I really don't agree with the new policy to use the old article, and just erase all the content and user comments, and then put the new content here, JUST so the url stays the same. Now all of the historical data is gone, we can't go back and see what you suggested last year, etc. Also, all of the user conversation apparently gets erased each time as well!
I've always found the NAS market to be strange. The folks smart enough to know what a NAS is, setup one and properly know how to provision one adequately for their storage needs are generally the same ones smart enough to buy the parts from NewEgg to buy it for cheaper and with higher reliability and longer warranties than any of these companies...
True but the issue is the case. If you are space-constrained or don't want a huge box next to a TV (yes, some NASes can act as HTPC too) then they make a lot of sense. Also less clutter in main PC. I still use my main PC as "NAS". Which means tons of cable clutter due to drives and higher power use.
I have a GTX 970 powered uATX NAS with a 20TB RAID5. Gaming on a large screen in 5.1 sound is great.
That being said now Steam in-game streaming supports 5.1 audio which is cool - but the quality of graphics on streaming obviously doesn't beat direct rendered.
Steam streaming has been a fantastic thing for me. I've unplugged my gaming box from a monitor and shoved it into a corner next to my router where it's out of sight and out of mind. I don't have to worry about having a big, unsightly PC with a tangle of wires on my desk or worry about what works with Linux that I can play on my laptop (which isn't much since it's old and the ancient Intel GPU only supports OpenGL up to version 1.4). I'm also using it as a network file server since it has redundant disks. It still needs some other sort of remote viewer like VNC or RDP since Steam's streaming isn't the best for remote management. Breaking out of an application to do other things on the box isn't the most streamlined experience, but still, I haven't had a monitor connected to my desktop in half a year now and I have no intention of doing so again since I really don't like to work or play behind a desktop anyway.
Now if Valve would be nice enough to support streaming on Android devices, I could walk away from the otherwise unnnecessary laptop hardware and keep my desk clean except for a few inches of Cyanogen modded phone and some cheap bluetooth interface devices.
I build my own PC's. I bought a single bay qnap's nas years ago and think it's better then anything I could have build. Very low power, silent, plenty fast enough, gave me upnp/squeezebox, used it as a print server for a while too. I think it's now outlasted the rest of the pc's in my house.
Yeah people really don't factor in the fact that you can have a NAS box arrive in the box and have it up and running 10 minutes later. Then you don't have to touch it again for months if need be. Plus as others mention far less clutter. Tuck it away and forget about it. Plus if you install it in an office people are less likely to try to fiddle with it or try to use it for something else. FreeNAS? You can keep it chap.
Granted, prices are high for home use, but these are stupidly overpowered (Core processors, ECC, 16GB RAM min, Link Aggregation, Cache drive support, etc.) for a home user. It only took me 3 minutes to find these.
@jabber: "Plus as others mention far less clutter. Tuck it away and forget about it. Plus if you install it in an office people are less likely to try to fiddle with it or try to use it for something else."
Neither the unit I build, or the mini I linked above have any more footprint than these NAS units. The rackmount unit has a larger footprint, but if you already have a rack with an open slot, it takes up no additional floor/desk space in your office. People aren't likely to fiddle with any of these, but they are less likely to mess with the rack than anything.
@jabber: "Then you don't have to touch it again for months if need be."
Years actually. Sure one of these NAS units may outlast a spare parts built FreeNAS system, but there is no reason to expect them to last any longer than a well built FreeNAS unit. In fact, if you use a proper enclosure and don't skimp on the cooling, your FreeNAS unit (or at least the HDDs in it) can and have lasted longer than some of the more poorly ventilated units presented here.
@jabber: "FreeNAS? You can keep it chap."
I will. Thanks. And my ZFS too. For 8 years now.
Been giving some thought into updating the OS to a version that supports the plugin system, but I can't seem to convince myself to fix it if it ain't broken.
Spot on. That's why I roll them out to all the small business offices I support rather than FreeNAS boxes. Set and forget in the main. All they ever want is backups and file sharing. Never gets more technical than that.
The flaw in your argument is the vendor support issue. Our NAS from one of the winning manufacturers went down when the power supply failed. Had this been a PC we could have had it up and running the same day. Being a NAS you are limited to the vendor and a quick look at the Amazon reviews or their Facebook pages will tell you they are all pretty shoddy. It tool a whole week and an hour on a premium rate number to fix our two week old NAS.
Some folks have a lot of irons in the fire. I could easily put together a NAS form of the shelf parts. I've worked in IT, media production and software dev for years, so I have the skills. But I also haven't bothered to keep up to date on all the chips, drives and motherboards that are out there. I'm not sure which SFF cases are the best combination of features, form and reliability. So I'd have a weekend of research ahead of me before I could plan out a NAS that I'd trust my data to. Or I could buy a purposebuilt unit and get on with my app development, animation, music and other projects.
OTOH I have made old Mac Pro's into NASes on several occasions. They have robust power and cooling, and can be retrofitted to increase the number of drive positions past 4. They can also run various versions of Linux if you are not happy with OS X.
Would love to see direct comparison of best 2 and 4 bay units. Compare : Price / Performance - reads,writes, access times / Fan Performance -noise levels / Features / Software / RAID options / Durability / Disk Rebuild Times etc
Also how easy / difficult is to upgrade RAM. Is it even possible? Can i just open case and throw the same type but bigger capacity RAM into that?
AFAIK slotted ram only shows up on higher end models straddling the SOHO/SMB line. Without checking the specsheets, I'd say the QNAP is the only one likely to have that feature.
If you're building your own system and aren't paying the power bill or care about space, it's worth noting that you can pick 1 or 2U Westmere servers with 4-8 bays for 50-100$ now.
I was planning on getting one of the QNAP options till the Dell PowerEdge T20 went on sale fore $150, combine that with Xpenology and you get a great cheap NAS with loads of features, just no hotswap.
When a PC with an i3, 16GB RAM, 4 Gbe NICs, space for 5-6 drives and rest of the case/PSU/... is possible to get for <250$, is there really any sense to spend 2x more for a 4-bay/Celeron TS-453 Pro, or 50% more for 2-bay non-x86 Synology DS216+? With FreeNAS and OwnCloud being able to work just fine on such PC <250$ PC, and you getting way more performance for NAS for less money... Only option that really makes sense is My Cloud EX 2 Ultra for someone that's really not a technical person, and will just plug it in and use it as a beefed up / more convenient external hard drive. We do have 2 lower-end 214/216 Synolog NAS devices in office, but those being deployed for "political reasons" (read: non-IT management thought they were nice), not cost effectivness or performance. And while one is being used by 1 person and gets a "nice gadget" comments from same user, second one could as well be a shared folder on any PC (used by 2 people that share a common folder... despite the fact we have a dedicated File Server). Neither of these were really needed. And neither gets praise for speed (actually, they are "a bit slow at times", even though only 1 / 2 people use them). I can't imagine such device being used by 10 people, for that you just have to get a more powerful NAS, which again - costs more than a similar PC. Ease of use is all and nice, but after a first setup which was NOT 10 minutes (when you first setup one, you do want to get to know it), ease of use comes down to "it's working, don't touch". So why not spend 1 hour moe to setup FreeNAS + OwnCloud + any plugins you need, and you'll at least have better performance. Oh, and yes, these "save space"... but both are placed in server racks in another room. So... really, just wasting good 4U-5U space on a rack-mount shelf (another 1U) where you could have had another server (or 6). I'm not saying they don't make ANY sense at all, they do, for 1-2 person SOHO or home use, by non-tech user, that has no space but keeps NAS on his desk or next to TV, and so on. But ... WD My Cloud EX 2 Ultra is enough for those people, it really is, in 98% of cases. And this is only recommendation from this article that actually makes sense. A beefed up / more convenient external hard drive, it's all that most people need. Either that, or they really need a lot more, and a dedicated "server" PC is next logical step.
I cannot comment on the technical advantages (or disadvantages) of a NAS versus a custom built PC. But from a consumer point of view, there is major advantages. My father has a server from a Windows Server OS. Because of that, a lot of things cannot be done or not easily compared to a NAS. For instance : * mobile application : this is a MAJOR bonus. I can check my photos from any mobile phone, my video (and no, Plex or others is much more limited and does not wrok as well as DS Video for instance), check my camera live feeds, manage my download.... Having those capabilities are very difficult or impossible from a PC server * backup and synchronization : it is a breeze to have Cloud backup or synchronization, incremental with TimeMachine style backup wherease, again, it is complicated or impossible to replicate all the same capabilities on a PC server
So while it can be marginally cheaper, a NAS enclosure can be kept many years and for most people, a NAS is a much better, quicker, easier to setup, more complete option as trying to built that himself.
I would love to see more information on performance when encryption is enabled (ie: AES-NI). There seems to be a huge lack of this around the interwebs :[
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extide - Wednesday, March 30, 2016 - link
I really don't agree with the new policy to use the old article, and just erase all the content and user comments, and then put the new content here, JUST so the url stays the same. Now all of the historical data is gone, we can't go back and see what you suggested last year, etc. Also, all of the user conversation apparently gets erased each time as well!Shadow7037932 - Thursday, March 31, 2016 - link
I agree. The old ones should be archived and available.BrokenCrayons - Thursday, March 31, 2016 - link
Yup, that's a bad idea, I think. It'd be nice to see previous article content.webdoctors - Thursday, March 31, 2016 - link
I've always found the NAS market to be strange. The folks smart enough to know what a NAS is, setup one and properly know how to provision one adequately for their storage needs are generally the same ones smart enough to buy the parts from NewEgg to buy it for cheaper and with higher reliability and longer warranties than any of these companies...beginner99 - Thursday, March 31, 2016 - link
True but the issue is the case. If you are space-constrained or don't want a huge box next to a TV (yes, some NASes can act as HTPC too) then they make a lot of sense. Also less clutter in main PC. I still use my main PC as "NAS". Which means tons of cable clutter due to drives and higher power use.darkfalz - Thursday, March 31, 2016 - link
Yes, but not as a GAMING HTPC.I have a GTX 970 powered uATX NAS with a 20TB RAID5. Gaming on a large screen in 5.1 sound is great.
That being said now Steam in-game streaming supports 5.1 audio which is cool - but the quality of graphics on streaming obviously doesn't beat direct rendered.
BrokenCrayons - Thursday, March 31, 2016 - link
Steam streaming has been a fantastic thing for me. I've unplugged my gaming box from a monitor and shoved it into a corner next to my router where it's out of sight and out of mind. I don't have to worry about having a big, unsightly PC with a tangle of wires on my desk or worry about what works with Linux that I can play on my laptop (which isn't much since it's old and the ancient Intel GPU only supports OpenGL up to version 1.4). I'm also using it as a network file server since it has redundant disks. It still needs some other sort of remote viewer like VNC or RDP since Steam's streaming isn't the best for remote management. Breaking out of an application to do other things on the box isn't the most streamlined experience, but still, I haven't had a monitor connected to my desktop in half a year now and I have no intention of doing so again since I really don't like to work or play behind a desktop anyway.Now if Valve would be nice enough to support streaming on Android devices, I could walk away from the otherwise unnnecessary laptop hardware and keep my desk clean except for a few inches of Cyanogen modded phone and some cheap bluetooth interface devices.
Murloc - Thursday, March 31, 2016 - link
I don't understand how you can prefer the bad ergonomics of a laptop with a small and low monitor to a desktop PC but whatever, to each his own.Dribble - Thursday, March 31, 2016 - link
I build my own PC's. I bought a single bay qnap's nas years ago and think it's better then anything I could have build. Very low power, silent, plenty fast enough, gave me upnp/squeezebox, used it as a print server for a while too. I think it's now outlasted the rest of the pc's in my house.jabber - Thursday, March 31, 2016 - link
Yeah people really don't factor in the fact that you can have a NAS box arrive in the box and have it up and running 10 minutes later. Then you don't have to touch it again for months if need be. Plus as others mention far less clutter. Tuck it away and forget about it. Plus if you install it in an office people are less likely to try to fiddle with it or try to use it for something else. FreeNAS? You can keep it chap.BurntMyBacon - Thursday, March 31, 2016 - link
@jabber: "Yeah people really don't factor in the fact that you can have a NAS box arrive in the box and have it up and running 10 minutes later."You realize you can do that with FreeNAS as well:
https://www.ixsystems.com/freenas-mini/
https://www.ixsystems.com/freenas-certified-server...
Granted, prices are high for home use, but these are stupidly overpowered (Core processors, ECC, 16GB RAM min, Link Aggregation, Cache drive support, etc.) for a home user. It only took me 3 minutes to find these.
@jabber: "Plus as others mention far less clutter. Tuck it away and forget about it. Plus if you install it in an office people are less likely to try to fiddle with it or try to use it for something else."
Neither the unit I build, or the mini I linked above have any more footprint than these NAS units. The rackmount unit has a larger footprint, but if you already have a rack with an open slot, it takes up no additional floor/desk space in your office. People aren't likely to fiddle with any of these, but they are less likely to mess with the rack than anything.
@jabber: "Then you don't have to touch it again for months if need be."
Years actually. Sure one of these NAS units may outlast a spare parts built FreeNAS system, but there is no reason to expect them to last any longer than a well built FreeNAS unit. In fact, if you use a proper enclosure and don't skimp on the cooling, your FreeNAS unit (or at least the HDDs in it) can and have lasted longer than some of the more poorly ventilated units presented here.
@jabber: "FreeNAS? You can keep it chap."
I will. Thanks. And my ZFS too. For 8 years now.
Been giving some thought into updating the OS to a version that supports the plugin system, but I can't seem to convince myself to fix it if it ain't broken.
aebiv - Friday, April 1, 2016 - link
The 9.3 train has been pretty stable. I think we've got around 20 or so boxes in the wild, all humming along with no drama.Visual - Friday, April 1, 2016 - link
Single-bay NAS? What in the world for... How is that different than plugging a USB drive to your wifi router?Shadow7037932 - Thursday, March 31, 2016 - link
These are mainly aimed at SOHO and midsized businesses that don't have the IT people to do a custom build and/or want vendor support.jabber - Thursday, March 31, 2016 - link
Spot on. That's why I roll them out to all the small business offices I support rather than FreeNAS boxes. Set and forget in the main. All they ever want is backups and file sharing. Never gets more technical than that.BedfordTim - Saturday, April 2, 2016 - link
The flaw in your argument is the vendor support issue. Our NAS from one of the winning manufacturers went down when the power supply failed. Had this been a PC we could have had it up and running the same day. Being a NAS you are limited to the vendor and a quick look at the Amazon reviews or their Facebook pages will tell you they are all pretty shoddy. It tool a whole week and an hour on a premium rate number to fix our two week old NAS.jabber - Sunday, April 3, 2016 - link
Not been my experience. Rolled out over 20 in the past 7 years. All running like clockwork.CalaverasGrande - Thursday, May 12, 2016 - link
Some folks have a lot of irons in the fire. I could easily put together a NAS form of the shelf parts. I've worked in IT, media production and software dev for years, so I have the skills. But I also haven't bothered to keep up to date on all the chips, drives and motherboards that are out there. I'm not sure which SFF cases are the best combination of features, form and reliability.So I'd have a weekend of research ahead of me before I could plan out a NAS that I'd trust my data to. Or I could buy a purposebuilt unit and get on with my app development, animation, music and other projects.
OTOH I have made old Mac Pro's into NASes on several occasions. They have robust power and cooling, and can be retrofitted to increase the number of drive positions past 4. They can also run various versions of Linux if you are not happy with OS X.
milkod2001 - Thursday, March 31, 2016 - link
Would love to see direct comparison of best 2 and 4 bay units. Compare : Price / Performance - reads,writes, access times / Fan Performance -noise levels / Features / Software / RAID options / Durability / Disk Rebuild Times etcAlso how easy / difficult is to upgrade RAM. Is it even possible? Can i just open case and throw the same type but bigger capacity RAM into that?
DanNeely - Thursday, March 31, 2016 - link
AFAIK slotted ram only shows up on higher end models straddling the SOHO/SMB line. Without checking the specsheets, I'd say the QNAP is the only one likely to have that feature.benzosaurus - Thursday, March 31, 2016 - link
If you're building your own system and aren't paying the power bill or care about space, it's worth noting that you can pick 1 or 2U Westmere servers with 4-8 bays for 50-100$ now.Lazn_W - Thursday, March 31, 2016 - link
I was planning on getting one of the QNAP options till the Dell PowerEdge T20 went on sale fore $150, combine that with Xpenology and you get a great cheap NAS with loads of features, just no hotswap.LuxZg - Sunday, April 3, 2016 - link
When a PC with an i3, 16GB RAM, 4 Gbe NICs, space for 5-6 drives and rest of the case/PSU/... is possible to get for <250$, is there really any sense to spend 2x more for a 4-bay/Celeron TS-453 Pro, or 50% more for 2-bay non-x86 Synology DS216+? With FreeNAS and OwnCloud being able to work just fine on such PC <250$ PC, and you getting way more performance for NAS for less money... Only option that really makes sense is My Cloud EX 2 Ultra for someone that's really not a technical person, and will just plug it in and use it as a beefed up / more convenient external hard drive. We do have 2 lower-end 214/216 Synolog NAS devices in office, but those being deployed for "political reasons" (read: non-IT management thought they were nice), not cost effectivness or performance. And while one is being used by 1 person and gets a "nice gadget" comments from same user, second one could as well be a shared folder on any PC (used by 2 people that share a common folder... despite the fact we have a dedicated File Server). Neither of these were really needed. And neither gets praise for speed (actually, they are "a bit slow at times", even though only 1 / 2 people use them). I can't imagine such device being used by 10 people, for that you just have to get a more powerful NAS, which again - costs more than a similar PC. Ease of use is all and nice, but after a first setup which was NOT 10 minutes (when you first setup one, you do want to get to know it), ease of use comes down to "it's working, don't touch". So why not spend 1 hour moe to setup FreeNAS + OwnCloud + any plugins you need, and you'll at least have better performance. Oh, and yes, these "save space"... but both are placed in server racks in another room. So... really, just wasting good 4U-5U space on a rack-mount shelf (another 1U) where you could have had another server (or 6). I'm not saying they don't make ANY sense at all, they do, for 1-2 person SOHO or home use, by non-tech user, that has no space but keeps NAS on his desk or next to TV, and so on. But ... WD My Cloud EX 2 Ultra is enough for those people, it really is, in 98% of cases. And this is only recommendation from this article that actually makes sense. A beefed up / more convenient external hard drive, it's all that most people need. Either that, or they really need a lot more, and a dedicated "server" PC is next logical step.jlabelle - Monday, April 18, 2016 - link
I cannot comment on the technical advantages (or disadvantages) of a NAS versus a custom built PC. But from a consumer point of view, there is major advantages. My father has a server from a Windows Server OS. Because of that, a lot of things cannot be done or not easily compared to a NAS.For instance :
* mobile application : this is a MAJOR bonus. I can check my photos from any mobile phone, my video (and no, Plex or others is much more limited and does not wrok as well as DS Video for instance), check my camera live feeds, manage my download.... Having those capabilities are very difficult or impossible from a PC server
* backup and synchronization : it is a breeze to have Cloud backup or synchronization, incremental with TimeMachine style backup wherease, again, it is complicated or impossible to replicate all the same capabilities on a PC server
So while it can be marginally cheaper, a NAS enclosure can be kept many years and for most people, a NAS is a much better, quicker, easier to setup, more complete option as trying to built that himself.
edward1987 - Tuesday, April 12, 2016 - link
From enterprise point of view - yes QNAP TVS-871-i7-16G is probably most powerful box if no thunderbolt needed. http://www.span.com/compare/TVS-871T-i7-16G-vs-TVS...About two bays - nothing is really better than DS716+.
ToiT - Thursday, May 26, 2016 - link
I would love to see more information on performance when encryption is enabled (ie: AES-NI). There seems to be a huge lack of this around the interwebs :[