A high quality NAS for office?

JohnCleary

We're getting rid of our old server. All it is doing is acting as an exchange & file server. Now on hosted exchange so all it's doing is acting as file server (We have no use for the domain, staff are plonked at their own desk)

So, I want to find a good quality, RAID0 NAS - Something that'll take 2 x 1 TB drives and not let me down.

With regard to Cloud backup, I use Livedrive. I will back-up the whole NAS and just assign one of the workstation PC's that doesn't shut down (or have a dedicated one) to upload the folders - unless there's NAS boxes that can integrate with Livedrive.

I also want to be able to monitor the NAS, so some in-built monitoring software that can e-mail me issues would be nice.

Budget isin't really a concern, we're looking for a decent NAS rather than cheap.

Mods if this is in the wrong place please move, many thanks

-EDIT- I meant RAID1, sorry

PeteFalk78

Hi John,

Done the exact same as you are doing - removed old Windows 2003 SBS server. Moved to NAS.
I used 2 x Synology 4 Bay Diskstations Model : DS414J

Running 4 x 2TB drives, giving us 6TB storage on a RAID5 array.
The reason for a second NAS is because backup is very important so I perform a mirror backup every night (only copying over new or modified files in the past day)

I'd definitely recommend Synology.

Edit : Why would you be using RAID0? One disk failure will bring down the array. At least with RAID5 it will tolerate a single disk failure.

JohnCleary

Hi Pete,
That's good enough for me, thanks.

I'm not too worried about local backup, so backup to the cloud (There is only about 20GB of files, only couple of hundred MB edited per day) so LiveDrive is the ideal solution as it keeps 15 versions of the file, incase the staff make a silly error.

Will go with your recommendation. Can I install 2 HDD's and run RAID0?

What HDD's did you use? I had a nightmare with 'green' HDD's before - I know my own fault for not doing the research, but want to be certain this time.

Edit - On second thought, 4 HDD's with RAID5 will be a good option, as it overcomes what RAID0 would solve 'losing one hard drive but still work'

PeteFalk78

Yes I definitely recommend a RAID1, 5 or 6 setup

ED E

RAID5 is considered obsolete by many, dont bother with it. Chances of a URE during a rebuild are just too high.

Get a couple 4TB WD Reds, RAID0 them. That'll last you for a few years by the sounds of it, and come three years from now it'll be time to start think about retiring them anyways.

PeteFalk78

Why use RAID0? It offers no redundancy.

JohnCleary

Sorry guys, I meant RAID1 ie. mirroring

PeteFalk78

It was more of a question to Ed but yeah RAID1 is good.

JohnCleary

PeteFalk78 wrote: »

It was more of a question to Ed but yeah RAID1 is good.

I will be going with RAID1.

Since there's 4HDD's (I'm going to buy the one on Dabs with 4 HDD's installed, 1TB each) is it possible to have 2 x RAID 1 configurations? ie. 2 drives appearing... Could then do a backup of the first configuration to the second configuration... and of course cloud, incase the place burns down :eek:

ED E

Yeah, typo on my part. Fat thumbs and smartphones.

Dunno what exact configs the DS's support. It supports RAID10 which is parity and striping combined, so in terms of controller load theres no reason why it couldnt operate two RAID1s as independent volumes. The manuals should go into more detail.

opus

ED E wrote: »

RAID5 is considered obsolete by many, dont bother with it. Chances of a URE during a rebuild are just too high.

As someone who worked in support at a large SAN maker I'd definitely agree with you there! RAID 5 was grand for the smaller fast FC drives but when it comes to SATA forget it (and this was prior to the much larger drives that are knocking around now).

Capt'n Midnight

JohnCleary wrote: »

Hi Pete,
That's good enough for me, thanks.

I'm not too worried about local backup, so backup to the cloud (There is only about 20GB of files, only couple of hundred MB edited per day) so LiveDrive is the ideal solution as it keeps 15 versions of the file, incase the staff make a silly error.

Will go with your recommendation. Can I install 2 HDD's and run RAID0?

What HDD's did you use? I had a nightmare with 'green' HDD's before - I know my own fault for not doing the research, but want to be certain this time.

Edit - On second thought, 4 HDD's with RAID5 will be a good option, as it overcomes what RAID0 would solve 'losing one hard drive but still work'

Forget RAID0 , you loose everything if there is a problem and while it's faster at writing than RAID1 there may not be a lot in the difference on reading since you can read from either drive.


Anyway since you only have 20GB of data, just get a pair of SSD's and mirror them.

BigEejit

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Anyway since you only have 20GB of data, just get a pair of SSD's and mirror them.

This. I read somewhere that the MTBF of almost any consumer SSD will be higher than any consumer spinning disk. There are of course quality differences between manufacturers and personally I'd say keep away from the cheaper ones.