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[captive]

I followed the same guide, everything runs without a hitch. Would recommend it.

Once a DSM update borked it but a workaround was available really quickly and the creator pcloadletter implemented a fix soon after.

Omg, and I felt guilty for just adding all my TV shows on Blu-ray to backup, which is only a 1.5tb.

 

[Li Kao]

My post will be a little OOT, but I truly think this thread is a good place to ask this.
Tomorrow I will be the owner of two 4tb WD Reds (and a two-drive dock). As the budget is limited I decided to augment the storage space on my PC before buying a proper NAS.
So the plan is to install the two drives in Raid 1. It won't be really useful for streaming things as I do not let my computer on during the night, but Raid 1 and the use of an online backup solution should provide me with enough security, no ?

But just to be sure as to the how part, I have to...
- swap two of my drives with the new ones (hence the dock for the old ones and because I'm tired of struggling with only one swap bay)..
- in the disk management part of win 8.1 I will have to quick-format each drive in GPT.
- I then will be able to set a Raid by designing one of the two drives and then the second.
- if I understood correctly I then only will see one of the drives in windows, the second one being hidden.

Am I correct ?

 

[Li Kao]

Sorry for the double post but I must say that this silence is creeping me out. Like a "oh, this guy is totally wrong but it would be to tedious to explain him how" o_o
And as expected I hadn't done my homework well and just learned about software or hardware raid. As my budget is blown up already, would it be such a mistake to use software raid for a backup / streaming use ? Hardware raid via the motherboard is critisized and I have a fucking picky PC, as seen in my 'Have I killed my ssd' thread.

I will still try to find some documentation for the MB but I don't really like this idea.

 

[captive]

I don't think the silence is indicative of anything. There are only a few people here it seems using windows for storage, me being one of them. That said, I've never done a RAID 1 in windows, I've done RAID 0. So I can't tell you what exactly happens to the second drive. I think your strategy is fine, especially because you have an online backup solution.

 

[Ptaaty]

I built my own FreeNAS and it works very well. Rock solid (on 27/7 with no drive fails in a couple years now).

It is very efficient, I used an AMD e350 micro board (all in one) with 5 SATA ports, plus a sata PCI card. Also a gold rated power supply and drives set to spin down. I used an old USB drive to load FreeNAS, so all drives are 100% data storage.

FreeNAS is pretty great, able to run most of not all the various RAID types.

If I did it over I would probably use a different mobo/CPU. I went power efficiency over all else...when using SAMBA type protocol it will only move around 50 MB/s write and 75 MB read due to the CPU overhead (enabling standard windows drag/drop). It can move more like 90 MB/s read with a low overhead protocol.

*edit* I have a copy of windows home server and don't use it. It takes way more overhead than freeNAS, less flexible, drive space, etc. Maybe I am paranoid but running freeNAS is another layer of protection from viruses since it is a different OS.

 

[Li Kao]

I don't think the silence is indicative of anything. There are only a few people here it seems using windows for storage, me being one of them. That said, I've never done a RAID 1 in windows, I've done RAID 0. So I can't tell you what exactly happens to the second drive. I think your strategy is fine, especially because you have an online backup solution.

Excuse me, I didn't see your answer. Just to be clear, dangers of written communication and all, the 'silence' thing was in no way passive aggressive. I was joking and a little worried.
So far the disk swap was ok, the PC booted and as I had noted the serial number of the drives no error was made and the right disks were swapped. That's that.
Then in disk management windows 8.1 automatically detected the two 4tb drives and asked to initial them, which was done.

Now I'm at the step where I am to tell windows to set up a raid 1 and... Newbie doubts alert !!!

I can select the two drives fine and assign a letter but then windows want me to format them in NTFS and want me to set an allocation unit size. Oh and there is the quick format check box.
Three questions :
- Is it normal that I have to format a GPT drive in NTFS ?
- Should I keep the allocation unit size on default ?
- I can do a quick format, right ? I have read horror stories from hell with normal format taking 48 hours.


Edit - Fuck it, of all the stupid errors... my usb 3.0 dock isn't recognized by windows and now my swap bay isn't working either. There must be some problem in the bios or the cables but I have no idea what. Worth noting is that the dock give me an error message in usb 3.0 (device not recognized) and no error in 2.0 (but no drive appears).

 

[captive]

Excuse me, I didn't see your answer. Just to be clear, dangers of written communication and all, the 'silence' thing was in no way passive aggressive. I was joking and a little worried.
So far the disk swap was ok, the PC booted and as I had noted the serial number of the drives no error was made and the right disks were swapped. That's that.
Then in disk management windows 8.1 automatically detected the two 4tb drives and asked to initial them, which was done.

Now I'm at the step where I am to tell windows to set up a raid 1 and... Newbie doubts alert !!!

I can select the two drives fine and assign a letter but then windows want me to format them in NTFS and want me to set an allocation unit size. Oh and there is the quick format check box.
Three questions :
- Is it normal that I have to format a GPT drive in NTFS ?
- Should I keep the allocation unit size on default ?
- I can do a quick format, right ? I have read horror stories from hell with normal format taking 48 hours.


Edit - Fuck it, of all the stupid errors... my usb 3.0 dock isn't recognized by windows and now my swap bay isn't working either. There must be some problem in the bios or the cables but I have no idea what. Worth noting is that the dock give me an error message in usb 3.0 (device not recognized) and no error in 2.0 (but no drive appears).

D'oh. You just reminded me, I ran into this issue as well. Rest assured all of your stuff is working fine if windows recognized them, windows will not let you create a RAID out of USB attached drives. It require them to be attached via SATA or SCSI.
Sounds like you have other hardware problems though.

 

[Li Kao]

D'oh. You just reminded me, I ran into this issue as well. Rest assured all of your stuff is working fine if windows recognized them, windows will not let you create a RAID out of USB attached drives. It require them to be attached via SATA or SCSI.
Sounds like you have other hardware problems though.

I badly worded my post. The two 4tb drives are plugged into the computer and with software raid 1, the usb 3.0 dock was bought to access the two drives I replaced (with the help of an hot swap bay in the computer).
The dock and bay are fiddly right now, but the raid seems to be working alright. Well except that while I transfer files to it there is a general feeling of lag to the computer, normal ?

But you are right, I have very little knowledge about cabls and bios settings and for now :
- The hot swap bay works if I set the 'generic storage device' setting in the bios to emulate an HD, not if I let it set on 'auto'. I'm sure it won't support hot swapping that way, but for now that will do.
- The dock is not functioning at all in usb 2.0 and not recognized in 3.0.
I thing a lot of my troubles have to do with how I plugged my sata cables on the MB, but see this shit and you'll know why the less I fiddle with it the better I am.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?p=155091166#post155091166

 

[show me your skeleton]

scrapping my original post to ask for something a little more on topic.

i'm thinking of getting a nas drive but don't have much budget to play around with. i've seen this:

d-link share centre

and was wondering what would be the downside over other, more expensive solutions. i've already got hard drives so that isn't necessary, just the actual enclosure.

 

[SuperPac]

Here's my situation -

I used to use a Western Digital 3TB drive as the family media server (everything in an iTunes library). With blu-ray rips and iTunes TV/movie downloads, space on that drive became thin. So I replaced it with a Seagate 5TB and moved everything from the old drive to the new one. I am on an iMac btw.

The unfortunate thing is that the new Seagate has started losing files, not being able to find files (especially music), etc. The drive isn't that old, but it's not as solid as the WD 3TB was, and that's been frustrating. I don't want to put too much new stuff on the new drive since it's clear it's not going to cut it in the long run.

So I've started looking around for alternatives. Synology's DS214play looks like it might fit the bill. Anyone have an opinion on that setup, and if so what types of HDDs should I stick into it? Should I go 2 6TB drives so I'd have enough space for media backup? (I already have my iMac backing up to a Time Capsule separately.)

 

[Marty Chinn]

Here's my situation -

I used to use a Western Digital 3TB drive as the family media server (everything in an iTunes library). With blu-ray rips and iTunes TV/movie downloads, space on that drive became thin. So I replaced it with a Seagate 5TB and moved everything from the old drive to the new one. I am on an iMac btw.

The unfortunate thing is that the new Seagate has started losing files, not being able to find files (especially music), etc. The drive isn't that old, but it's not as solid as the WD 3TB was, and that's been frustrating. I don't want to put too much new stuff on the new drive since it's clear it's not going to cut it in the long run.

So I've started looking around for alternatives. Synology's DS214play looks like it might fit the bill. Anyone have an opinion on that setup, and if so what types of HDDs should I stick into it? Should I go 2 6TB drives so I'd have enough space for media backup? (I already have my iMac backing up to a Time Capsule separately.)

How much data do you want to store and more importantly, how quickly is your data growing over time? With that setup, you'll get 6TB of storage with no real way to expand other than to replace both drives. You may want to look into a 4 bay solution over a 2 bay one for better flexibility down the road.

As for Synology devices, I'm using my first one for the last 6 months and it's been fantastic. The OS works great and is easy to use. I couldn't be happier so far. You can even set it up as a Time Machine destination and as an iTunes server which would fit your setup.

As for drives, I'm currently using WD Red drives which are supposed to be a bit better for NAS usage. HGST drives are the ones with the least failure rate. Seagates right now are the worst in failure rate. With the Synology it'll be less about losing data and just more about how soon you replace the drive. So I'd either go with the WD Red or the HGST NAS drive and you'll probably be fine.

 

[hipbabboom]

I followed the same guide, everything runs without a hitch. Would recommend it.

Once a DSM update borked it but a workaround was available really quickly and the creator pcloadletter implemented a fix soon after.

LOL! This is why we can't have nice things

 

[grendelrt]

Anyone have a good suggestion for a 4 port SATA pci-e card that will be plug and play in Freenas 9? Looking to add some drives and don't want to chase down drivers.

 

[captive]

Anyone have a good suggestion for a 4 port SATA pci-e card that will be plug and play in Freenas 9? Looking to add some drives and don't want to chase down drivers.

I have highpoint SAS card, before I bough it I made sure it worked in FreeNAS, though I ended up going in windows. Its got 2 SAS ports which with the proper cables converts to 8 SATA drives.

 

[TarpitCarnivore]

How much data do you want to store and more importantly, how quickly is your data growing over time? With that setup, you'll get 6TB of storage with no real way to expand other than to replace both drives. You may want to look into a 4 bay solution over a 2 bay one for better flexibility down the road.

As for Synology devices, I'm using my first one for the last 6 months and it's been fantastic. The OS works great and is easy to use. I couldn't be happier so far. You can even set it up as a Time Machine destination and as an iTunes server which would fit your setup.

As for drives, I'm currently using WD Red drives which are supposed to be a bit better for NAS usage. HGST drives are the ones with the least failure rate. Seagates right now are the worst in failure rate. With the Synology it'll be less about losing data and just more about how soon you replace the drive. So I'd either go with the WD Red or the HGST NAS drive and you'll probably be fine.

+1

Always buy with the future in mind and not what makes sense now. If I took that advice two years ago I would not have had to buy all new drives this year.

 

[Calm Killer]

FYI 3TB WD Red $99.99

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/wd-red-...-silver/7830208.p?acampID=0&ref=8575135&loc=0

 

[TarpitCarnivore]

To lazy to look, but I think 3TB had the highest failure rate across all the manufacturers.

 

[SuperPac]

How much data do you want to store and more importantly, how quickly is your data growing over time? With that setup, you'll get 6TB of storage with no real way to expand other than to replace both drives. You may want to look into a 4 bay solution over a 2 bay one for better flexibility down the road.

A little over 3TB now. Data is not growing too quickly - might be around or less than 400GB/year. The only reason my previous 3TB ran out of room was that I went back to rip my blu-ray collection. If I ended up with a 4-bay what size HDDs should I fill it with? Does it connect multiple drives (for instance, two 3TBs as a 6TB?). I suppose in the ideal scenario you want enough to grow plus enough to backup the existing + any growth too?

 

[Marty Chinn]

A little over 3TB now. Data is not growing too quickly - might be around or less than 400GB/year. The only reason my previous 3TB ran out of room was that I went back to rip my blu-ray collection. If I ended up with a 4-bay what size HDDs should I fill it with? Does it connect multiple drives (for instance, two 3TBs as a 6TB?). I suppose in the ideal scenario you want enough to grow plus enough to backup the existing + any growth too?

If you went with a 4 bay system, you could still start with the two 6TB drives and just use the custom Synology RAID format. This will allow you some flexibility on different size drives. The catch though is you can never go smaller when adding a new drive. You always have to add in a drive that is equal or larger than your largest size drive. Synology has a nice little calculator that can show you how adding drives gives you how much space dedicated to usage, how much is for redundancy, and how much gets wasted. SHR is Synology's RAID format for single drive redundancy, and SHR2 is the same thing but with two drive redundancy.

https://www.synology.com/en-us/support/RAID_calculator

So going with two 6TB drives with Synology's RAID format will give you one drive for redundancy which means you'll have 6TB of space to use and 6TB reserved for drive failure. Now up front that sounds like a lot to dedicate, but the nice trick is if you add in another 6TB drive for the third drive slot you now have 12TB of available space and still just 6TB dedicated to redundancy. If you add in a fourth drive at 6TB, you'll have 18TB of usable space with still the 6TB for redundancy. In other words, once you have the one drive for redundancy, any drive after that you will get full use of the storage space that will be safe in the event of any single drive failure. That's why I recommend maybe considering a four drive system that way you can add on drives to expand easily and it'll make it easier to replace drives later too.

The ideal is that you leave yourself room for expansion. Assume that your data growth rate is less likely to be constant but will increase a bit over time. You may not think you'll need it anytime soon, but it's really nice when you actually hit the limit and realize that is painless to expand at that point. It's not that much more to go from the 2 bay to the 4 bay if I recall so I think it's something to consider, but the total upfront cost can certainly be off putting at first.

I just hit the limit of my previous NAS and the migration wasn't fun, but I made sure moving forward that I had plenty of room to grow. I think I'm only hitting like 20% of my potential capacity. I think I have like 1.5TB of just RAW camera photos and videos of my kids over the last 4 years. I can only imagine what it'll be like ten years from now. I'm hoping I won't have to upgrade the server for a long time outside of just adding more drives.

 

[TarpitCarnivore]

I was under the impression Synology Hybrid Raid support mix and match drives? So if you wanted to put a 4TB in with a 6TB you can, it just reduces your storage based on the smallest drive in the array.

 

[Marty Chinn]

I was under the impression Synology Hybrid Raid support mix and match drives? So if you wanted to put a 4TB in with a 6TB you can, it just reduces your storage based on the smallest drive in the array.

You can have a 4TB and then add a 6TB, but you can't have a 6TB and then add a 4TB.

This is what it says on their wiki:

Can the SHR Volume accept drives of smaller capacity once a SHR volume has been created?
For clarification, if starting out with a SHR Volume utilizing 1TB drives, then all drives which are added or replaced to the SHR Volume must be equal or greater than 1TB. A 500GB drive cannot be added into an existing SHR (or Classic RAID) Volume, and have that storage pool of the smaller drive be utilized within the Volume.

When adding disks to the SHR Volume, what sized disks can be used?
When adding additional disks to the SHR Volume, the size of the new disks must be equal or greater in size then then the previously added disk.

 

[TarpitCarnivore]

Ah ok, I thought you meant going from large to small. That makes more sense.

 

[SuperPac]

So if I have a Time Capsule / Air Port Express in another room where the cable modem's located, can I stick the Synology in there and put all my iTunes/Media content on it - or does it have to be hooked up to the computer in my office via USB or what-have-you?

 

[Marty Chinn]

So if I have a Time Capsule / Air Port Express in another room where the cable modem's located, can I stick the Synology in there and put all my iTunes/Media content on it - or does it have to be hooked up to the computer in my office via USB or what-have-you?

Yep, you can. It's completely standalone and headless. I currently have mine in the room that just has the router and modem. At my new place, I'm thinking of even putting it in a closet.

 

[SyenceLabb]

ok nasGAF

I've been debating on DIY build or 4-bay QNAP/Synology for my first legitimate nasty NAS for home use; I also want it to double as a Plex server and serve up all my media. I ended up finding a hybrid solution. Here is what I have:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA24G2MR4700&cm_re=ts140-_-9SIA24G2MR4700-_-Product

- Currently not in stock at this price, but a great deal for a tower packing an i3-4330 3.5ghz and 4GB of ECC RAM. It's also whisper quiet. I will bite once I can find it back in the 200-220 price range.

http://www.amazon.com/Crucial-PC3-12800-Unbuffered-240-Pin-CT51272BD160B/dp/B006YG9EK6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1428695636&sr=8-1&keywords=Crucial+4GB+ECC

- Another 4GB ECC stick to bring total memory to 8GB - I should get by with that for now

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005FYNSUA/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B005FYNSUA&linkCode=as2&tag=brisblo0b-20

- An 8GB low-profile flash drive to boot FreeNAS from

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA2W01A21484

- 2x4TB WD Reds (Hopefully on sale)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822178393

- 2x4TB Seagates (Hopefully on sale) - I like to mix up my drive manufacturers to avoid buying all from a bad batch.


Adding and removing drives in the TS140 seems like it could be a pain, but I don't see myself doing it often enough for it to matter. I plan to place the 4 drives into a RAIDZ-1 or a mirrored pair with striping - not sure if I want max space or max performance yet. I also will point all this to my Crashplan account to have a good backup in the cloud.

Now I just have to wait for these items to become in stock and/or go on sale. Total price should stay just under a G.


#THUGLIFE

 

[Trojita]

So what is the consensus on the QNAP TS-431? It's on sale today.

I have a Dell Server with a Xeon Processor from 2011. So I'm assuming, possibly wrong, that the server would still be better at processing Plex? Will the ARM processor in the QNAP affect me very much in my enjoyment of using the NAS?

 

[diehard]

your Xeon will destroy any ARM when it comes to transcoding.

If you have to have transcoding in plex then yeah it will limit your enjoyment of that NAS, if not.. probably not.

ok nasGAF

I've been debating on DIY build or 4-bay QNAP/Synology for my first legitimate nasty NAS for home use; I also want it to double as a Plex server and serve up all my media. I ended up finding a hybrid solution. Here is what I have:

looks pretty good. Thanks for using ECC

 

[Got the Shakes]

So what is the consensus on the QNAP TS-431? It's on sale today.

I have a Dell Server with a Xeon Processor from 2011. So I'm assuming, possibly wrong, that the server would still be better at processing Plex? Will the ARM processor in the QNAP affect me very much in my enjoyment of using the NAS?

You might want to go and look on the Plex forums if you have any aspirations of transcoding anything. They have a whole QNAP subforum there and it should give you a good idea of what you might be getting into.

 

[Trojita]

your Xeon will destroy any ARM when it comes to transcoding.

If you have to have transcoding in plex then yeah it will limit your enjoyment of that NAS, if not.. probably not.


looks pretty good. Thanks for using ECC

Will the Xeon still destroy the latest intel processors in the $500ish-700 NAS? Like I said I'd just use Plex on the server if that is indeed still the best. The NAS can be used for other things.

The only thing I hate about my Dell server is how it doesn't have any extra SATA Ports or hard drive space, the thing came with a Maxtor Graphics Card with 8MB of memory and a VGA output. The thing runs on a super low resolution and crap color space even when remoted into. I might try and use this trick to edit a file to allow it to run a higher resolution. I don't care if it acts that way when directly interfacing on it but I'd like it to have a decent layout when remoted into. Perhaps I'll have to get a cheap AGP Graphics card. I'd love to be able to afford a newly outfitted 8 bay server with display port out (like the lenovos) or a decked out NAS, but I don't have the money for it right now.

 

[clav]

Will the Xeon still destroy the latest intel processors in the $500ish-700 NAS? Like I said I'd just use Plex on the server if that is indeed still the best. The NAS can be used for other things.

The only thing I hate about my Dell server is how it doesn't have any extra SATA Ports or hard drive space, the thing came with a Maxtor Graphics Card with 8MB of memory and a VGA output. The thing runs on a super low resolution and crap color space even when remoted into. I might try and use this trick to edit a file to allow it to run a higher resolution. I don't care if it acts that way when directly interfacing on it but I'd like it to have a decent layout when remoted into. Perhaps I'll have to get a cheap AGP Graphics card. I'd love to be able to afford a newly outfitted 8 bay server with display port out (like the lenovos) or a decked out NAS, but I don't have the money for it right now.

AGP?

Whoa.

How old is this server?

Edit: You said 2011, so what Xeon processor was installed (i.e. model #)?

 

[Trojita]

AGP?

Whoa.

How old is this server?

Edit: You said 2011, so what Xeon processor was installed (i.e. model #)?

Hmmm, maybe I'm wrong, it might just have a bunch of PCI-E slots.

Edit: Yeah, apparently it takes PCI-E graphics cards but is apparently VERY picky on which graphics cards even work. They definitely have to be low powered ones to begin with, since they have to be powered only by the motherboards power flow coming from the systems built in oem power supply. Using a graphics card that requires power cables going from a power supply to the card itself is out of the question.

 

[diehard]

a Xeon from 2011 will still be quite a bit faster than an Avoton x86 based NAS, but unless you are doing like 4k transcoding you probably won't see much difference.

 

[SuperPac]

OK so I have a Synology 415play on the way with two 6TB WD Reds. I have my 'old' iTunes library on a stable 3TB drive (and then there's the metadata-and-file-losing 5TB drive which has some newer files too). If I stick the Synology in another room by the router what's the best way to copy that drive's data to it? Can I just connect it via USB and copy from there or do I need to temporarily have the Synology next to my computer to do it?

 

[Opus Angelorum]

Can I just connect it via USB and copy from there or do I need to temporarily have the Synology next to my computer to do it?

We don't have the same Synology in work, but the RS2414+ allows you to connect drives directly to it.

 

[Marty Chinn]

OK so I have a Synology 415play on the way with two 6TB WD Reds. I have my 'old' iTunes library on a stable 3TB drive (and then there's the metadata-and-file-losing 5TB drive which has some newer files too). If I stick the Synology in another room by the router what's the best way to copy that drive's data to it? Can I just connect it via USB and copy from there or do I need to temporarily have the Synology next to my computer to do it?

You can connect it to the USB port and then use the internal file browser to copy the content over.

 

[harSon]

I'm going to upgrade my NAS solution for my media server over the next week. I've been using a Raspberry Pi with two external hard drives attached to it - which has worked wonderfully - but it's probably time to move on.

I currently have an Intel NUC that's not being used, so I'm probably going to throw in another 4GB of ram (bumping it up to 8GB), throw FreeNAS on it and use it as the core of my NAS solution (as well as a Plex Media Server). I had no plans to do so, but these 3TB Toshiba HD's were on sale for $61 a pop yesterday - so I picked up four (http://www.toshiba.com/us/accessori...are&siteID=lw9MynSeamY-_rFcLbmHTJvU_vMnTa_GRA). I also copped one of these enclosures on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003X26VV4/?tag=neogaf0e-20

I'm kind of just winging it, so hopefully it all comes together decently.

 

[toadsworth]

So I just setup one of these using FreeNAS and its working pretty well. However, I can't get sabnzbd working properly for the life of me. Does anyone know how to do this on FreeNAS?

Alternatively, are there any better NAS solutions than FreeNAS?

 

[harSon]

I ended up just purchasing a QNAP TS-451 - and I'm loving it thus far. I'll still probably make a FreeNAS solution in the future, since I generally love DIY crap, but I just felt like a plug and play solution for the time being.

So I just setup one of these using FreeNAS and its working pretty well. However, I can't get sabnzbd working properly for the life of me. Does anyone know how to do this on FreeNAS?

Alternatively, are there any better NAS solutions than FreeNAS?

What issues are you having with sabnzbd?

 

[Got the Shakes]

I ended up just purchasing a QNAP TS-451 - and I'm loving it thus far. I'll still probably make a FreeNAS solution in the future, since I generally love DIY crap, but I just felt like a plug and play solution for the time being.



What issues are you having with sabnzbd?

I'm thinking of purchasing a QNAP TVS-471. I know I could get more for my money if I built something, but I am to the point where I just want to pull something out of the box and have it setup in 10 minutes. What I like about the TVS-471 is that while the i3 processor is powerful enough right now for the stuff I'd want to do, it's actually user upgradeable to a i5 or i7 should I need extra horsepower. Also like the fairly small form factor.

 

[harSon]

I'm thinking of purchasing a QNAP TVS-471. I know I could get more for my money if I built something, but I am to the point where I just want to pull something out of the box and have it setup in 10 minutes. What I like about the TVS-471 is that while the i3 processor is powerful enough right now for the stuff I'd want to do, it's actually user upgradeable to a i5 or i7 should I need extra horsepower. Also like the fairly small form factor.

Yeah - I'm not the biggest Linux guru in the world, so the thought of tinkering around with FreeNAS and attempting to extract all of the functionality I wanted from it pushed me towards purchasing an easier solution Lol. It's probably not all that bad, but I've got enough stress at the moment.

I'm definitely happy with the QNAP though, and the one you're looking at looks pretty awesome. I still want to have a Plex Media Server, so I'll probably end up adding an Intel NUC to the equation - and have the NUC carry out the transcoding.

 

[toadsworth]

What issues are you having with sabnzbd?

Well, it's the sabnzbd plugin for FreeNAS and i set it up in a jail with a separate volume, set up the source and destination folders but i can't see the files ever. They never move to the other volume and i can't access the ones within the jail. I've just been using sabnzbd on localhost on a desktop for now, but its pretty silly when I have the NAS.

 

[Got the Shakes]

Yeah - I'm not the biggest Linux guru in the world, so the thought of tinkering around with FreeNAS and attempting to extract all of the functionality I wanted from it pushed me towards purchasing an easier solution Lol. It's probably not all that bad, but I've got enough stress at the moment.

I'm definitely happy with the QNAP though, and the one you're looking at looks pretty awesome. I still want to have a Plex Media Server, so I'll probably end up adding an Intel NUC to the equation - and have the NUC carry out the transcoding.

I have a Synology DS213j right now. It was my first NAS, and wasn't bad for an entry level unit, but I have outgrown it. I have a Plex server setup on an old PC, but ideally I'd like to just have a 1 box Plex server and storage solution, and the QNAP I was looking at seems like it is quite capable of running Plex and transcoding a few 1080p streams if necessary.

 

[Marty Chinn]

I have a Synology DS213j right now. It was my first NAS, and wasn't bad for an entry level unit, but I have outgrown it. I have a Plex server setup on an old PC, but ideally I'd like to just have a 1 box Plex server and storage solution, and the QNAP I was looking at seems like it is quite capable of running Plex and transcoding a few 1080p streams if necessary.

Why don't you get a newer/better Synology that's capable of doing transcoding with Plex? That way you're pretty much just moving the drives over to the new device making it a smooth transition.

 

[Got the Shakes]

Why don't you get a newer/better Synology that's capable of doing transcoding with Plex? That way you're pretty much just moving the drives over to the new device making it a smooth transition.

Do you have a suggestion as to which Synology to consider? Everything I've looked at seems underpowered compared to QNAP I was considering. I understand the ease of transition part keeping with the same brand, but I can back up the data I have to move over on external drives should I need to. I may be looking at specs wrong, but I am wrong that I'd see better real world performance from a NAS with a Haswell i3 vs. one with an Atom processor in it?

Edit: Considering what I am willing to spend on the QNAP, it looks like the Synology DS151+ is the closest match in the price range. The Synology uses the Intel Atom C2538 and comes with 2 gb of RAM. The QNAP comes with an Inter Core i3-4150 and 4 gb of RAM. The Synology has one more drive bay, the QNAP seems more futureproof with a larger amount of expandability on the RAM and the ability to replace the i3 with and i5 or i7 in the future. The QNAP is almost $300 more. I was leaning QNAP because it seemed to offer more power for what I'd be using it for, and it's more futureproof. Am I looking at things the wrong way?

 

[TarpitCarnivore]

The Atom's in the new Synology boxes are not that powerful despite being quad core. They work fine if no transcoding is involved, but I doubt they can transcode up to 720p.

 

[Got the Shakes]

The Atom's in the new Synology boxes are not that powerful despite being quad core. They work fine if no transcoding is involved, but I doubt they can transcode up to 720p.

Thanks. Kind of what I thought and why I was leaning towards the QNAP. Right now most of my watching is done via Plex Home Theater so not much transcoding is being done, but I'm planning on adding a few clients in the near future that will require it.

 

[TarpitCarnivore]

Some people in the Plex forums will remux everything to be in a more universal format to minimize transcoding. I haven't looked into it much, but it is another possible option.

 

[darkazcura]

So I finally got my 4th and 5th hard drives (3 TB) to set up my storage space on Windows 8.1. I set up the space, and it is only showing 9.08 TB with a single disk parity setup (3TB x 5). Shouldn't I be seeing closer to 11 TB (~10.8)? Am I doing something wrong, or does Storage Spaces do something funky so that the calculations aren't the same as if you were setting up a typical one drive parity solution?

 

[captive]

So I finally got my 4th and 5th hard drives (3 TB) to set up my storage space on Windows 8.1. I set up the space, and it is only showing 9.08 TB with a single disk parity setup (3TB x 5). Shouldn't I be seeing closer to 11 TB (~10.8)? Am I doing something wrong, or does Storage Spaces do something funky so that the calculations aren't the same as if you were setting up a typical one drive parity solution?

Was the storage space setup, before, or after you added the new drives?

 

[darkazcura]

Was the storage space setup, before, or after you added the new drives?

I didn't set any storage spaces up until I got all 5 drives. It properly calculates the total hard drive space together (~2.7 TB * 5 = ~13.5TB), but it is roughly using ~4.5 TB for parity. That seems like a lot and not totally what I was expecting. I'm looking into FlexRAID now, which was always my fallback plan if I had issues with Storage Spaces. I can't find too much online discussion about this "issue" with Storage Spaces (if it is at all). I have noticed some people note that Storage Spaces blocks storage/data off kind of differently, but the topics are like a couple years old so it could be outdated. I definitely know I didn't see any of that when I was researching Storage Spaces before I decided to go with it. lol, oh well.