decided on nas, help now what do i do???

Injury20

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Hi all,

After my previous post I'm going to go with a NAS. (thanks for the help)

So the question is now what type do I need?? I have read through pages of threads on NAS over the weekend but as i'm not that much of techie I've started this one with what I curently have and need, sorry for the size of the list

So here goes:

I have two laptops (1 x vista & 1 x XP) and a PC on XP, all are currently connected via wireless. PC can be hard wired if required.

My router is a 'Belkin wireless G modem router F5D7632G' (is this good enough?)

I need an NAS with at least a 1tb hard drive, but with the option to add to it when it gets full. my 500 gig is already full so to be able to just plug in additional hard drives will be needed

It would be useful to have a one click back up of some description on each of the pc's to make it simple

I'm not to worried about a mirrored drive with raid etc as i'm going to also use a company like this Online storage & online backup from Livedrive for an external back up (unless anybody has any suggestions on who else to use) being able to set to do an auto back up every night to the remote company will be good so i dont forget..

I will need to be able to connect remotely so the files can be accessed from work. Could do with some guidence on this i.e FTP options

I need to be able to connect a printer to the NAS and would like to be able to leave it downloading bit torrents etc when pc's are switched off

I want to use it for my iTune library, not to bothered about streaming music/video etc as long as i can sync my ipod's to it, but would be good for future proofing

I dont have a forune to spend i could really do with trying to keep this under 300 quid, i dont know if this will be possible or not with the above list

P.S. I know a little on change hard drive's in pc towers so with the right instruction I could use internal hard drives for the additional storage when needed..

Thanks in advance
Injury20
 
Most NAS's will give you exactly what you need, they come in various configurations of number of drives - 1, 2, 4, 5+

To keep within your budget, you would probably have to have a 1 bay, but there may be certain 2 bays that may fall in to your range

If going for a diskless NAS, don't forget to factor in the price of the hard drives themselves

As a rule the more you spend, the better the specification will be (faster CPU and more RAM), and this will give you faster file transfer rates

As you mention that all PC's/Laptops are connected through a Belkin Router, you will only ever see a maximum transfer rate of 12.5MB/s Wired, and 6.75MB/s wireless, and unless you upgrade your network to Gigabit

If you don't upgrade to Gigabit, there is no point is buying a top spec NAS, as you will never be able to reach the transfer speeds that the NAS can handle

For the backup of your PC's/Laptops, have you thought about setting up mapped drives and just saving everything directly to the NAS, instead of saving to the PC's/Laptops and then backing up to the NAS

You also mention using online backup, and I assume as you are looking at at least 1TB drives, that you will probably be going for the 'unlimited' Livedrive option at £99.95 per year

Have you thought about just buying a USB external drive and connecting it to the NAS, and using that to backup the NAS
You can get these external USB enclosure with 1TB drives for less than the £99.95 per year that Livedrive are charging

I use a Synology, and this has it's own Web Access File Manager, which you could use to access your files from work, or anywhere else for that matter
It also has a Print Server, Download Station and iTunes Server to cover the other features that you specified, along with a lot more

If you want to expand in the future, you can connect external USB drives to add to your capacity

Within your price range you could look at the following Synology models:-

DS109 - £188
DS109j - £108
DS209j - £154

Add in the price of various hard drive sizes and you should keep well within your budget

1TB drive - £56
1.5TB drive - £73
 
Hi ntm1275,

You mentioned about upgrading my network to a gigabit, excuse my ignorance but does that mean I need to by new wireless router aswell?? as when im connected to the net via my wireless it says im connected at about 54mps (cant remeber the exact number.

Does that make sense??

Ian
 
It doesn't have to mean that Ian.

But i do echo ntm's sentiments.

You know that your 54g wireless connection is always going to be slow.(max 6.75Mbyte/Sec), so well capable of performing under your router 100mbit ethernet connection.

So what you could do is buy a gigabit switch to plug into Router and then all your "fast" devices, ie devices with gigabit network cards. (Desktop, NAS etc) can plug into the gigabit switch.

Something like this:
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/64190


That way, anything connected into the gigabit switch runs A1 speed, whereas anything connected to, or wirelessly talking to your router works at the slower speeds. (100mbit hard-wired or 6.75Mbyte/sec max for wireless)

But that would mean that your devices would need to be hardwired to get the benefit of the gigabit switch. Any wireless connection would still end up being 6.75Mbyte max regardless of if your NAS was plugged into a gigabit switch.

Does that make sense? Its like segmenting your network so that you keep fast and slow devices apart. But a single link between the two allows connection.

Looking at the end to end connectiona you make, it always drops down to the slowest common denominator.

Wireless Device to Gigbabit switch - always 6.75Mbyte max (wireless max drops it down)
100Mbit ethernet to Gigabit switch - always 12.5Mbyte max (100Mbit max drops it down)
gigabit switch to gigabit switch - always 125Mbyte max (full speed allowed all the way through)

So unless you connect both source and destination devices at gigabit, you are never going to get the best transfer rates out of any NAS. Wireless and 100Mbit connections just strangle the throughput.

If you take a look at the Sticky, it shows a list of speed comparisons that might help. It also tries to explain bottlenecks etc.

I suppose the final question is, do you really need all the bandwidth from your NAS? If you are just streaming, then maybe not??
And without hard-wiring all your devices into a gigagit switch, you wont get full speed from NAS to device.
 
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Thanks again for the advise, going on what you mentioned above, i'm thinking try it without the gigswitch and see how we get on, if i run my back ups at night it doesnt matter how much it slows down to much. Then if i find the speed over the wireless is an issue then look at adding one at a later date.

If i do decide to stream music from the nas will i need the gig switch for that??

thanks again
 
If i do decide to stream music from the nas will i need the gig switch for that??

No, definitely not. I don't think you've quite grasped all the relative network speeds vs media bandwidth requirements yet! :D

Streaming music requires hardly any network bandwidth.

But what you will find, is that when copying files to and from the NAS, ie playing with your iTunes collection, it will be much slower than the same task to a local hard disk.

This is because your wireless network runs at around 6Mbyte/sec, whereas a hard disk in your machine/laptop is more than likely 60+ Mbyte/sec.
 
gotcha... i feel like such a noob lol

But that does meen i may have an issue as the stuff that will need backing up on a regular basis is for the wife's business which consists of 30 page word docs, anything from 50 digital images taken with a 12 megapixel camera and a few pdf files. So when uploading to the NAS i would probably be best getting her to plug in rather than wireless Yes??
 
Yeah, for streaming, wireless will suffice as streaming music doesn't use much network bandwidth and low-end video should be ok on wireless too.

But I have found that other tasks such as backups or working with iTunes and photo libraries significantly benefit from using wired connections..... and especially if you get yourself gigabit connections.

The "Max" figures speak for themselves.

54g Wireless: 6.75Mbyte/sec
100 Mbit Wired: 12.5 MBytes/sec
Average NAS : 30 MBytes/sec (could be anything from 15 to 60 MByte/sec depending on which one you purchase). But this speed is only achievable if plugged it into a gigabit port, otherwise 100 Mbit is the maximum achievable.
Gigabit Wired: 125 MBytes/sec

The response you'll see from wireless to 100 Mbit wired is double.
 
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Morning guys,

Looks like the winning option for the moment is going to be the single drive with an external back up (for safety reasons, fire, burglars etc)

Question is if i buy a dual case (something like a synology 209) and just have 1 x 1.5tb drive for the moment, when that is full can i add a second drive just to boost the storage space or do the second drives only work as mirror?

example if i add a 2nd 1.5tb drive will i still have 1.5tb but mirrored or would i end up with 3tb of storage??
 
Morning guys,

Looks like the winning option for the moment is going to be the single drive with an external back up (for safety reasons, fire, burglars etc)

Question is if i buy a dual case (something like a synology 209) and just have 1 x 1.5tb drive for the moment, when that is full can i add a second drive just to boost the storage space or do the second drives only work as mirror?

example if i add a 2nd 1.5tb drive will i still have 1.5tb but mirrored or would i end up with 3tb of storage??

From my reading the Synology dual bay NASs lets you add on the second hard drives as extra storage as they quote max capacity being 4TB (2x2TB).
It's only the ReadyNas Duo that is really a single drive NAS as the other drive can only be used as a mirror of the first drive.
 
Hi guys

Just a quick slighlty off topic question, related to what im doing would using homeplugs speed up the backing up of the laptops to the nas rather than using the wireless network??

I've only just spotted them in another thread and thought they looked like a good idea??

Thanks in advance
 
depends what the spec of the homeplugs are. Also, i believe the speed can be dependant on your wiring.

I take it you've read the Homeplug FAQ? : http://www.avforums.com/forums/networking/731564-homeplug-faq.html

Obviously, if the homeplugs you get can achieve higher speeds than your 54g network and your NAS and laptop are upto it, then your backups would be quicker.
 
hello again folks,

ive narrowed things down to the netgear readynas duo and the synergy 209. (I think)

Can anybody advise me which is better the option or is it all down to price??
also does anybody no the max sized hard drives they take and, all the sites i look at advertise them with different sizes but not sure what the max is for future proofing etc.

thanks again guys
 
hello again folks,

ive narrowed things down to the netgear readynas duo and the synergy 209. (I think)

Can anybody advise me which is better the option or is it all down to price??
also does anybody no the max sized hard drives they take and, all the sites i look at advertise them with different sizes but not sure what the max is for future proofing etc.

thanks again guys

Do you mean Synology?

For max sizes of drives, i'd suggest each vendor's website.(Netgear/Synology) They will normally show which drive models they recommend for their NAS.

Price is one thing, but only your actual requirement can decide which you suits you best (features, performance etc)
 
Do you mean Synology
Ha Ha yes i did DOH !!!!
For max sizes of drives, i'd suggest each vendor's website.(Netgear/Synology) They will normally show which drive models they recommend for their NAS.

Price is one thing, but only your actual requirement can decide which you suits you best (features, performance etc
 
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Hardware Compatibility ListHard Disks : NETGEAR ReadyNAS Community

list of approved hard drives there

mostly I always recommend readynas when there is a suitable model, for the following reasons

1. longest warranty - 3 or 5 years on readynas vs 1 year for the other guys

2. support - 24 hr swap out on readynas, UK support and offices - some of the other small players dont have a WW support infrastructure - 12 days turnaround for an RMA from Taiwan is considered "good" ! ...too long for me to wait to get a business up and running though ...

3. readynas are the market leader in under £3K NAS boxes (and owned by one of the biggest consumer networking vendors - Netgear) - they sell 2x more than Syn and QNAP put together who are towards the bottom of the top 10 charts ...generally you dont get there by selling rubbish ...

4. best feature set in software (according to review sites) - most backlup options etc - most important for business users

5. tried and tested, some of these newer companies have barely been around long enough to get their website up and a few review products out - a fancy website can do wonders if all you are is an industrial unit in the Far East

6. If you buy with drives included, they are warrantied for 3 or 5 years too, and tested, array built and ready to go (saves a few hours labour etc onsite)

thats my logic when a small business owner comes to me and asks for a NAS solution
 
Thanks for the advise, going on that i think netgear it is, now to find the cheapest site, and get the credit card out
 
:thumbsup:Just wanted to say thanks to everyone who has contributed to this thread and helped me out. I've ordered my nas from dabs, gone for the below in the end:-
  • Netgear readyNas Duo - £144.96
  • Seagate 1.5tb barracuda hard drive - £ 83.90
  • Netgear 5 port Gigabit switch - £ 27.46
So got the lot for £256.32 with free delivery from dabs.com
With the option to get a free 500gig hard drive so I will probably just flog that on ebay or somet and put the money towards the 2nd 1.5tb drive when i'm ready for it. All being delivered next week so no doubt I will be back on here asking how to put it all together next weekend.

Thanks again guys
 

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