Yesterday, my Vertex 2 turbo just died on me. It's not visible on bios anymore, so I can't do anything with it.
It was on my main computer which hold five other HDD which I use for game, videos and music storage.
Now that my system disk is unusable, I can't even read those drives trough my network. I even tried a live CD with Ubuntu to just share them, but Samba isn't installed so, no deal...
Anyway, I've decided to put 4 of these HDDs (those without games) on a NAS so that I can access them easily while I wait for my new SSD to install Windows on (which should arrive in a month or two (it's a free one, so I have to wait)).
After some studies, the Synology DS-413 seems to be what I need. I am just wondering if it does torrent and stuff like that. Can't find these information on the product description page, so I assume not. It's also kind of expensive at 500€
So I was wondering if anyone could tell me if on a price range of 300 to 400€, therewould be a 4-bays NAS with torrent support and an easy tu use GUI.
Im not sure, but I know that the DS412+ has support for torrents and other downloading programs. And I would imagine that most of their products have the same software and most of the same features, especailly when you are looking at a higher end NAS..
try and look on youtube for an information vid or review of the one you are looking at.. :)
for drives, you want WD caviar red, the others, aside from the RE drives, are not made for NAS duty, and the RE drives are enterprise grade, i.e expensive
To quote one study (http://static.usenix.org/events/fast07/tech/schroeder/schroeder_html/index.html):
Interestingly, we observe little difference in replacement rates between SCSI, FC and SATA drives, potentially an indication that disk-independent factors, such as operating conditions, affect replacement rates more than component specific factors.
moral - expensive drives don't live longer
for the NAS - build one yourself, based on atom cpu for low power usage like http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/ATOM/ICH9/X7SPE-HF-D525.cfm. Add ram, psu, disks, stick into some cheap chasis, install FreeNAS.
But I am waaaay too lazy to build one at the moment (my laziness chage periodically :D).
Talking about Hardrives, I just plan on using the ones I already got. I can't buy 4 new ones (and again, I am too lazy to copy all 9Tb from the one I got to the new ones). And WD RED are a bit on the expensive side for me (and mine are all black).
The Synology 412+ seems good but again way too expensive. Even more than the 413...
I will wait a bit for sales from the website from which I buy everything and hope for one on NAS. Thank god it's chritmas time so sales are legion, now.
that is incorrect. you get what you pay for. WD make THE BEST hdd's. their red series is made specifically for NAS usage. they are meant to be running 24/7. the RE enterprise drives are even more reliable, but they are also faster, and about twice the price of a red
In my experience NAS even alone without any hard drives can be expensive just keep looking for deal. I managed to get a readynas for less than 50 on amazon and used some spare drives I had laying around so it cost 50 in total its been working great. If I had bit the bullet I would have end spending 300-400. So Have a look into netgears readynas's they are the cheapest I have found that offer 2-4 bay, ARM low power and torrent support.
You may say it but you have nothing to back it up. I wouldn't be surprised if the only significant difference between Green series and Red series was in firmware (enabled TLER) and year longer warranty.
Myself I'm using Greens in 24h on systems. One has 24x 2TB WDC Greens in a single chassis, always on for the past 3 years. So far 2 disks have been replaced - because they were showing signs of potential problems (all data was still accessible).
Where I live they are cheaper than that, but still 20€ more than same capacity black drives. Anyway, I already got drives so, unless they crash on me, i won't buy new ones. If I do buy a NAS and if I have to change HDDs, you can be certain that I will follow your advice, though. Red drives are definitely good for NAS usage.
I recently bought a Synology DiskStation DS413j (best price/performance ratio and not much slower than the DS413) and to be honest I could not be happier. Now that I actually finally have one, the possibilities seem endless. You can easily ftp into the ds413j remotely with filezilla, host a website, use it as an email server, stream audio to your smartphone with a nifty little app called "DS audio", use it to torrent 24/7 (a pic of the torrent app and the supported file hosters http://img221.imageshack.us/img221/7445/torrentsupport.jpg) and the list just goes on and on and on.
The real differences between the DS413 and the DS413j are the CPU (Dual core vs Single core) and the additional software applications offered on the DS413, which one only really needs in an office environment (in my opinion). The dual core would also only be necessary if you plan on running many different applications simultaneously, like the Download Station for torrenting, the Audio Station for music streaming, the VPN server and the Web Hosting service.
Here are the links to the specifications: http://www.synology.com/products/spec.php?product_name=DS413j&lang=us#p_submenu
There is no doubt that the DS413 is beefier but for the regular home user, I don't think it is worth shelling out the extra cash. (Eventhough it comes in a sexy black and the j-version only comes in silver *sad face*).
Additionally I feel obliged to mention that the operating system for the diskstations (DSM = Disk Station Manager) is absolutely mind-blowing. It has an extremely easy-to-use user interface and a very sleek design that makes the whole experience feel enjoyable.
My apologies if I sound a bit like a marketing manager for Synology but the fact of the matter is that even three weeks after I got the DS413j, I am still finding out about capabilities, which I had never imagined being possible.
I hope that this lengthy post has helped you with your decision.
Woops, forgot to mention one thing: Make sure that you have a router/switch with gigabit ethernet ports if you want to be connected to the internet and transfer files to/from the NAS at the same time. My 100mb/s router can't even handle HD movie streaming as it often fluctuates and goes higher than 12,5MB/s, which is the maximum bandwidth for my router.
Thanks a lot ! It's sounds exactly like what I want !
It isn't listed on the website where I buy my stuff, so I didn't see it before. But I found it on another one. It's way more affordable, too !
Just two questions : how is it doing when it comes to noise ?
Also, the photos make it look a litlle cheaply-made compared to DS-413. It's just a photo, I know, and it's probably just me (because it's white :) ) but is it the case ?
Glad that that helped! :) It isn't cheaply made at all. I also thought that at first when I saw the case for the first time. The whole case is metal, so it's really solid and the only bit of plastic is the front panel where all the light indicators are but even that part has a good build quality. Eventhough I usually despise small, whirring fans, this is not the case (excuse the unintended pun) with the DS413j. The fans pull a decent amount of air over the drives while staying almost silent. So you definitely won't run into any problems there. I really do hope you find it! If you run into any problems on how to set everything up, feel free to ask. :)
Awesome man! I know that feeling of that excruciating wait for something special. :P
Please tell me the name of the site you ordered it from because that sounds like a damn fine deal!! I figured it would be available in Germany as that's where I bought mine. ^_^
I have a QNAP TS-412 that works great with four 3TB Barracuda's in RAID 10, although I hear that Synology's software is excellent.
Really, just make sure that you buy HDDs with a decent warranty and reputation, and keep your NAS someware with enough ventilation (though it shouldn't get very hot).
The QNAP TS-412 is a good product but from what I heard it can't really compare to the DS413j. The first benefit of the QNAP is the rear I/O with those two extra eSATA ports for expandability although I am not even sure if external HDDs attached to those ports can become part of the RAID array. The second benefit (which you'll see just now, won't benefit you at all) is the additional gigabit LAN port. The maximum bandwidth of a single gig-e port is theoretically 125MB/s. With your current JBOD (Just a bunch of disks) setup, your maximum write speeds would be around 50MB/s at best, while the read speeds on my device can hit around 100MB/s. So doubling the network bandwidth would not benefit you in any way unless you plan on buying four new WD Caviar Black drives and putting them in RAID 0. This would also be a catastrophic setup, seeing as if one drive would fail, you would lose all of your information. On the other hand, the Synology's operating system and software packages are far superior. ... Just my two cents ... ps: On a side not, what SSD are you getting faeder?