[REQUEST] Recommend a NAS Solution

[Appletax]

Customer wants a NAS with SSDs to store personal data and videos. I have never worked with NAS devices.

He is thinking about going with (4) 2TB SSDs. Possibly WD SA510 SSDs. He has been dealing with multiple drive failures so he wants to go with more reliable SSDs rather than hard drives.

Would like to stream his content to his TVs using a Plex server on the NAS.

What do you recommend?

Want something that's easy to work with.

Was thinking about the My Cloud Expert Series EX4100, but there's no mention in the manual that it can accomodate a 2.5" drive. Not sure if any ole adapter will work. Chatted with customer service and they were of no help.

Also considering the Synology DS418, which supports 2.5" SSDs.

His computers only have gigabit Ethernet (Dell XPS Studio 8100 and Alienware M11x R2), so they won't be able to experience the full speed of the SSDs, but he is OK with that - just concerned with reliability.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

When we used to do NAS units ....we mostly used Synology units. Back then using the Western Digital "Red" drives. It's more about the quality of the drives. One of our guys also used QNAP.
Both of them have like an "app store" where you can install additional apps/services. Including offsite backup options.
But these days with cloud storage being so cheap and reliable....I don't do NAS units anymore.

 

[nlinecomputers]

Synology every day of the week.

 

[nlinecomputers]

And any NAS needs a backup. Drives die in any machine and SSDs tend to be total failures, unlike HDDs which might develop bad sectors and can be cloned before they die.

 

[Appletax]

When we used to do NAS units ....we mostly used Synology units. Back then using the Western Digital "Red" drives. It's more about the quality of the drives. One of our guys also used QNAP.
Both of them have like an "app store" where you can install additional apps/services. Including offsite backup options.
But these days with cloud storage being so cheap and reliable....I don't do NAS units anymore.

The client does not trust the cloud, but he seems to be open to potentially trying out end-to-end encrypted cloud storage.

You can't go wrong with end-to-end encrypted cloud storage because not even the law can come after your data - no one can access your data but you.

$96 annually can get you 2TB with Sync.com.

He is interested in switching from Gmail to Proton Mail so he doesn't get spied on by Google. I see they have Proton Drive, but it costs more and gives you only 500GB of storage space.

I personally use 1TB OneDrive (not end-to-end, but don't care much) and store my videos on an 8TB external HDD. Would be smart to mirror those videos onto a second 8TB HDD. Much cheaper than going all flash. 8TB of flash storage mirrored onto another 8TB SSD would be insane $$$$.

 

[Appletax]

And any NAS needs a backup. Drives die in any machine and SSDs tend to be total failures, unlike HDDs which might develop bad sectors and can be cloned before they die.

Right.

Even if you were doing RAID 1 (mirrored) in the NAS, you'd still want a backup on top of that.

Edit:

If he had a 4-bay NAS, could he have RAID 1 (2 drives) and RAID that RAID on another 2 drives for double RAID that is fully backed up?

I know there's a bunch of different RAID options so maybe that is an option.

The challenge is recovering in the event of a drive going bad. Needs to be easy and reliable to recover.

 

[nlinecomputers]

Drives in the same device is NOT a backup! What happens if a power surge wipes on the whole unit? Fire? Theft? If he is not going to do a cloud backup then he needs to backup to external HDDs that he can at the very least throw into a fireproof safe.

 

[Appletax]

Drives in the same device is NOT a backup! What happens if a power surge wipes on the whole unit? Fire? Theft? If he is not going to do a cloud backup then he needs to backup to external HDDs that he can at the very least throw into a fireproof safe.

Right.

Gotta protect your data against disaster. That's why I even backup my cloud storage locally once-in-a-while just-in-case.

I think a college teacher told me you should have at least 3 backups of your data to be safe.

 

[nlinecomputers]

Right.

Gotta protect your data against disaster. That's why I even backup my cloud storage locally once-in-a-while just-in-case.

I think a college teacher told me you should have at least 3 backups of your data to be safe.

It's called the 321 rule. There should be 3 copies of data; On 2 different media; With 1 copy being off-site. The way I do that is that one is live on the NAS unit, the next is backed up to a local USB hard disk(s) and the third is backed up to the cloud. All backups are encrypted so it doesn't matter if somehow the backup online gets stolen as it will take thousands of years to crack it. And the online backup server doesn't have your key. The online backup is obviously the offsite backup but USB drives could also be rotated into an offsite backup like a safety deposit box. But honestly, most online backup services are perfectly safe and most are certified as suck under HIPAA, FNRA, and lots of other regulatory boards that require the data to be properly handled.

 

[timeshifter]

He could get an identical (or similar) NAS and put it in another location and have them sync with one another.

 

[Markverhyden]

He could get an identical (or similar) NAS and put it in another location and have them sync with one another.

I seem to remember that someone or more mentioned using rsync between the onsite and offsite Synology NAS

 

[Blues]

I have toyed with rsync in an internal test setup and it should work between an onsite and offsite.

While the customer wants SSD for reliability if you go with something like an IronWolf HDD it will definitely be more cost effective for the capacity. I would so look at a Synology w/ an Intel processer.

Another Option would be a DIY system this would mostly be more of something to consider if they have lots of higher quality files on the Plex server where transcoding might become more common. An added note Plex will not hardware transcode subtitles so for subtitled content a better dedicated CPU is needed.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

I seem to remember that someone or more mentioned using rsync between the onsite and offsite Synology NAS

Synology has a "sync tool" designed specifically to do this, that automatically will "pair" a couple of their units across the internet. Sorta like making a "long distance RAID 1".
No need for 3rd party tools.

 

[xrobwx71]

I've used the Synology DS+718 for about 3 years as an offsite backup from work. It has been flawless.

Before that I had a Lacie unit that went bad in 6 months (they replaced it) The replacement lasted less than a year. both LaCie's ended up in the trash sans the drives.

 

[Markverhyden]

I've used the Synology DS+718 for about 3 years as an offsite backup from work. It has been flawless.

Before that I had a Lacie unit that went bad in 6 months (they replaced it) The replacement lasted less than a year. both LaCie's ended up in the trash sans the drives.

LaCie is an interesting, at least for me, case. Years ago, like more 20, they were a strictly Apple House product, great quality but with limited offerings. As they started expanding a lot of their reliability went down the tubes. I still have several functioning rugged minis I rarely use. But I moved everyone off of them for any mass storage. Had several customer with multi-bay units where both the drives and the enclosures were going belly up. The last straw was a drive failure, third one for the serial number, 1 day out of warranty - tough luck was their attitude.

 

[lcoughey]

LaCie sucks as a result of being bought by Seagate. It amazes me how people will spend extra money thinking that their Lacie drive is better than the low end Seagate model, when they both have the exact same low end Seagate drive inside the enclosure.

 

[labtech]

LaCie sucks as a result of being bought by Seagate. It amazes me how people will spend extra money thinking that their Lacie drive is better than the low end Seagate model, when they both have the exact same low end Seagate drive inside the enclosure.

+1

Synalogy is the better product. WD product is complex and not so good.
If failing completely, neither is easy to recover with basic knowledge.

With regard to SSDs, it would be recommended to get an idea of the streaming and data storing volumes. SSDs have a limited amount of write cycles. They could fail sooner than people expect. Hence the dongling backup is recommended, remotely, and or locally on the backplane USB port.

 

[brandonkick]

Oh lord. This client is one of those "everyone is spying on me" folks. And they are right. But who cares?

It's simple. In this world, if your connected to a phone or internet line you can be SURE someone else has the ability to listen or see what your communicating. Period.

I do don't do anything on my computer or say anything on the phone that I wouldn't do or say in front of my own parents or the lord almighty, the president, the FBI, the KGB... whoever... whatever. I have nothing to hide. If I had anything to hide, the only form of communication on the matter (if any) would be in person conversations.


It just is what it is. I don't even like the idea of doing anything finance related on a cell phone or computer. But it has become so damn convenient that it's worth the risk I suppose. I do keep my 6 month emergency fund in an account that's never been touched by a cell phone or internet connection though. I do all that business in person. No mailed statements. No other accounts at that bank. No debit cards attached. If I want to access that money I have to go that branch. Deposit money, I have to go to that physical branch. If I'm compromised, I have 6 months to sort it out.


That's the long way of saying they need to get over it. The russians and google aren't spying on this person any more than any other person.

I'd recommend a synology NAS. Set up file versioning, at least 30 days IMO. For my money, that should get daily backups pushed to some form of cold storage. There are a lot of good options. I've heard great things about cloudberry.

Any backup solution needs to be part of a disaster recovery plan. For a disaster recovery plan to be worth anything, it needs to be designed by someone who knows what they are doing. It must be tested on some sort of normal basis. How often do you see the case where someone was sleeping easy at night thinking their data was being backed up, when they realized they either had no idea how to actual recover anything from it, the data for various reason was not backing up, the restore isn't going to work the way they thought it would... so on and so forth. Even if it IS backing up properly and the recovery CAN be successful... figuring all that out while in the middle of a crap hit the fan situation isn't ideal.

 

[britechguy]

It's simple. In this world, if your connected to a phone or internet line you can be SURE someone else has the ability to listen or see what your communicating. Period.

I do don't do anything on my computer or say anything on the phone that I wouldn't do or say in front of my own parents or the lord almighty, the president, the FBI, the KGB... whoever... whatever.

Amen to this!

I don't believe, as some do, that there are many or even any "someones" actively listening/looking at what I, personally, am doing but whatever leaves my machine and enters cyberspace is, as far as I'm concerned, public knowledge.

My entire world is not encrypted, nor does it need to be. I'm able to make choices about "what goes where" and that includes never having some pieces of information even touch the laptop in my house. It's the ultimate irony that "security by obscurity" (as in something that never enters the digital world at all) has now become the ultimate in privacy.

 

[Diggs]

I gave up on slow network speeds and NASs for my one man show and went with a QNAP TR-004 DAS unit. Never been happier. Not a solution for all but I don't see it discussed much. (I run RAID 10.)