Newbie - Intro and Questions

[kramanat]

Hi all,

Been browsing about NAS devices for 3-6 months now and just ordered the TS453Pro and 2 WD Red 4TB disks to kick off.

What I plan to use it for:
- I am a serious hobbyist photographer with around 700Gbs of photo files. I have so far managed with 2 hard disks for backup at home and 1 offsite. This updation process becomes more complicated as I have a MacBook Pro to edit and a windows laptop where the family browses the pics.

- I have a WD TV Liv Hub with 1 TB of movies and shows. It has recently started overflowing and I have a 1 TB hard disk now attached to it.

- Plus I have 100Gb of songs which are spread all over the house with no way to stream them right now (as I have not set it up properly)

- And finally, since both are laptops in the house, neither of them are switched on all the time.

So, now the questions:
- I plan to start off with just Raid 1 and as I get comfortable, I may move to Raid 5, but open to suggestions.
- I have ordered 2 4TB WD Red NAS hard disks. Should I be mixing this with my 2TB 2.5" drives from the WD passports that I have? I have alteast 2-3 such hard disks, including 1 unused.
- The plan is to connect my non Smart TV to the NAS through the receiver to stream movies and music. Any downsides to using the HDMI vs streaming it over the air?
- Is it ok to keep this device within an enclosed vertical entertainment console (has holes in the back for air circulation and my receiver has sat inside this for many years now)

Thanks everyone for your inputs and glad to be moving to a NAS soon...

[Moogle Stiltzkin]

Hi all,

Been browsing about NAS devices for 3-6 months now and just ordered the TS453Pro and 2 WD Red 4TB disks to kick off.

What I plan to use it for:
- I am a serious hobbyist photographer with around 700Gbs of photo files. I have so far managed with 2 hard disks for backup at home and 1 offsite. This updation process becomes more complicated as I have a MacBook Pro to edit and a windows laptop where the family browses the pics.

- I have a WD TV Liv Hub with 1 TB of movies and shows. It has recently started overflowing and I have a 1 TB hard disk now attached to it.

- Plus I have 100Gb of songs which are spread all over the house with no way to stream them right now (as I have not set it up properly)

- And finally, since both are laptops in the house, neither of them are switched on all the time.

So, now the questions:
- I plan to start off with just Raid 1 and as I get comfortable, I may move to Raid 5, but open to suggestions.
- I have ordered 2 4TB WD Red NAS hard disks. Should I be mixing this with my 2TB 2.5" drives from the WD passports that I have? I have alteast 2-3 such hard disks, including 1 unused.
- The plan is to connect my non Smart TV to the NAS through the receiver to stream movies and music. Any downsides to using the HDMI vs streaming it over the air?
- Is it ok to keep this device within an enclosed vertical entertainment console (has holes in the back for air circulation and my receiver has sat inside this for many years now)

Thanks everyone for your inputs and glad to be moving to a NAS soon...

4bay model with 2 x 4tb hdds. with room to expand to 4 hdds total, to go for raid5 (only 3 of those 4 drives will be for usable storage space).

Based on your file size usage sounds about right.

But had you thought about how you are going to backup the storage on your qnap? My suggestion is look to crashplan to do that, since there is ample unlimited storage for it, with a reasonable monthly subscription plan in place. Is still cheaper than buying a 2nd unit of similar bays and hard drives to have your own backup solution. I have that but i can tell you it's not cheap to do, hence why crashplan is preferable for a backup to your qnap unit if possible


heard it's possible for your qnap to stream to your wdtv

QNAP attached to my network...

WD TV Live attached wired to my network...

When I select VIDEOS / Network share / Linux Shares... in the next screen "Select content source: Linux Shares"..

[kramanat]

Thanks for that.

Should I be mixing the 2 NAS disks with the 2X2TB WD passport disks that I have? Else, I plan to use them as backup for now in a remote location and see how I can use the cloud as backup.

[P3R]

Should I be mixing the 2 NAS disks with the 2X2TB WD passport disks that I have?

As far as I know Passport (or My Passport) is a WD product line for small external disks. If I'm correct you can't use them inside the NAS so what do you mean by mixing?

They're most likely okay to be used as externally connected backup disks if that's what you mean.

There's at least one WD My Passport disk listed on the External storage device compatibility list for TS-453 Pro, which is a good sign.

[kramanat]

The WD passport has a 2.5" disk inside. I assume that if I remove it from the external shell, it will be a regular 2.5" disk that I can mount inside the NAS.

Apart from the compatibility, I also wanted some views on whether such a disk can handle the load of being a NAS disk.

If I could, I would rather use it as an internal disk than use up a USB port.

[stiebs]

Ideally you want the same drives across all the bays in your NAS. And the WD reds are the right ones. Absolutely do not use your 2.5" drives - they just won't have the performance or longevity as a WD Red.

I would go so far as to say you're better off buying two more drives now and filling up all four bays from the start to save having to redo your RAID config when you add drives in the future.

With 2x4TB in RAID1, you have 4TB of usable space and 4TB redundancy.
In order to add another drive in the future, the easiest way to do that is backup your 4TB externally, add the new drive, break the RAID1 then rebuild a RAID5.

The other way to do it, and maybe others can chime in one whether its doable on the QNAP NAS or not, is to break the RAID1 down to a single drive, add the third drive, and then establish a RAID5 from the single drive. Even if its doable, there will be risk involved, and I wouldn't want to attempt it without a having an up-to-date backup.

If you do it now, setup 4x4TB drives in RAID5. That gives you 12TB usable space which should last you quite some time. The 4th drive will cover you in the case that any of the drives fail. Then signup to Crashplan and send it all up to the cloud (encrypted). That will cover you in case your NAS fails.

You can still make use of the external WD Passport drives as a local backup if you don't want to send to the cloud. Keeping in mind that your backup capacity is smaller than your NAS's capacity, so you'll need to pick and choose what you back up.

[kramanat]

Stiebs, that sounds logical. I will stick to using the external disks as my offsite backups for now. Will look into crashplan and any other cloud backup options as well.

Since I will have an external disk / disks, I will probably wait a year or so before I add two more WD Reds and move the setup to a Raid 5.

[P3R]

Ideally you want the same drives across all the bays in your NAS.

The important things is that all disks are listed as compatible.

And the WD reds are the right ones.

WD Reds are one of many such listed models yes.

Absolutely do not use your 2.5" drives - they just won't have the performance or longevity as a WD Red.

The problem is that we don't know what disks are in there but my guess is that they are WD desktop disks. If my guess is correct their performance and longetivity should be similar to WD Reds. The problem with using such disks are that WD desktop disks are strongly not recommended for NAS/RAID use by both WD and Qnap as the firmware isn't compatible with such use.

As one can't add 2 TB disks to a 2*4 TB RAID 1 volume, the 2*2 TB disks would require a separate RAID 1 to be used. Dual RAID 1 is a usable but non-optimal configuration in a 4-bay NAS.

Also the external disks are much better used as a backup, than as internal disks.

So my recommendation would also be to not use those disks but for different reasons.

I would go so far as to say you're better off buying two more drives now and filling up all four bays from the start to save having to redo your RAID config when you add drives in the future.

No need for that.

The other way to do it, and maybe others can chime in one whether its doable on the QNAP NAS or not, is to break the RAID1 down to a single drive, add the third drive, and then establish a RAID5 from the single drive.

Please don't. That's not a good way to do it!

What I recommend is to follow the instructions in the documentation under the heading "Expanding storage pools by replacing hard disk drives in a RAID array". There it's described how to migrate the RAID 1 to a RAID 5. Should that be only a 3-disk RAID 5, it's also possible to later expand the RAID 5 with an additional disk.

...and I wouldn't want to attempt it without a having an up-to-date backup.

One should always have a backup of all data, not only when doing system administration.

[stiebs]

...and I wouldn't want to attempt it without a having an up-to-date backup.

One should always have a backup of all data, not only when doing system administration.

Yes, one should always have a backup of all data. But in my experience, many ones out there seem to think that having their NAS set up in a RAID config negates the need for a backup. No harm in reiterating..

[kramanat]

Since I will be connecting the HDMI out to my receiver/TV, I am looking to get a device (keyboard/mouse/trackpad or a combination) that I can use. Any recommendations?

[schumaku]

I am looking to get a device (keyboard/mouse/trackpad or a combination) that I can use. Any recommendations?

Anything that is coming with a USB dongle identifying itself as a USB human interface device class (USB HID class) - ie. most Logitech or Rapoo keyboard/mouse/trackpad combos for example.

Not workable are generic Bluetooth devices (like AirMouse, tablet keyboards for Android or iOS, ...) requiring a generic Bluetooth dongle and software to emulate USB HID.

[reshea1950]

I want to buy a TS-453 Pro. I am absolutely new to the NAS arena.
Reading the initialization instructions for the manual discussing that one should install the hard drives first: I will assume that I will need a monitor, keyboard, and mouse directly connected to the device as the first and full 'initialization' is proceeding? Or from further reading, one can use the IR remote control to get through the initial setup screens?
I guess the type of install for network/internet access depends on whether the device can get to the internet.....
I just will have to see how/what the 'sequence of events' will be....

Upon 'rechecking', I see that there is a 'sequence of events' depending on the installation type. Now just to order the device and drives and go from there. Looking at going with 3 HGST 3TB drives -- for now. Will populate the 4th drive 'later.'
I can see there are good people here to answer questions that come up === and there will be questions....

[schumaku]

I will assume that I will need a monitor, keyboard, and mouse directly connected to the device as the first and full 'initialization' is proceeding?

While there is a HDMI-output based UI to set-up the NAS, yiu cna use it with a USB mouse and keyboard.

However, in general you connect the NAS to your network (the router, a Gigabit Ethernet switch, ...), then use te Qfinder application on Windows or OS X (or even ChromeOS) to locate the NAS - and then use a Web browser to configure and manager the NAS the way you will do it commonly.

[reshea1950]

Hello schumaku, thanks for the answer. Sorry about the delay in getting back to you. I 'hunted' a bit in my effort to get familiar with the site here.

I 'discovered' that my monitor has two HDMI inputs. Well, that indeed, did (and does) save things when (or if) want to do something with the NAS command line.

The farthest I have gotten is to import an existing Windows 2012 Std (from VmWare 9.0 exported as .OVA file) --- After many attempts. Good advice in this forum did help (removed the CD/Floppy and other devices, exported from VMWare 9.0 to OVA format). I was afraid I would have to reinstall the Windows server and start all over. The VM can be seen by the Windows PC and vice versa. For me, this was 'big'...

For now, the NAS works quite well. I can see that there is very good help available here in the forum.

[Rohan]

Hello All

Sorry if I have posted in the wrong area here.

I am a total newbie to all things forum as well as NAS.


I bought the TS-431+ 4 bays NAS about two weeks ago, it is setup up as a RAID 6, where all seemed to have flowed flawlessly during initilisation installation phase.

Since then I have been battling tirelessly as well as fruitlessly to install any App. I have tried installing a few different ones from the the App centre. All the Apps download without any itch.

However, the problem arises in the installation phase, where the installation gets to about quarter way in, and then bombs out.

I have scoured the Net and found numerous support, but none which covers this problem I am having.

Please can someone please help or point me in the direction of how to solve this problem I am having.

I have 3TB x3 in it and 4TB x1 all WD green HDD installed.