Difference between NAS and external drives?

[radiogoober]

Hi all,

This is rather embarrassing 😉 , but I can't really figure out what the advantage of a NAS unit like a Synology is. I currently have a pair of external drives hooked up to a USB hub that my Mac uses. I use them for cloning my drive and also for storing bulk media. I guess I'm asking what NAS would bring to the table that my pair of USB discs can't do.

Thank you

 

[simsaladimbamba]

If you have a wired Gigabit network (Gigabit router <> iMac), connecting an NAS to the router will give you faster transfer speeds and have access to the data on the NAS via your entire network.
I am not completely sure, if cloning to an NAS will work though and give you a bootable backup, even if you connect it to your iMac via USB to boot from it later.
If you don't transfer dozens of GBs daily and don't need network storage, USB should suffice your needs.

 

[hitekalex]

If you have a wired Gigabit network (Gigabit router <> iMac), connecting an NAS to the router will give you faster transfer speeds

Absolutely untrue. Directly attached external disk gives you block-level disk access, which is always the most efficient and usually fastest (other things being equal). NAS is file system level storage, and your I/O is limited by TCP/IP overhead.

My FW800 enclosure typically gives me about 75MB/s reads, you'd be lucky to get that with NAS, even with Gigabit network. Thunderbolt or eSATA enclosures will easily support over 100MB/s I/O, no NAS will get near that.

 

[simsaladimbamba]

Absolutely untrue. Directly attached external disk gives you block-level disk access, which is always the most efficient and usually fastest (other things being equal). NAS is file system level storage, and your I/O is limited by TCP/IP overhead.

My FW800 enclosure typically gives me about 75MB/s reads, you'd be lucky to get that with NAS, even with Gigabit network. Thunderbolt or eSATA enclosures will easily support over 100Mb/s I/O, no NAS will get near that.

Okay, as the OP mentioned using USB, I should have explicitly mentioned, that an NAS connected via Gigabit is faster than an external HDD connected via USB 2.0 to avoid further confusion and present my sentence in a "totally independent from the OP" way, thus one did not need need to read every post.

 

[hitekalex]

Okay, as the OP mentioned using USB

Ah my bad, I missed the "USB" part in the OP. I agree in that case, Gigabit NAS will offer better performance.

 

[murphychris]

I guess I'm asking what NAS would bring to the table that my pair of USB discs can't do.

A lot. Compared to USB 2.0, a GigE NAS will be faster. You also get consolidated storage, i.e. 2, 3, 4+ disks can be placed into a storage pool, and presented as a single logical volume. Or you can issue separate logical volumes, with quotas, per project or per user. Multiple users can share the storage over a network, simultaneously. And depending on NAS features, it can support failover in case a drive dies, snapshots, and data replication features.

My FW800 enclosure typically gives me about 75MB/s reads, you'd be lucky to get that with NAS, even with Gigabit network. Thunderbolt or eSATA enclosures will easily support over 100MB/s I/O, no NAS will get near that.

75MB/s is about to be expected for a decent NAS. Very clean network cabling, and switch, and jumbo frames, I've seen a NAS push 100MB/s.

 

[rhett7660]

Usually a NAS box can sit on a network by itself with the need to be connected to a computer to run. It usually has an OS like a linux kernal running. The synology and the like come with programs that allow you to do functions with the NAS so as backups of multiple computers to one device. Some are fast enough to allow you stream multiple music/movie files etc. They are usually setup up in a raid configuration so there is back up of files across multiple drives etc.

Backed up network storage. Some NAS boxes can also be setup as JBOD (just a bunch of drives) so you see four drive letters associated to the four drives in the nas box.

There is a lot more but that is some of the basics.

 

[drsox]

Absolutely untrue. Directly attached external disk gives you block-level disk access, which is always the most efficient and usually fastest (other things being equal). NAS is file system level storage, and your I/O is limited by TCP/IP overhead.

My FW800 enclosure typically gives me about 75MB/s reads, you'd be lucky to get that with NAS, even with Gigabit network. Thunderbolt or eSATA enclosures will easily support over 100MB/s I/O, no NAS will get near that.

My ReadyNAS Pro units go at 80+ MBps Read and 90+ MBps Write, but the best reasons for a NAS are resilence to drive failure and absence of noise. The quietest NAS is the one in another room !

 

[takeshi74]

This is rather embarrassing 😉 , but I can't really figure out what the advantage of a NAS unit like a Synology is.

Have you taken a look at the Synology site? Take a look at the overview and features for any model.

 

[sinoue]

Synology is the best NAS for Mac

Until Apple gets serious about their loyal userbase running out of storage for all their Time Machine backups (time Capsule doesn't cut it), ever growing iTunes libraries (iTunes Match doesn't offer cloud storage of movies) and our huge photo and video libraries (iPhote/Aperture & iMovie/FCP) you won't find a better NAS for storing and accessing it than Synology.

Synology even has iOS apps for letting you stream your data to your device and using AirPlay you can even reroute it to your Apple TV to your big screen. Very cool and plays nicely in an Apple environment.