4 bay NAS for under £400

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I am looking for a 4 bay NAS for a mate for under £400 if possible. Basically it will be used to backup data and media files.

There are quite a few models available but which are the best ones for speed,ie, RAID creation times and read/write times when discs are in a RAID 1 or 5 array.

I have had experience with a Thecus N4100+ and CPU utilisation was very high and I/O speeds were not that brilliant either.

Hence an NAS with a fast CPU would be great! If the NAS does come with some hard discs already it would be even better.

[spoon_]

TS-419P should tick all the boxes.

http://www.qnap.com/pro_detail_feature.asp?p_id=127

Few quid over your £400 budget:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Qnap-...-4xUsb-2xeSata

[watercooled]

What about building your own? I'm doing something similar: http://forums.hexus.net/networking-b...ce-thread.html

[derchris]

Howe about:

Mini-ITX Board with Dual-Core Atom, 6x SATA, 2x Gigabit LAN ~£170
NAS Case for the same ~£150
Plus some DDR Memory ~£50

And then you have a self built NAS, which can hold 6 disks, and is under £400

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

TS-419P should tick all the boxes.

http://www.qnap.com/pro_detail_feature.asp?p_id=127

Few quid over your £400 budget:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Qnap-...-4xUsb-2xeSata

Thanks for that.

I had a look on Scan and there is this one with an Atom processor from the same company:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Qnap-...2x-eSata-3xUSB

Is this a better one?? Edit!! It seems to use 2.5" hard drives!

There are these other two disc less NAS systems too:

Synology Disk Station DS410J

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/180555

Netgear Ready Nas NV+

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B000VKJEB...SIN=B000VKJEBK

How are these compared to the Qnap systems??

There are also these NAS devices which come with discs already:

Seagate BlackArmor 4TB NAS 220

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/176515

Buffalo Linkstation Quad 2TB

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/159184

Any good??

What about building your own? I'm doing something similar: http://forums.hexus.net/networking-b...ce-thread.html

Howe about:

Mini-ITX Board with Dual-Core Atom, 6x SATA, 2x Gigabit LAN ~£170
NAS Case for the same ~£150
Plus some DDR Memory ~£50

And then you have a self built NAS, which can hold 6 disks, and is under £400

I suggested this to my mate but he seemed to prefer a ready built system as it is less hassle. However I will see if I can persuade him.

[watercooled]

I'd recommend smallnetbuilder.com for NAS reviews, they have tables where you can compare read/write/Windows cop performance etc and narrow down the list by selecting the number of drives and so on. FreeNAS is really simple to set up, probably just as easy if not easier than an off-the-shelf NAS to get working and for more than a couple of drives prices shoot up for off-the-shelf NAS devices so a self-built Atom/VIA system is definitely worth considering.

[jim]

If the NAS does come with some hard discs already it would be even better.

When I bought a NAS a while back, I asked Scan about this - they advised me not to get a NAS with drives included, because if the NAS breaks and you have to send it back, they will expect to receive the drives.

That means sending off your personal files in the post, and heck knows if you'll ever see it again. Furthermore, if you want to upgrade the disks, you'll probably have to keep the old ones just in case it needs to go back again.

With separate disks, you take them out, keep hold of your information, and return the NAS. No hassle.

What is this friend intending to run then? 4TB RAID 10 or 6TB RAID 5, or something else? Presumably since he's going for a 4 bay NAS he intends to fill it with 2TB disks?

[watercooled]

And to add to snootyjim's list some NAS boxes with drives included are sealed so you void the warranty by opening it, I was going to get a Buffalo NAS because it had decent performance and was fairly cheap but came with a non-upgradeable drive of unknown MFR.

[killie99]

what about an HP EX490 media server? Does a great job of backing up not only media files but your entire pc with OS as well.

[jim]

Then we're getting into WHS though - were we talking WHS I wouldn't look further than Tranquil, but since Cat specified media and data storage I suspect that WHS would be overkill.

SQA-5H is £500 for a base unit, would be a bit over the budget, although it is a 5 bay system.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

When I bought a NAS a while back, I asked Scan about this - they advised me not to get a NAS with drives included, because if the NAS breaks and you have to send it back, they will expect to receive the drives.

That means sending off your personal files in the post, and heck knows if you'll ever see it again. Furthermore, if you want to upgrade the disks, you'll probably have to keep the old ones just in case it needs to go back again.

With separate disks, you take them out, keep hold of your information, and return the NAS. No hassle.

What is this friend intending to run then? 4TB RAID 10 or 6TB RAID 5, or something else? Presumably since he's going for a 4 bay NAS he intends to fill it with 2TB disks?

AFAIK,since getting a 4 bay NAS is not that cheap he will probably start off with a single disc initially. I assume he will then add a pair of 1.5TB or 2TB discs in a RAID 1 array.

what about an HP EX490 media server? Does a great job of backing up not only media files but your entire pc with OS as well.

That looks quite nice TBH.

And to add to snootyjim's list some NAS boxes with drives included are sealed so you void the warranty by opening it, I was going to get a Buffalo NAS because it had decent performance and was fairly cheap but came with a non-upgradeable drive of unknown MFR.

Your right about that! It would be good to actually know what discs you are using.

[jim]

AFAIK,since getting a 4 bay NAS is not that cheap he will probably start off with a single disc initially. I assume he will then add a pair of 1.5TB or 2TB discs in a RAID 1 array.

Fair enough - I was just thinking that as things stand, drives are comparatively cheap. If he was only intending to utilise 2TB of storage, then why not get a 2 bay NAS and save a whole chunk of money. Drives are always getting bigger as time goes by, so in a year you'll probably be able to get a 3TB disk for around £100 - at which point you can upgrade to a 3TB RAID 1 array and get rid of the 2TB disks.

Might work out cheaper in the long run than buying a 4 bay NAS - if you see where I'm coming from.

All depends on their projected storage requirements, and the rate at which drives increase in capacity.