Looking to get a NAS but unsure what one....

[liberty610]

Hi everyone,

I have been looking into getting a NAS for my studio setup. I run a small production studio where I handle a lot of video, audio, and pictures. My current PC is a custom built using the HAF X tower from cooler master. I have 6 internal hard drives which I am starting to out grow with the use of HD video becoming more common.

I was shopping around for NAS units, and I was looking at the Western Digital My Cloud EX4 unit. I have seen mixed reviews, but I am not sure if some of the reviews are based on features I will be using.

I am some what familiar with RAID. I have not actually used a RAID setup before, but I have read into it. Basically, I want a NAS that I can use to back up the current data I have with plenty of storage to expand on to. I was looking into RAID 5 for redundancy. I have a lot of family photos and videos, and I am really looking to this NAS for back up and access purposes. I know the CPU is only a single core, and some people are saying it is 'extremely slow'. I have about 4TB of data I would be moving to this, and then after that I would just want to be able to access the files for video editing and adding new files to it as I get more video shot. I might not even host the video editing sessions off the unit, as I might just add the files to an internal drive on my tower for the editing purposes so there is no speed issues.

One of the features that WD is pushing is the idea of gaining access to the files from mobile phones and other computers over the internet. I like the idea of that feature, but was concerned about security issues.

If anyone has any suggestions for me, please feel free to share. I am new to the NAS idea, and I want to make the right purchase. I have some drives I can use now in a diskless system, but I was liking the WD My Cloud EX4 because of the price tag with the included drives. But if it has sever issues, I want to stay away from that.

I am looking to spend no more then $1,000.00 on a NAS and would like at least an 8TB starting point. I don't know a lot about NAS setup, so the My Cloud looked appealing because of the interface it has. I found this video on NewEgg, but I don't know if it is just a good looking paid advertisement or if the unit really does work well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_wQYWWtqDo

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated!

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

Hey there, liberty610!

Great choice on the My Cloud EX4, it's one of the top performers from WD's NAS expert series.
It comes with WD Red drives which are specifically designed for such NAS/RAID environments, giving you 24/7 reliability with a time-limited error recovery (TLER) feature that makes them slightly different from the regular HDDs as you can see for yourself here: http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=810
From what I understand, you basically want to use the NAS as a storage for your massive collection of videos, photos and music, that you want to access from everywhere. This makes My Cloud EX4 a very suitable solution for your case.
The My Cloud App is not like public clouds, it allows you to keep all your content in one safe place on your home/office network instead of a remote server. Yes, you can access it through any of the devices you use (phone/tablet/PC/laptop/tower) but this doesn't make it insecure. You are always in control of your My Cloud EX4. The users and the amount of access they have to your data is set by you right from the beginning when you configure the EX4: http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/10439
As for the array, RAID 5 is my personal favorite as well, it gives you the best of both fast performance and data protection.
If you want high performance and reliability, I'd take a look at RAID 10 as well. It yields half the total capacity of the drives in the array but you get maximum performance and high fault tolerance. In some cases, RAID 10 gives even faster data reads/writes than RAID 5 because it does not need to manage parity.

However, data stored in more than one place is always suggested. Backups of all data are something we recommend on a daily basis!

Hope I was able to help you though!
If you have anymore questions, feel free to ask!
SuperSoph_WD

 

[liberty610]

Thank you for the reply! I was reading up pin this unit and it seems to have all the functionality I want. I guess my main concern is the user reviews I have seen on the unit. They seem to few and far between, with mixed results at best. I tend to take a lot of user reviews with a grain of salt, as there are a lot of people who don't know what they are doing with things.

I currently have 2 identical WD black drives that are in my tower. One backs up the other, and then I have an external 3TB drive that backs it ask up as well. So I am always looking at back up options. I'm looking into putting the two internal black drives in a raid 1 configuration, as it would be easier then manually copying files from the first drive to the second.

The other question I had about the my cloud ex4 is, if I happen to eventually out grow one. Can a second one be added? From what I understand, you can add a second one to your network, but can you 'chain' two of the units together to make them a single working 8 bay unit?

I want to setup raid on my mother board, but haven't attempted yet. I have the GIGABYTE GA-880GA-UD3H motherboard, and it does support raid. I just haven't tried it yet. I tried a software raid through Windows 7, but the drives kept falling our of the raid configure. Idk if it was because the drives where not the same model or what, as I read it's best to run two identical drives. Which is why I want to mirror my two WD black drives. They are both black/2TB drives.

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

Hey there again!

I cannot comment on the reviews you've read, however I can guess why there are so few of them.
This is most probably because the EX4 is a part of the Expert Series from WD cloud solutions, which means they are basically used in home office/business environments. From my experience, not many of those write reviews as often as regular users do. I can relate to this because I'm the same when it comes to buying any tech product, so I'd encourage you take your time with the research.

I'm glad you are satisfied with your WD Black drives. However, the way you do your backup now is much better considering the fact that it's safer that way for the drives. However, setting up a RAID array with those is not recommended. As I previously mentioned we have WD Red drives for that purpose.
WD Black drives or any other regular HDD are not recommended because of the lack of this TLER feature that prevents the drive from being dropped out of the RAID array due to extended error recovery. It is not recommended to use WD Blacks because it voids their warranty.

As for the EX4 being chained to another EX4, I'm afraid it's not possible. They can work in the same network , but that's as far as it can get. If you eventually want to expand that storage there are NAS enclosures that can provide you with more bays or you can build your own NAS system.

The RAID you've tried to set up failed most probably because the drives were not identical, they need to be! As I already said the WD Black drives are not recommended for RAID environments because it voids their warranty. However, it's up to you to decide if you want to risk it. I personally think the solution you have now for the WD Blacks works just right.

Hope I was able to help you out!
Feel free to ask more questions, if you have any!
SuperSoph_WD

 

[liberty610]

Thank you for the information! This helped out a lot. I am always learning with this system I built. I have a mix of black drives, and blue drives inside my tower, and just learned recently the differences between them. I have never (knock on wood) had any issues with WD drives, so I tend to stick with them. But with my video editing and audio recording, I will be leaning towards just black drives.

Thanks for the heads up on everything! I will be looking into getting my NAS in a couple months for sure!

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

Hi again, liberty610!

Glad I was able to help you out! Good luck with your systems and happy computing!

SuperSoph_WD