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NAS advice
- Thread starter ValkXB70
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Thanks. The software has been 100% solid. I've had all sorts of failures over the 6+ years but never lost any data. The only drawback I can see is that the UI is a bit dated, however I see they are redoing that for their new models. In UI I prefer the current look of Synology.
Wow - this never occurred to me! This whole time I've had one drive in each of my two ds1812, and two pegasus r6. I'll try that when I get home!!
I quote this again.
It's true, what you have written... but what happens, when you put multiple hard drives in a RAID 1 or RAID 5 configuration?
Is it still barely enough bandwidth to saturate a 1Gb interface?
I was being sarcastic. I have like 20+ spinning disks right now
There aren't any non-rack-mount synology that can saturate a 1Gb interface transferring to a mac, go check their forums to see everyone complain about it.
There aren't any non-rack-mount synology that can saturate a 1Gb interface transferring to a mac, go check their forums to see everyone complain about it.
After reading this thread, I'll have to take the time to test the throughput to my Synology DS212J and DS112J NAS drives from my Macbook over 802.11n and gigabit ethernet.
My criteria for an NAS are not merely based on speed...
1 - When/if it breaks, does my data have to leave my house for it to get repaired?
Time Capsule: Yes (bad).
Synology: No (good).
2 - Is the operating software something I'm familiar with and can tweak?
Time Capsule: No.
Iomega Storcenter: No.
Seagate NAS (low end model - don't remember name): No.
LaCie: No.
Buffalo Linkstation: No.
Synology: DSM is really Linux so the answer is Yes. The only down side is it has an ARM processor so it can't run binaries built for x86 such as Plex.
3 - Is it reliable (based on my experience)?
Time Capsule : No. (lost data when Gen 1 500 GB TC power supply died)
Iomega: No. (fan failure and subsequent noise led me to remove the outer case for proper cooling and finally take the unit off line.)
Buffalo: No. (While they didn't fail before I decided to move on to something better, they don't power back on after a power failure).
Seagate (not sure - returned to store when they tried to charge me money to run a local ftp server!)
LaCie: No. (lost data twice due to firmware updates)
Synology: Yes.
4 - Can I get features I need (such as ftp) and if I can get them do I have to pay extra for them?
Time Capsule: No extra features available though I did notice that guest network capability was enabled by a firmware update.
Iomega: Yes.
Buffalo: Yes.
Seagate: No, you have to buy a subscription to some cloud service to run an ftp server in your own house!
Synology: Yes. Features I needed that were not present at initial software load could be added later at no cost.
5 - Does it work well with my Mac ecosystem?
The answer for all of them was yes for this question though the older Buffalo units were running as SMB not AFP servers.
6 - Is it reasonably fast?
TC: Yes.
Iomega: No.
Buffalo: No.
LaCie: Yes.
Synology: Yes.
I measure this qualitatively. If it takes all day, all night and half of the next day to copy a 50 Gig photos folder, for me that's too slow. If I have to walk the dogs around the block and can return to find the folder all done, I'm happy. I set up my two DS drives to "mirror" one another. Each has about 300 GB of photos, about 300 GB of movies, 30 GB of music and a few tens of GB of downloads such as the latest version of LibreOffice. If I can clone one of those 300 GB folders from one drive to the other in less than a day, I'm happy.
7 - Does it offer low power consumption?
The answer for all of them was yes but the lowest power consumption by far are my Synology Disk Stations which consume only 6 watts on standby and 18 watts active when fitted with WD green drives.
BTW I don't believe in RAID. I have double redundancy: 2 DS cabinets with 1 drive each. If any of the 4 elements in this scenario were to fail, I have a way to recover ALL my data. Oh. I also have everything mirrored on a firewire drive plugged in to my Mac so I really have triple redundancy. My network setup is an AEBS as a router with its wifi disabled, 2 D-link access points at opposite corners of the house, 1 in the basement and 1 on the second floor (after doing an RF survey using "wifi analyser" on my android device to eliminate all dead spots), a Trendnet 24 port gigabit switch and 2 5 port gigabit switches at opposite ends of the house to save long wire runs to rooms full of gear that would have needed a wired connection.
The bottom line is this: Don't get so laser focused on a few extra MB/S of throughput that you put up with high power consumption, a noisy unit, an unreliable unit or an overly expensive unit.
hope this helps...
My criteria for an NAS are not merely based on speed...
1 - When/if it breaks, does my data have to leave my house for it to get repaired?
Time Capsule: Yes (bad).
Synology: No (good).
2 - Is the operating software something I'm familiar with and can tweak?
Time Capsule: No.
Iomega Storcenter: No.
Seagate NAS (low end model - don't remember name): No.
LaCie: No.
Buffalo Linkstation: No.
Synology: DSM is really Linux so the answer is Yes. The only down side is it has an ARM processor so it can't run binaries built for x86 such as Plex.
3 - Is it reliable (based on my experience)?
Time Capsule : No. (lost data when Gen 1 500 GB TC power supply died)
Iomega: No. (fan failure and subsequent noise led me to remove the outer case for proper cooling and finally take the unit off line.)
Buffalo: No. (While they didn't fail before I decided to move on to something better, they don't power back on after a power failure).
Seagate (not sure - returned to store when they tried to charge me money to run a local ftp server!)
LaCie: No. (lost data twice due to firmware updates)
Synology: Yes.
4 - Can I get features I need (such as ftp) and if I can get them do I have to pay extra for them?
Time Capsule: No extra features available though I did notice that guest network capability was enabled by a firmware update.
Iomega: Yes.
Buffalo: Yes.
Seagate: No, you have to buy a subscription to some cloud service to run an ftp server in your own house!
Synology: Yes. Features I needed that were not present at initial software load could be added later at no cost.
5 - Does it work well with my Mac ecosystem?
The answer for all of them was yes for this question though the older Buffalo units were running as SMB not AFP servers.
6 - Is it reasonably fast?
TC: Yes.
Iomega: No.
Buffalo: No.
LaCie: Yes.
Synology: Yes.
I measure this qualitatively. If it takes all day, all night and half of the next day to copy a 50 Gig photos folder, for me that's too slow. If I have to walk the dogs around the block and can return to find the folder all done, I'm happy. I set up my two DS drives to "mirror" one another. Each has about 300 GB of photos, about 300 GB of movies, 30 GB of music and a few tens of GB of downloads such as the latest version of LibreOffice. If I can clone one of those 300 GB folders from one drive to the other in less than a day, I'm happy.
7 - Does it offer low power consumption?
The answer for all of them was yes but the lowest power consumption by far are my Synology Disk Stations which consume only 6 watts on standby and 18 watts active when fitted with WD green drives.
BTW I don't believe in RAID. I have double redundancy: 2 DS cabinets with 1 drive each. If any of the 4 elements in this scenario were to fail, I have a way to recover ALL my data. Oh. I also have everything mirrored on a firewire drive plugged in to my Mac so I really have triple redundancy. My network setup is an AEBS as a router with its wifi disabled, 2 D-link access points at opposite corners of the house, 1 in the basement and 1 on the second floor (after doing an RF survey using "wifi analyser" on my android device to eliminate all dead spots), a Trendnet 24 port gigabit switch and 2 5 port gigabit switches at opposite ends of the house to save long wire runs to rooms full of gear that would have needed a wired connection.
The bottom line is this: Don't get so laser focused on a few extra MB/S of throughput that you put up with high power consumption, a noisy unit, an unreliable unit or an overly expensive unit.
hope this helps...
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Nice analysis.
I suggest that you add a Mac Mini (server) with DAS into the equipment list.
Also, for criteria against all of them. $/year to store 100% of the data in the cloud.
I would like to see a nice objective analysis with that added in.
I would suspect that this combo is horrible in initial acquisition cost. Comes out reasonable (or best) in most categories... and excels in cloud storage costs as well as ease of use.
The difficulty of getting inexpensive cloud storage is what prevents me from using any of my NAS boxes for storage of primary data.
/Jim
About cloud storage:
- I'm not sure to get why using a Mac Mini + DAS excels in cloud storage cost. Because of Crashplan+ ? If so you can install crashplan on a Synology.
- Using Amazon S3 with Glacier is pretty cheap IMHO, around 1 $ per month for 100 GB. Sure, it's still too expensive for keeping TB of data in the cloud, but with the S3 backup module of the Synology it provides a reliable, simple and cheap way to keep pictures of the family disaster proof.
- I'm not sure to get why using a Mac Mini + DAS excels in cloud storage cost. Because of Crashplan+ ? If so you can install crashplan on a Synology.
- Using Amazon S3 with Glacier is pretty cheap IMHO, around 1 $ per month for 100 GB. Sure, it's still too expensive for keeping TB of data in the cloud, but with the S3 backup module of the Synology it provides a reliable, simple and cheap way to keep pictures of the family disaster proof.
I had no idea that Crashplan ran on a Synology. Can it be used a client on CP's family plan? If so... that is a huge problem solved.
Last time I looked at Amazon S3 services... there were charges for bandwidth and for storage. People with NAS tend to have 1+ TB of storage. Let's just average it at 2TB. What is the monthly charge for 2TB of storage on S3? Last I looked, it seemed prohibitive... but I have not looked in a few years. Pricing may have changed.
You got me excited about Crashplan supporting Synology. Has anyone used it? Is it robust?
/Jim
You can find more information about Crashplan for synology here. It requires a bit of tinkering, especially if you have an ARM-based Synology (my case with the 212j).
About Cloud storage and Amazon S3 in particular:
1) Do you need to save all the content of your NAS in the cloud ?
IMHO, Cloud storage is for the data I can't afford to lose: work, important documents, family photos and videos, etc. I won't send my BR rips in the cloud (BTW I'm quite sure that's illegal).
2) Do you need to access the cloud frequently ?
Again, if you consider cloud storage as a "disaster proof" backup, hopefully you'll never have to retrieve your data, hence limited bandwidth need.
In that case (disaster proof backup for your most important data), I think Amazon S3/Glacier is interesting as it is automated from synology and cost around 1 $ per month for 100 GB.
The fact that it is automated is a huge advantage. I think that at a minimum... local & offsite primary backup needs to be automated... ideally with two independent programs.
I do not "need" all of my data to be backed up. However, I do have an extensive Aperture library (pushing 400GB) and growing rapidly (since I switched to RAW masters). My home camcorder movies are about the same size... but are more static. I generally only shoot a lot of video at significant events (ex: my daughter's wedding... a 165GB day!!!)
I just finished a seeded backup to Crashplan for my new iMac. I have a total of 1.2TB backup data, and my photography grows at approx 100GB per year.
About how much would it cost to upload 1.2TB... and then what would be the monthly cost to maintain it?
/Jim
It would cost you 12 $/months to store 1.2 TB. The price for uploading the data would vary depending on several factors. More info here.
In your case you're better off with a Crashplan+ with unlimited data.
Thanks for the data and links. I agree, in my case, it is quite a bit cheaper to use CP+. For $6/month... I am now backing up all 8 of our Macs, and our last remaining PC. Most of them are not huge (100GB or so). However, as mentioned earlier, my new iMac has 1.2TB of backup data... which if I was careful... I could probably prune down to 1TB or so. My wife's iMac (which was our shared iMac until last week)... has about the same amount of data. The others are all much smaller.
/Jim