Righto, time for some purchase advice chaps. I need a NAS for my home network, intending to run over GigE (Cat6 cabling). At the most basic, it's for video/music files to be shared between 4 computers, although added features such as an iTunes server/Torrent would be useful to have. I'm looking for a barebones box, as I can add drives in myself. 2 bays is probably fine - giving me a total of 4TB, or possibly 6TB if I go for the new fangled 3TB drives and the NAS supports those. Nothing that fancy either - budget choices are good. I've been looking at the ReadyNAS series, although I've heard they can be a bit slow? I like the understated black design though (yes, a bit shallow I'll admit). Synology is another brand I've heard about, but not seen. Not bothered about RAID, as that'll push me in to 4 bay territory which is expensive. Added features I'd like to know about: - iTunes Server, working with the latest version both Mac & PC - BitTorrent - Time Machine compatibility for OS X - Scheduled power on/off - DNLA for PS3 I did think about having a small PC doing the job, but power draw/noise are downsides. Call the budget a max of £200 unless there's a very very good reason for going higher.
http://www.synology.com/us/products/demo/index.php try it, you'll love the interface. iTunes server on all NAS are just simple itunes server, advanced home sharing will not work. synology have pretty good torrent client, and you can even install your own! (i installed Transmission, but rarely used it) Synology is timemachine compatible, but i've never gotten it to work with my hackintosh, mainly due to it's a hackintosh i think. scheduled power on/off and WoL are all supported by Synology i've been relying on DLNA for my ipad streaming needs for a long time, it works brilliantly. (assuming your DLNA client can play those files) so, go for synology and then just use JBOD configuration.
Shame that Home Sharing won't work, but I'm sure I can cope with that. Basic level music streaming should be fine. Great news that it supports Time Machine (and I'm running real Macs, so shouldn't have that problem) and DNLA etc. Looks very good to be honest. What's the difference between the DS211 and the DS211j? Is it worth looking at the DS411 slim? http://www.scan.co.uk/products/syno...nc-16ghz-cpu-256-ddr3-gbit-lan-1x-esata-2xusb http://www.scan.co.uk/products/syno...er-inc-x1-ip-cam-support-gbit-lan-x3-usb-port EDIT: Ah, the DS411 is 2.5" drives, no go! Amazon have two DS211j listed, both barebones, but a big price difference. What gives? http://www.amazon.co.uk/Synology-DS...NXJ2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1308741571&sr=8-1 http://www.amazon.co.uk/Synology-DS...XAH0/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1308741571&sr=8-2
There is a difference between the two Amazon links you posted. Synology DS211 Specification - CPU Frequency : 1.6GHz - Memory : DDR3 256MB File Sharing Capability - Max User Accounts : 2048 - Max Groups : 256 - Max Shared Folder : 256 - Max Concurrent Connections : 128 Synology DS211j Specification - CPU Frequency : 1.2GHz - Memory : DDR2 128MB File Sharing Capability - Max User Accounts : 512 - Max Groups : 128 - Max Shared Folder : 256 - Max Concurrent Connections : 64 Source: DS211: http://www.synology.com/products/spec.php?product_name=DS211&lang=enu#p_submenu DS211j: http://www.synology.com/products/spec.php?product_name=DS211j&lang=enu#p_submenu
the j models are for budget users. non-j models are speed daemons and + models are ultra-fast. it's Synology's 3 tier system. i've got a Ds410j, and its speed is just about fast enough, RAID5 transfers at 70/50 read/write. being storage, i personally can't see the need for them to be ultra fast.
Thanks Fingers and wuyanxu. I'm tempted to go for the non-j model for the speed I must admit, 70r/50w is alright, but faster would be nicer for multi-gig backups.
well, i think my Ds410j is using a 800MHz processor, i'd expect 11j with 1.2GHz processor to achieve 100MB/s read speed. also, keep in mind my RAID5 won't speed up, most probably will slow down transfer speed.
Just throwing this out there but how about a hp micro server (£238- £100 rebate = £138) see here and use something like freenas or openfiler etc. By all accounts through it will not suspend properly, you'll have to look into it more if your interested.
+1 for freenas and builing your own if your not afraid of getting your hands dirty. If you want an off the shelf then the synology DS211j is the way to go. For a home user I don't see the extra power of the DS211 justifying the price jump. A guy I work with has the 211j and it seems a great device.
At a guess I'd say the DS211j would be more power efficient. The HP comes with a 200 W PSU from the link Herbs put up. Looking at the DS211j specs they state 25 W (access) and 10 W (hibernation). I think the hibernation feature of the DS211j is going to be your biggest powersaving feature. I believe you can schedule it to hibernate and wake up. So over night while your in bed dreaming of your next big computer purchase your NAS can be hibernating. Thats a nice feature.
by hibernate, it means shutdown hard disk drives. that's configured as automatic after a set period of no access. the scheduled power-off/on will do just that, completely power off, zero watts consumed. but keep in mind both of those modes will stop any downloads or any background stuff. i am having problem getting my HDD to spin down due to Sickbeard and NZB newsgroup downloader i've installed into my Synology unit. but the benefit of Sickbeard outweighs a few watt of electricity for me.
Being able to spin the drives down to hibernate, and then totally power off overnight is the decider I think. I don't see any point in running the NAS when it won't be used! DS211j ordered (plus 2x2TB drives...)
The ds211j would use less power, there is a big thread over avforums.com under the nas section. The advantage is that you can do so much more with the hp than just a nas, i.e you could use it as a web server too or a base for cctv recorder etc.
Before you put your new harddisks in make sure that they are compatible with your DS211j. Some hard drives need firmware updating using older hard drive before you put your new drives in. For example the samsung HD204UI 2TB needs firmware updating to 3.1 before installing. You can check here: http://www.synology.com/support/hd.php?lang=enu
herbs, I've got no use for a web server or CCTV etc. so the HP is a bit of overkill, despite the excellent price after the rebate. This is having to go in the living room, so noise is quite important as well. Thanks for the HD advice YEHBABY. The link tells me that my drives will be fine
check out wuyanxu[dot]zapto[]org, Synology has got web server support, with photo album and blog built-in. there is a CCTV recording tool that records when there is movement in camera, can't remember the name, but it comes as default in the firmware. just plug in compatible USB CCTV camera. do download latest firmware from Synology. when you are setting it up (by install HDD) you will be required to install firmware, since the firmware actually run on the hard disk drive. just follow the setup program through, it'll take you through it.
