Shopping for a new nas

[ECA]

Is there any consensus on whats the best right now? ~£150-350 range.

 

[Moriath]

I like my net gear nas duo

 

[dysfunction]

I really like the qnap ts-219p II.

You can even setup your own private "cloud" storage.

 

[soze]

I am not sure you will get a 4 bay one for that Price but check out Synology, it hurt paying out as much as i did not mine but the web interface mobile apps and 3rd party software have meant I have never looked back.

 

[Wazzerphuk]

 

[SheepCow]

FreeNAS + HP ProLiant Microserver is still the best AFAIK. More info in the older NAS thread: https://forums.freddyshouse.com/threads/oh-nas-gurus.247724/

The server is £150 (after cashback) and then you just need disk drives.

 

[dysfunction]

Yes I've looked into the micro server and it's great and all that but you can't just buy it and plug it in and you're go for launch.

You have to have a separate hdd for the os, install software, configure it etc etc.

On the other hand a pre built NAS is pretty much plug it in and go with all the fiddly bits done already.

 

[SheepCow]

Don't use a HDD for the FreeNAS OS, better off just using an 8GB USB stick. It only takes about 2 mins to download, about 3 mins to write the OS image to the USB stick and you've got a 4-drive NAS that can do anything you want

re: configure it, it pretty much configures itself (DHCP for network etc), you have to create shares but you have to do that on a normal NAS)

 

[soze]

I have both a Synology DS410 and a Microserver. I got my Microserver as it was so cheap. But the lack of hardware raid 5 (not one person from work has failed to give me a software raid horror story) and the hassle of getting stuff like SickBeard working, compared to how easy it is with the Synology and its web interface meant I never swapped and the Microserver is just a backup.

 

[SheepCow]

I have both a Synology DS410 and a Microserver. I got my Microserver as it was so cheap. But the lack of hardware raid 5 (not one person from work has failed to give me a software raid horror story) and the hassle of getting stuff like SickBeard working, compared to how easy it is with the Synology and its web interface meant I never swapped and the Microserver is just a backup.

WTF is SickBeard? edit: oh it's for illegals! I use by NAS as a NAS and not an application server so that wouldn't bother me

I use a ZFS-based RAID, tends to be better than a RAID5. We've actually stopped using hardware RAIDs at work, too much trouble when things go wrong, the software RAIDs have been more reliable, easier to move when hardware fails and somewhat counter intuitively, faster

 

[dysfunction]

The micro server does make more sense really.

With FreeNas can you access and store data to / from the server from anywhere? I mean like cloud storage.

 

[SheepCow]

The micro server does make more sense really.

With FreeNas can you access and store data to / from the server from anywhere? I mean like cloud storage.

I do but it's not as simple as it could be. I have my router forwarding port 22 (SSH) to the FreeNAS box and use Transmission (Mac) / fuse to mount it over SSH/SFTP. You can use something like dyndns so you can find your server if you're on a dynamic IP. All of that is possible with stock FreeNAS.

I suppose that's basically the same as any other pre-built NAS would do?

 

[dysfunction]

Sounds complicated!

I'll just make sure I backup my phone pics etc when I get home instead!

I've seen the airdroid app which looks superb for copying stuff from my phone.