Raid is quicker to rebuild. Should be no issues if you do it right.:)
 
Haole Boy said:
What's the advantage of the WD Red over the Black? I chose the Black drives as they have a 5 year warranty.
Click to expand...
WD "Red" also have a five year warranty. The advantage is that the Red's are purpose built and "optimised" for NAS and RAID = greater reliability. Red's have roughly the same sequential transfers as "blues." They use less power = less heat, important in a NAS that's shoved under a bench or in a cupboard!
If you want performance over reliability stick with the black, but with all due respect, I wouldn't risk my clients data on a whim.
 
Haole Boy said:
Oops! You are correct. My question should be how well does RAID 5 work in the real world with losing a drive, replacing it and rebuilding the array
Click to expand...

In the real world, RAID 5 is only used by people who don't know any better. While RAID 5 can survive a single drive failure, it might not survive the rebuild. If there is a single error reading the parity data during the rebuild, your array is gone. I've had a co-worker where this happened to them. Degraded array, they thought they just do a simple rebuild and did not verify the server's backup and it had dire consequences for the province's opposition party. With RAID 6, there are two copies of the parity data. They say 2 drives can fail in a RAID 6, however when the first drive fails, your basically running a RAID 5, so if a second drive fails the rebuild is as risky as rebuilding a RAID 5 array.
 
Barcelona said:
I prefer RAID 10. You get the best of both worlds, but you will get a performance hit with "software" RAID and RAID 10.
I've swapped out plenty of drives from both hardware and software Raid 5 setups. The only difference is the time for the rebuild, the hardware Raid is quicker to rebuild. Should be no issues if you do it right.:)
Click to expand...

I have no real world comparison experience of rebuild software RAID arrays vs hardware arrays. But in theory, one being faster than the other would be depend on certain factors. Software RAID might actually have access to more processing power, unless the processor is busy. Real hardware RAID had dedicated processing, so it would be faster if there's not much processing power to spare on the CPU. I'm sure there are other factors too, and it might depend on what kind of RAID it is, how many drives, etc. RAID was originally developed as a software solution. In summary, don't let software RAID deter you, just avoid fake hardware RAID.
 
I run WD Reds on my NAS. Honestly, I'm not sure how much of it makes a difference and how much of it is marketing, but they are a good price. Over the network, I get 100 MB/s write and 70 MB/s read
 
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I'm a fan of Synology....one of our techs likes QNap. Either way.....both good devices with decent support, OS updates, features.
The key really is the drives you use....since it's a device designed to run 24/7/365 for many years, you want quality hard drives. Not residential grade 1 year warranty drives.

We use WD Red drives in the Synologys we deploy, as well as our own. We have the larger 2U rack mounted 2212+ model.
WD's Red models are designed to be used in NAS's and DVRs/NVRs...to be run 24/7/365, in a tight chassis, in RAID. Thus..they are optimized for that. Less RPM = less heat output. As I'm sure you know, heat is not good for the longevity of hard drives. Plus you want low power consumption. While yes lower RPMs means higher seek times and transfer speeds, at my office we can max out our gigabit LAN connection across a good ProCurve switch pulling files from our NAS. So having faster drives in that NAS would not give us better performance. Synology gets good performance from its native hybrid RAID.

Speaking of hybrid RAID, just allow the NAS distro do to its own native hybrid RAID, you get good flexibility with it...you can mix match drives, and you get good capacity.
While yes a RAID 10 can be faster....you are not going to realize the performance benefits of RAID 10 over the native NAS "hybrid" RAID unless you have many people on your network pulling/copying files from that NAS at the same time...as in many concurrent hits. Since most NAS OS's are based on some flavor of Linux, their hybrid RAIDs are good and flexible.

And as always, update the firmware on any drives you use for a NAS.
 
Mahalo for all the updates. This site is just wonderful for a "lone ranger" like myself.

A couple of comments...

Barcelona said:
WD "Red" also have a five year warranty.
Click to expand...

wdc.com lists the Red drives as having a 3 year warranty

YeOldeStonecat said:
I'm a fan of Synology....one of our techs likes QNap. Either way.....both good devices with decent support, OS updates, features.
Click to expand...

I'm leaning towards the Synology.

YeOldeStonecat said:
The key really is the drives you use....since it's a device designed to run 24/7/365 for many years, you want quality hard drives. Not residential grade 1 year warranty drives.... While yes a RAID 10 can be faster....you are not going to realize the performance benefits of RAID 10 over the native NAS "hybrid" RAID...
Click to expand...

I chose the WD Black series for my existing RAID array and a configuration of RAID 10 for (hopefully) reliability and not for any possible speed improvement.

YeOldeStonecat said:
And as always, update the firmware on any drives you use for a NAS.
Click to expand...

Great reminder!.

Again, Mahalo for all the comments. I'm thinking I'm going to purchase the Synology DS416J and move my WD Black drives over to it.
 
I just setup a Qnap 431 put in 4 x 2tb WD red's very happy with it. I guess I am old fashioned but I don't trust the bigger drives 4 TB or 6 TB
can administer it remotely

Only problem despite them being all engineers and supposed to be computer savvy it would be easier to train my dog
I showed them how to setup users and create shared folders to no avail
and the boss told me they were all computer experts
 
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Barcelona said:
Sorry, I was referring to the Red "Pro's" which do have a 5 year warranty.;)
Click to expand...

Yes - that's what we use as well. Just setup a Synology 216+ w/2 4-TB Red Pros. I've wondered if there is any mechanical difference between the Reds and the Red-Pros. It could be we're just paying extra for the warranty! :-)
 
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