Suggestions for buying a really BIG NAS?

vibe666

okay, so looking for a 5-7 bay NAS to use for file storage and as a media server.

my video/music collection is around 4tb at the moment and growing fast and after my old jbod based server died i figure it's best to put it all somewhere where it's still going to be available but where there's at least a little bit of fault tolerance, so I'm thinking a 5-7 bay RAID5 NAS from either Synology or Thecus.

I was considering a self build for flexibility but there's a few handy features like RAID level and disk migration that would be useful down the line that will help greatly during upgrades that I don't think I can do without.

requirements will be:

>6tb of usable online storage
some kind of fault tolerance, RAID5 being the most obvious
streaming capability, uPNP, maybe itunes etc.
samba shares
remote management
remote FTP access
raid level migration
disk level migration to allow for upgrading disks without losing data.

(optionally)
webserver (pref. wordpress compatible)
AD integration
printer support
webcam support
external storage options such as usb drives etc.
gigabit ethernet

any other toys would obviously be a bonus.

my current 2 possible choices are the following:

The Synology DS508

The Thecus N7700

Disk wise, I'm just about settled on Samsung spinpoint F1's, with 7x 1tb ones in the N7700 but I'm unsure what the best 1.5tb disks are, I don't think the spinpoint has reached 1.5tb yet. I'm very hesitant to buy a seagate after their little firmware snafu and I wouldn't touch maxtor with a barge pole after losing 2 disks in the past personally and seeing a very high failure rate in the office compared to other drives.

EDIT: dammit, now I've just found the QNAP TS-639 Pro Turbo NAS too!

really not sure which direction to go now.

CuLT

I think you might have more luck in Computers and Technology, what you're looking for is more "prosumer".

vibe666

yeah, i think you're right, thanks.

funk-you

Moved to C&T.

-Funk

vibe666

thanks Funk.

vibe666

meh, still no luck. guess nobody wants to help.

weeder

id recommend a drobo if they werent so damn expensive

Wcool

Still would go for the selfbuild, wouldn't it be a lot cheaper to build your own NAS?

Just buy

- a big case
- a 400 watt power supply
- cheap mobo with 2 giga bit NICs
- simple, relatively low power processor like a celeron or atom.
- some pci to sata boards, or hardware RAID boards
- FTP server + VNC for remote access + Apache
Only thing I am not sure about is the disk level migration.

Install FreeNAS or some linux distro.
More fun, cheaper, and it's a lot more flexible as well?

vibe666

weeder wrote: »

id recommend a drobo if they werent so damn expensive

no offence, but recommending a drobo instead of what I'm currently looking at would be like recommending a ford fiesta to someone about to buy an S class merc. we're a long way past the place where a drobo would be anything like a good idea.

Wcool wrote: »

Still would go for the selfbuild, wouldn't it be a lot cheaper to build your own NAS?

Just buy

- a big case
- a 400 watt power supply
- cheap mobo with 2 giga bit NICs
- simple, relatively low power processor like a celeron or atom.
- some pci to sata boards, or hardware RAID boards
- FTP server + VNC for remote access + Apache
Only thing I am not sure about is the disk level migration.

Install FreeNAS or some linux distro.
More fun, cheaper, and it's a lot more flexible as well?

i keep thinking about it, but at the end of the day the qnap ticks all the boxes i want with none of the fuss. i've also looked at freenas and it's contemporaries and they just don't make the grade for what i want to do. clarkconnect is probably the closest, but even that fals short on a few features.

the cost isn't that much of an issue thanks to my company purchasing it and as for fun, I'm running a Linux desktop and laptop already which give me all the Linux 'fun' i can handle and on top of that i get to play with wintel boxes all day at work so i just want something that's going to work out of the box with no fuss.

looks like the 2tb WD disks are finally starting to hit the shelves anyway, so my choice looks like it's made. just got to wait for scan to get them into stock or reconsider overclockers who already have the 2tb drives on re-order but no qnap ts-639's in stock. hmm, more decisions.