Choosing a Storage Device Isn’t Easy
5:11 pm August 26th, 2008 by Sal Cangeloso
I’m building a new computer and one of my goals is to get my storage off of my computer and onto an external device. This means a NAS (or a DAS), and something that will soon be one of the most important pieces of equipment that I own, possibly the most important.
Caveat: this is just a collection of my notes at this point. I hope it helps me decide and it can help someone else down the road. I’ll be periodically updating it, as more ideas/notes come to me. I tend to over-analyze decisions like this so let me apologize preemptively.
What do I need:
- Redundant storage
- Maximum reliability
- At least two disks
- Easy to use
What do I want:
- Scheduled backups
- BitTorrent client
- Reasonably speedy connection to my PC(s)
- NAS to NAS backup
What are my top choices right now?
- Drobo 2.0 – $500
Looks to be ridiculously easy to use. It’s available in a diskless SKU and can handle different disks. - Netgear ReadyNas Duo – $400 (with 500GB disk)
Very complete feature set. More affordable than other options. It’s a NAS. - Synology Disk Station DS207 – $289
Looks good, but I don’t know much about it.
Possible Choices, but somewhat problematic
- HP MediaVault mv2120 – $299 (with 500GB disk)
It’s affordable. Should have everything I need. I haven’t been hearing the best stuff about it, seems very limited.
- Buffalo LinkStation Pro Duo – $279
Very affordable, but reviews are not great. It seems like it failed a simulated drive crash test- that’s not good.
Who are some of the other players?
- Buffalo
- D-Link
- Thecus
- Western Digital
- Lacie
- Maxtor
- Iomega
Other recommended products:
- Buffalo LinkStation Mini – GigaOm
Size isn’t really a factor for me and I am concerned that this is fanless. SmallNetBuilder likes it but seems to recommend the ReadyNas Duo over it.
=== Notes ===
8.28.08 9.35p
- Added Buffalo Linkstation Pro Duo to Possible, downgrade HP MediaVault to possible.
Btw- if there is enough interested I could roll this into a Wiki. I can’t find that many good resources out there that pulls in all the information that choosy buyers (who don’t want to spend a ton) will want.
Synology CS40x units are ok and meet your feature list. They are a 4 bay unit, shipped without disks.
Be careful of the MediaVault, as some were limited to a file system limit
Synology’s like all these NAS units, run on a small cpu that can bog down. ie the CS407e has a smaller cpu/ram than the CS407. spend the bit extra.
I tend to overanalyse too! *grin*
But seriously, it’s a real headache thinking about storage. Plus the fact that RAID is not a backup.
I like the DS 207+ as well (AUD460). It’s got eSATA which might helpful when I back up the NAS.
ReadyNAS Duo (500GB, AUD485)…..wondering if it’s got DLNA support which might swing it for me. Heard good things about ReadyNAS on Mac forums as well. I know people don’t like the fact that it comes with a drive but I can always use it to upgrade my desktop HDD! heehee
So what did you buy in the end?
Hey Alan, it’s the DS207+ for now. Working out pretty well, but I’m still thinking the Drobo would have been super easy to use compared to the Synology which is PACKED with features. I don’t think you can go wrong with the ReadyNas though.
Just curious as to what you ended up going with and what your final reasons were…
Hey Ario, I ended up with the Synology DS207, at least for the time being. It has a lot of features (probably too many) and all the reviews I read on it were good. It’s been working out fine so far and there was a firmware update not too long ago, so it’s nice to see that they are paying attention to it.
What devices are you considering?
Ah, that looks like a nifty option. How much did it end up setting you back including drives? (and what’s your total storage?)
I’m looking at the Drobo (w/ DroboShare), ReadyShare NV & Duo, and these lesser known options:
http://www.buffalotech.com/products/network-storage/linkstation/linkstation-live/
http://www.buy.com/retail/product.asp?sku=208286770&listingid=32496021&dcaid=17902
I’m trying to keep everything under $800 and wind up with something reliable that can scale up to additional storage (between 2-3 TB mirrored to start with). Let me know if you have any further insights or opinions on these options!
I put in two 750gb disks so using RAID1, I have 750GB. I was lucky enough to have a matched pair lying around from an old project, pretty nice Seagate drives too.
I’d skip the WD My Books, they are very basic and performance is not great. I have checked out the WD ShareSpace which is a 4-disk NAS and is very user friendly.
If you want 2TB+ you are going to go with a 4-disk NAS so lots of those you mentioned, aside from the ReadyNAS NV and Drobo, are out. If you can deal with less, then the ReadyNas Duo is supposed to be great.
Just picked up the Duo with 2 one-tb drives today… can’t wait to set it up tonight!
thanks for your post… hope it can help others who may also be wringing their hands over this
[...] you have been reading this site you know that I recently set up a NAS. A lot of NAS devices have built-in iTunes Media Server functionality, which makes sense as a NAS [...]
I friend of mine raves about the ReadyNAS devices – at least the Pro version which he says works great with Apple Time Machine as well as Windows clients. They also have gotten some of the best transfer rates of the NAS devices I’ve read about and almost bought one myself. Has tons features but it was a bit pricey IMO. You may consider building your own from an older PC and just putting in a few upgrades.
Hey Sal,
have you checked the Artigo A2000 yet? It’s pretty sweet. I might bring one home here soon. Super low wattage, run your OS from CF card, 2 full-size 3.5″ drives. Not bad IMHO. We did an article on setting up FreeNAS as well. It’s fairly straightforward.
cheers!
-chris
http://www.logicsupply.com/blog/2008/12/29/freenas-on-the-artigo-a2000/
http://www.logicsupply.com/blog/2008/12/29/the-via-home-mini-vault/