NAS Recommendations

[jujubee]

Hey guys,

Looking for your recommendations on a new NAS. Preferably something that won't break the bank (biggest bang for the buck) but will also perform when directly hooked up to my R7000 (Nighthawk) router.
Mostly looking for storage and backup (backup with RAID striping would be a nice additional option.)
Another great feature would be the ability to run a PMS (Plex Media Server) although the processing specs are rather high.

I'm getting to a point at which I'm wondering if building a smaller form factor PC (Micro ATC motherboard?) would be cheaper than spending a few grand on a high-end NAS and have loads more functionality.

[Dariusz Makowski (Dadal)]

I read in o ther post that one of ur Slaves broke down. U can get cheap processor for that slave + good raid card and convert it to a very good nas server.

[jujubee]

Yeah - I'd need a new motherboard because it's rebooting at BIOS funny. It was a cheap system back in the day with a relatively obscure manufacturer.
At that point, we're talking a new MB, processor, and probably RAM.
I'm trying to reduce wiring across rooms and being able to hook up a small NAS directly to the router would be great versus just fixing up an older mATX case that gobbles up power.

[Dariusz Makowski (Dadal)]

Well its up to u. But I would look at £2-4k+ for a good 10gb nas server that's reasonably future proof.

[bibi5000]

I'm runnning a Synology DS412+ with four 2TB WD red disks after the raid of my linux server broke down. Stable now for a year 24/7 with four rendernodes and a workstation attached. I really like the Synology DSM, easy to configure and well laid out. Performance is enough for my little office.

[cheerioboy]

Synology is def the way to go - whatever you do, don't get a WD Sharespace - Although mine hasn't broken down for 3+ years, it's slow as all hell. I've learned to be a more patient person...

[joconnell]

+1 for synology, I've a ds413j with a single 4tb drive for media and tutorial hosting via plex and loving it. Lots of built in functionality and handy remote access stuff if you want it.

Bibi5000 very interesting to hear that you're using it as your file server - I was thinking similar myself for either a high speed backup or possibly main file serving for a small setup like yourself. Have you any idea what type of performance you're getting from it?

[bibi5000]

Interesting Question
I measured the write/read performance with parkdale ( http://thesz.diecru.eu/content/parkdale.php ) and got 97.8 MByte/sec Write Speed and 60.2 Mbyte/sec Read Speed. Theoretical network speed with Gbit lan would be 125 Mbyte/sec, I'm using no lan aggregation.

[joconnell]

Much appreciated for the link and the approach!

[Dariusz Makowski (Dadal)]

Interesting Question
I measured the write/read performance with parkdale ( http://thesz.diecru.eu/content/parkdale.php ) and got 97.8 MByte/sec Write Speed and 60.2 Mbyte/sec Read Speed. Theoretical network speed with Gbit lan would be 125 Mbyte/sec, I'm using no lan aggregation.

This is exactly why I don't recommend NAS. Those speeds are just so slow for any work where multiple pc's want to access 1 file - rendering and so on.

[bibi5000]

You are right, DADAL. A dedicated Linux server with a fast RAID could be faster and maybe even cheaper, but that would involve getting your hands dirty with linux or paying someone to do that. My last server was a linux box and since then I know I'm not the type of person who likes that.
The write speed the DS412+ delivers here is quite good for Gigabit lan, the slow Read speed tells me that there is probably something funny going on with that mess of routers and switches in the server room which I should look into. I'm sharing space with two other people and that server room should be blown up and rebuilt from scratch with everything in it.

[Dariusz Makowski (Dadal)]

Testing NAS its quite complicated. You need to test files with different size and number of files. Testing 1 file is not conclusive. In any case if you are windows based just set up windows based server... Its what I did at home. Saves lots of trouble with linux.