NAS Replacement

Mr_Toad

After many years of faultless service my HP MediaVault 2010 has reached retirement age.

Over the last few months it has on occasion stopped responding requiring a reboot. I've changed the internal disks and that didn't fix it so I suspect the motherboard is developing something terminal. It can no longer be trusted so all the data has been safely removed.

I have two other NAS drives, an Apple Time Capsule used sole for the backing up of both the iMac and Macbook. I also have a WD NAS that holds backups of my photographs and also streams my music round the various devices at home.

The HP was used primarily as a document server so all my devices had access to the same documents and as a second backup location for both pictures and music.

I have toyed with the idea of doing without but as I already have disks it would be a waste to just stick them in a cupboard.

So, I'm looking for recommendations for a good value enclosure that I can use. Or any other ideas for that matter.

After posting this I'm going to settle down with the laptop and do some research to see what's out there.

Fightsback

Without hesitation I'd say a Synology, perhaps a DS216j may suit your needs.

It can use the BTRFS in RAID setup and in the next release of the DSM software (6.1 beta) it has inbuilt resilience to silent bitrot (q.v. ZFS file system)*

Edit, see review here:

http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/storage/91181-synology-ds216j/

*NB Minimum spec DS216+ II

AndyPix

^^ what he said .. Were the disks WD red ?

fenlander_uk

^Definitely what they said. Is this a consensus?

Little point: I bought my DS216j with 2x4TB WD Reds from Amazon. It was substantially cheaper to buy the enclosure and drives as separate items rather than buying them as a pre-installed package.

John_Gray

I've got a Synology DS214 at work and the same at home, both with WD Red drives.

Absolutely no problems!

S0litaire

or have a little side project and build your own NAS
all you need is :

- good quality low power Motherboard + CPU
- dedicated RAID card
- as much ram & Disks as you can stuff in it.
- NAS4Free / OpenNAS(?!?) / FreeNAS / OpenMediaVault

DoaM

I get the feeling that the OP wants to reuse the existing drives from the HP MediaVault .. the WD drives are already being used in another NAS.

Will the drives from the HP NAS be compatible with any of the other NAS enclosures mentioned?

Fightsback

S0litaire wrote: »

or have a little side project and build your own NAS
all you need is :

- good quality low power Motherboard + CPU
- dedicated RAID card
- as much ram & Disks as you can stuff in it.
- NAS4Free / OpenNAS(?!?) / FreeNAS / OpenMediaVault

If you really want to go that way then there is the HP proliant G1610T, £118.98 after cashback at Ebuyer, quite a bargain:

http://www.ebuyer.com/722189-hpe-proliant-gen8-4gb-ram-microserver-ebuyer-com-819185-421?mkwid=siqQ31QcJ_dc&pcrid=51482426699&pkw=&pmt=&gclid=CIL49tPeoNACFcm6GwodI1AHTQ

I prefer Linux software RAID as I'm not tied to a propriety HW RAID controller if it goes bang.

Mr_Toad

DoaM wrote: »

I get the feeling that the OP wants to reuse the existing drives from the HP MediaVault .. the WD drives are already being used in another NAS.

Will the drives from the HP NAS be compatible with any of the other NAS enclosures mentioned?

One of the two drives in the HP is a 1TB WD red and that will be reused, I shall need another to be able to RAID 1 it.

The HP came new with a 320GB drive and a spare slot. Over the years the spare slot has seen several disks, the current being the 1TB WD red.

The drive in the main slot is now some species of 500GB drive that I shan't be using, the HP would only support up to 750GB in the first slot. Some limitation of the firmware I seem to remember.

I've got several cases and motherboards in the toy box but none of them are small or low power so won't be used.

Fighsback's link to the server on ebuyer is certainly interesting but it's a bit of overkill for me and, for what the Synology is going to cost, not worth the extra expense.

Thank you all and it looks like I shall be ordering a Synology DS214j and another 1TB WD red. My own research backs up your suggestions with the Synology being a clear favourite for most reviewers.

Fightsback

Mr_Toad wrote: »

Thank you all and it looks like I shall be ordering a Synology DS214j and another 1TB WD red. My own research backs up your suggestions with the Synology being a clear favourite for most reviewers.

Just to clarify something that I may have misled on earlier, the minimum spec for BTRFS in the synology range is the DS216+II, apologies.

Is DS214j a typo and do you mean a DS216j ? The latter is a current model and there is no DS214j. Note also synology typically support models with DSM software and security updates for 5 years.

Mr_Toad

Fightsback wrote: »

Just to clarify something that I may have misled on earlier, the minimum spec for BTRFS in the synology range is the DS216+II, apologies.

Is DS214j a typo and do you mean a DS216j ? The latter is a current model and there is no DS214j. Note also synology typically support models with DSM software and security updates for 5 years.

Yes, a typo I meant the DS216j.

Thanks