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[MultiCore]

10 drives using 7.5 watts each would be 75 watts, surely.

Math is hard!
You're right, sir! lol

With that said, 500-700watts would be plenty, and I'd consider getting a 80+ Silver or better rated PSU.

Thanks for the updates so far will look into them!
mmmm well the stuff I saw about the archive drives that sure not really rated for NAS but it could not hurt the drives right?
They are slower but mostly will use the SSD ever day and the other drives a times a week to move stuff over and sometimes stream stuff from it.

http://www.storagereview.com/seagate_archive_hdd_review_8tb

This review specifically mentions using these drives for NAS use. Check it out.

 

[The Dutch Slayer]

Math is hard!
You're right, sir! lol
With that said, 500-700watts would be plenty, and I'd consider getting a 80+ Silver or better rated PSU.
http://www.storagereview.com/seagate_archive_hdd_review_8tb
This review specifically mentions using these drives for NAS use. Check it out.

Thanks for the link will check it out.
PSU yeah off course will have the highest rated PSU as possible.

 

[iamblades]

Thanks for the updates so far will look into them!
mmmm well the stuff I saw about the archive drives that sure not really rated for NAS but it could not hurt the drives right?
They are slower but mostly will use the SSD ever day and the other drives a times a week to move stuff over and sometimes stream stuff from it.

Those archive drives are rated at 800k hours mtbf, compared to 1m hours for most nas drives, or 1.5-2m for enterprise level drives.

Not saying you can't use them, but you definitely want to factor that into how you build your vdevs, ie increase redundancy by at least 1/5th.

You need raid 6 at a minimum, but I would just use mirrored vdevs if I used those drives, if you can't use a checksummed and snapshotted raid file system like ZFS(if you can raidz3 will work for you).

 

[TarpitCarnivore]

Thanks for the updates so far will look into them!
mmmm well the stuff I saw about the archive drives that sure not really rated for NAS but it could not hurt the drives right?
They are slower but mostly will use the SSD ever day and the other drives a times a week to move stuff over and sometimes stream stuff from it.

If you're putting 10 drives into a case consider NAS drives or drives rated to withstand that kind of use/vibration. Seagate's have improved a lot since the last Backblaze report, but make sure you're getting the right firmware models.

What are your intentions with the HDMI port on the motherboard? Everything you're telling us suggest this thing will be a 100% dedicate storage server, but in your original post you mention HDMI.

Im currently using a 2-bay DS212j and want to upgrade to something faster. Im bottlenecked by my wireless network (tops out around 150-200mbps) for peak bandwidth but im more interested in having better response time using the DSM UI and also for encrypted transfers... any reccomendations? DS213j DS213, 214, 215?

I kind of hate 2-bay systems, but I have the 415+ and have no complaints. DSM can be laggy at times but it's also a heavy UI.

 

[The Dutch Slayer]

Those archive drives are rated at 800k hours mtbf, compared to 1m hours for most nas drives, or 1.5-2m for enterprise level drives.

Not saying you can't use them, but you definitely want to factor that into how you build your vdevs, ie increase redundancy by at least 1/5th.

You need raid 6 at a minimum, but I would just use mirrored vdevs if I used those drives, if you can't use a checksummed and snapshotted raid file system like ZFS(if you can raidz3 will work for you).

Thanks for all the info will look into it for sure.

If you're putting 10 drives into a case consider NAS drives or drives rated to withstand that kind of use/vibration. Seagate's have improved a lot since the last Backblaze report, but make sure you're getting the right firmware models.

What are your intentions with the HDMI port on the motherboard? Everything you're telling us suggest this thing will be a 100% dedicate storage server, but in your original post you mention HDMI.

HDMI is for having a external monitor if network goes down so that I can still interface with the machine without remote monitoring.
Also want to have sound out just in case I ever need it hate dvi and separate audio out when its not really needed.

 

[jayvo]

Ok so maybe I'm in the right area, if not, could someone point me in the right direction. I collect blu-ray's. I have over 500 blu-rays right now. I want to start making digital copies of all my movies and TV shows and play. Is a NAS system appropriate in this case? If so, could I have a link to a system that could hold as many blu-ray's as I have. Please keep in mind that I will constantly add more and I don't want them compressed that much.

 

[Dragon]

Ok so maybe I'm in the right area, if not, could someone point me in the right direction. I collect blu-ray's. I have over 500 blu-rays right now. I want to start making digital copies of all my movies and TV shows and play. Is a NAS system appropriate in this case? If so, could I have a link to a system that could hold as many blu-ray's as I have. Please keep in mind that I will constantly add more and I don't want them compressed that much.

500 * 20 gig = 10000 gig or 10 TB. So that's a decent sized system that you'll want to grow.

 

[jayvo]

500 * 20 gig = 10000 gig or 10 TB. So that's a decent sized system that you'll want to grow.

So, something like this? I know that I'll have to buy the drives for it.

 

[TarpitCarnivore]

So, something like this? I know that I'll have to buy the drives for it.

If you're collecting blu-rays and you want to make back up copies I would encourage you either self build and go the FreeNAS route or buy a much bigger pre-built box (8 bays).

Here's why:
You're most likely going to be buying 4TB drives as buying 2TB and then upgrading later would be silly. The 4-drive box you linked to can achieve 12TB of disk space through JBOD but that would be insane. At the very minimum you will want to do the Synology Hybrid Raid or RAID 5 which means you're going to have ~8TB of storage (3-drives x 1 redundant).

However there is a huge caveat to consider with going this route. As the size of drives have expanded the potential for bit rot or drive failure has grown. If a drive fails in the a four bay set up the 4th drive (redundant drive) will take over. Except one issue, the rebuild time for the replacement drive could take multiple hours. In that time it's very plausible for yet another drive to fail or even for the replacement drive to be bad. If another drive goes you're going to be SOL.

You're probably thinking "Well i can just use Crashplan or Backblaze" and you can except the problem is those services are slow as shit for recovery. They're ideal for situations with lost documents or pictures. Not multi-TB media collections. And yes they will send you a drive to expedite the process but that drive usually has a cap on size (I think 1TB) and it costs money. All of this is time and time means potential for yet another drive failure.

So the reason I say to consider FreeNAS is for ZFS and it's handling of data integrity. I personally have never used FreeNAS but from reading about it I understand it's very valuable for large data situations. I think one of the posters in this thread has done multiple ZFS configs and can probably speak more to this.

As for 8-bay or larger the benefit here is you can comfortably get into RAID 6 or RAID 10. These are redundancy set-ups where TWO drives are dedicated for failure. This gives you a much better advantage during a large rebuild process.

I do say all this as I'm running a 4-bay, 4TB SHR in my house and have gone 3 1/2 years with no failures (Only on initial HDD purchase) but if I had the money I would certainly have gone for an 8-bay RAID 6/10 configuration.

 

[jayvo]

If you're collecting blu-rays and you want to make back up copies I would encourage you either self build and go the FreeNAS route or buy a much bigger pre-built box (8 bays).

Here's why:
You're most likely going to be buying 4TB drives as buying 2TB and then upgrading later would be silly. The 4-drive box you linked to can achieve 12TB of disk space through JBOD but that would be insane. At the very minimum you will want to do the Synology Hybrid Raid or RAID 5 which means you're going to have ~8TB of storage (3-drives x 1 redundant).

However there is a huge caveat to consider with going this route. As the size of drives have expanded the potential for bit rot or drive failure has grown. If a drive fails in the a four bay set up the 4th drive (redundant drive) will take over. Except one issue, the rebuild time for the replacement drive could take multiple hours. In that time it's very plausible for yet another drive to fail or even for the replacement drive to be bad. If another drive goes you're going to be SOL.

You're probably thinking "Well i can just use Crashplan or Backblaze" and you can except the problem is those services are slow as shit for recovery. They're ideal for situations with lost documents or pictures. Not multi-TB media collections. And yes they will send you a drive to expedite the process but that drive usually has a cap on size (I think 1TB) and it costs money. All of this is time and time means potential for yet another drive failure.

So the reason I say to consider FreeNAS is for ZFS and it's handling of data integrity. I personally have never used FreeNAS but from reading about it I understand it's very valuable for large data situations. I think one of the posters in this thread has done multiple ZFS configs and can probably speak more to this.

As for 8-bay or larger the benefit here is you can comfortably get into RAID 6 or RAID 10. These are redundancy set-ups where TWO drives are dedicated for failure. This gives you a much better advantage during a large rebuild process.

I do say all this as I'm running a 4-bay, 4TB SHR in my house and have gone 3 1/2 years with no failures (Only on initial HDD purchase) but if I had the money I would certainly have gone for an 8-bay RAID 6/10 configuration.

Thanks so much for this information. So I'll need something along the lines of this product. Along with a few 4 TB NAS drives. Do you know why this one is cheaper than the Synology one? IS it the name?

 

[TarpitCarnivore]

Thanks so much for this information. So I'll need something along the lines of this product. Along with a few 4 TB NAS drives. Do you know why this one is cheaper than the Synology one? IS it the name?

That's basically an external drive case, but just bigger.

Synology, QNAP and the like are going to be more expensive than building your own solution because they're doing a lot of the leg work for you. They're picking the hardware, picking the OS, doing all the config, etc. So there is a premium for that. Plus stuff like Synology DSM is pretty robust in what it can offer.

When I say build your own I mean you're essentially building a PC, but with more drives and a different OS. So you'd buy a compatible motherboard, CPU, PSU and memory, etc.

 

[jayvo]

That's basically an external drive case, but just bigger.

Synology, QNAP and the like are going to be more expensive than building your own solution because they're doing a lot of the leg work for you. They're picking the hardware, picking the OS, doing all the config, etc. So there is a premium for that. Plus stuff like Synology DSM is pretty robust in what it can offer.

When I say build your own I mean you're essentially building a PC, but with more drives and a different OS. So you'd buy a compatible motherboard, CPU, PSU and memory, etc.

Oh ok, well I've built gaming PC's and currently have a pretty powerful rig. Could you point me to what I would need for building my setup here? Pretty sure I could piece it together seeing as how I'm familiar with building.

 

[TarpitCarnivore]

I'll let someone else whose done that give you suggestions and set ups. I've since moved on to running a Synology box over my unRaid set up.

 

[Shadowhaxor]

Oh ok, well I've built gaming PC's and currently have a pretty powerful rig. Could you point me to what I would need for building my setup here? Pretty sure I could piece it together seeing as how I'm familiar with building.

Check out these links to get an idea. I wish I could be of more help but I dropped Freenas and Nas4Free, a while ago and picked up a 5 bay Synology and never looked back.

http://www.tested.com/tech/500455-building-home-server-using-freenas/
http://www.freenas.org/whats-new/20...design-part-i-purpose-and-best-practices.html
https://www.reddit.com/r/freenas/comments/2rbfy7/my_latest_freenas_build_diy_nas_2015_edition/

Still, a DIY Nas will save you some money and you can add some extra power, you just miss out on some of the more developed and fine-tuned apps that Synology and QNAP provide.

 

[jayvo]

Check out these links to get an idea. I wish I could be of more help but I dropped Freenas and Nas4Free, a while ago and picked up a 5 bay Synology and never looked back.

http://www.tested.com/tech/500455-building-home-server-using-freenas/
http://www.freenas.org/whats-new/20...design-part-i-purpose-and-best-practices.html
https://www.reddit.com/r/freenas/comments/2rbfy7/my_latest_freenas_build_diy_nas_2015_edition/

Still, a DIY Nas will save you some money and you can add some extra power, you just miss out on some of the more developed and fine-tuned apps that Synology and QNAP provide.

Thanks for this info as well. So, in an effort to not complicate things, would this work for me? Seeing as how Synology is praised by many around here?

 

[crazygambit]

If you're collecting blu-rays and you want to make back up copies I would encourage you either self build and go the FreeNAS route or buy a much bigger pre-built box (8 bays).

Here's why:
You're most likely going to be buying 4TB drives as buying 2TB and then upgrading later would be silly. The 4-drive box you linked to can achieve 12TB of disk space through JBOD but that would be insane. At the very minimum you will want to do the Synology Hybrid Raid or RAID 5 which means you're going to have ~8TB of storage (3-drives x 1 redundant).

However there is a huge caveat to consider with going this route. As the size of drives have expanded the potential for bit rot or drive failure has grown. If a drive fails in the a four bay set up the 4th drive (redundant drive) will take over. Except one issue, the rebuild time for the replacement drive could take multiple hours. In that time it's very plausible for yet another drive to fail or even for the replacement drive to be bad. If another drive goes you're going to be SOL.

You're probably thinking "Well i can just use Crashplan or Backblaze" and you can except the problem is those services are slow as shit for recovery. They're ideal for situations with lost documents or pictures. Not multi-TB media collections. And yes they will send you a drive to expedite the process but that drive usually has a cap on size (I think 1TB) and it costs money. All of this is time and time means potential for yet another drive failure.

So the reason I say to consider FreeNAS is for ZFS and it's handling of data integrity. I personally have never used FreeNAS but from reading about it I understand it's very valuable for large data situations. I think one of the posters in this thread has done multiple ZFS configs and can probably speak more to this.

As for 8-bay or larger the benefit here is you can comfortably get into RAID 6 or RAID 10. These are redundancy set-ups where TWO drives are dedicated for failure. This gives you a much better advantage during a large rebuild process.

I do say all this as I'm running a 4-bay, 4TB SHR in my house and have gone 3 1/2 years with no failures (Only on initial HDD purchase) but if I had the money I would certainly have gone for an 8-bay RAID 6/10 configuration.

I agree with the self build part. If you want a large media collection your best bet is to self build IMO. I disagree about pretty much everything else though.

I think achieving maximum storage and ease of growth for as little cost as possible is the way to go for a media collection. Thus using a system with 2 redundant drives is completely overkill. This is not sensitive data you're keeping. Of course a recovery service in case of multiple drive failure seems insane considering you can just rip your BDs again.

You want the convenience of having your whole collection readily accessible in one place and maybe streaming to multiple devices. Data security is a nice to have, but not critical.

FreeNAS might be the way to go. Specially if you have to buy the drives, since you can buy all 4TB ones. I personally use unRAID which lets me mix and match different drives and still use their full capacity. I've been using it for many years, so I started with 1 and 2TB discs, which I still have and I've added 3 and 4TB discs with time. I have a 20 disc bay capacity, 1 is parity and 1 is a cache. I don't have 18 data discs yet, my last purchase was 4 4TB drives and I still haven't filled them completely.

My 500GB cache drive is giving me some issues lately. I get stutters if I try to play stuff that's still in the cache (it auto moves overnight). I've been thinking about an SSD, but I'm concerned about reliability for that kind of use. The cache is constantly being read and written, like 24/7, plus I would need something close to the 500GB I have today, which might be pretty expensive. The other option is something like a 10k rpm drive I guess. Anyone have any experience with this kind of stuff?

 

[Marty Chinn]

I agree with the self build part. If you want a large media collection your best bet is to self build IMO. I disagree about pretty much everything else though.

I think achieving maximum storage and ease of growth for as little cost as possible is the way to go for a media collection. Thus using a system with 2 redundant drives is completely overkill. This is not sensitive data you're keeping. Of course a recovery service in case of multiple drive failure seems insane considering you can just rip your BDs again.

You want the convenience of having your whole collection readily accessible in one place and maybe streaming to multiple devices. Data security is a nice to have, but not critical.

You're not factoring in time in all this. 2 redundant drives means I'm spending an extra $100 so I don't have to spend weeks reripping everything again. I don't think that's overkill at all.

 

[Shadowhaxor]

Thanks for this info as well. So, in an effort to not complicate things, would this work for me? Seeing as how Synology is praised by many around here?

It would, however you need to take a couple of things into account:

1. How much space you need / want.
2. How much you're willing to speed
3. How much power you need.

Synology actually has a demo of their control panel, DSM.

https://www.synology.com/en-us/knowledgebase/tutorials#video

It simply does so many things that the price it incurs is worth it.

 

[Marty Chinn]

It would, however you need to take a couple of things into account:

1. How much space you need / want.
2. How much you're willing to speed
3. How much power you need.

Synology actually has a demo of their control panel, DSM.

https://www.synology.com/en-us/knowledgebase/tutorials#video

It simply does so many things that the price it incurs is worth it.

I concur with the Synology recommendation. I think more of the Synology as an appliance or a device rather than a computer with how it's ready to go, self sufficient that needs very little attention or maintenance, and you just set it and forget it. Plus I'm amazed at how well the browser interface works too. It's the best I've used. All that but you still have the flexibility to do some pretty powerful things if you want to.

 

[crazygambit]

You're not factoring in time in all this. 2 redundant drives means I'm spending an extra $100 so I don't have to spend weeks reripping everything again. I don't think that's overkill at all.

For starters you're spending a lot more than $100, since you need an extra disc bay as well (losing a data disc slot), which is more expensive than the actual disc. All to avoid reripping 2 discs in the extremely rare case of a simultaneous failure of 2 drives (with unRAID you don't lose the data in the other discs, but it's a bit of a hassle to rebuild the array).

Plus these drives get used very sparingly in a system like this. They will last a long time and the chances that a second drive will fail in the 4 or 5 hours it takes to rebuild parity seems extremely low. I maintain it's complete overkill for this kind of use, but everyone is free to make their own decisions.

Mine has been up 24/7 for over 5 years and I have yet to have a drive fail. I'm OK with my level of risk.

 

[Marty Chinn]

For starters you're spending a lot more than $100, since you need an extra disc bay as well (losing a data disc slot), which is more expensive than the actual disc. All to avoid reripping 2 discs in the extremely rare case of a simultaneous failure of 2 drives (with unRAID you don't lose the data in the other discs, but it's a bit of a hassle to rebuild the array).

Plus these drives get used very sparingly in a system like this. They will last a long time and the chances that a second drive will fail in the 4 or 5 hours it takes to rebuild parity seems extremely low. I maintain it's complete overkill for this kind of use, but everyone is free to make their own decisions.

Mine has been up 24/7 for over 5 years and I have yet to have a drive fail. I'm OK with my level of risk.

My last server was up for 6 years running 24/7 and during that time, I had two drive failures, so they do happen even if infrequent. That server had 12 bays on it but it was also running WHS instead with drive duplication instead of RAID to insure data security. It was always scary when the new drive was being rebuilt to think if at that point another drive goes down, I'll lose data. So my new server can take up to 18 drives and I figure it's better to take the hit up front instead of paying later. Replacing 8TB of movies is weeks of ripping movies, naming them, copying them to the server, etc. It's painful. It was painful the first time and not something I want to go through again. So I'm willing to pay the little extra in order to save all that time. I certainly make way more than that cost in a week at work.

 

[crazygambit]

My last server was up for 6 years running 24/7 and during that time, I had two drive failures, so they do happen even if infrequent. That server had 12 bays on it but it was also running WHS instead with drive duplication instead of RAID to insure data security. It was always scary when the new drive was being rebuilt to think if at that point another drive goes down, I'll lose data. So my new server can take up to 18 drives and I figure it's better to take the hit up front instead of paying later. Replacing 8TB of movies is weeks of ripping movies, naming them, copying them to the server, etc. It's painful. It was painful the first time and not something I want to go through again. So I'm willing to pay the little extra in order to save all that time. I certainly make way more than that cost in a week at work.

Exactly. Now calculate the odds of those 2 failures being 12 hours apart. It makes sense in the enterprise world where the drives are being used heavily. In a home media server? The more drives you have the less likely this will happen. If you have a cache drivr, the data discs are used so sparingly that I think you have a better chance of the server catching fire, in which case 2 parity drives will do you as much good as 1.

 

[iamblades]

Exactly. Now calculate the odds of those 2 failures being 12 hours apart. It makes sense in the enterprise world where the drives are being used heavily. In a home media server? The more drives you have the less likely this will happen. If you have a cache drivr, the data discs are used so sparingly that I think you have a better chance of the server catching fire, in which case 2 parity drives will do you as much good as 1.

This is bad advice.

You don't need to have two complete HD failures to lose your raid when you are running with a single parity disk. Given the mean time between unrecoverable read errors and the size of current hard drives, means you are almost statistically guaranteed to have an unrecoverable read error during the time your raid is resilvering on a larger raid. In fact, for large arrays (>10 drives) RAID 0 is actually statistically safer than RAID 5, since a URE during resilver is practically guaranteed, the only thing you gain from the parity drive is an extra ~3% chance of failure.

http://www.datamation.com/storage/data-storage-the-myth-of-redundancy-1.html

In the enterprise world this is actually less important, because they can afford more expensive drives with a couple of orders of magnitude fewer UREs, and they can afford to do nightly and weekly backups to tape(in addition to probably having a completely separate copy of the NAS).

Granted, the enterprise has more important data, and if all you are out when your raid fails is the time it took to rip the movies on your box, maybe you will feel ok rolling the dice, but if you store anything important on your nas, or if you time is worth more than a few pennies an hour to replace all the media you lose, it is worth paying extra for more redundancy.

unRAID is of course a different situation, as only the individual files are vulnerable to UREs, but you also get none of the performance benefits of RAID either. If you want the performance gains from RAID, you are going to want to shell out for the extra redundancy.

 

[TarpitCarnivore]

Exactly. Now calculate the odds of those 2 failures being 12 hours apart. It makes sense in the enterprise world where the drives are being used heavily. In a home media server? The more drives you have the less likely this will happen. If you have a cache drivr, the data discs are used so sparingly that I think you have a better chance of the server catching fire, in which case 2 parity drives will do you as much good as 1.

I'm going to assume you're talking about unRaid and Cache Drives. This is actually a bad suggestion as way of not having to worry about overuse. The cache drive will be seeing the bulk of the work and if that cache drive should happen to keel over before it copies the data over you're SOL. IIRC they even caution against this in their documentation / wiki page.

Yes, what i was suggesting is way overkill but this is someone who is manually ripping all their media. That is a lot of time to factor into all of this. I'm also factoring in that this person may end up using this beyond just media storage.

Data is relatively cheap again and if you're going to guy all out just do it right.

 

[crazygambit]

I'm going to assume you're talking about unRaid and Cache Drives. This is actually a bad suggestion as way of not having to worry about overuse. The cache drive will be seeing the bulk of the work and if that cache drive should happen to keel over before it copies the data over you're SOL. IIRC they even caution against this in their documentation / wiki page.

Yes, what i was suggesting is way overkill but this is someone who is manually ripping all their media. That is a lot of time to factor into all of this. I'm also factoring in that this person may end up using this beyond just media storage.

Data is relatively cheap again and if you're going to guy all out just do it right.

Since the cache drive is out of the array, you lose at most 1 day of downloads. Really immaterial IMO. You're not saving sensitive stuff there.

As for the performance benefits, again, for a media server that's overkill as well. If you're editing raw pictures or videos, then sure, you need the performance boost, but to stream media? Even for 4k stuff, unRAID is more than good enough, since latency doesn't really matter.

I'm only talking about best bang for the buck on a media server, which is what the jayvo was talking about.

 

[jayvo]

Yeah, the main goal is just store and stream all my blu-ray's. But now I'm more confused than when I started haha. It's no big deal. I'll just do a little more research.

 

[TarpitCarnivore]

unRaid is definitely the best bang for the buck solution. There is going to a performance hit, but not enough to impact streaming the media. Where things will get a bit more murky is if you want to run applications on the box.

If you have equipment lying around there is a good chance you can build either an unRaid or FreeNAS box. Just go to their respective sites and look at the recommended hardware configs.

 

[Shadowhaxor]

Before we go further down the rabbit hole of redundancy and raid, I wanted to remind everyone that you can get cloud backups for this as well. I use crashplan and i've got 19TB of backups on there. Yes, it takes forever to get my shit back if a drive crashes, but it has happened twice due to shit Seagate drives (Never Again),

And it only costs me $5 a month for unlimited data.

Just wanted to add my two cents there.

*Carry on*

 

[crazygambit]

unRaid is definitely the best bang for the buck solution. There is going to a performance hit, but not enough to impact streaming the media. Where things will get a bit more murky is if you want to run applications on the box.

If you have equipment lying around there is a good chance you can build either an unRaid or FreeNAS box. Just go to their respective sites and look at the recommended hardware configs.

Applications like a torrent client and stuff like that have no impact on performance. If you want your box to transcode though, then you need a decent CPU and RAM. Of course your hardware will impact how well those applications themselves run, but it shouldn't have any impact on streaming your content.

The performance impact vs a true RAID system is just that it doesn't do any stripping. For example the file of the movie you want to watch is entirely on 1 HDD. On a RAID system that file would be split among many HDDs and they're all read simultaneously, so you'd get better performance. However by their very nature media files don't benefit that much from that, since you still have to watch it in order. Maybe in extreme fast forwarding there could be a benefit (though I've never had a problem there either). The disadvantage is that you're spinning up (and wearing down) all your drives for that gain, which depending on your set up might increase noise and will definitely have an impact on your electricity bill. UnRAID works like a JBOD in that case. Only 1 HDD will spin up, so you'll be limited to the speed of the drive, just like watching a movie on a normal computer, which is enough even for the biggest of files in my experience.

I have a MB and CPU from 2009 that I had lying around with only 2GB RAM and I haven't had any problems, but I don't do any transcoding there.

 

[Madridy]

Hey guys. I've been lurking this thread for a while, but now I think we're ready to jump in the NAS world.

Here is our situation:

I live in a household with a total of 8 people, and almost each person has his own smartphone, laptop, desktop, tablet, consoles and DVD/BD collection...etc. There are at least two devices per person. (i.e. I have 4: desktop, laptop, smartphone and a console)

We actually have 2 independent LAN/Internet networks with different ISPs, reason is one is for browsing, downloading, streaming..etc and the other is mainly for gaming and the occasional browsing.

What is my objective:

To build a centralized server for the following goals:

• Centralized media storage center for all of our Multi-media data (DVD/BDs rips, Music, Photos...etc) and the ability to stream this media to each and every device possible.
• A backup center for personal and vital data in the main PC for each person. (Maybe even automated backups?)
• A common sharing folder of sort to easily share files between us.
• I'd like for each person to have his own multi-media, user/password protected documents folder in the NAS.
• The ability to control the access of certain file/folders to specific users only while restricting others.
• The ability to do all of the above using only one centralized NAS unit on TWO separate LANs.

Is such thing even possible?

Both LANs are Wifi AC1750 capable with wired 1Gbps connections to the main desktop PCs and Consoles.

Keep in mind budget is a none-issue since we're splitting the cost 8-ways, but still keeping it within reasonable limits.

I was thinking of getting the Synology DS1515+ with 5x6TB (30TB) WD RED HDDs, with the possibility of future expansion units when needed. It has four 1Gbps ports, is it possible to have 2 ports for each LAN? and the NAS will serve each network simultaneously?

This is my biggest concern for this setup. This being centralized is essential, but maybe serving two separate networks isn't possible?

 

[KingDAVIN]

Hey guys, hopefully this is the right place to ask this. So im building a media server, for the purpose of running plex. Will be wanting to run 2 HD streams at most to apple devices (yay new apple tv supporting plex )

How are these specs:

Fractal Design Define R5 case
ASUS B85M-G 1150 Motherboard
Intel i3 4170 processor.
4GB of ram (2x2)
Corsair RM450 psu
2 x 5TB WD Green Hard Drives. Dont care too much about running raid, all my stuff is sitting on multiple externals, and will keep them there so have that as backup.

Does this seem ok? Certain parts overkill or too cheap?

 

[MultiCore]

Madridy, I'll try and come back to you later. Tentatively, it sounds like it should work, but you'll need to set up the Synology correctly.

Hey guys, hopefully this is the right place to ask this. So im building a media server, for the purpose of running plex. Will be wanting to run 2 HD streams at most to apple devices (yay new apple tv supporting plex )

How are these specs:

Fractal Design Define R5 case
ASUS B85M-G 1150 Motherboard
Intel i3 4170 processor.
4GB of ram (2x2)
Corsair RM450 psu
2 x 5TB WD Green Hard Drives. Dont care too much about running raid, all my stuff is sitting on multiple externals, and will keep them there so have that as backup.

Does this seem ok? Certain parts overkill or too cheap?

That should be more than enough hardware, unless you intend to have it transcode 2 HD streams at once.

Your bigger concern is going to be network performance, imo.

 

[Marty Chinn]

Hey guys. I've been lurking this thread for a while, but now I think we're ready to jump in the NAS world.

Here is our situation:

I live in a household with a total of 8 people, and almost each person has his own smartphone, laptop, desktop, tablet, consoles and DVD/BD collection...etc. There are at least two devices per person. (i.e. I have 4: desktop, laptop, smartphone and a console)

We actually have 2 independent LAN/Internet networks with different ISPs, reason is one is for browsing, downloading, streaming..etc and the other is mainly for gaming and the occasional browsing.

What is my objective:

To build a centralized server for the following goals:

• Centralized media storage center for all of our Multi-media data (DVD/BDs rips, Music, Photos...etc) and the ability to stream this media to each and every device possible.
• A backup center for personal and vital data in the main PC for each person. (Maybe even automated backups?)
• A common sharing folder of sort to easily share files between us.
• I'd like for each person to have his own multi-media, user/password protected documents folder in the NAS.
• The ability to control the access of certain file/folders to specific users only while restricting others.
• The ability to do all of the above using only one centralized NAS unit on TWO separate LANs.

Is such thing even possible?

Both LANs are Wifi AC1750 capable with wired 1Gbps connections to the main desktop PCs and Consoles.

Keep in mind budget is a none-issue since we're splitting the cost 8-ways, but still keeping it within reasonable limits.

I was thinking of getting the Synology DS1515+ with 5x6TB (30TB) WD RED HDDs, with the possibility of future expansion units when needed. It has four 1Gbps ports, is it possible to have 2 ports for each LAN? and the NAS will serve each network simultaneously?

This is my biggest concern for this setup. This being centralized is essential, but maybe serving two separate networks isn't possible?

With regards to hooking up the Synology to two different networks, it sounds like you can do it. I did a quick search and stumbled upon this:

http://forum.synology.com/enu/viewtopic.php?f=145&t=86549

That sounds like you can connect your two independent LANs to the one server just by configuring each of the ports correctly.

As for the rest of the stuff, ya you can do all that just fine.

The one recommendation I might suggest is if money is no object, bump yourself up to the 1815 instead of the 1515. The reason is it'll give you an easier path to upgrade storage, which sounds like might fill up quick given the number of users. Plus, when you factor in possibly using a two driver redundancy, that only leaves you with 3 drives for storage. Going to an 1815 will give you 6 drives of storage before needing to get the expansion unit.

 

[KingDAVIN]

Madridy, I'll try and come back to you later. Tentatively, it sounds like it should work, but you'll need to set up the Synology correctly.


That should be more than enough hardware, unless you intend to have it transcode 2 HD streams at once.

Your bigger concern is going to be network performance, imo.

At most 2 720p-1080p streams.

It's going to running on my local network. So would that still be a concern?

 

[MultiCore]

At most 2 720p-1080p streams.

It's going to running on my local network. So would that still be a concern?

So again, is it just going to be serving the files, or actual real-time transcoding?

Local network is ambiguous.
If it's wired, you're fine.

If it's wireless, it depends a lot on how much competing traffic you have, and how far away your devices are.

Are your clients 802.11AC? Regardless, try and get any clients on 5ghz.

 

[TarpitCarnivore]

So again, is it just going to be serving the files, or actual real-time transcoding?

Local network is ambiguous.
If it's wired, you're fine.

If it's wireless, it depends a lot on how much competing traffic you have, and how far away your devices are.

Are your clients 802.11AC? Regardless, try and get any clients on 5ghz.

More importantly what clients will be connecting to it. If they're all going to be direct play then it's just a matter of good network connectivity (I've been on fine on G/N). If the connecting clients need transcoding (some formats transcode for Roku) then it might be different.

 

[sarcastor]

Hey eveyrone I want to shrink my PC case, so i was thinking about putting two of my drives on the network. but i don't know what to get. I just need something that:

- hold two of my drives
- access it by pc/tablet/phone over wifi at home
- don't need the cloud
- preferably under $100
- preferably not too damn slow

does such a device exist?

 

[Cereal KiIIer]

Hey eveyrone I want to shrink my PC case, so i was thinking about putting two of my drives on the network. but i don't know what to get. I just need something that:

- hold two of my drives
- access it by pc/tablet/phone over wifi at home
- don't need the cloud
- preferably under $100
- preferably not too damn slow

does such a device exist?

D-LINK DNS-320L is pretty much the only option I can think of at that price.

 

[Friggz]

Hoping to score a nas on Black Friday this year. Are WD Red drives still the way to go ?

 

[j_k_redtail]

Im currently using a 2-bay DS212j and want to upgrade to something faster. Im bottlenecked by my wireless network (tops out around 150-200mbps) for peak bandwidth but im more interested in having better response time using the DSM UI and also for encrypted transfers... any reccomendations? DS213j DS213, 214, 215?

I kind of hate 2-bay systems, but I have the 415+ and have no complaints. DSM can be laggy at times but it's also a heavy UI.

I made this exact upgrade. 212J to 415+. A++, would recommend.

 

[MultiCore]

Hoping to score a nas on Black Friday this year. Are WD Red drives still the way to go ?

Unless you want to step up to HGST drives, they're a great option.

 

[mulac]

Ready to rock.
DS1515+
5 4GB HGST drives

I'm going to awetup with a SHR2 setup as primary purpose is to store music, tv, movie and he eral files as well as Plex server (but not Plex Theatre, will run thaton PC hooked into tv).

I am ready to start setup tonight but keep reading about Synology 6.0 vs the current 5.4 and how some new file system is being imp!emented...so what's the story? Risk the beta??

Next step is transfer everything.

 

[TarpitCarnivore]

Ready to rock.
DS1515+
5 4GB HGST drives

I'm going to awetup with a SHR2 setup as primary purpose is to store music, tv, movie and he eral files as well as Plex server (but not Plex Theatre, will run thaton PC hooked into tv).

I am ready to start setup tonight but keep reading about Synology 6.0 vs the current 5.4 and how some new file system is being imp!emented...so what's the story? Risk the beta??

Next step is transfer everything.

Just a heads up, but don't expect transcoding to be that good. The processors in Synology's aren't great and at best you'll get maybe one transcoded stream.

 

[MultiCore]

Mulac, unless you want to use your synology as a backup server, that new file system isn't all that amazing.

I wouldn't deploy the beta on your production system unless you really find that new file system necessary. You'll get everything else in time, without having to start over.


Add the guy above me said, temper any transcoding expectations. I have a 1511+, and 1 720p file is a workout.

I recently added Nexus Players with Kodi, and they'll play almost everything (except x265 and high quality WMV) natively. Not bad for $50.

 

[mulac]

I figured installing a beta OS is not the best course - will stick to the most recent stable version.

Re. Transcoding I dont intend to do any on the Synology - it will be hooked up to my router via ethernet directly; all my media will sit on it and for tv/movies i will stream over my wifi to a more powerful win10 HTPC (i5/970GTX graphics) which is hooked up to my TV and that system can do all the heavy lifting...

Whats the feeling on SHR vs RAID5? Also this is my first Synology and reading/watching alot of setups; anything to be wary of - or "must do" as first time setup?

 

[MultiCore]

I figured installing a beta OS is not the best course - will stick to the most recent stable version.

Re. Transcoding I dont intend to do any on the Synology - it will be hooked up to my router via ethernet directly; all my media will sit on it and for tv/movies i will stream over my wifi to a more powerful win10 HTPC (i5/970GTX graphics) which is hooked up to my TV and that system can do all the heavy lifting...

Whats the feeling on SHR vs RAID5? Also this is my first Synology and reading/watching alot of setups; anything to be wary of - or "must do" as first time setup?

I bought mine with the intent to do RAID 5.... then the setup convinced me to do SHR.

I've been happy with it, can read and write at 100MB/S on my WD Greens.

Honestly, it's been a very forgiving device.

The only thing I'd say is a "Must Do" is start with the number of drives you intend to use.

Also, RAID is not a backup, so don't rely on this for critical data without a backup or two; you can easily lose a second drive during a rebuild.

 

[mulac]

Great. Ive gone ahead and setup as a SHR1...been on for the last 4hrs and its at 6.60% verifying hard disks (data scrubbing).

Gonna be a while before I can use this thing!

 

[Marty Chinn]

Great. Ive gone ahead and setup as a SHR1...been on for the last 4hrs and its at 6.60% verifying hard disks (data scrubbing).

Gonna be a while before I can use this thing!

One thing to consider is that once you go SHR1, you can't upgrade it later to SHR2. I bit the bullet with SHR2 since I'd rather not regret it later.

 

[Owensboro]

Question for everyone that probably just falls under general advice: I currently have every picture, home video, and song I've ever had stored on one hard drive and I know that's just asking for the thing to fail. What's the best solution for backup here? I was toying with the idea of NAS so my wife and I could save and access everything from one location (she also has every picture she's ever taken stored on one laptop).

Is this an overly expensive idea? Is there a better option I'm just not thinking of?

 

[iNvid02]

Question for everyone that probably just falls under general advice: I currently have every picture, home video, and song I've ever had stored on one hard drive and I know that's just asking for the thing to fail. What's the best solution for backup here? I was toying with the idea of NAS so my wife and I could save and access everything from one location (she also has every picture she's ever taken stored on one laptop).

Is this an overly expensive idea? Is there a better option I'm just not thinking of?

cloud backup service like crashplan, or a small NAS to keep a backup of your hard drive and wifes laptop. if the data is super valuable to you then even both so you have 3 copies spread across the cloud, the NAS and the original location.