Question Looking for a replacement NAS

[Hunchback]

Last night we had a power out and our ancient NAS (~8 years old Iomega StorCenter ix4-200d ) kinda died on us. At first it said there's data corruption and it'll restore the drives (it runs in a parity mode, not the 50/50 but the 1/4 loss one). It took the whole night to "restore" itself but in the morning all it had was two new folders it created in the shared space and nothing else, even tho the disk-space is still used according to the display and control panel.
I don't think there's much to do, thing's been a bit off for a while now and this must have killed it. After some research it seems the actual data on the disks should be fine but the RAID itself is dead and if i am not wrong there's no way to restore it. Still, if you have any ideas of what i could do, let me know.


I was then looking for something to replace it with, since we have 4 PCs at home and need a proper NAS solution. I've heard a lot of good things about Synology, but it's prices are scary-high. It's not a domain i'm very familiar with, so if anyone can suggest good money/value options, it'd be awesome. I am looking for 4TB minimum (before RAID).

And a quick question - if you buy an "empty" nas can you install any drive in it or they only take particular drives?

 

[punkncat]

I feel your pain. I have used a variety of NAS units that were based on a Linux like file system and had more than my fair share of failures/data loss over the years. From the 'what I am familiar with' perspective I have found it much easier to use Windows to back up/mirror. Generally I will use a dedicated machine with enough bays to set up the disks for the NAS function, and then use another drive in a separate machine to keep a copy on. I typically also write the info to an SSD and HDD and keep them outside a machine. In some cases I have had failure just while they sit (which sucks)

Most NAS will specify what size disk they use. I think most of the better ones use a 3.5" desktop drive. I suggest getting the ones designed for surveillance or enterprise grade.

 

[Hunchback]

Update

Looking at the control panel and how it suggested simply removing things from the Shared Storage to "delete them" we just had the stupidest idea ever - What if we recreate the exact same tree structure in the Shared Storage interface ?

Well, apparently it actually works in our case. We recreated the base folders at the root of the share and they populated with all their contents. Basically the damn NAS "forgot" it had stuff in it, even tho it detected it's drives as 70% full... Go figure.


Still, will probably have to find a replacement soon, since this old box is getting quite unstable. Suggestions are still welcome

 

[kanewolf]

I have own 2 Synology units currently. Prices vary, by features and number of drive bays.
Let's start with the basics.
How much total space do you think you need now? How much growth do you anticipate?
Do you need to support Apple devices or just Windows/Linux?
Do you want to stream media from this NAS?
Do you want to transcode video on the NAS?
Do you want remote access?
Do you already use a VPN?
Do you use cloud storage services? If so which one?
Do you need NVR (network video recorder) capabilities?

Understanding your needs will help you find appropriate solution.

 

[Hunchback]

Answers in bold

...
How much total space do you think you need now? How much growth do you anticipate?
Currently have 4TB total space. Growth is slow but steady, mainly home videos and pictures. I suppose 8TB will last us a long while, 6TB will be acceptable but don't see how that'd work with a parity raid.

Do you need to support Apple devices or just Windows/Linux?
Just Windows and Linux.

Do you want to stream media from this NAS?
Not using the NAS itself to stream, however i do keep my movies on it and play them through my PC on a TV.

Do you want to transcode video on the NAS?
No

Do you want remote access?
Would be nice to have, but it's not a requirement.

Do you already use a VPN?
We have NordVPN for... privacy needs.

Do you use cloud storage services? If so which one?
We use Google Drive and have website with unlimited (but shitty) storage.

Do you need NVR (network video recorder) capabilities?
Not sure what that is, so i suppose the answer is no.

...

 

[kanewolf]

8TB without transcoding is pretty easy. A two disk NAS, with a USB3 for backup -- yes, you need to backup the NAS also. You could also do online backups, depending on your upload speeds. Anything you backup to "cloud" should be pre-encrypted.
A DS218 or even a DS218j would be enough. A DS218j is about $170. Two 8TB hard drives is $500 (WD Red, HGST Ultrastar, etc). An 8TB USB3 drive is another $150, so yes your costs will be $1000 for what you want,