75ZT Community

As per my previous post about Music Servers I have gone via Cambridge Sonata NP30.

So now need a NAS. One of the advantages of this, not just for music but only having to put photos on to one device. Obviously, as with individual devices I will need to backup the NAS but I can do that with an external Seagate drive.

Obviously, the ideal would be a Raid array but do not want to spend too much.

I know that some of you have 'experimented' so what would be your recommendations?

Grateful for any help.

QNAP TS421 works for me Paul

I've installed a couple of Seagate NAS drives at clients. One has 4 x 1Tb drives in a Raid5, the other has 4 x 2Tb drives again in a Raid5. Brilliant bits of kit, also has the ability to backup the client PCs, also if you want you can configure remote access over the net and lots more of stuff. Have a look at http://www.seagate.com/gb/en/external-hard-drives/network-storage/business/business-storage-4-bay-nas/.

Not the cheapest, but from my experience brilliant bits of kit.

I use Synology boxes. Cheap enough to get a dual box and set up mirrored raid.

I use synology as well. They seem a bit more expensive than the others, or did, I've not looked recently, but they work and they work well. I have one linked to my sonos and TV and I swear by it.

I dont know if it applies to all NAS devices but I bought a UPS as well as I had read that power cuts can corrupt the data requiring the NAS to be re-formated which takes about a week in my case. So far in the last two years the power has done off a couple of dozen times through DIY and the power company so it was worth it for me.

Slight digression for which I apologise. Which UPS do you use David and what power rating please?

I think its APC 1000w but I'll check when I get home. It powers the PC as well in case I'm working on something.

The synology works with the UPS automatically via a usb connection so can shut down itself when the UPS tells it the power is lost. Once the synology is safe to turn off it must send a signal to the UPS as it shuts off seconds after the synology. I dont allow it to automatically turn back on, I do a manual start.

My QNAP is also capable of direct communication with UPS as well so I'm seriously considering such an addition.

I use two synolgies (one used to be David's) and even with regular power cuts I've never had a corruption problem. He says!

It's an "APC Smart-UPS 750" This one http://www.amazon.co.uk/APC-750VA-RS-23 ... AH503JD3DR

I have my main PC plugged in, two lcd monitors, and the Synology and it runs at 31% load. With the synology on idle it's around 4-8%

I only got it as I read a few warnings from people who had such problems. At 15TB of data and a week to reformat and initialise it was a no brainer. It's my only backup so I'm running at a risk as it is.

Thanks for the replies and my search carries on a little more informed.

THe buyer reviews on Amazon amaze me. On one day there were two reviews of a particular NAS, one gave 5 stars and the other 1 star. The 'professional' reviews fare little better, for one NAS one gave it 5 stars and another 3 stars!

Was coming down in favour of the Synology DS213J plus 2 WD Red 3Tb drives and then noticed that Seagate had some new boxes out and new OS.

Interestingly read a moan from someone who bought a populated Synology box and when they opened it there were drives that were not on the Synology compatibility list. Synology commented that they do not sell boxes with drives and the resellers fit these. Very few state what drives are actually fitted.

Synology are all shipped unpopulated as you've discovered. I have 8 WD Red 3TB drives in mine and it works fine. Without looking it up I don't know if the 213J has a gigabit ethernet connection. Transferring files at 10/100 becomes painfully slow and irritating. You probably wouldn't notice it on Music and Photos unless you tried to bulk copy several GB's at once. Just remember it will take a good while to first initialise the disks especially 3TB ones.

My Synology has been going almost 24/7 since I've had it the last couple of years. With it being off for about a day at the longest. Original HDD's installed at the start and no problems. I've probably just jinxed myself now !

My QNAP has 4 x 4GB Seagate drives in and also runs 24/7 without a hitch. The only problem I had with it was recently when I switched power off without shutting it down properly... which is why I'm now keen on getting a UPS

The QNAP does transfer at gigabit network speeds but bulk transfer is still something which sould be contemplated overnight

Chaps

Many thanks for the comments.....have gone for the Synology DS213J and two WD Red 3TB drives (more on those later).

For what I want it for the Qnaps seemed too expensive.

Humphshumphs told me about the Seagate units. The unit that is just being phased out has a slow CPU but the new one has a faster one and worked out slightly cheaper than the Synology. However, could not get a good view of the OS and the emphasis on 'business' made me wonder if they were more business orientated than domestic use.

Looked at two from Thecus, the 2520 and 2560. The 2520 seemed very cheap and very well spec'd but there were various questions about the OS - so I thought perhaps best left alone.

Looked at Netgear and did not seem to offer any advantages.

I am a little wary of Amazon reviews but the percentage of 4 and 5 for Synology seemed far higher than any of the others and there were comments such as returned it and got a Synology and now very happy.

Fell in to the trap of 'well, for just £x more I could go to ...'. With the Synology I first thought of the entry level DS214SE and then the DS213J and then the DS214Play. Then gave it some serious thinking about and decided that the DS213J would do the job, fingers crossed.

Thought the help available on the Synology site was excellent. I expect I will find out if that impression was correct.

In my undecided state I also looked at HDD and whilst most suppliers charge about £90 for 3TB WD Reds Currys were, and there is that word 'were' selling them for £75 and certainly had stock yesterday and this morning. Having finally decided went to order them at about 1pm and no stock!!!!! Damn - I had thought 'why not order the HDDs whilst deciding on the NAS, I should listen to myself a little more.

The other thing that I found interesting was the various low power claims. OK it might reduce heat in the unit but it seemed that the manufacturers were trying to show their green side:

only uses 0.00003 watts in use etc

You then look through the spec and the power adapter supplying the box is 60W. So the actual device may only use a small amount of power but the adapter is using far more.

To be fair, the power adaptor won't use 60W all the time. That's its maximum rating. Switched mode power adaptors are more efficient than normal transformer ones, as well as smaller and lighter. So the power the unit is using, is important. OK its way lower than say a kettle, but it is on 24/7 so it adds up. I used to leave a desktop PC switched on to act as a server, but now I have an electricity monitor I can see quite how much it uses if left switched on. A NAS is a much better thing to keep your bills down. Its also worth setting up disk sleep options and similar, as it makes your disks last longer as well as saving power. One of mine is also running a mailserver, so the discs spin 24/7. I have had a disk failure on that one, though after several years.

The Synology support forum is fantastic. I've asked alsorts of random questions and they've always been spot on with the answer. I did have mine setup with a front end attached to a domain name and they helped sorting all the SSL certificate setup for https and ftps.