Another NAS versus roll my own thread

[Unter_Dog]

My main issue is I'm leaning easy mode. I work with hardware and going into kids not sure i'm looking to become my own network administrator so i'm debating easy mode (QNAP, Synology). I'll also want to backup whatever i build/buy to a backup service like backblaze etc. Is it worth trading price efficiency for easy-ish? I design hardware for a living so figuring out how to setup a NAS isn't foreign to me, but is it worth the time investment as i'd be doing a lot of learning as i go which is a way of saying i'm capable of learning but don't know what i'm doing right now.

I'm looking for it to become my HDHomerun storage server, Plex, Photo Backup/Viewer from Phones/Camera, probably record a 2-3 IP cameras. I also like stability as if a service breaks my wife gets very pissy. I'd probably fill them up with 6 or 8 terabyte HDDs probably Iron Wolfs.

My main three options are:

DS1019+ -- Easiest probably, and cheaper NAS solution. Pros for me is the Hybrid Raid, Synology apps (replace lots of google aps). Cons are the weak and possibly less/unreliable hardware. I keep reading about synology power supply failures.

QNAP TVS-872XT-I5-16G-US -- Also pretty easy not on the cheaper end but if i'm going QNAP may as well get something a little more heavy duty. Pros are simplicity and more power and DS1019+ (has at least a little CPU power for some brute force work). Cons are much more expensive versus building something like this myself. Probably still questionable reliability. Is it overkill for what i'm doing. I do like i can probably upgrade the CPU Later.

Take my current 5820k add RAM use my Deep silence 6 case and run unraid or something else and get a new CPU/MB/case for my main rig -- I assume much more effort versus probably the most reliable and powerful (not sure versus new i58400T) Hardware

I don't like wasting money but i'd not have an issue funding any of these in the monthly budget.

 

[John Naylor]

I ran NASs for about 8 years .... Now i don't. Much depends on what you are serving. I have a SOHO box which serves the following uses:

a) Office Data Server ... down to 2 PCs and 3 laptops.
b) Office CAD Station
c) Home Media Server ... 2 PCs, 3 laptops and 3 Smart TVs
d) My Primary Gaming Box
e) backup Storage for the SO and the HO

This was an experiment which turned out better than i expected. While it looks like a lot, it really is not due to the scheduling. The SO and the HO loads occur on different time schedules

SO has primary usage between 8 am and 7 pm
HO has primary usage between 7 pm and 3 am
Backups occur between 4 am and 6 am

Off Data Server needs are low each user probably average opening and working on 3 - 12 files in a day.
HO Data Server needs are might have 2-3 users from 7 - 11 pm and 2-3 users from midnite to 3 AM

All office data is stored on a 2 TB SSHD .... All media / personal data is stored on another 2 TB SSD. We do not have a large movie library.... most of what folks watch is streamed. Music load I guess is typical for a 5 person family. All drives are mirrored (software not hardware) synced at luch time and wee hours or morning. each Saturday morning a drive is backed up to a HD in a Dock and removed for off site storage.... drives are rotated out each week.

I liked the NAS cause i could just yank the cable and run out but now i can just open the side panel, pull the drives out with the quick release and run out the door... having the off site storage allows for some extra peace of mind.

Total cost for data storage ... just the SSHDs
Total impact on PC usage = non detectable.

Now obviously if ya have a load of movie buffs who watch movies more than once or a dozen users opening up, editing and clsoing files every coupla minutes I'd go another route.

 

[Unter_Dog]

I'd say at usually 2 users watching content max 3 using probably 1080 TV recording or movies. I think most of my hardware can trans-code itself except for maybe 1 phone. Most backups and office work would not be happening at the same time but assume 1 desktop and a couple laptops and a couple phones.

I'm seeing a very similar use case to you except my primary gaming box and CAD/simulation being a separate PC.

Edit 1

I do like the appliance-ish aspect of the NAS due to time constraints but also enjoy tinkering so i'm torn.

Edit 2

I'm probably network limited, i have 2x Cat6 per room centralized with a 24 port un-managed Gb switch. server/NAS would live next to swtich. Internet is Gig down, 40 meg up.

 

[John Naylor]

I'm seeing a very similar use case to you except my primary gaming box and CAD/simulation being a separate PC.

I see this a lot and I always hate giving the users the bad new when I tell them their 16 core CPU and $3k Quadro card will get it's ass kicked by their gaming box at home. While more cores and pro workstation cards are great for rendering. AutoCAD 2D and 3D work is 98% single threaded and when it isn't, it puts a load on a second core. And while the Quadro kicks tail is rendering, animation, etc ... it's rather mundane in 2D and 3D CAD.

Wheres back in the day, the CAD uses dictated our hardware demands ... I remember buying 1 GB 10k rpm SCSI drives for $1k as AutoCAD basically saved to disk prior to every significant operation. Today that goes to RAM and media and gaming far outstrip CAD requirements. I don't think we are far from the day where having terabytes of data "in the cloud" is the norm. When you buy a movie or song, it will go to your cloud storage. next step, all the media will be stored in the cloud and available "like stream". A movie won't be stored 1 million times for it's 1 million users, it will be stored and mirrored on maybe a dozen servers and and 1 million users will have "access rights".

I just dumped my switch. New router has 8 ports and everything else is wireless.. Ping is 8, d/l speed is 200 Mbps and I think Im going to cut it to 100 as its simply going unused.

And yes, I liked the 'lil box' that allowed be to grab and run in case if fire

In Case of Fire
1. Grab NAS and bring outside
2. Go back in and grab kids and bring outside
3. Tell firemen where wife is sleeping

There's very few things I have actually watched more than once....

1. Game of Thrones ... binge watched 1st 7 seasons in past few weeks
2. March of the Wooden Soldiers (every year from 4 to 30)
3. Nothing else comes to mind

 

[Unter_Dog]

The simulation box and gaming box are one box. The simulation part does still need CPU horsepower as I peg all my cores/threads for hours for power supply transient simulation. CAD is pretty light weight as it's electrical CAD (mentor graphics).

Only reason I have gig internet is for the 40 meg up. Any less you get stuck with 20 meg up which does affect my work. F Comcast, much rather have symmetrical 100/200 meg.

Really am thinking I can get by with the Synology for the NAS but not sure.

 

[TheLostSwede]

I'd suggest rolling your own, why? Simply because you have more control over software updates. Both QNAP and Synology has had security issues in the past and they're not always in a hurry to fix those. Having worked for QNAP, I can tell you that their support team can handle the usual things, but when there's a real issue, they're slow to respond at all and then it can takes ages to get the software team to bring out fixes.
Obviously doing your own thing means you need to stay on top of things, but if you go with some established NAS software, it's easy to keep things up to date, at least in my experience.

Also keep in mind that the custom OSes that QNAP and Synology use are patchworks with some very bad code involved that they don't dare poking at, as it might unravel their products entirely. This is due to the age of the core OS and the fact that's patches on top of patches...

Their hardware isn't bad though, but another thing to keep in mind that the OS comes loaded on a USB DOM and then installs onto the hard drives, rather than being installed on say an SSD or eMMC. It means it takes a long time to boot/reboot and update these devices.

 

[Unter_Dog]

totally understand having the latest and most secure updates. The patchwork on top of patchwork sounds very familiar to the things i design

May lean Synology for a cheap easy mode i don't feel too bad about getting rid of if it isn't powerful enough. When i'm feeling like a project i may get the ole rig converted

 

[Unter_Dog]

Ended up finding a good deal on a lightly used TS-877 with 6x 10TB Red pro, 10 gbe x2 network, 3G GTX 1060, 2x 500 Gig Samsung pro. Upgraded to 1700 shipping original 1600

Hope I didn't totally F up.

 

[Jetster]

Honestly if you going to build one use ecc ram, do it right. You don't need a lot of cores but you need a bunch of ram. It all depends on how safe you want your data. I have two NAS. One Synology backs up my sever which is a FreeNAS. Cloud back up service is just not an option with 8 The data.

There is nothing wrong with Synology's software. The hardware is just slow. My DS216 is a workhorse. Rarely have to touch it. It's sleeps and wakes up backs up the server then powers down. Only uses 35 w.