NAS recommendation

[jogold]

A small school has a Synology DS120j and since it's being used simultaneously by about 10 people it's become really slow.
What should I offer them, keeping in mind that they have no budget for anything.
I know that I could Google this, but I need real-life answers.
Thanks.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

When we used to do on prem servers.....and some NAS devices.....we did both Synology (mostly)...and one of our guys liked QNAP and used those for his clients. I did Synology myself for my clients......but not because I didn't like QNAP, I was just...familiar with Synology since we did quite a few of them.

Key is, use quality drives..I always preferred WD's drives designed for NAS...their Red Pro drives. The "Pro" models of the Red...better than the non Pro models. Setup in WD's RAID, they would provide read/write speeds that exceeded gigabit network throughput, so the limited factor was gigabit LAN....not the NAS. We still have our Synology at the office, a rack mount RS2212+ I think the model is.

Limiting factor in the one you mention..well...any "J" model..is ultra budget. Slow CPU, not much RAM, no cache for the drive. Just...it's basically a glorified external hard drive. Also just a single drive...so no "redundancy if a drive fails". Also no ability to leverage increased performance through RAID.

What is the NAS used for? It's typical daily purpose?
Looking at their models now, I'd probably start with a DS423+ or DS923+

 

[Mick]

Given you have next to no budget...I think this model only has 512Mb RAM? Might be worth seeing if an uplift is possible. Not a magic bullet but it may help a bit, if it's possible. Synology are a bit funny on this. Some models you can upgrade, some you can't. I can't remember off-hand which of these relates to your model.

 

[britechguy]

keeping in mind that they have no budget for anything.

Define "no budget for anything."

Having worked in and for schools, I do know what you mean generally, but they do have to have some sort of funding and how much and how stable (or continuous) it is has a big influence here.

 

[jogold]

The DS120j probably cost them around 300$ and if I ask for much more than that they will tell the teachers to just deal with it.
So I really need to keep cost down but the teachers do need to do their work.
There are about 7 computers that are accessing the server at the same time.
They have SSD in the current DS120j and there is no way to add RAM.
But what would I need to upgrade to without breaking the bank.

I am looking for real world experience here.

Thanks.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

If you already have an SSD in there.....it's likely now just down to the...very low "horsepower" of the J models.
It's like...if you compare a computer with an Intel 5 or Ryzen 5....against a computer with an Atom processor...or a Celeron.

Read reviews on those J models....it's....you get what you pay for.

A single drive...dividing its work up across multiple concurrent users...also suffers. There's the TCQ/NCQ metrics of hard drives that starts to come into play when you have a hard drive running in the role of...service many requests at once. Differences in hardware not only in the hard drive itself...but the controller ...and other things on the motherboard...are one of many things that separates desktops from servers.

I bet you can connect just 1x computer to that NAS...and do large file copies....measure performance....and it'll do OK.
But add a 2nd...measure..3rd..measure...4th..measure...so on and so forth....and you'll see a steeper and steeper drop in performance as you add each client computer.

 

[jogold]

Thank you for the breakdown.

I want to hear what device people have installed and are happy with. I have long given up on internet reviews. I like real people.

 

[Markverhyden]

A perfect use case for BYOD. AKA ownCloud. Use a business class used desktop tower, or even old server, max out the RAM with what you have. Those types of boards usually have 4 SATA connectors so you'll prefer to have 4 drives all the same size. SSD would even be better. Install Linux and ownCloud. Built a few of those years ago and worked very well. These days almost everyone is in the cloud. Only one customer left with an on-prem server.

Since this is a school don't you have to worry about GDPR? Also there's socialware.be. If it's a legit school then I'm sure they would qualify for dirt cheap licensing.

 

[SAFCasper]

A perfect use case for BYOD. AKA ownCloud. Use a business class used desktop tower, or even old server, max out the RAM with what you have. Those types of boards usually have 4 SATA connectors so you'll prefer to have 4 drives all the same size. SSD would even be better. Install Linux and ownCloud. Built a few of those years ago and worked very well. These days almost everyone is in the cloud. Only one customer left with an on-prem server.

Since this is a school don't you have to worry about GDPR? Also there's socialware.be. If it's a legit school then I'm sure they would qualify for dirt cheap licensing.

Agreed. With that budget you most likely end up with another bottom of the line NAS. Crippled CPU and barely enough RAM to get by. Sooner or later back to square one suffering performance issues.

A refurb desktop, even 6-7 years old, will annihilate any NAS you can get in the same price bracket. I've seen some Dell Precision towers in that price range from our usual dealer. Multiple drive bays, plenty of space inside and some use Xeon processors with ECC RAM. They are power hungry but solid workhorses.

The drawback with this is your time. Synology is practically pug & play and a breeze to manage. OwnCloud or FreeNas I'm not overly familiar with but expect significantly more time is involved in setup and maintenance. Possibly any savings on the hardware are lost again on your additional time.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

I've used OwnCloud, and built a few FreeNAS units back in the day.
While I'd say...sure, a high end workstation like a Precision is sweet....it's...so overkill for a NAS. A Xeon processor will give zero advantage for barfing files across a network. I've seen (and used ..myself)...plenty of NAS units that will saturate a gigabit network. Throwing a bigger CPU at it will not make it any faster..if it's already maxing a gigabit network. Quality hard drives, and a quality..hardware based NIC (like a good Intel versus some Realsuk)...will help.

You can...look at hardware layers of the network. Perhaps a 2.5 gig interface on the NAS, and a switch with a 2.5 gig interface. Or look at 10 gig.
Also, how is the network setup for this school, I realize you say it's a small school. I installed a network at a school that is...K-12...about 70 students. 3x 48 port switches in the main distro...utilizing 10 gig uplinks. All Unifi network..so broken down into various VLANs and lots of tuning of broadcast traffic to keep things moving optimally. Wondering what the network setup is for the OPs school here...and how its set up.

 

[jogold]

As is mentioned, Synology NAS is plug and play and I won't have to be busy with setting up and maintaining a custom server. (Add to that that all that I know about Linuks is that it's not spelled with a ks.)
I will not be able to charge them for all of my time so I am ready to let them spend more on the hardware. (I don't necessarily put me first but there is a limit.)
So while I do appreciate the input I will still need to go with a Synolgy NAS. The question is just which one.
Maybe I'm not being fair to them but they aren't fair to me either.

Though there is one item that i missed, all of the computers are connected by WiFi to a simple router. Maybe that's where the bottleneck is.

 

[Mick]

Maybe??!

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Though there is one item that i missed, all of the computers are connected by WiFi to a simple router. Maybe that's where the bottleneck is.

That's why I mentioned above...on the topic of the network itself. Your switches. WiFi...yeah, that'll be something to eyeball. Certainly easy though to rule out.
*Measure network throughput of a large file copy...across the LAN..just 1x computer...1x user. Now you have a "The current NAS can provide this much throughput"..see if it saturates gigabit rates or not.
*Connect a half dozen computers to the LAN...do the same test. Now you're measuring the NAS..with some load on it (that TCQ/NCQ thing I mentioned above)
*Try a single wifi user...same test...but with NOBODY ELSE...on the wifi. Now you can get a baseline for this places wifi.
*Try multiple wifi users over wifi.
*Are they a lot more users on this wifi during the day? You know how each AP...slows down quite a bit..with each additional user.

 

[Markverhyden]

As is mentioned, Synology NAS is plug and play and I won't have to be busy with setting up and maintaining a custom server. (Add to that that all that I know about Linuks is that it's not spelled with a ks.)
I will not be able to charge them for all of my time so I am ready to let them spend more on the hardware. (I don't necessarily put me first but there is a limit.)
So while I do appreciate the input I will still need to go with a Synolgy NAS. The question is just which one.
Maybe I'm not being fair to them but they aren't fair to me either.

Though there is one item that i missed, all of the computers are connected by WiFi to a simple router. Maybe that's where the bottleneck is.

I have both FreeNAS and ownCloud. Setup maybe takes a couple of hours once you have the hardware. There is no maintenance. If you properly set it up you'll get a notification if there's a problem. Like a drive failure.

The model you have is basically bottom of the barrel. But if everyone is using wifi the performance they are getting is going to be about as good as it gets. So even if you bought a better model it's almost guaranteed the bottle neck is wifi. That's especially true if you only have one AP. Do the tests as @YeOldeStonecat mentioned. Start with one user only. Nothing else on the wifi, including mobile devices. Do the file transfer test. That will be the best it will ever get without upgrading the network.

 

[jogold]

Thx all. Ok, that's what Sundays are made for.

 

[timeshifter]

and since it's being used simultaneously by about 10 people it's become really slow.

Are they all loading multi gigabit files simultaneously? Have you looked at its console while they’re experiencing the slowness?

I’ve got a lower and older technology in the small business with about four users. The only time I’ve had complaints about it being slow is when I was running back up to an extra hard drive which killed the CPU and memory. I added some more memory to the machine made a big difference.

The unit they have now may not be sufficient, but I’d still highly recommend another Synology unit. Super easy to use and upgrade. And, out of the box for no additional charge, they can back up PCs and other devices as well as Microsoft 365 and Google workspace accounts, all without additional licensing fees

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Thx all. Ok, that's what Sundays are made for.

No, that's time for family/partner/spouse and/or time to yourself.