Network attached storage? There's way too many options - help!
September 28, 2015 10:45 AM Subscribe
What network attached storage should I use? This will be used as a central backup for all three computers on the network, it should stream media to my xbox, and it should be easy to setup a secondary backup of the NAS to another external drive or cloud service.
I want to be able to backup all of my household's computers (two laptops and a surface pro, all windows machines) to a single NAS, use the NAS as media server to save all of our music and videos to a single place with the ability to stream directly to my xbox 360 (soon to be xbone), have the NAS auto backup internally (is raid best for this?), and have the NAS itself be backed up regularly to cloud storage or an additional external drive.
What would be my best option for achieving this? What software would I need, if any, in addition to the default stuff that comes with the NAS? Looking to spend less than $1000 but will spend more if this isn't possible on that budget. Ideally I'd like to spend way less than $1000 but realize that it could be expensive. I don't need an insane amount of storage 1-2 TB should be fine.
I want to be able to backup all of my household's computers (two laptops and a surface pro, all windows machines) to a single NAS, use the NAS as media server to save all of our music and videos to a single place with the ability to stream directly to my xbox 360 (soon to be xbone), have the NAS auto backup internally (is raid best for this?), and have the NAS itself be backed up regularly to cloud storage or an additional external drive.
What would be my best option for achieving this? What software would I need, if any, in addition to the default stuff that comes with the NAS? Looking to spend less than $1000 but will spend more if this isn't possible on that budget. Ideally I'd like to spend way less than $1000 but realize that it could be expensive. I don't need an insane amount of storage 1-2 TB should be fine.
Synology, basically: 2-bay will probably suffice, 4-bay if you want proper drive redundancy and room to grow. You're probably better off buying a pair of WD Red 3TB drives (and a spare for external backup) than trying to find smaller spinny-disks.
have the NAS auto backup internally (is raid best for this?)
RAID is not backup. RAID 0 is for performance, RAID 1/5/6/etc is for availability -- keeping data online and intact in the event of a disk failure. If you have two drives in a RAID1 and you inadvertently delete a load of files, then you're deleting from both drives at once.
You can run your drives in the NAS separately and back up from drive 1 to drive 2 on a two-bay; you can define multiple volumes and back them up incrementally in a 4-bay; you can hang a big external drive off the NAS and back up to that, or use something like Crashplan for cloud backup. The Synology DSM software supports all that.
posted by holgate at 11:24 AM on September 28, 2015 [2 favorites]
have the NAS auto backup internally (is raid best for this?)
RAID is not backup. RAID 0 is for performance, RAID 1/5/6/etc is for availability -- keeping data online and intact in the event of a disk failure. If you have two drives in a RAID1 and you inadvertently delete a load of files, then you're deleting from both drives at once.
You can run your drives in the NAS separately and back up from drive 1 to drive 2 on a two-bay; you can define multiple volumes and back them up incrementally in a 4-bay; you can hang a big external drive off the NAS and back up to that, or use something like Crashplan for cloud backup. The Synology DSM software supports all that.
posted by holgate at 11:24 AM on September 28, 2015 [2 favorites]
I have a Synology DS214 Play. It is nice because it can transcode video which means I can play pretty much anything on my chromecast using Synology's video app on my phone. The NAS has its own apps and can do things like sync up with various cloud storage providers like Google Drive or OneDrive. I use Google Drive for online photo storage and copying pictures to the NAS and having it upload the pictures at its own pace instead of tying up an actual computer is quite convenient.
The NAS itself costs about $400 in Canada and then it is up to you for the drives you put in it. I've only put one 3TB drive in mine, and it'll take some time before it fills out.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 11:39 AM on September 28, 2015
The NAS itself costs about $400 in Canada and then it is up to you for the drives you put in it. I've only put one 3TB drive in mine, and it'll take some time before it fills out.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 11:39 AM on September 28, 2015
^yea, if you want to stream/transcode video, you need one of the "play" models. And be aware that they can't really handle more than like, maybe one 1080p stream at once if it's a high quality/huge file.
Personally, i would ditch the xbox as the media-playing-unit and buy something like an amazonfiretv. Then you can get the CHEAPEST synology that fits the amount of drives you need, and will likely spend ~$200 less on the whole setup. A firetv with kodi installed can handle local playback of essentially any file rather than needing it to be transcoded/converted like an xbox would. You also end up with much better support for things like surround sound, subtitles, multiple audio tracks, etc and slightly higher quality since something isn't being converted from lossy format>lossy format in the streaming.
I explored this exact same thing, and ended up ditching the xbox/ps3's. I'm much, much happier with the new setup than i ever was with that. It's WAY faster to navigate too, and also so much nicer to rewind/fast forward without having to wait for the box at the other end to juggle its data even 1/5th as much.
Also worth noting, the synology i have is several years old and was the CHEAPEST model. I think it might have even been $99 on sale. Despite being "low performance" compared to the new ones, it handles this stuff great. Just buy the cheapest one that fits 2 or 4 drives or whatever you need/want.
posted by emptythought at 12:18 PM on September 28, 2015
Personally, i would ditch the xbox as the media-playing-unit and buy something like an amazonfiretv. Then you can get the CHEAPEST synology that fits the amount of drives you need, and will likely spend ~$200 less on the whole setup. A firetv with kodi installed can handle local playback of essentially any file rather than needing it to be transcoded/converted like an xbox would. You also end up with much better support for things like surround sound, subtitles, multiple audio tracks, etc and slightly higher quality since something isn't being converted from lossy format>lossy format in the streaming.
I explored this exact same thing, and ended up ditching the xbox/ps3's. I'm much, much happier with the new setup than i ever was with that. It's WAY faster to navigate too, and also so much nicer to rewind/fast forward without having to wait for the box at the other end to juggle its data even 1/5th as much.
Also worth noting, the synology i have is several years old and was the CHEAPEST model. I think it might have even been $99 on sale. Despite being "low performance" compared to the new ones, it handles this stuff great. Just buy the cheapest one that fits 2 or 4 drives or whatever you need/want.
posted by emptythought at 12:18 PM on September 28, 2015
Yeah, this is as straightforward a use case for a Synology DSxxx Play as I've seen.
I'm running a 214 Play at home, streaming to our TV, streaming to our Sonos, backing up my wife's iMac, syncing my laptop - it works like a charm, and the Synology user interface is really good! I would recommend it without hesitation. (I'm also running a more serious Synology box at work for data hosting.)
And yes, even if you run it in RAID 0 (2 drives mirroring each other), you *do* need to back up occasionally to an external disk or something else. Mirroring is not backup.
posted by RedOrGreen at 12:50 PM on September 28, 2015 [1 favorite]
I'm running a 214 Play at home, streaming to our TV, streaming to our Sonos, backing up my wife's iMac, syncing my laptop - it works like a charm, and the Synology user interface is really good! I would recommend it without hesitation. (I'm also running a more serious Synology box at work for data hosting.)
And yes, even if you run it in RAID 0 (2 drives mirroring each other), you *do* need to back up occasionally to an external disk or something else. Mirroring is not backup.
posted by RedOrGreen at 12:50 PM on September 28, 2015 [1 favorite]
Ugh of course I meant "RAID 1 (mirroring)". But the point stands for RAID 0 (striping) as well.
posted by RedOrGreen at 3:06 PM on September 28, 2015
posted by RedOrGreen at 3:06 PM on September 28, 2015
Response by poster: So just to confirm I'm on the right path here, if I get the Synology DS214 Play and fill it with two WD Red 3TB drives I should be good to go?
I can set the NAS to Raid 1, which mirrors the drives, so if one dies, everything is mirrored on the other drive. Or alternatively I can set one drive to back-up to the other drive. I can then use something like Crashplan to backup my computers to the NAS and the NAS to the cloud and an external backup?
Anything else I need to consider? Thanks for all the help!
posted by Arbac at 4:11 PM on September 28, 2015
I can set the NAS to Raid 1, which mirrors the drives, so if one dies, everything is mirrored on the other drive. Or alternatively I can set one drive to back-up to the other drive. I can then use something like Crashplan to backup my computers to the NAS and the NAS to the cloud and an external backup?
Anything else I need to consider? Thanks for all the help!
posted by Arbac at 4:11 PM on September 28, 2015
The nice thing about the Synology DS214 play is that it can run Crashplan directly (though setting it up is quite technical - see this guide).
Yes, the drives will mirror each other. I had one of my drives fail, the NAS beeped loudly to notify me of the error, I plugged a new one in and the Synology software took care of everything.
If you go for a different Synology model, I'd make sure it has at least 1GB memory, otherwise it may struggle to run Crashplan with bigger archives.
posted by Gomez_in_the_South at 5:57 PM on September 28, 2015
Yes, the drives will mirror each other. I had one of my drives fail, the NAS beeped loudly to notify me of the error, I plugged a new one in and the Synology software took care of everything.
If you go for a different Synology model, I'd make sure it has at least 1GB memory, otherwise it may struggle to run Crashplan with bigger archives.
posted by Gomez_in_the_South at 5:57 PM on September 28, 2015
The Local Backup feature of DSM (Synology's UI) handles backup to an external drive.
posted by holgate at 6:03 PM on September 28, 2015
posted by holgate at 6:03 PM on September 28, 2015
Note that Synology has their own RAID scheme that lets you combine drives of different sizes and reap more usable space than you normally would with classic RAID.
posted by SNACKeR at 10:03 PM on September 28, 2015
posted by SNACKeR at 10:03 PM on September 28, 2015
Check smallnetbuilder. For that amount of storage you want a raid-1 2 bay device.
posted by gorcha at 3:35 AM on September 29, 2015
posted by gorcha at 3:35 AM on September 29, 2015
If the NAS is going to be a media server, do not use it as your only backup (unless you're running in RAID 1 (two disks that are copies of each other so if one fails, the other is the backup).
You will be using the media server functions a LOT and that will wear out the hard drives faster than normal. Even though the drives are designed to be used in a NAS, they are probably going to end up being the least reliable hard drives that you own. It's a great place to keep a nightly backup but the NAS will need to be backed up too for the important files.
posted by VTX at 10:42 AM on September 29, 2015
You will be using the media server functions a LOT and that will wear out the hard drives faster than normal. Even though the drives are designed to be used in a NAS, they are probably going to end up being the least reliable hard drives that you own. It's a great place to keep a nightly backup but the NAS will need to be backed up too for the important files.
posted by VTX at 10:42 AM on September 29, 2015
If the NAS is going to be a media server, do not use it as your only backup (unless you're running in RAID 1 (two disks that are copies of each other so if one fails, the other is the backup).
No. This is wrong: if you are using the NAS as your media server, do not skip backup just because you are using RAID 1.
If the NAS is your media server, you must still do backup in case your files get deleted or corrupted.
posted by gorcha at 7:03 AM on September 30, 2015
No. This is wrong: if you are using the NAS as your media server, do not skip backup just because you are using RAID 1.
If the NAS is your media server, you must still do backup in case your files get deleted or corrupted.
posted by gorcha at 7:03 AM on September 30, 2015
What? No, backup is what Raid 1 is for. You'll obviously still need an off-site back-up but there is no reason to use something else in addition to a RAID 1 setup for your local backup. You're not "skipping" the backup by using RAID 1, you're choosing to use RAID 1 as your local backup solution.
If it wasn't being used as a media server, then a single disk would be fine for the local backup. Also remember that the NAS itself is already the primary on-site backup for the other computers so if you have the NAS in RAID 1 and an off-site backup, you have THREE different backup solutions, the original data is on the laptops and computers, those backup to the first NAS drive, those get backed up in real-time on the 2nd NAS drive and then that is all backed up by the off-site backup.
posted by VTX at 7:17 AM on September 30, 2015
If it wasn't being used as a media server, then a single disk would be fine for the local backup. Also remember that the NAS itself is already the primary on-site backup for the other computers so if you have the NAS in RAID 1 and an off-site backup, you have THREE different backup solutions, the original data is on the laptops and computers, those backup to the first NAS drive, those get backed up in real-time on the 2nd NAS drive and then that is all backed up by the off-site backup.
posted by VTX at 7:17 AM on September 30, 2015
I don't disagree that if the NAS is primarily used to back up other computers, having it backed up is less of a priority. But I disagree strenuously with this assertion:
Backup is what Raid 1 is for - No, no, no.
When your camera numbering scheme wraps around and you realize 3 weeks later that you accidentally overwrote a folder full of precious photos with other photos that had the same names, it will be no comfort to you whatsoever that your mistake was faithfully synced to your NAS and then mirrored on a second hard drive. Mirroring is insurance against catastrophic failure of one disk. It is NOT insurance against data corruption, or random bit flips, or human error.
Without quibbling over terminology, please know exactly where RAID 1 has your back and where it does not. (And yeah, do NOT ask me how I know.)
posted by RedOrGreen at 12:39 PM on September 30, 2015 [1 favorite]
Backup is what Raid 1 is for - No, no, no.
When your camera numbering scheme wraps around and you realize 3 weeks later that you accidentally overwrote a folder full of precious photos with other photos that had the same names, it will be no comfort to you whatsoever that your mistake was faithfully synced to your NAS and then mirrored on a second hard drive. Mirroring is insurance against catastrophic failure of one disk. It is NOT insurance against data corruption, or random bit flips, or human error.
Without quibbling over terminology, please know exactly where RAID 1 has your back and where it does not. (And yeah, do NOT ask me how I know.)
posted by RedOrGreen at 12:39 PM on September 30, 2015 [1 favorite]
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by deezil at 11:14 AM on September 28, 2015