47 replies to this topic

[doglover]

At the moment I am abusing my ET-9500 with a 3TB and using it as a sort of NAS.

This works fine, although rather slow.  (I was aware of this from the start on).

 

I want to replace this with a proper NAS. Mainly for speed.

Started to read about NAS'ses and looked for models which could do the job.

Here the ship stranded.  I do not know what to look for. And since NAS models range from € 70 up to € 1000 the confusion is complete.

 

Further more I have a Fritzbox router which has only one Gigabit ethernet port.  I definitely will need a Gigabit network switch included.  At the moment the PC is attached to the Gigabit port.  But the NAS will have to have also a connection to a Gigabit port.

The other connections can remain on the 100mbit connections for the moment, as they do not have gigabit network adapters.  But this can change in the future. (4 more machines)

Are there NAS'ses with a switch included.  Or do I have to find a separate switch?

 

On the matter of the NAS what do I have to look out for?

 

Thanks for any advise.

 

Willy

 

PS:  the NAS needs to be very quiet.

Edited by doglover, 20 September 2016 - 09:28.

[ims]

Long time i am using Synology's NASes ( 2006j, 2007, 2010). My last is dual core Synology DS215j (+ 2x 4TB WD 24/7 hdds in RAID 1), as switches at home using HP 1405-8G or HP 1405-5G (3COM models) and all works well on Gbit.

 

Do not buy Synology DS216se (or any singlecore NAS) ... save is then cca on 1/2 speed...

 

And on boes using autofs for mount, not builded mount manager.

Edited by ims, 20 September 2016 - 10:24.

[doglover]

And on boes using autofs for mount, not builded mount manager.

 

 

This I do not understand.

 

Willy

[WanWizard]

I assume boes = box.

 

autofs is something you need to configure, and is more for advanced users. I don't like to use the mount manager as well, I use fstab entries since I prefer the mounts to be present before enigma starts. And that works well, I connect to my Synology (ds414) from fstab using NFS without any issues, since the NAS is always running anyway.

 

And I use Netgear switches locally, as I have reconfigured the ports on my router as routed VLAN ports.

[40H3X]

Synology in (at least) raid 1 is IMO a good choice. Synology has a Diskstation Manager that has an "ok" UI. If you want be on the safe side and backup to a external USB drive, then have a good look at the USB port (2 or 3 makes a difference). If you want to use it's VPN feature, also have a look at the encryption level (AES-NI). Hot-swappable is (IMHO) a bit overrated ....until you need it and managed switches are very reasonable priced these days. Good luck!

[ims]

boes  = boxes :-)

 

autofs is needed, if you want using sleeping of disks over night...  without it was not possible... 

[WanWizard]

No problem with that here, I don't see any NFS activity when the box isn't accessing the mount.

 

Not that I'm to worried about it, as there are plenty of services that keep the disks out of their sleep, even something simple as a Dynamic DNS setting will prevent the disks from going into hibernation.

[40H3X]

Btw I read that you use a Fritz. Personally I don't like AIO devices for about 200€ you have a good firewall/router and IMHO a AP shouldn't be part of a router/firewall.

[WanWizard]

Nothing wrong with AIO devices in general. But you have good onces and bad onces. Most Fritz boxes fall in the last category.

[doglover]

Btw I read that you use a Fritz. Personally I don't like AIO devices for about 200€ you have a good firewall/router and IMHO a AP shouldn't be part of a router/firewall.

 

You lost me again. 

 

AIO = all in one ?

 

a AP ?

 

Here in Belgium the ISP dictates that you use the router they provide.  It is possible to change it but you will be looked upon at strangely.  And everything that goes wrong is your own fault.

But this Fritz is better than the b-box3 (provided by Proximus) or o-box3 (provided by scarlet.  United telecom at least gave me a Fritzbox which is considered superior to the B-box/O-box3.

 

And since Proximus uses Vectoring the choice is FRITZ!Box 7360/7490 or the B-Box/O-Box-3

 

Willy

Edited by doglover, 20 September 2016 - 16:24.

[WanWizard]

Yup. All-in-one. Because compromises are always made.

 

And lol, there isn't anything worse than a BBox. But having says that, our employees working in Belgium (and that included me until 2 years ago) all have a Draytek connected to their Proximus VDSL (for it's integrated VoIP, dual WAN and VPN capabilities). It takes a bit of effort and they are quick to turn down support, but it works fine.

[40H3X]

Hi Willy,

Sorry for the abbreviations, I thought they were commen, my mistake. Yes, AIO is All In One and AP is access point and I wasn't aware of the fact that in Belgium the hardware you mentioned, were mandatory. Here my aDSL provider will give no support when I don't use the Fritzbox, but it's not mandatory. So I weighed the pro's and con's and replaced it using a Draytek 130 and a router/firewall APU2C4.

As you can read from WanWizard's reply, the opinions on the subject of AIO's differ. I specifically used the phrase "In My Humble Opinion (IMHO)" as I knew opinions on this subject may differ. Last I hope my reply on the NAS and the experiences I have with Synology were helpful and in the least not confusing as I was on the trivial remark (and Off topic) concerning AIO devices.

Cheers 40H3X

Edited by 40H3X, 20 September 2016 - 20:49.

[WanWizard]

My point was that not all AIO's are the same,

 

The biggest problem with the Fritz is it's el-cheapo hardware design, so it has a lot of bottlenecks. For example, on a model with Gb switch poorts and a Gb WAN port, forget coming even close to that througput. And the AP chip isn't connected to an internal switch port, so it suffers from the same problem. The software is very limited, and VPN setup is completely crap and full of compatibility issues. However, the VOIP and DECT parts of a Fritz are usually quite reasonable. That all may or may not be a problem for you. I can image if you have 2Mbps ADSL, you're not going to be that bothered about throughput.

 

So not only IMHO, but also YMMV...

[doglover]

At the moment I have VDSL with a connection: DSL connected, 16,6 Mbit/s 3,1 Mbit/s

 

Vectoring is active on the ROP, but not yet on my line.  Therefore I have to have a Vector friendly Modem.

When vectoring is enabled, I expect to move up a bit in the world.

 

The Fritz has only one Gb port.  (others are 100mb) .  So I have to do something about it.  A Gb switch is to be added.

I do not like to add another router at the back of the Fritz.  That complicates matters.  I am sure it can all be configured, just I cannot be bothered by it.

 

The Fritz behaves itself and does the job.

However when adding more Gb netwerk devices it falls short.  That has to be dealt with.  Therefore the Gb switch.

 

From the above, I think it will become a Synology NAS - RAID1.

The only thing is the cost of two 8 GB NAS drives.   Which are more expensive than I anticipated.

But essentially, I made a decision here.

 

Now start comparing switches.  I thought these were very simple devices, but from the above I am not sure anymore.

 

Willy

[doglover]

Another Question:

 

When I by a Synology DS416j with two 8 or 6 GB drives.

I have an 3 GB drive at the moment (WDC WD30EZRX-00M) - not a NAS quality drive

Could I add this to the NAS, and f.i use RAID 6 on it?  Or Use the Synology RAID?

 

Willy

[WanWizard]

As to switches, you have managed and unmanaged switches.

 

For home situations, if you don't need stuff like VLAN's etc, unmanaged is good enough, and quite a lot cheaper. Most switches do very well in point-to-point tests (i.e. two devices communicating with no other traffic), but some start to fail when the switch is saturated with mesh traffic (high volume traffic on mutliple ports of the switch). It is the main reason I use Netgear, which has an excellent reputation and isn't that expensive.

 

As for the router, we use Drayteks (high-end 2860 models due to the features we require) and they work fine on Belgacom VDSL, including vectoring. I can't say all models support it, so you need to check the specs.

 

As for the NAS, for standard RAID you need equal size disks, for Synology RAID, you can use different size disks. Whether or not you want to fork out extra for NAS disks depend on the size of your wallet, and the way you use them. In my case, the disks run 24/7 due to the apps I run on the box, so I use WD-RED's, as they come with 5 year warranty. If you only use the box for file sharing locally, and you are able to have the disk hibernate a lot, I can't see why you can't use desktop drives. Just calculate the potentional costs of early failure vs the more expensive NAS disks. Having said that, the price difference for a 2TB WD-RED vs WD-BLUE is currently about 14 euro, so why take the risk?

 

When choosing a model, also think about performance. IOPS is calculated per disk, so a RAID setup with 8 disks has a higher performance than a setup with 2 disks. And smaller disks have a higher performance than larger disks. So it's performance vs storage capacity vs price, and everyone's requirements will be different.

[40H3X]

Nothing to add to WanWizard's information (btw I also use WD Red's). Willy, you mentioned speed a few times. If you are more concerned about speed and care less about data safety (eg. data mirroring) you could look into disk striping a is synonymous with RAID 0 and spreads the data across all the disk drives in a RAID group without parity. Remember disk striping without parity is not fault tolerant.

Edited by 40H3X, 21 September 2016 - 14:35.

[doglover]

About that speed:  At the moment the drive is in a device (ET-9500) with a 100 mb connection.

A gigabit device will increase this speed dramatically.  So not problem there.

 

My shopping list looks like this now:

 

Synology DS416j

3X Seagate NAS or WD Red drives 4 TB each

 

Configured for Synology RAID.  Later the 3 TB drive to be added.

 

About the modem or Router.

Tried to find information on the Drayteks in combination with the Proximus network.  Not much to be found.  Except that people who tried encountered problems getting it to work.

Some had to resort into putting the Draytek behind the B-Box3 or FritzBox. 

I do not see the point into this.  Except that the Draytec has more and better configuration options for managing your internal network.  And basically I cannot see the need for this at this point for my home use. (And I am afraid about all the hassle to get it to work, and this without any support)

 

Furthermore, my cabled telephone is now also managed by the Fritz (DECT) and is completely integrated by the use of Fritz!Fon handsets.  Replacing the Fritz! medem would also requires me to change this.  The Fritz!Fon will work with any DECT system, but phonebooks are stored on the modem.  So.....

 

It looks I have to keep the Fritz!Box.  

So I am currently looking into a dedicated router with AC wifi and 4-5 gigabit accesspoints.  (something like the Synology RT1900AC)

Or a simple gigabit switch. 

This will depends on the need of upgrading the Wifi to AC  (The Fritz!Box has only n)  But I am only owing a tablet which can use AC.  All other devices still use n wifi.  And this will not change in the future.

I am still dubbing about this.  (cost is not issue - not that much difference)

 

This last thing has nothing to do with the NAS, except I need more gigabit ports.

 

Willy

Edited by doglover, 21 September 2016 - 15:54.

[WanWizard]

Pretty solid reasoning, for DECT the Fritz is a fine box.

 

As to the DS416j, remember that the j-series are entry level boxes, with a slower CPU and only half the memory, and as a result maximum performance is a lot less.

[Rick Hunter]

If you buy a Sinology, and indeed that is a good investment IMHO, you get more than a load of storage. Things like a VPN Server, Camera camera server are standard and free for download/installing to. If you just want to store your movies, dvd's, photo's.. A J-verion is good enough. I have 3 HD camera's also connected with my 413-J Synology.. and that is somehow the limit in performance.. But.. It works still like a charm.