Advice please on budget NAS for photo collection backup

[Autopilot]

Hi there. I'm looking for a NAS for my mother to backup all her photos, home movies and documents. It will not be used for streaming, so no fancy stuff, although she will probably want to store and stream the odd movie to her iPad (and browse photos etc). Only network clients will be her laptop, desktop and iPad. 1tb will be more than enough.

Most importantly, it needs to be relatively easy to use and robust - data safety is key, so I'm guessing a mirrored RAID array to be safe.

What fits the bill at the moment? Less than £200 would be ideal.

 

[ukprometheus]

and our survey says readynas duo, cheap chearfull and mirrored

 

[Deleted member 480461]

Are you sure you want a NAS??
Maybe consider an external HDD with RAID?

 

[graham.myers]

Once you've added the second hard drive for mirroring (or bought the bare unit and added 2 drives) its over £200 and not much difference in cost to Synology and QNAP offerings being around the £220-260 mark.

 

[themediaman]

Is the Netgear Stora not even cheaper than Duo, can house 2 mirrored drives and looks kinda cool...........and can stream if you want it to as well........

 

[joelk2]

dlinks dns 320 - £64.98

D-Link ShareCenter Pulse 2-bay Network Storage Enclosure: Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories

samsung F4 ecogreen 2TB - £61.21 each

Samsung F4 EcoGreen 2TB 32MB 5400RPM 3.5 Inch SATA-II Internal Hard Drive - 3 Year Warranty - OEM: Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories

Total= £187.40

either 2tb in raid 1 config (you backup to the one 2TB and the nas copies that to the second 2TB)

or

4tb in JBOD config. so you backup to your 4tb NAS.

 

[nunovi]

For your requirements, my advice would be the QNAP TS-112 coupled with an external USB hard drive or Cloud Backup (if you have good upload speed). The reason not to go with 2 bays with RAID 1 is that whilst easy to setup, recovery in case of failure from one hard drive is not straightforward. Also, it doesn't protect you from theft or flood/fire.

What I do at home is to attach a USB hard drive every month or so to the NAS and backup my photos, videos and documents. I have then bought a fire/flood resistant safe box to keep the USB drive. This way I know my files are almost 100% secure. Again, if you have a good upload speed (BT Infinity comes to mind), then a cloud based service is even more convenient, as the backups can be scheduled regularly.

IMO, RAID solutions are more important to small businesses who must have their file systems running 24/7. For home use, they're just a bit of a hassle.

Hope this helps.

Nuno

 

[graham.myers]

I think the 110 would be better than the 112 - its cheaper and I suspect the extra power in the 112 wouldn't be needed.

Losing a disk in RAID 1 on a NAS shouldn't be a hassle.

1. detach failed drive using web interface
2. replace failed drive
3. add new drive back into array in web interface

the NAS should then begin the mirroring process again in the background

 

[nunovi]

Agree on this case the TS-110 should suffice. As for RAID, you are right for a disk failure. But if the NAS itself fails, you lose all access to your files. If you have an external USB drive, just connect to a computer and voila!

Nuno

 

[joelk2]

Agree on this case the TS-110 should suffice. As for RAID, you are right for a disk failure. But if the NAS itself fails, you lose all access to your files. If you have an external USB drive, just connect to a computer and voila!

Nuno

but then if that fails your in the same boat.

im guessing the op wants a backup to his computer.

a nas using raid 1 would mean he has photo's on comp,

backup of photos on nas disk 1 & backup on nas disk 2.

or using jbod (effectively just an external hdd on network)

photos on comp and then photo backup on the nas.

its a fail safe incase the computer hdd fails. if the nas fails also your no better off having an external usb hdd as they can fail too.

if the nas fails too then buy a caddy stick the hdd from nas into caddy and voila.

offsite or cloud storage is the only "failsafe" way of being protected. (if it aint in 3 places it doesnt exist)

he asks for a mirrored raid way. ie raid 1 which is what ive proposed.

his budget is £200 for 1TB.

my suggestion is 2tb for £187.

streaming to ipad, this nas can do that without the computer being on. the external usb would need the computer on. although the qnap can stream.

the qnap and dlink are pretty similar except on price. dlink wins.

 

[nunovi]

Autopilot,

If you're just backing up a laptop and have no unique data on the NAS, then a single hard drive will do, no need for RAID at all. The odds of both the laptop hard drive and NAS failing at the same time are minimal (only theft/fire/flood might be a problem, but RAID doesn't protect against that either).
A TS-110 + 1Tb Seagate Green Hard drive costs £120 + £37 = £157 delivered. Need cheaper? For the requirements you've set, a WD My Book Live 1Tb will do just fine, it's super easy to use, it has already apps for streaming to iPad/iPhone and costs you £99.40 at eBuyer. No brainer really...

Just an opinion, up to you to decide what best fits your requirements.

Nuno

 

[joelk2]

or the dlink for £65 + samsung f3 1tb £40 = £105

this will also give you the option to add an additional 1tb or 2tb drive at a later date.

 

[Autopilot]

Thank you the top advice everyone

 

[Autopilot]

Autopilot,

If you're just backing up a laptop and have no unique data on the NAS, then a single hard drive will do, no need for RAID at all. The odds of both the laptop hard drive and NAS failing at the same time are minimal (only theft/fire/flood might be a problem, but RAID doesn't protect against that either).
A TS-110 + 1Tb Seagate Green Hard drive costs £120 + £37 = £157 delivered. Need cheaper? For the requirements you've set, a WD My Book Live 1Tb will do just fine, it's super easy to use, it has already apps for streaming to iPad/iPhone and costs you £99.40 at eBuyer. No brainer really...

Just an opinion, up to you to decide what best fits your requirements.

Nuno

True, but the laptop is pretty much full now and we would like to consolidate everything to one storage device.