[SOLVED] Best NAS solution & best hard-drives for them ?

James Foo

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Jul 26, 2014
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Hi All,

I am currently looking at a NAS Storage System and has noticed that the following 4-Bays NAS are the most popular in articles. Can anyone have any remarks? (You can recommend another 4-Bays)

  1. Asustor AS5202T
  2. Synology DS920+
Also, Please also recommend the best storage for them, like maybe at least 8TB+ per drive (NAS types or normal types, I think will populate 2 bays first then slowly add 3rd and 4th). Kindly list them out by brand and models if possible.

My current specs (as listed in my signature) have 6 Drives, thus I am planning on upgrading to the next Gen (DDR5 Ram,PCIE5) with total RGB water-cooling and a smaller tower (Prefer maybe 2-4 storage max). So I was looking at a NAS Solution for my backups and larger seldom uses files and also for the reason that I would be studying abroad in the next 2-3 years and would keep my storage at home with internet access anytime and anywhere I want.

Any help would be greatly appreciate, please have a nice day.
 
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Thanks for the confirmation. Just another simple question, is it possible to create certain files/folders that only I can access to? Since I'm gonna have a NAS system, I was gonna share with my family for all our backups of personal stuffs. But I would prefer we all have certain files/folders which we can access just personally and not shared to everyone in the family.
In addition to what @kanewolf said, you can have Windows setup so the folder shows up as a storage drive via mapping network drives. If the folder requires an account access, Windows will ask for the login and you can have Windows remember the credentials so they don't have to keep logging in. The only issue is if the computer goes out of the network, the...

kanewolf

Titan
Moderator
Hi All,

I am currently looking at a NAS Storage System and has noticed that the following 4-Bays NAS are the most popular in articles. Can anyone have any remarks? (You can recommend another 4-Bays)

  1. Asustor AS5202T
  2. Synology DS920+
Also, Please also recommend the best storage for them, like maybe at least 8TB+ per drive (NAS types or normal types, I think will populate 2 bays first then slowly add 3rd and 4th). Kindly list them out by brand and models if possible.

My current specs (as listed in my signature) have 6 Drives, thus I am planning on upgrading to the next Gen (DDR5 Ram,PCIE5) with total RGB water-cooling and a smaller tower (Prefer maybe 2-4 storage max). So I was looking at a NAS Solution for my backups and larger seldom uses files and also for the reason that I would be studying abroad in the next 2-3 years and would keep my storage at home with internet access anytime and anywhere I want.

Any help would be greatly appreciate, please have a nice day.
Have you explored the virtual units that the manufacturers have on their web pages? That lets you test drive the software. The software is more important than the differences in hardware.
You are missing the other two brands which are popular in small NAS -- Thecus and QNAP.
Also remember that RAID is not 100% protection. You also need a backup plan. If you have 8TB of data you definitely need a backup plan if you are making the NAS a single copy of data.
 

James Foo

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Jul 26, 2014
29
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18,535
Have you explored the virtual units that the manufacturers have on their web pages? That lets you test drive the software. The software is more important than the differences in hardware.
You are missing the other two brands which are popular in small NAS -- Thecus and QNAP.
Also remember that RAID is not 100% protection. You also need a backup plan. If you have 8TB of data you definitely need a backup plan if you are making the NAS a single copy of data.
Then which brand/model do you recommend for all 4 different brands (including yours)? I would normally backup into separate external drives if needed, but I would normally buy new drives when old drives are starting to have small problems (slower speed, sound) so there should be no problem.
 

James Foo

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While just about any NAS will take a standard 3.5 inch or 2.5 inch drive, the reality is that NAS use introduces some very particular strains on hard drives that make it a much smarter move to buy drives built for that purpose. Regular old hard drives will work for sure, but they'll also typically fail within a NAS enclosure at a much faster rate. Did you really buy a NAS to lose all your data? Chances are you didn't.

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Then do you know any brands/models of NAS you would recommend? As for the drives, I am currently eyeing on the Seagate Ironwolf Pro since it got longer warranty and also data retrieval service compared to WD Red pro (but my experience with Seagate drives are not good as those drives normally died out after warranty periods, compared to my WD drives that lasts extra few years afterwards)
 

USAFRet

Titan
Moderator
Then do you know any brands/models of NAS you would recommend? As for the drives, I am currently eyeing on the Seagate Ironwolf Pro since it got longer warranty and also data retrieval service compared to WD Red pro (but my experience with Seagate drives are not good as those drives normally died out after warranty periods, compared to my WD drives that lasts extra few years afterwards)
Synology, QNAP, Thecus are the big 3.
I have a QNAP TS-453a, coming up on 5 years old.

'data retrieval service' should never be an issue. Your data backups should be handled by you, internally.
 

James Foo

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Jul 26, 2014
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Synology, QNAP, Thecus are the big 3.
I have a QNAP TS-453a, coming up on 5 years old.

'data retrieval service' should never be an issue. Your data backups should be handled by you, internally.

Noted on that, I am currently looking at QNAP TS-473A (Due to expandability and upgradable). Any issues with using an AMD version compared to Intel?

Also, what drives do you use? If retrieval is not important from the manufacturer, do you think a normal WD Red/Seagate Ironwolf is enough? Planning on getting 2 x 12TB drives for the 2 slots first
 

James Foo

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Those drives should be fine. I have 4x 4TB Ironwolf in the USB connected TR-004 enclosure.
The NAS has a mix of Toshiba, Seagate, and a 480GB Ironwlf SSD as the system drive.
Thanks for the confirmation. Just another simple question, is it possible to create certain files/folders that only I can access to? Since I'm gonna have a NAS system, I was gonna share with my family for all our backups of personal stuffs. But I would prefer we all have certain files/folders which we can access just personally and not shared to everyone in the family.
 

kanewolf

Titan
Moderator
Thanks for the confirmation. Just another simple question, is it possible to create certain files/folders that only I can access to? Since I'm gonna have a NAS system, I was gonna share with my family for all our backups of personal stuffs. But I would prefer we all have certain files/folders which we can access just personally and not shared to everyone in the family.
Yes, create unique logins for each person and provide a folder that only THEY have permissions. As the device admin, you will have permissions also.
 
Thanks for the confirmation. Just another simple question, is it possible to create certain files/folders that only I can access to? Since I'm gonna have a NAS system, I was gonna share with my family for all our backups of personal stuffs. But I would prefer we all have certain files/folders which we can access just personally and not shared to everyone in the family.
In addition to what @kanewolf said, you can have Windows setup so the folder shows up as a storage drive via mapping network drives. If the folder requires an account access, Windows will ask for the login and you can have Windows remember the credentials so they don't have to keep logging in. The only issue is if the computer goes out of the network, the drive will show up with a question mark. As long as they understand this is normal, then I'd suggest going this route.

Also some NAS companies (like QNAP) offer remote access via their website or an app if you enable the NAS to do such. It's like having your own cloud storage service.
 
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