NAS input

[Fred Claus]

Been chatting with people on facebook and I've gotten recommendations for FreeNAS, Synology, and QNap. Here's what I'm looking to do.

Personally in my house, I'd like to be able to hook up a NAS for a media server possibly running Plex.

Company wise, I'd like to move away from Datto for my full image backups and was looking at a NAS system that would upload to a cloud storage as a backup. I'm leaning toward Backblaze B2 for the cloud portion. What are some things to look at for a NAS for backup like this? I was looking at a Synology 2 bay NAS DiskStation DS220j. The price is nice but it only has 512mb of DDR4 RAM. Is that enough for a local backup service that would also backup to the cloud or would I really want to spend the money at get a system with 2 gb of DDR4 RAM?

My clientele are SOHO's that don't need to spin up virtual systems if something happens, they just need to be able to store a backup of their system in case they need to recover it.

Thoughts? I was also looking at Buffalo Drives as well. They don't seem to have great reviews though.

 

[HCHTech]

We've standardized on Synology and do this for some of our SOHO clients. Other than my complaint about getting allocated billing in this thread, I'm happy with the system.

The 220j is the bottom of their line, so the slowest processor and the smallest amount of RAM. We usually stick with the 220+ or the 720+ for 2-bay installs. Faster processors, more RAM, support for NVMe cache, etc. For 4-bay installs, we use the 420+ or 920+. We just installed a 920+ yesterday for a small office, added extra RAM, 2xNVMe cache drives, 4x6TB (WD Red Pros, I think, that's what we usually use) in a RAID10 and we bonded the 2 NICs. It makes quite a serviceable little file server. We're doing nightly backups to an external disk and B2.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

I've certainly played with FreeNAS, and we've done quite a bit of QNAP and Synology....been focused on Synology of late. With quality NAS/NVR grade drives in them, like WD Reds.

We used to run them a lot more...say, a bit over 5 years ago. Was part of our mid grade backup offering, where we'd do StorageCraft on the server with a NAS next to it. And Datto Siris was our higher up offering.

Continued that trend when we switched from StorageCraft to Solarwinds BDR backup....
But with Dattos Alto devices getting so dirt cheap, and most importantly...always been so dang stress free to restore from, and easy peasy to watch the daily "tests"...I'm just focusing on that now for our entry level server backup.

 

[Fred Claus]

Can I ask a stupid question? Let's say my customer is doing local backups. What's the difference if they store them on a NAS, a Linux Server based system, or even a portable hard drive that they plug in when they want to run the backup?

I understand the portable drive concept, but is there a difference between running a Synology NAS, and a Ubuntu Server machine that stores the backup?

 

[Sky-Knight]

Storage is storage.

Most NAS gear is just a Linux of some sort sharing out the files. So aside from the pretty tiny box that uses less power... there's really not much of a difference. Well... other than Ubuntu gets vastly more timely security updates!

 

[Mick]

Can I ask a stupid question? Let's say my customer is doing local backups. What's the difference if they store them on a NAS, a Linux Server based system, or even a portable hard drive that they plug in when they want to run the backup?

I understand the portable drive concept, but is there a difference between running a Synology NAS, and a Ubuntu Server machine that stores the backup?

With Synology (and probably others) you do get roll-back abilities/versioning, which can be useful. I agree with @HCHTech - bond the NICs, and go for a 720 or thereabouts. The extra clout is worth the extra money I'd also steer clear of Synology's hybrid RAID offering - stick with what you know.

 

[Markverhyden]

The one big shortcoming with using any FOSS with a customer is related to support. 15-20 years ago I had several customers setup with Linux servers for file servers. They worked flawlessly, just the occasional reboot. But things have changed over the years. For example M$ and their allied software OEM's have worked to insure that client server apps, like Intuit, require an underlying M$ OS, not just a FAT32 file system. The complexity has grown so lack of "ownership" is an issue. Simply stated its a "hit by the bus" issue. If I got hit by a bus, no matter how well prepared I was, the customer using FOSS would have a much harder time getting support over someone who was not.

While I still am using the FreeNAS server I've had for almost 15 years, I'd put customers into, for example, an iXsystems appliance instead if they were looking for a higher end solution. Otherwise I'd stick with Synology. Only run into QNAP a couple of times but no major issues.

 

[HCHTech]

Simply stated its a "hit by the bus" issue.

This is so true - It's fun to put together unusual solutions for your hobby lab or our your own shop, but for customers, you should always be thinking about who will take care of it in your absence. One way or the other, it's not going to be you forever. The next tech will thank you, and it's just the right way to do business, IMO. As I can start to see the end of my tech career on the horizon, I think about this more and more...

 

[Sky-Knight]

The irony...

Azure is built on open source tech...
AWS is built on... open source tech...
GWS is built on... you guessed it... open source tech!

There is PLENTY of support! Especially for things like Ubuntu LTS. And if the local techs can't handle it... oh well? As far as I'm concerned if you can't get around Ubuntu you're a pizza tech. It's not that hard... and your Windows Google Fu works just as well there too.

Now why a QNap or something similar instead of cobbled whatever? POWER! That little NAS is going to be lighter on the power socket, which translates into saved money. It's also going to be easier to patch / update / remotely support for the vendor if the vendor isn't fairly proficient in whatever Linux is deployed. Which is further money saved. Not to mention the upstream support. So there is tremendous value in selling a named solution just as there always is.

But... know what you're selling! Which by the way... all that "magic" roll back and versioning? Yeah... that's just ZFS doing its job. So again it boils down to how well you can actually support Linux. Which is something everyone here would be well suited to tackle, and probably should considering how it's taking over the world. It will help you sort out issues with the named stuff too, and let you work magic with FOSS in a pinch to look like a hero!

Anyone that's familiar with KVM, Proxmox, and K8S should be REALLY COMFORTABLE using Azure... Because that's what's under the hood. It's NOT hyperv!