best NAS solution for home / family

spongybobby

hello everyone.

I am now expecting my 2nd child so im having to rethink my home office solution . currently I have a old tower with 2 x 1tb drives in raid 1(I think) so I have data safety if one drive dies.

im now looking at a NAS box that I can install in my AV cabinet under the tv. I deally I would like a 2bay system as fitting a 4 bay system could be very difficult due to space avalible.

I like the look and functionality of the synology devices but I think my wife would kill me if I spent £300 on the nas and then two new drives!

is there anything out there that wont break the bank?

functionality wise, I just want it to be a home storage with good power saving, and maybe the occasional remote access if im working away.

thanks for the help.
Spongybobby

santer_2

One option

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9Nr-jnjzb8&list=UU1oriBFAXN3-KeM3eC05I7g&index=1

http://www.7dayshop.com/2-bay-dane-elec-myditto-home-and-business-network-attached-storage-nas-device

http://www.computershopper.com/storage/reviews/dane-elec-myditto

WhiteChristmas

D-Link ShareCenter (£50) and a couple of WD 2TB drives (£75 each), all from Amazon.

sillygoose

WhiteChristmas wrote: »

D-Link ShareCenter (£50) and a couple of WD 2TB drives (£75 each), all from Amazon.

Exactly!

D-Link DN320, cool running and easily set to run down the drives if not used, in my case I set it for a couple of hours as no one is around most the day. First time you call upon it takes about 10 seconds to spool up the drives again then it flies.

My only difference is I chose Samsung 2TB SpinPoint Ecogreen F4 HD204 hard drives.

Partly because of their low power consumption, the cooler the drives run, the less often or slower the NAS case fan runs and the quieter things are.

Also long life, they are only 5400rpm drives but with fewer platters so are only a bit slower in performance but again quieter than 7200rpm drives and the less rpm a drive does the longer the bearings may last.

The D-Link 320 has gigabit ports, you need to connect it to gigabit hardware (the port on your PC or your router - as I found initially! hooking it to a 100mb port router strangled it to death.)

spongybobby

my wireless router is a VM superhub if that makes any difference.

the D link looks pretty good for what I need, any down sides to it? how long does it taketo configure properly?

sillygoose

Not sure about how easy the remote access server via internet as I don't use that - anyone else care to comment? - but basic setup and config is easily done through a step by step setup utility. After that management of the device can easily be done from any device on the network with a browser by logging in via its web interface. It was simple to map it as a drive on each device. Everyone is now used to saving everything on our S: drive with the security of a raid drive and only one drive to backup fortnightly - best £50 I have spent in a long time!

The big plus for me was just being able to access files from everything from my android phone on wifi to all the our PC's and tablets without the main PC having to be on or having to learn about setting and maintaining a server.

closed

a worm or disk corruption could rip through your raided originals and backups in seconds, raid isn't really a backup. same applies to nas, which could be a little noisy/intrusive under the tv.

sillygoose

closed wrote: »

a worm or disk corruption could rip through your raided originals and backups in seconds, raid isn't really a backup.

True raid isn't a backup, its a degree of 'backup' from hardware failure, I wasn't trying to imply a raid was any safer security wise, sorry if that's the impression.

A backup is a backup. anything can be a affected by infection regardless of NAS or not so not sure where your heading? :think:

closed

just trying to advise the op not to put all their eggs in one basket, as many people find, they put all their data in one place, a usb drive, a nas, a c: drive, and then one day a virus or hardware failure wipes out all their baby pictures and they have no method of recovery.

Also having all these 3.5 drives ticking away can be quite noisy, and adds to the electricity bill, when realistically, they are hardly ever going to be used.

sillygoose

closed wrote: »

just trying to advise the op not to put all their eggs in one basket, as many people find, they put all their data in one place, a usb drive, a nas, a c: drive, and then one day a virus or hardware failure wipes out all their baby pictures and they have no method of recovery.

Also having all these 3.5 drives ticking away can be quite noisy, and adds to the electricity bill, when realistically, they are hardly ever going to be used.

ah, fair enough. Yes, I have a 3 1tb external drives I backup to and rotate through, lifelong keeper files also get written after a while to non rewritable DVD's. I guess what I was trying to say was the advantage of keeping everything in one place is there is only one place to backup which encourages me to do it more often, its easier to find excuse to 'put it off' when it means doing a backup of many devices!

I suppose power wise, a NAS is a lot less than a home server which I know quite a few people leave running now, and mine is set to spool down after a while of inactivity.

closed

I'm surprised there aren't more portable 2.5" nas's about, much neater/quieter.