(Part 2) Reddit mentions: The best network attached storage products

That is not an ideal set-up.

Okay, first lets talk server:

The NVIDIA Shield besides having the ability to function as a PLEX Server, it can also utilize the GPU for transcoding, so that should cover you and your parents just fine. Also, Kodi won't be necessary as Plex can DirectPlay almost all files on the SHIELD, even 4K files.

One thing you have to keep in mind about PLEX is the metadata file; my library (800 Movies, and 120 TV Shows | 30TB Storage Array) produces a MetaData file of 13GB, so a normal NVIDIA Shield won't cut it if you want to expand. You have the ability to expand the storage with a fast SD card, but I'm not sure if the ability to store the metadata in the SD card has been implemented yet (you have to check), in that case, the best alternative is the Shield Pro.

If you have a beefy computer you could also host the Plex Server on your computer, but that depends on you. The important thing is hard-wiring whatever you decide to go with through Ethernet for the best upload speeds.

Now as for the SDR-->HDR ordeal, it's true that a 4K file on a normal computer without tone-mapping will look washed out, but that depends on your set. For example, using PotPlayer and an extension, 4K HDR can be played on your computer (through the file itself) and it maps the colors correctly.

But like I said, it depends on your TV. One of my TVs plays 4K HDR movies just fine, and the colors look even better than my HDR set.., I don't know how it's converting the colors, but then again I don't have a $2,000 HDR TV to compare to.

Lastly, we'll talk storage and affordability. Storage is cheap, but paying half a thousand dollars for 8TB is a waste of money. The EasyStore 8TB External HDD at BestBuy occasionally drops down to $159.99-179.99 with the best deal being the 159.99. It's important you purchase the NESN model as those contain the $300 WD Red Drives with 256MB Cache, and meant for NAS 24/7 use. This is done through "shucking" the drive (you need a Philips and a Torx screw set) which involves placing hard card/gift cards at certain points to remove the drive from the enclosure and placing it either in your current computer, or a dedicated NAS machine.

So here are the following Scenarios:

1. PC Server SetUp+ Plex Client
   
   

• PC Plex Server (Faster, More streams/support, MetaData Storage)
  
• x3 8TB EasyStore ($480+tax) = 24 TB Storage
  
• Client(s): Nvidia Shield - $200 | Apple TV 4k - $105 | MiBox $69
  
  Only costs are Storage + Client
  
  

2. Plex Server/Client + PC Storage NAS
   
   

• SHIELD Server/Client (Low-Power, Can GPU transcode, always on | Need Pro model if you want to amass huge library)
  
• x3 8TB EasyStore ($480+tax) = 24 TB Storage
  
• Use PC to host HardDrives (but then it would be on all the time, so might as well host server on it)
  
  Pay for Drives+ Client/Server + NAS & Drives
  
  

3. Plex Client/Server + NAS Bays + HDDs
   
   If you want a small machine that's always on and consumes little power you can pair it with a NAS
   
   

• SHIELD Server/Client (Low-Power, Can GPU transcode, always on | Need Pro model if you want to amass huge library)
  
• Synology NAS w/4 Bays - Using this NAS with 1 EasyStore will place you within the price-range of the NAS you originally linked. The advantage here is that it will be more powerful and faster than the all-in-one 2-bay you linked. When you run out of space, you'll have 3 more bays that you can fill up with $160 WD 8TB Reds.
  
  Also, make a separate library for 4K files, and one for the 1080p/720P ones. Do a speed test on both your network and theirs; you need a good upload for high-quality files (4K files = 110 Mbps Upload bandwidth | 1080P Blu-Ray Remux = 40 Mbps upload bandwidth). They can transcode to lower bitrates fine, but this is just so you double-check everything.
  
  
  

wholey crap man you got a lot of TVs for an apartment

personally i would say screw giving access to your friends.. unless they were sharing the apartment with you and then charge them $5 a month HA! .. Its really not worth the hassle of opening your home network and devices to the internet just so your friends think you're cool .. have them stop by and bring a pizza..

but for you I would suggest you start looking into a NAS that has larger storage than slinging external drives on a device or installing them internally in a pc case....

NAS servers often run an os that can support Plex or other server software.. or you can just access the files directly from within kodi or your other device / computer and play them..

I was very lucky to pickup a Netgear ReadyNas 104 its their lowest end and runs a Netgear flavor of linux .. it has a bunch of Apps ready to install.. pretty sure you can add almost anything else because it also offers web and php . so you could stream from HTTP or file direct or from a server software specifically for htpcs


Unfortunately I just checked .. Amazon isn't selling them anymore.. third party yes but they are 3x what I paid...

https://www.amazon.com/NETGEAR-ReadyNAS-Attached-Diskless-RN10400-100NAS/dp/B00BNI4CVG/

I got it early this year you can see what the prices were like

http://camelcamelcamel.com/NETGEAR-ReadyNAS-Attached-Diskless-RN10400-100NAS/product/B00BNI4CVG

so if you get one thats the price you should pay not $450.. I think I paid just under $200 and then I bought some 5TB external Segates for $109 each and poped out the drives and stuck them in the ReadyNas....

The thing about ReadyNas is their version of RAID allows you to expand it.. so you can start with one drive or 2 drives and add another and it will just bring it into the array and rebuild the whole thing and it will take like 3 days to rebuild but you shouldn't lose anything.. READ THEIR SUPPORT FORMS PLEASE... up to 4 drives and if you put in 5tb today you can later pop one out put in a 8TB drive let it rebuild .. pop in another 8TB drive .. let it rebuild and so on to upgrade your drives capacity...


So look at NAS servers like that and see which ones also support server software like you want for your HTPC

and really screw your friends .. you end up getting busted for running servers off your home computer or something and they cancel your broadband account..

Sorry for the late reply, got a bit busy last night and worked on this for a few hours.

I will explain my changes in detail in a reply to this post. Since I went over the 10.000 character limit reddit provides per post.

So I tried to get the black & orange vibe as best as possible, without overdoing it.

I've included custom cables, the price is a slight estimate. To get the best possible looks on them, I would recommend to go the extra mile and measure the cables their length and adjust accordingly. This will make your build pop the extra mile and just look super crisp. More details down below!

I'll also provide my standard list of videos that explain certain hardware terminologies & guides. As well as stress test software!

PCPartPicker Part List

Type|Item|Price

----|:----|:----
CPU | AMD Ryzen 9 3900X 3.8 GHz 12-Core Processor | £599.94 @ AWD-IT
CPU Cooler | be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 4 50.5 CFM CPU Cooler | £72.38 @ Amazon UK
Thermal Paste | Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut | £6.15 @ Amazon UK
Motherboard | Asus ROG Strix X570-F Gaming ATX AM4 Motherboard | £257.89 @ Amazon UK
Memory | G.Skill Trident Z Royal 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory | £348.59 @ Amazon UK
Storage | Samsung 970 EVO Plus 2 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive | £410.42 @ Amazon UK
Storage | Seagate Barracuda Compute 4 TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive | £89.99 @ Amazon UK
Video Card | Asus GeForce RTX 2080 Ti 11 GB ROG Strix Gaming OC Video Card | £1265.41 @ Amazon UK
Case | be quiet! Silent Base 801 ATX Mid Tower Case | £129.99 @ Amazon UK
Power Supply | SeaSonic PRIME Ultra Platinum 750 W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply | £187.76 @ Amazon UK
Custom Cables | 24pin ATX, 8+4pin EPS, 2x8pin PCIe | £101.80 @ Octix
Case Fan | Fractal Design AL-14 PWM 103.85 CFM 140 mm Fan | £29.32 @ Amazon UK
Monitor | Acer Predator X34P 34.0" 3440x1440 120 Hz Monitor | £899.99 @ Amazon UK
Monitor | Acer Predator X34P 34.0" 3440x1440 120 Hz Monitor | £899.99 @ Amazon UK
Monitor Arm | NB North Bayou Monitor TV Wall Mount Bracket | £29.90 @ Amazon UK
Cable Sleeve | Cable Management Sleeve – Rantizon 19.7" | £7.99 @ Amazon UK
Mousepad | Sidorenko Gaming Extended Mouse Mat - 900 x 400 mm | £10.99 @ Amazon UK
| NAS |
NAS | Synology DS918+ | £503.99 @ Amazon UK
Storage | Western Digital Red 8 TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive | £213.35 @ Amazon UK
Storage | Western Digital Red 8 TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive | £213.35 @ Amazon UK
| Total | £6355.64
| Generated by Kiwiandapple |

My take is you should get a nas unit of some kind and pair that with syncing it to One Drive, Google Drive, Dropbox, or whatever. Based on your "comfort" level comment earlier. Synology units are considered "pricey" by some -- but the software is nice and easy to use. They just work well. I have a DS1812+ and it is awesome.

Without knowing anything else about what you are doing; I'd get something like this and put in 4 of these. A bit of sticker shock I am sure; but this gives you 12TB of storage that is locally secured from drive failure. However being locally 'secure' is only part of it. You need something offsite. The easiest is setting up something to sync to one of the cloud data providers.

You can of course put different drives in to reduce the cost (going with the 4TB drives I think saves around $200 on disks. Disks will almost certainly be your biggest expense.

You could also get a 2-bay unit and a pair of 8TB drives and mirror them. Probably good enough for you honestly.

• Don't get the 1700X, get just a regular 1700. She doesn't need the extra OC speed.
  
  
• Use the stock cooler.
  
  
• Slower RAM is just fine for this.
  
  
• Why all the Black-Series SSDs? Not much of a benefit over Regular old blue series for this case. If anything you should be using Red-Series in a professional environment where data reliability is most important.
  
  
• You could also just set up a home NAS instead of having so many drives in one computer. Better way to handle the RAID and mass storage. Lets you get a significantly smaller case as well.
  
  
• G2 series > G3 series for power supply. Quieter fans. Still, both are overkill for this.
  
  

• You should get Windows 10 Pro--it has better Remote/VPN support.
  

  
  

  PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant
  

  
  

  Type|Item|Price
  

  ----|:----|:----
  CPU | AMD - Ryzen 7 1700 3.0GHz 8-Core Processor | $269.99 @ Amazon
  Motherboard | ASRock - AB350M Pro4 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard | $49.99 @ Newegg
  Memory | G.Skill - Ripjaws V Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2400 Memory | $139.99 @ Newegg
  Storage | Crucial - MX300 525GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive | $145.89 @ OutletPC
  Video Card | EVGA - GeForce GTX 1050 2GB ACX 2.0 Video Card | $104.99 @ Amazon
  Case | Fractal Design - Define Mini C MicroATX Mid Tower Case | $69.99 @ SuperBiiz
  Power Supply | SeaSonic - 520W 80+ Bronze Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply | $49.99 @ SuperBiiz
  Operating System | Microsoft - Windows 10 Pro OEM 64-bit | $135.88 @ OutletPC
  | Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts |
  | Total (before mail-in rebates) | $986.71
  | Mail-in rebates | -$20.00
  | Total | $966.71
  | Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-11-28 11:05 EST-0500 |
  
  

• A great NAS Box:
  
  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B075ZNKCK4/
  
  The cheaper 2-bay version works well too: You could just RAID1 two 4TB drives for full redundancy.
  
  
• However many WD-RED HDD"s you need:
  
  https://pcpartpicker.com/product/7sTmP6/western-digital-internal-hard-drive-wd30efrx
  
  
  All in all, a bit more expensive, (adding the NAS + 3x 3TB drives in RAID will add $700 ish--Total Price $1666) (Alternate: 2-Bay NAS + 2x 4TB Drives = about $500 on top of this, Total Price $1466)
  
  But you have much easier room to expand and secure your storage, Windows 10 Pro, and a better SSD.

On Synology, using PhotoStation, you can tag: Location, People, and generic tags. So, outside of the location and people in that photo, you can tag specific qualities of the photo (landscape, car, dog, animal, black and white, birthday, etc etc)

You also have the option to share the photo or add the photo to a shared album so you can share multiple photos at once.

At the top of the linked page, you can click a link for a live demo of DiskStation Manager, of which PhotoStation is a part of. And you can explore it on your own. They don't give you a username and password, but I was automatically logged in after I waited a short while. Once logged in, click the set of four squares in the upper left and select PhotoStation. Play around with it and see if that's what you want.

Keep in mind the the 2-bay Synology's don't come with hard drives, so that'll be a separate expense:

• $150USD - https://smile.amazon.com/Synology-bay-DiskStation-DS216se-Diskless/dp/B014SKVQR8/
  
• $84USD (x2) - https://smile.amazon.com/Red-2TB-Hard-Disk-Drive/dp/B008JJLZ7G/
  
• $318USD - Subtotal (doesn't include tax)
  
  I linked to a WD Red HDD because those are rated and designed for use in NAS systems, it's a drive I'm familiar with, and a brand I trust. But, in the end, you can go with whatever drive you want. For what it's worth, the 2TB Seagate IronWolf, another HDD made for NAS systems, is only $79USD, bringing the subtotal down to $308USD.
  
  I'm going to assume you have minimal knowledge of NAS systems so I'll add some additional info. You also may need more than 2TB drives, depending on how you set up the volume, RAID1 or RAID0, you'll have 2TB and 4TB of space respectively. I’m not saying you’ll need 3 drives but if 2TB or 4TB isn’t enough space, you’ll n Ed to purchase larger drives. But, that should be plenty of space.
  
  RAID1 will mirror the drives, so all the data is both drives. So if one drive fails, all the data is still available. Just put in another 2TB drive and the system will copy the data over to the new drive. RAID1 has redundancy and you're protected against a drive failure.
  
  RAID0 will combine the drive space. So, two 2TB drives is now 4TB of space. However, if one of those drives fails, you lose all the data. RAID0 is particularly useful for speed, and for program scratch discs. I would never keep important stuff, like photos of my family and vacations, on a RAID0 NAS system.
  
  Of course, RAID is not a backup. Just because there is redundancy doesn't mean your data is safe. I'm not sure if it's the same in Canada but if you have Amazon Prime, you can back up all your photos to Amazons Cloud Drive. Depending on how/where PhotoStation stores your photos, you may be able to set up a backup task to copy the photos on the NAS to Amazon Cloud for you. That way, should the RAID1 array fail, and you need to replace both drives, your photos are still secure & safe and you'll be able to download them off Amazon.

> first, the way you described what you want to do with rsync sounds like mirroring would functionally be the same. Can you elaborate on why you think otherwise?

Mirroring is not backup. It does not protect against file deletion, overwriting, data corruption, etc.

If you are this familiar with ZFS then my assumption is that you work in the industry. I urge you to please take this to heart for the sake of your employer, its clients, and your career: Mirroring is not backup.

> Second, just a thought, what are all the disks you want to use? There are other ways to configure ZFS in addition to the varying disk size which may work for you.

At the moment, I have a 3TB and a 2TB drive, to be upgraded when cost is reasonable. My first purchase will probably be a 4TB drive to replace the 2TB drive.

> Third, so give me some ballpark of RAM you thought you needed for ZFS? is 4GB or 8GB unreasonable for you?

That is about exactly as much RAM as I expected to need for ZFS. 4GB might get me by for now, but that's still two to three times the cost of RAM for a cheaper solution. Most Atom motherboards will not support more than 4GB of RAM, though, so there would be no upgrade path.

> My home FreeNAS system (running ZFS) runs on an E3-1200 (IIRC), and it's dead silent, and it's a microATX mobo (and I'm sure you can get smaller for E3's/i3's. I would recommend along these lines.

I'm looking at Atom or ARM based solutions. The scale is completely different, but you'd expect that I could get something smaller for what I'm after.

> What mini-ITX cases are you seeing that are just not good enough? Mind linking me please?

Everything I find that supports at least two 3.5" bays is like
http://www.amazon.com/Silverstone-Tek-Micro-ATX-Mini-ITX-SG09B/dp/B009WXB2TE/
because it is designed to accommodate other parts typical to a general use PC rather than a dedicated NAS. Of course, these are typically $100 or more because they are marketed toward enthusiasts.

What I'm after is closer to
http://www.amazon.com/Synology-DiskStation-Diskless-Attached-DS214play/dp/B00FWUQNDQ/
Of course it would be a bit bigger because micro-ITX motherboards have a minimum size, but it need not be twice as large in every dimension.

>Also, ZFS is really not that expensive even for a home storage system, so I'm not exactly sure yet why you have a different impression. Mind elaborating if you can?

Disregarding disks and case size, I can build a perfectly reasonable home NAS with an Atom SoC board, cheap case, and minimal amount of RAM for $100 to $150. It will draw 10 to 15 watts of power at peak.

Solutions that cost a multiple of that and draw many times the power are not really in the same ball game. I'd be happy to build one of those big systems for work if there was a need for it, but this is something to go in my house to dump files on.

Dynamic disks have gotten a lot better, haha. If you are going with the case you own, There are some internal enclosures that can hold 5 3.25 in drives per 5 in bay. Like this. With the benefit of being hot swappable. If you don't care wether or not things are hot swappable, you can go cheaper and get better air flow.

You can also get a box case like this which has the bays built in and just fit it with a good motherboard, processor, maybe an HBA and maybe a NIC. Honestly, with current parts, you should be able to saturate 1 gigabit drop. Since we are dealing with pictures and videos, I'm thinking you'll be reading and writing sequentially for the most part which maximizes your read/write speeds.

Take a quick look at this before you buy your drives, that way you have the option to balance price with storage. 10TB drives usually cost more than what you get, especially since the 12TB drives are cheaper per gig right now. If you don't want to pay that much for a drive, you can go with one of the cheaper 8TB or shuck for an even lower price with a bit more effort on your part.

As for pre-built appliances, you can go with something like this or this both can saturate your network and give you the storage you desire.

Edit: My first gold, thank you!!

By all means, invest in a NAS system like Synology. This is an expense that merits the cost.

I personally own one like this one filled with 8 x 4TB WD RED drives with two disk redundancy, so if two disks fail on me I should be fine.

Every three months, I back up the entire 20 TB on mulitple 8TB WD books drives like these for offline cold storage, just in case my office burns down. All links in this post are referral links.

Data is NOT something to go cheap on. It has other uses, too. I use it for a home security system, printer server, and a PLEX server as well.

EDIT: This 8tb WD EasyStore external drive is a better buy than what I originally linked above. Usually they ship with an 8tb RED NAS drive inside which is worth more than the drive themselves.

"Revit Server" is an application that sits on a Windows Server 2012 R2 system to help keep large Revit projects in sync with many designers working at the same time. From what I've read, this is a requirement to keep files synced between multiple designers if any designers are offsite. There appears to be some debate on Revit forums if it's a necessity/requirement for even local groups, if there's a large-number of designers on the same project/server.

The alternative is simply a central File Share that can sit on a NAS device. QNAP and Synology are my 2 goto pre-built brands for small work-group NAS. If the local network is fast enough (i.e. all designers on wired gigabit, not high latency or unreliable wifi), it looks like a central file share is enough for most small teams. Looks like this is the approach by most teams on the same site of less that 10 designers.

It's important to realize that just centralizing files in a Revit Server or a NAS are NOT backups. That's live files you are editing. You'll still want a backup solution. In it's simplest form, a large external USB for the offline backup of your NAS. A more elegant and automated solution would be a second small 2-bay (i.e. cheaper) NAS to backup to remotely. Or even automated Cloud backups if that's your thing.

Onto the parts detail help. If you are just looking for simple, centralized storage NAS: There are now pure SSD solutions. QNAP has the TBS-452A you can fill it with 4x 500GB or 4x 1TB SSDs, giving you 1.5TB or 3TB of RAID 5 storage on your network.

Here's the QNAP TBS-453A SSD NAS shopping list:
------------------------------------------------------------

• $450 - QNAP TBS-453A-4G-US - [B&H Photo] (http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1249544-REG/qnap_tbs_453a_4g_us_tbs_453a_4_bay_m_2_nasbook.html) / Amazon
  
• $40 - 8GB RAM Kit - Amazon
  
  ... Storage Capacity Options ...
  
  
• $640 - 1TB (RAID10 or RAID6) or 1.5TB (RAID5) - 4x Samsung 850 EVO 500GB - $170 each - Amazon
  
  or
  
  
• $1040 - 2TB (RAID10 or RAID6) or 3TB (RAID5) - - 4x SanDisk X400 1TB - $260 each - Amazon
  
  
  
  2nd NAS for Backup (Onsite or Offsite):
  
  
• $310 - QNAP TS-251+ - Amazon
  
• $480 - 6TB (RAID1) - 2x WD Red 6TB Drive - $240 each - Amazon
  
  
  
  
  -------------------------------------
  
  *Quick RAID Primer:
  
  

• RAID 5 - 1 drive can fail and you keep running fine. Some processor overhead and added latency for the parity calculations. Capacity is Total Space minus 1 Drive's Capacity
  
• RAID 6 - 2 drives can fail and you keep running fine. Some processor overhead and added latency for the parity calculations. Capacity is Total Space minus 2 Drive's Capacity
  
• RAID 1 - Limited to 2 Drives total. 1 drive can fail and you keep running fine. Almost no latency and processor overhead. Capacity is half Total Space.
  
• RAID 10 - 1 drive can fail and you keep running fine. Almost no latency and processor overhead. Capacity is half Total Space.
  
  ___
  
  
  
  If you actually want a "Revit Server" full Windows Server 2012 R2 Application server, then you are looking at something with far more involved software setup and maintenance. You may want the help of a local freelance Windows Server Sysadmin to get it all configured and maintained. If you are looking for a parts-list for something like that, let me know.

I use the free Veeam Agent for Windows as well and it's awesome. Good pick! 👍

You have a few options here. Depends on how adventurous you're willing to get.

• Share a drive from one of your PCs. You'll need to keep that PC on during the time the other PCs to do their backup so they can access the drive.
  
• If your home router has a USB port then it probably supports sharing an external drive on the network. Check the router's manual for how to set this up.
  
• Buy a dedicated a NAS (Network Attached Storage) device, like Synology or QNAP.
  
• Build your own NAS using Raspberry Pi or ODROID HC2.

I definitely considered this HTPC build:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Type|Item|Price

----|:----|:----
CPU | Intel Core i3-4130T 2.9GHz Dual-Core Processor | $140.14 @ Amazon
Motherboard | ECS H81H3-I/HDMI (V1.0) Mini ITX LGA1150 Motherboard | $56.99 @ Mwave
Memory | *Kingston HyperX Blu 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3-1600 Memory | $47.73 @ NCIX US
Storage | Crucial MX100 128GB 2.5" Solid State Drive | $82.11 @ Amazon
Case | Antec ISK 300-150 Mini ITX Desktop Case w/150W Power Supply | $78.24 @ Mwave
Other| Windows 8.1| Purchased
| | Total
| Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available | $405.21
| *Lowest price parts chosen from parametric criteria |

And this NAS unit with one 3TB WD Green to start with. I'm still not sure if that would be better or worse, and it would come in at around the same price.

My home layout has the router necessarily located in my entertainment center, so the only options for "hiding the server" would be to go wireless or running a long wire, neither of which are great. I'd also like to be able to serve multiple 1080p transcodes simultaneously, so I'm very wary of dropping the server CPU.

Synology DS412+ + 4x [3TB WD Red] (http://amzn.com/B008JJLW4M) hard drives. Just under $1000 pre-tax for 6-9TB usable space.

The Synology is stupid easy to set up, seriously. Even a beginner can get it going. Buy the NAS, insert the 4 drives, plug it in to power and your network, download the Synology Assistant, and you're on your way! The hardest part will be deciding on Raid 5 or Raid 6/Raid 10, that would take a while.

Honestly, please take a good hard look at a NAS unit to solve your problem here. Synology makes a great product that can grow with your needs. Direct attached storage units have a history of being horribly shitty and I would never trust my data to one of them. All in all, good luck! Head over to /r/DataHoarder as well and check out some of the more insane setups :)

Okay, that sounds like it will do. I knew it had Plex support, I was just explaining why I wanted the extra 1.8 TB beyond my actual storage capacity. I'll probably set up Transmission like you have or see about another client that also has a web interface, preferably also with RSS support.

If it doesn't support Linux out of the box (say, because they don't have ext4 support) it's probably fairly simple to just set up an rsync cron job. Or, if your statement is correct, just install e2fsprogs from the debian repos. I admit I have little experience with Debian but I've used Ubuntu and Mint extensively in the past (but am now running Arch) so I'm sure I could figure it out.

Something I forgot to mention earlier: This is the particular model I am planning on getting, in the 6TB version. Is that all on a single drive? If so, is there any real benefit in paying over $100 more for the redundancy of the second drive, since this isn't meant to be the master copy of my data anyway?

EDIT: I found a "recertified" version that's got a cool $50 discount. I'm guessing that's their term for refurbished? Also annoyingly under the specifications tab it mentions it's formatted ntfs, which will be troubling for preserving permissions, though I suppose I could get around it with tar or potentially try to reformat it as FAT32 or ext4. In the manual it does mention it supports ext4 over usb, meaning it'll probably be able to at least read from my system by default, but it would be nice to be able to reformat it so permissions are preserved.

For support and to unlock the APIs that a good backup application like Veeam would require.

Speaking of which, plan to use Veeam Essentials to back up to a Synology NAS. Do you have a branch office anywhere? If so, make that your off-site backup with Veeam. If not, use one of the cloud providers they support.

Veeam Essentials: http://www.veeam.com/smb-vmware-hyper-v-essentials.html

vSphere Essentials Kit: http://store.vmware.com/store/vmware/en_US/pd/ThemeID.2485600/productID.282883900

Here's the 2-bay NAS we typically get, with two 4TB WD Red drives: http://www.amazon.com/Synology-DiskStation-Diskless-Attached-DS214/dp/B00FY6DV3S/ref=sr_1_6?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1416242136&sr=1-6&keywords=synology

If you need a 4-bay NAS, get this: http://www.amazon.com/Synology-DiskStation-Diskless-Attached-DS412/dp/B007JLE84C/ref=sr_1_3?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1416242136&sr=1-3&keywords=synology

• Synology 4-disk NAS - standard 4 disk array. nice and fast.
  
• Drobo 5N (1st gen). 2nd gen gives you 2 NICs but more expensive. Drobo gives you the ability to make asymmetric arrays, which can be cheaper to maintain and expand. The downside is the proprietary nature of the array's technology. I personally have this one.
  
  
  I know these look expensive, but it's a one-time cost, and you'll get plenty of storage. You are protected from single-drive failures. But keep in mind that it's not a replacement of backups. Depends on how far you want to take things, right. I'd recommend using a NAS array for your main storage, and some cheaper single drives for backup -- if you really really really want to protect your stuff.
  

You are correct, if you already have a server running the "brains" then having a NAS with a powerful computer would not help your Plex server. However, the reason they have a CPU and "Brains" is more to manage the RAID configuration. Often times most people with a NAS or SAN don't like them, as they can't transcode as well as some other servers can. If you have the money this would be the way to go, and use your existing server. These setups can quickly cost a few hundred dollars upwards of thousands.


An alternative, and sometimes slightly cheaper... would be a DAS (Direct Attached Storage). The downside to this, is that with a NAS all computers can use the storage. However DAS is directly connected (similar to a flash drive) to the server. However, the server will host the content everywhere else using Plex.


Most users will use RAID for more redundancy, so you can loose a Drive and just swap it. It is not meant for a backup though, so please don't use RAID as a backup.


If you want less then say 10TB of storage. I would simply get a docking station and a big drive (or external HD) then put everything on it. Get a 2nd drive and backup to that in case you have a HD failure. Super simple, effective, and cheap. I would get a docking station that holds 2 drives... then any 2 drives that match. You can then just clone it to the backup easy. This works great for up to 10tb... as anything past that you would need to do extra work to get them to work. Then simply pick any 2.5 or 3.5" HD you want.


If your wanting more then 10tb... OR if you will be streaming to many people (like over 10 at the same time). Then you will likely want a RAID setup, with a DAS, NAS, or even SAN. A simple DAS would be a very nice setup, with plenty of room to grow. You don't need to add all the drives at once either.. you could simply buy drives as you need to add them and grow as you gather more content.

​

To give you an idea on space this is roughly how much I have currently:
11T storage, using 6.8T, 3.6T still available.
1500 - 1080p Movies
39 - 1080p TV Shows (all seasons)
60 - 4K (super high res 40gb file movies etc..)
3 - 4K tv shows (all seasons)

ok thanks for all the help. Would I be better off with something like this?

http://www.amazon.com/NETGEAR-ReadyNAS-Diskless-Attached-RN10400-100NAS/dp/B00BNI4CVG/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1408375675&sr=8-2&keywords=diskless+nas

As requested, here's the composition of the rack:

• NavePoint 12U Network Rack
  
• TP-Link TL-SG1024: 24 port rackmount switch
  
• TP-Link TL-SG1016PE: 16 port rackmount power over ethernet switch (needed for the Wi-Fi access points)
  
• TP-Link TL-R600VPN: Rackmount router w/ dual-WAN and VPN
  
• Rackmount Power w/ surge protection
  
• Rack shelf: Used to hold modem and NAS
  
• Patch Panel: 24-port Cat6 patch panel (wires go in the pack via punchdown connection, and you run patch cables to the switches)
  
• 12" Patch cables: For connecting between the patch panel, swicthes, other on-rack devices
  
• Synology 416play NAS: Movies, music, pictures, etc. 32 TB in all.
  
  Elsewhere in the house/other useful parts:
  
  
• Keystone Cat6 jacks: one per bedroom, 4 in my home office, 4 in the media room (not built yet), 3 in the family room
  
• 1-, 2-, 3-, and 4-hole keystone wall plates: Buy the number of holes you want and just pop in the keystone jacks
  
• Blank keystone inserts: For when you have too many holes in the keystone plates
  
• Ubiquiti AC Pro x 3: Wi-Fi access points, roughly center of the house on each floor (basement, first, second)
  
• Punchdown tool: For doing the punchdown connections on the patch panel and on each of the keystone Cat6 plugs in each room
  
• Extra rack screws and washers
  
• J-Hook: There are two hooks on each wall, holding service loops for the Cat6 and Coax, respectively.
  
  Useful things I learned:
  
  
• I was originally going to run the wires myself, but never could find the time. Also Cat6 is expensive when not purchased in wholesale quantities (< 10,000 ft). So we hired a local electrician to run the actual wires. It took two of them about 1.5 days to run everything. This was well worth the money, since the project would have taken many months to do in the evenings/on weekends with a toddler running around.
  
• I did all the wall terminations. Since they were punchdowns, it was easy and took one evening after work. The electricians would have charged me another half-day of labor.
  
• I did all the network rack work. This also took one evening after work.
  
• Do NOT buy electrical/networking equipment from a big box hardware store. Always go to a specialized retailer, like an electrician supply store. Their prices will be 1/20th that of the big box store, you won't have to have anything shipped, and their employees actually know what they are talking about. So if you're looking for something that you don't know the name of, you can usually describe it.
  
• Newer construction may have fire breaks/blocks/stops which prevent fire and gases from traveling up the inside of the walls. This makes fire move more slowly and give you more time to evacuate. However, it also means you might need to drill holes/patch walls in order to run wires vertically.
  
• Put in a service loop. If you ever need to re-terminate for any reason (like replacing a patch panel), it will give you extra cable to work with. Do the same thing inside your walls behind the wall plates, since you might have to do the same thing there as well.
  
• Buy networking gear that is rated for the same speed (i.e., gigabit). Your network will only be as fast as the slowest part of it.
  
• Watch out for network loops. This is really easy to do and will cause your router to crash or perform suboptimally. I spent >2 hours debugging on of these as a result of connecting my router to itself by way of both switches.

Actually, I think I might skip the WD NAS and upgrade to the Synology DS212j. Looking through a few reviews from both experts and customers, this NAS seems to be VERY highly rated and decently priced on Amazon for what it's capable of.

There are some specs on it here and it seems like it is capable of fulfilling all of my needs. What do you think?

Anyway, if I went this route, I guess my main concern would be finding cheap-ish 1Tb or 2Tb HDD's. The most I've seen are around $100 + tax, but are there any that would be cheaper?

Thanks!!!

I'd also suggest a QNAP. I feel that QNAP generally has better hardware, where Synology has the software advantage.

QTS (QNAP's UI) has gotten pretty good, and closed a lot of the gap between them Synology.

You might consider something like this. It will do media transcoding and can also function as a media player (via HDMI out). You can use some of your budget to supplement the RAM and add storage.

The best option for having network storage be backed up is to use a NAS device which is capable of mirrored RAID; with this solution, all data is stored on the device is written to two drives rather than one (unlike Time Machine in which your computers actively compute copies of each file to transfer).

Some examples of NAS enclosures capable of mirrored RAID are the Lenovo IX2, Synology Disk Station, and Buffalo LinkStation Pro. In all cases, you can choose two of any drive which conforms to your sizing needs.

Any further questions, don't hesitate!

Yea, turns out a gaming box with a RAID array uses electricity! Huh.

edit - I want this but I may have to settle for a DS411J. I have had a great experience with Synology at work and this way I can just plug it in and save all the parts sifting for my desktop replacement.

Jesus Christ. 4TB SSDs are like $1500 on Amazon right now.

I know this isn't the advice you want, but in today's world of multiple household devices, I am really enjoying having a reasonably small main hard drive and a NAS for everything else. You could have gotten this SSD for free for all I know, but if you did purchase this, you could have instead bought a 1TB NVMe drive for $480 which is at least 4x as fast as SATA SSDs and an 8TB NAS for $300.

Even the 2TB NVMe drives are going for $1,280 which leaves budget for that 8TB NAS.

Your are best off building a little server using a low powered $35 CPU like this..

http://www.microcenter.com/product/408967/Celeron_G1610_26GHz_LGA_1155_Boxed_Processor

It will transcode anything you need it to Plex Clients, and it can also serve up files over a windows share for any XBMC Clients.

Raspberry Pi is not really much of a NAS like it seems you are looking for it to be. If you want a low cost/power NAS check out a Synology like this one. http://amzn.com/B005YW7OLM

Synology's use ARM procs like the RPi does but has very mature NAS software that can run torrents, and even Plex Media Server, but... It doesn't have enough CPU to transcode.

This Lenovo/IOMEGA NAS plus two 2 TB WD Reds set me back about $300 USD

Here's the NAS on Amazon

Here's the 2TB WD Reds

Look into Synology NAS devices. Works with Mac/Windows, decently priced and you can put whatever size drives in them you need to accommodate your needs. I use one at home and at work. Start with something like this, then find drives to populate it: https://www.amazon.com/Synology-Bay-DiskStation-DS1019-Diskless/dp/B07NF9XDWG/ref=sr_1_5?keywords=synology+nas+4+bay&qid=1572919695&sr=8-5.

They are pretty easy to setup as well.

I just have a Synology DS212j. Threw a 2TB harddrive in there and configured everything through the software on the NAS itself. In retrospect, I'd probably go for the DS214Play model because the CPU is better and could probably run Plex pretty well. Mine can't handle Plex, but that's ok because it supports DLNA without it.

For #1, figure out how much storage you need. Then, figure out your electric budget and your price budget (sometimes the former wins over the latter). From there, you can decide if the peace of mind + generally lower power usage of grabbing a ready-built NAS from Synology, QNAP, etc is worth the extra capital cost over building your own.

For example, if you run a NAS on an R710, at bare minimum, you'd be consuming 60ish watts with just the server and one hard drive. Compare a DS416play which has a power supply rated for 90 watts and consumes 29 watts when being accessed, presumably measured with all four HDDs installed. To be fair, the R710 supports 6 instead of 4 drives, but still.

DS416play (just an example, find one that fits your needs the best!): https://www.amazon.com/Synology-DS416play-NAS-DiskStation-Diskless/dp/B01GB9ZJ3Q ($459 + $16 shipping)

R710 if you have no sense and can't be bothered to win an auction: http://www.ebay.com/itm/DELL-PowerEdge-R710-Server-2xX5550-QC-2-66GHz-48GB-2x146GB-1x500GB-Ct-PERC6-2xPS-/262519505428?hash=item3d1f61c214:g:MeAAAOSwepJXaqD5 ($322)

> 2 - 3 users at most, 1080p content

are you transcoding for them? If you're doing transcode for 3 streams (or even 2, honestly) you will likely want a better processor...but that one will probably be fine.

The Synology/Qnap/etc have a worse processor but have hardware accelerated transcode which you wont. At about the same price point you're looking at the TS-451+, DS418play.

Even the DS918+ you mentioned has hardware accelerated transcode, so I suspect you'd see better results from it [though, it's more expensive] if you have plex-pass to allow for it.

Edit:
the 9100 supports hardware accelerated transcode, but the 9100f does not.

I'd recommend a basic Synology enclosure. You can get a one-bay (DS115j) for about $100, or a 2-bay (DS216se) for about $150.

Pop in a 3TB WD Red HDD and you're good to go. If you get the 2-bay unit, you can eventually add a 2nd HDD for additional space or redundancy.

Thermaltake V1 Mini ITX case
Core i5 6600k @4.4ghz
Gigabyte z270n-WIFI (connected via ethernet, but has dual NICs)
Terramaster D3-500 direct attacted (RAID-5 @ 9TB)

I run Plex on the machine above with the D3-500 connected via USB 3. Was considering a NAS because I want to move the enclosure somewhere I don't really hear it. Was thinking Synology or Drobo 4 bays.

https://www.amazon.com/Synology-DS416slim-NAS-DiskStation/dp/B00LB0E9B4/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1492714193&sr=8-5&keywords=synology+ds416

or

https://www.amazon.com/Drobo-5D-20TB-Thunderbolt-DRDR5A21-20TB/dp/B008MH1JRQ/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1492714297&sr=8-5&keywords=drobo%2B4%2Bbay%2Bnas&th=1

Would I get better performance using a NAS with RAID 5 or just stick and deal with what I got?

Thanks

TLDR;

Yes SSDs; no HDDs. Watch for data corruption on the SSDs though.

Consider reaching out to vendors and manufactures for discounts or free goods.

If you want devices to stay on whether the vehicle is on, off, or starting, just hook up to the battery.

I found a rugged NAS. Probably not much better than Synology but take it or leave it.

Unqualified thoughts at length:###

-----

SSDs are the way to go. HDDs will absolutely fail if operated in rough conditions.

SSDs are expensive so do you need a redundancy? You said the data is already replicated/backed up so consider how bad it is if the NAS goes down and all data is lost.

SSDs don't store data well when stored powered off above room temps. Assume your data will need to be refreshed often using a sync method that compares contents, not just modified time. Like linux rsync with the checksum option.

----

You're a non-profit (and emergency services to boot). Vendors or manufactures might have programs that will provide a discount.

----

A quick google turned up this nas that is designed for your situation, including powered from a vehicle directly. I wonder if it's worth it--I'd guess as almost every NAS probably operates just as about as well (temperature range and dust-wise as this thing, and I didn't see any actual certs on this thing regarding dust or moisture resistance). But one vendor has it for under $700 shipped so only 2-2.5 x as expensive as synology.

-----

You may not need a UPS if you power it directly off of the vehicle battery. Just run some wires back and hook up an inverter. Though I don't know what kind of vehicle we are talking about, they have them in 12V or 24V and the battery should be charged by the alternator.

Most NASs (and embedded computers like my mini-ITX mobo) run directly off of 12V so you may be able to run it directly from the battery...no inverter. However, get something like this. Make sure to install an in-line fuse or an extra fuseblock fused for the same or less than your regulator. Your all-in-one router (and even some rackmount switches) also run off of 12V.

So I would run a suitably rated wire from the battery to the network area and install a fuseblock as needed. One fuse per regulator, and regulators to take the load of whatever devices you hook up. Look at your equipment specs for total wattage, add it all up and see where you are. A small NAS with SSDs and a dumb 8-port switch can probably be run with one 10 amp regulator and an inline fuse.

Phantom power. You may want to install a switch to cut power to all the equipment so that you don't slow-drain the battery when you aren't using the equipment.

Specific to your equipment##

The synology DS416slim includes a 12V 5A adapter. Your WRT1900 includes a 12V 4A adapter. The regulator I linked above is rated to 10A. I would hook these to a single inline 10A fuse and a 12V regulator rated for 10A, off of 16AWG wire [calculator] from the battery, splice in two of these, and call it a day. Use 12-10AWG if you think you will add more devices to this set up in the future.

Drawing. https://i.imgur.com/VPpe8YC.png The switch can be placed anywhere is convenient. If you run higher rated wire with future-proofing in mind then you might put the switch before the fuse so you can use the same switch to turn off all devices (amperage permitted on the switch).

The rugged qnap nas includes a 7A adapter, so you would need a larger fuse. It has its own regulator so I would add a second fuse (keep a 10A fuse on the 10A regulator) and make sure the wire is specced to 20A (probably 12awg depending on length). Chances are you could run the qnap and the router on a single 10A if using ssds, but might as well build conservatively.

If using the rugged nas with built in regulator.

The fuses are there to keep more than the rated amperage from going down the wire from the battery as well as from over drawing the regulator. So make sure the regulator has it's own fuse and all fuses on the wire combined don't exceed the wire rating. An easy way to do this is to put one inline fuse right next to the battery matching the wire rating (20A, or 30A, or whatever you install) and another fuse to protect the regulator like so. With that inline fuse on the main wire, you could even have 6x10A fuses in a block to protect your devices and still keep the total draw on the line to rated loads.

EDIT I drew the ground connected to the negative terminal. However, it is easier (and probably better) to ground to an unpainted part of the chassis.

I personally edit of the internal fusion drive in my 2012 iMac and store footage and personal stuff on a 5TB desktop hard drive (almost full).

Hind-sight 20-20, I would have preferred to get a larger raid array for my desk, something on the order of 20TB. Then also have a 500GB or bigger external SDD for fast editing of my current 1 or 2 projects. And then also a 2-4TB external hard drive for on-site backup and transporting large files. I don't know how I would like that setup, but from those that have some of the components, it seems like it would be a great setup. I would then reserve my computer hard drive for personal stuff.

Yes, using Github is perfectly viable. I'm just paranoid, since the files contain so much valuable information; and in the interest of full disclosure...

It's not just Carbonite, but also Windows File History to back up to a server (which is very nice btw), then also a Grandfather-Father-Son rotating backup scheme with Macrium Reflect (I'm a customer, not affiliated with the software in any way beyond that). Then my server is a FreeNas product (https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B00EQJ1BTU/ref=oh_aui_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1) which I have formatted in ZFS (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZFS); because ZFS is built like a tank in terms of redundant backup and has lower error rate than hardware failures (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZFS#Data_integrity). All of that is automatic so I can just set and forget it; while doing periodic checks to make sure the backups are working properly.

I hope that helps. One of the number one things I encounter when working with computer (CS undergrad, so I am family tech support) is a lack of backups. ;)

The Buffalo ones are nice; not too expensive but good features and interface, I use one at work.

At home I got started with this one: Lenovo IX2 2-Bay Diskless Network Storage (70A69003NA)

It's been great so far, it was cheap at the time and is solid. My only regret is that with only two days I don't have much upgrade room.

Synology 5 bay NAS DiskStation DS1019+ (Diskless) for $552.49 (Reg: $649.99) on Amazon

This is listed as a BF deal, and according to camelx3, this price is well below the previous sale prices of around $620. The camel tracking only goes back to this February, but at $552, this deal seems like a real good one. I'm in the market for one, so I'm scouting.

Does anyone with more knowledge of Synology pricing want to comment on this deal?

I would lean toward a Raid 5, as it is a more efficient use of redundancy space. You'll have to buy more drives but they can be smaller size, net working out to a similar price. A barebones DAS option might be this one: https://www.amazon.com/QNAP-TR-004-Enclosure-Attached-hardware/dp/B07K4RC7X9.

G raid and Promise also make excellent enclosures but youll pay a premium. OWC is a middle option if you have a Mac.

Wow.

Honestly that's a lot more than I was looking for. I know I can build a full blown machine to do everything I need, but I was kind of thinking about something like this...

Western Digital My Book Live 2 TB Personal Cloud Storage Drive

or

D-Link DNS-320 ShareCenter 2-Bay Network Storage Enclosure

or

Synology DiskStation 2-Bay (Diskless) Network Attached Storage DS212j (White)


Any thoughts concerning stuff like this? Low budget and low maintenance.

Yes, it is a Synology DS214play. It's a mini computer that you can use as a NAS, and DVR. It comes with two licenses, and you buy a new license for each camera you need after it. Works with any IP camera, and the software is amazing.

Hopefully this is in a secluded spot, as DVR's usually aren't targeted unless it's in plain sight.

I'm currently HP Proliant Micro (2core, 4GB RAM, 2x1TB) I really don't like the idea of having to format every-time I add a drive to my RAID (Recently had to backup & restore 900GB from Raid 1 to Raid 0 as my Plex libary is starting to grow again)

I'll be moving to a Synology DS918+ 4 Bay Desktop NAS with 4x4TB Raid 5 once I have enough spare money, my remaining 800GB is gone, and they go back on sale. Some 3rd parties recently had them as low as £290 new, while Synology sells them for £500+

My main reasons for going Synology (They have a free online Demo you can log into if interested):

• Proven Stable Equipment + Plenty of apps.
  
• Has native integration with Seagate IronWolf for drive health (WD Drives require a separate app).
  
• Is listed as Plex compatible.
  
• Has network aggregation built in (Ability to use 2x Network Cables for double connectivity over LAN).
  
• Has a built-in CCTV suite for IP-Camera Recording (Planning to install Security Cameras soon) .

Check this out re: RAIDZ1:

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/storage/why-raid-5-stops-working-in-2009/162

And you may also want to look into getting an ixsystems box. They design/stress test specifically for Freenas deploys, and their homelab/mini version may fit your budget perfectly. I don't know anything about Canada dollars though. Here's an amazon link:

http://www.amazon.com/FreeNAS-Mini-Network-Attached-Diskless/dp/B00EQJ1BTU/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1413903675&sr=8-2&keywords=ixsystems+mini

Synology don’t even sell directly do they but potentially one of their resellers might discount at Black Friday.

Looks like prices at Amazon are fairly stable though. CamelCamelCamel link

I would suggest a ShieldTV, either the 2017 model or the 2019 Pro model, whichever is cheapest, for the Plex server. It supports hardware encoding in Plex and is also a top-notch streaming box. That'll run you $200 or so.

Then I would buy the cheapest 4-bay Synology NAS available, the DS418j, for $290, and fill it with 8TB drives. Ideally WD USB3 external drives which you can shuck to save money. They're frequently on sale for $130 or so apiece. This will give you 24TB of redundant storage so if a drive dies you won't lose any data.

That should come out very close to $1k, but if you have some money left over after that you can spend it on hats. Lots of hats.

https://www.amazon.com/Synology-bay-DiskStation-DS418j-Diskless/dp/B074VB8DY7

I'd go for this + 2 of these. Do not have this set myself, I have an older Synology, but they are great.

Where did you read that you can only get 4TB with raid 1? But if you're going for more than 2 drives, it's irrelevant anyway.

Also I have this running on my wife's computer (she's the photographer, I'm just the computer guy):

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B07K4RC7X9/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

With 4x10tb shucked easystore drives in Raid 5. Good performance, not too much lost to overhead.

I don't know how big of a cache you need for video. Maybe someone else can help with that part.

If you continue to use the PC to run PMS, you don't need a QNAP with a powerful processor in it. You can get a more cost effective 4 bay NAS instead (saving your money for drives).

Buffalo, Seagate, several alternatives are available:

http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Diskless-Network-Attached-STCU100/dp/B00LM6LIDO

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00MMLWEEU/

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BNI4CVG/

Netgear has already adopted BTRFS which is quite similar to ZFS.

They have not adopted ZFS due to licensing issues (Most NAS run on Linux and the GPL is incompatible with ZFS) but mainly the high hardware requirement for good performance (most these NAS have ARM/Marvel/FreeScale CPUs and 1GB or less RAM.)

There are some ZFS NAS boxes though:
http://www.amazon.com/FreeNAS-Mini-Network-Attached-Diskless/dp/B00EQJ1BTU

I bet that we will see many of the other prebuilt NAS boxes adopt BTRFS soon too.

Thanks for your help, everyone. I've determined that I need a 4-bay DAS to run in RAID 5. I'm looking at this guy for the hardware RAID. As I mentioned, I already have 2 external 8 TB Seagate drives. One of them failed after about 2 years, which I plan on replacing. It was never dropped, but it was unsafely ejected a few times by accident, which seemed to cause it to take significantly longer (over an hour) to mount and become usable on my Mac when it would happen. Should I take them out of their enclosures and put them in the new enclosure or should I look at better quality drives? Thanks again

I have a desktop set up as my Plex server now, but I'm looking into a Synology NAS to increase storage capacity. If my PC streams everything fine at the moment is there any reason to get the Synology Play over the regular version?

8x 8TB WD Red in a Synology DS1817+

What's the difference between these two hard drive bays which one is best for my use?

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B078YQHWYW/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B074VB8DY7/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&th=1

This guy right here is probably your best bet if you need it now. It's ARM-based instead of Atom-based like Synology so there isn't the current issue with the C2000 processors bricking. It also includes onboard 10GbE (in addition to gigabit) for the future.

Or you can wait until Synology implements the fixes or buy and get the replacement when they release them (assuming that's their plan). Either way, those would be my two pre-built recommendations and there's really no reason to build your own with your requirements.

I just got the qnap 251+ and love it. https://www.amazon.com/QNAP-TS-251-Personal-Quad-Core-Transcoding/dp/B015VNLEOQ

Ah, there was such an era?? Wow, I'm happy my dad bought me a pre-built Pentium 200mhz MMX.

Based on user experience, that Pentium was faster than my Synology, but Passmark suggests that the Synology can almost beat my NUC6CAYH NUC and my Q6600.

Since then I just built I think 2 PC's using best-buy guides.

This is what I use - QNAP TS-251+, Plex works great on it and you can add other features via QNAP apps OR docker / Linux / LXC.

https://www.amazon.com/QNAP-TS-251-Quad-Core-Transcoding-TS-251_-2G/dp/B015VNLEOQ/ref=cm_wl_huc_item

The problem is that even the high-end "simple" NAS units that are really expensive, like Synology, don't maintain parts for years and switch out models all the time. That means getting spare parts is difficult/impossible.

You can buy a commercial NAS from a real storage vendor, like NetApp, that has real long-term support but that NAS would cost $2000+ USD. WAY more than building your own system.

If you really, really want a pre-built FreeNAS system, a company called iXsystems makes them. Not cheap, $1000 USD for just the enclosure, and it's WAY overkill, but it includes a training course on using FreeNAS.

The one I bought has gone up, but this is simlar:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00BNI4CVG/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_dp_ss_2?pf_rd_p=1944687502&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=B00MMLWEEU&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=1355YTM1GAJDV96462FK

and netgear is a better brand anyway.

If the servers are in AWS, you can use their Snowball (https://aws.amazon.com/snowball/) to grab the data and have it sent to you.

​

Alternatively, get one of these (https://www.amazon.com/QNAP-TR-004-Enclosure-Attached-hardware/dp/B07K4RC7X9). They're just disks you can attach using USB. Grab 4 drives, flick it to RAID 5 (so you have 1 redundancy) and you're good. 4 10TB disks should come out something around 21TB worth of space.

I'm planning to pick up an 8-bay QNAP NAS, and will be migrating my Plex library. There seem to be two ways to go: I can either get a NAS with a decent Intel processor (like the TVS-871), and run Plex directly on the NAS, or get a less-powerful ARM-based NAS like the TS-831X (which is really only good for dumb storage), and use a separate server to run Plex.

ARM-based NAS + separate server is much cheaper for the same level of computing power. Is there any significant advantage to running Plex directly on the NAS that would make the price differential worth it?

The WD 8TB My Cloud is on sale for $299 on Amazon. The downside is that it's single drive so no redundancy. Hard to beat 8TB of network attached storage for $299 though:
https://www.amazon.com/Cloud-Personal-Network-Attached-Storage/dp/B01C7JIO5Y/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1486513705&sr=8-4&keywords=8tb+nas

I've got this https://www.amazon.com/Cloud-Personal-Network-Attached-Storage/dp/B01C7JIO5Y/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1480232377&sr=8-7&keywords=mycloud for storage. I have PMS on my personal machine so that does the transcoding, so I'm not sure how well it transcodes. For storage it seems to be great and i've not had any hitches.

Looks like they are $552.49 right now on Amazon.

https://www.amazon.com/Synology-Bay-DiskStation-DS1019-Diskless/dp/B07NF9XDWG

I've lost 2 WD reds in the past 6 months on my mediasonic. I'm going to replace with a QNAP Raid Enclosure that seems to have higher reviews. Once caveat is that you can't move the drives from the mediasonic to the QNAP so I need to buy new drives so I'll probably upgrade from 4x6TB running in raid 5 to 4x10TB running in raid 5.

Exactly.

How do you like the DS1815+? Have you tried streaming high bit-rate 1080p or 4K video? I had my eye on DS1817+.

perhaps a DS216se?

I don't think you can do much better for the money spent.

NAS: Network Attached Storage. It's designed to be attached to a router or low profile PC that's constantly on. These drives are made to be powered on 24/7. The purpose is to have access to your storage over your home network or the internet.

I've always wanted a NAS but could never justify the expenditure for just myself but if I were going to get one I'd prob get this. https://www.amazon.com/Cloud-Personal-Network-Attached-Storage/dp/B01C7JIO5Y/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1506612938&sr=8-2&keywords=wd+mycloud.

Or I would get something like this https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01CSCGD58/ref=psdc_13896591011_t1_B01N6MDE01 as my router with PFsense and then hook up extra storage to make it a NAS.

Sure!

DS 416play

DS 916+

DS 1515+

The prevalence of 4K does make some sense to switch to 10GbE, especially for film/videomakers, to various storage devices. The cheapest NAS with that is a $800 QNAP and I anticipate prices to fall. There's a few advantages to having speedy local storage that's faster than a SATA SSD that can also back up to the cloud seamlessly.

1x Synology 5 Bay NAS DiskStation DS1019+ (Diskless) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07NF9XDWG/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_PENFDb752SYT1

4x SanDisk Ultra 3D NAND 2TB Internal SSD - SATA III 6 Gb/s, 2.5"/7mm, Up to 560 MB/s - SDSSDH3-2T00-G25 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071KGS72Q/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_TFNFDbG45J0F4


2x Crucial P1 500GB 3D NAND NVMe PCIe M.2 SSD - CT500P1SSD8 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07J2WBKXF/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_wGNFDb7D37E0X

You can leave the lat bay open or put a 5th SSD in. You can probably also use synologies dynamic load balancing and plug one port into each of your two switches.

These little devices are pretty decent. Lower power, and they have apps like Plex to be installed in a point and click type knowledge. You can dive deeper in them if you choose down the road. The limitation with be the 4 drives capacity. You could always start with two, then add two more.

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822107251&cm_re=qnap_nas-_-22-107-251-_-Product

• Can be cheaper else where, different version.
  
  Synology is another product that will do the same sort of thing.
  https://www.amazon.com/Synology-DS416slim-NAS-DiskStation/dp/B00LB0E9B4/ref=sr_1_19?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1492721072&sr=1-19&keywords=nas

My biggest concern with buying something that's 7 years old would be that it could die any minute and you don't have any warranty at all.

In terms of power, it'd probably do fine.

You can also buy a new DS418j for CA$390, but I don't know if I'd recommend that as it uses a Realtek RTD1293 CPU (Dual core 1.4GHz ARM), meaning you won't be able to run Docker and lots of other stuff.

If I were you, I'd hold out just a little longer and buy a new DS418 for CA$545 or something instead.

that exact model is on sale right now on amazon for $240

https://www.amazon.com/Synology-DS418j-4bay-NAS-DiskStation/dp/B074VB8DY7

Too late to return? I only ask because amazon sells them for $280ish new..

https://www.amazon.com/QNAP-TS-251-Personal-Quad-Core-Transcoding/dp/B015VNLEOQ

918+ for 469 at german amazon.
https://www.amazon.de/dp/B075DDZ894?tag=camelcamelc06-21&linkCode=ogi&th=1&psc=1&language=de_DE

It's a LaCie Rugged 1 TB. I use it to backup my photos on my laptop. Everything gets backed up to a Synology DS412+.

Then you want a Synology?
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07HK5T3KM/

What you're looking for is called a NAS or Network Attached Storage. These can be as simple as plugging a external HDD with a SATA to USB cable into a USB port in your router, to buying a multi HDD enclosure, to a diy NAS with some parts you may have laying around.

I started out with a cheap 2hdd Dlink enclosure similar to the one above but I now have a diy 6-disk 16Tb home server running FreeNAS as the operating system.

I am also considering this:

https://www.amazon.com/FreeNAS-Mini-Network-Attached-Diskless/dp/B00EQJ1BTU/ref=sr_1_1?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1474235058&sr=1-1&keywords=ixsystems

if anyone has thoughts on it

You can always go for THIS and just add your own drives.


Just a thought. This way you can get cheaper larger 4tb drives in a small form factor.

Heck, they're on Amazon.

Synology 4 bay NAS DiskStation DS418j (Diskless) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B074VB8DY7/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_uSJzCbKE17S3C

I was looking at this one, but it seems to be designed with surveillance cameras in mind. I'm on the fence about it because of that.

$199 Synology 2-bay NAS and a 2TB HDD.

Synology DS214play with WD red hdd.

Synology

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07NF9XDWG/ Its $635usd ;\ is it because of conversion rate or do they just jack the price up for you guys?

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004HO58SO

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005YW7OLM

QNAP 2 bay NAS with no HDDs are right about $350. It should be able to handle a 1080p transcode, but I wouldn't count on it for more than 2 simultaneous transcodes.
https://www.amazon.com/QNAP-TS-251-Personal-Quad-Core-Transcoding/dp/B015VNLEOQ

If you need more power than that, you'll probably want to just build one, but that will be around $500.

Sure. Here's what I could pull from my orders and searching around. This is most of my gear. Not really "homelab" stuff. Have a crap ton of ethernet running around the house.

• Main router: ASUS RT-AC3100: https://www.amazon.ca/Asus-RT-AC3100-Dual-Band-Wi-Fi-Router/dp/B01707HPKS
  
• Two APs on the other levels of the house: ASUS RT-AC86U: https://www.amazon.ca/Asus-RT-AC86U-Dual-Wireless-Router/dp/B0752FD3XJ
  
• Switch: TP-Link TL-SG1024DE 24-Port Gigabit: https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B00CUG8ESM
  
• UPS: APC Back-UPS Pro 1500VA: https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B003Y24DEU
  
• Synology DS412+: https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B007JLE84C
  
• Synology DS1618+: https://www.amazon.ca/Synology-Bay-NAS-DiskStation-Diskless/dp/B07CR8RZYY
  
• Epson V550 Scanner: https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B00E1O74SW
  
• Black and White Laser Printer: Samsung ML-2851ND: https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B000XZ1LJG
  
• Colour Laser Printer: Samsung CLP-415N: https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Electronics-CLP-415NW-Wireless-Printer/dp/B008HSIW20

I was looking at this one actually. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007JLE84C/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER

Hopefully it'll work for my needs unless anyone sees any issues with it or knows if it's known to be a bad option.

> What rotation?

Any properly managed Tape Library requires Tape Rotation.

>A library with onedrive goes for 1500 euro and a second drive will be another 800.

You will not have a Multi-tape drive for drive for $1500 in the US, looking at ebay the used market is running $1000-1200 for single drive LTO-6, you might find a LTO-4 muti-tape drive for that price.

>That is def affordable, and as much as a QNAS.

Base 4 Drive USB qNAP $199 + $140 ea for consumer 8TB Drives and you have 16-24 Usable TB for under $800, Add $150 if you want a NAS unit which still comes in under your tape drive with no cassettes

Well do you want premade or diy

Also if you have a single drive, the checksumming won't help you. It will only tell you if its corrupted, it can't fit anything.

Premade, btrfs is rare, but this is what id get https://www.amazon.com/Synology-Station-Diskless-Attached-DS216se/dp/B014SKVQR8/ref=sr_1_4?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1481059736&sr=1-4&keywords=synology+2+bay

For diy Here is what id get. Id personally run fedora server as its very new, and btrfs has changed a lot in the las 3-4 years, unlike xfs and most other filesystems.

PCPartPicker part list: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/RDynyf
Price breakdown by merchant: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/RDynyf/by_merchant/

CPU: AMD 2650 1.45GHz Dual-Core Processor ($27.88 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: ASRock AM1B-ITX Mini ITX AM1 Motherboard ($34.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Memory: Crucial Ballistix 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1866 Memory ($33.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Seagate Pipeline HD 2TB 3.5" 5900RPM Internal Hard Drive ($54.95 @ Amazon)
Storage: Seagate Pipeline HD 2TB 3.5" 5900RPM Internal Hard Drive ($54.95 @ Amazon)
Case: Cooler Master Elite 130 Mini ITX Tower Case ($29.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: SeaSonic 300W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($38.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Total: $275.74
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-12-06 16:34 EST-0500

So correct me if I'm wrong but does this have a wd red inside?

https://www.amazon.com/Cloud-Personal-Network-Attached-Storage/dp/B01C7JIO5Y

DS1019+ for $552. All time low https://www.amazon.com/Synology-Bay-DiskStation-DS1019-Diskless/dp/B07NF9XDWG

The 212 is a 2 bay NAS, not 4 bay. And it comes with a tiny CPU, so I wouldn't expect the performances to be impressive.

I'm Canadian, but I haven't shopped for NAS for a while now.

Just looking on Amazon.ca, I find stuff for cheaper :

A Sinology for $216, a Buffalo for $140 and a Startech for $110. No idea how the specs compare, but it seems the Netgear is priced quite high.

I believe it's the DS212j- http://www.amazon.com/Synology-DiskStation-Diskless-Network-Attached/dp/B005YW7OLM.

I've got two.. either 2.5 or 3tb drives in it (Raid 1). It's incredibly set and forget.

It's not the cheapest option, but I use a synology NAS with two HDD's in it. They're mirrored so if one fails, then I'll still have all of my data backed up. Synology products have a web interface for your media, which is how I access my stuff on my Chromebook. (It's wireless bc it's plugged into my wireless router)

Uhh... what? If all you need is data storage, that is absolutely not true and your tech guy is very wrong. One of these: https://www.amazon.com/Synology-DS1817-8GB-Disk-Station/dp/B06Y4TJL54/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1494516096&sr=8-1&keywords=ds1817%2B plus 8 of these: https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=wd+red+8tb gives you 56TB usable space if you use SHR/RAID5: http://i.imgur.com/IHkq1gM.png, or if you want more uptime, SHR2/RAID6 will give you 48TB usable space: http://i.imgur.com/feAwNUU.png

Total estimated cost: approximately $3200 USD or 2944 Euros.

Whatever budget you have left over can be used for cloud storage of some sort - I don't have experience with storing that much data in the cloud.