I'm new in here

[Paul_Froggatt]

Hello everybody

I'm looking for advice with QNAP NAS to buy from Amazon.

Hope this is the correct forum to post in but I'm sure you'll redirect me if required.

I need a two bay machine with two separate HDD.

I cant seem to find out if the;
"Qnap 2TB TS-212 Turbo Nas Built-in Upnp/ Dlna Media Server, Itunes Server" link follows
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Which-to-choose ... B004NBYOWW

on Amazon is that spec or if I should buy the;
"QNAP TS-212/2TB TS-212 2-bay - 2TB - NAS Solution (2x 1TB HDD Installed)" link follows
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B004 ... d_i=468294

which Amazon are indicating is superseded by the former.

I'm thinking I want to map each disk as separate volumes on our mini network. Drive N and drive P for example.

Can anybody help please?

[schumaku]

Welcome to the QNAP NAS Community Forum.

The most-typical purpose of two physical HDDs in a NAS is the ability to ceate a RAID1 - a redundant array or shadow set. Wwhen one of the disk is start to fail or failed, you can replace it without any data loss.

Personally, I would _never_ trust on a single SATA drive volume for a NAS.

On a NAS, you don't thing in "drives" - instead think of a storage volume (ie, the RAID1 created from two HDD - storage capacity of just one HADD due the "shadow" redundancy) - on top you can create one or multiple shares, pointing to the storage volume. The shared folders can be mapped as DOS legacy drive letters or as \\nas\shareone \\nas\sharetwo ... the access rights to the share can be set individually.

Out of the box, with HDD installed, and the NAS set-up, there are several default shares ready-to-use.

[Paul_Froggatt]

Great thanks

Do you know if the first machine has two HDDs?

[schumaku]

Hello Paul,

Do you know if the first machine has two HDDs?

Hard to say, as it just says 2 TB. Very poor and substandard product description. The bookshops price might be (to) high, I just browsed http://www.scan.co.uk/ - check with them for a good NAS/HDD combination. You can of course start say with a single 2 TB drive, add a second one say in a month or two, when the CFO is permitting again, and the migrate on the fly form a single drive to a RAID1.

Plese don't forget backup: Despite of using a NAS, regardless if RAID or not - you need to implement a backup strategy if you intend to store any valueable, non-replaceable data on it.

Depends on the possiblities or your other infrastucture, instead of starting with a RAId1 - add an externl backup drive of about the same storage capacity. Missed to point on backup before - my mistake, sorry.

Regards,
-Kurt.

[P3R]

...and the migrate on the fly form a single drive to a RAID1.

Now you're forgetting that Online RAID Level Migration isn't possible with TS-210 or TS-212.

[schumaku]

Sorry...merde...sh.t....

P3R is correct 'f course - the manual says regarding to RAID Management (http://docs.qnap.com/nas/en/raid_management.htm).

*Online RAID capacity expansion, online RAID level migration, and RAID recovery are not supported by one-bay NAS models, TS-210, and TS-212.

The more I think about it: Especially on these entry level systems, the migration from one drive to a RAID should be feasible. Todays HDD prices are prohibiting a full load from the start for many prospect customers.

[Paul_Froggatt]

One of the reasons for the original question. One disk or two?

Is there anyone from Customer Services at QNAP that ever swing by here?

[schumaku]

One of the reasons for the original question. One disk or two?

An answer QNAP customer services can't provide, too - simpy because of QNAP does sell barebone NAS system sonly, with no HDD at all. It's up to the reseller or system integrator to bundle or preinstall the NAS with disk(s). Sorry if that was not clear enough. You ahve to ask Amazon or the seller of that specific combination though Amazon.

[Paul_Froggatt]

And guess what, Amazon can't tell me. This is a nightmare!

I'm not sure you can be right actually because the units are being sold by Amazon them selves and there is no way they are putting them together.

[P3R]

I'm not sure you can be right actually because the units are being sold by Amazon them selves and there is no way they are putting them together.

Trust me, schumaku knows this and Qnap don't sell any NAS models with disks.

Maybe a distributor or some other middle-man adds the disks for the bookshop?

As for the question on the first link above, the text below (found on the Amazon product page) lead me to beleive it includes two 1 TB disks but of course I don't know.
Item model number: TS-212-2X1000

A much worse problem with Amazon is in my opinion that you don't know what disks you will get. I bet they will be the cheapest disks around and may very well be WD Green disks, that neither WD nor Qnap recommends for NAS/RAID-use. My recommendation would be to not buy from Amazon but from a reseller that provide an adequate product description and at least can answer questions about the products. If disks are included, of course you should be told exactly what disks they are, anything else is ridiculous!

[schumaku]

And guess what, Amazon can't tell me. This is a nightmare!

Well, you dont buy books at the electronics superstore. So why considering to buy electronics - especially a NAS or similar requiring competent sales information and sales support - at a bookstore?

a reseller not able to provide the prospect customer a simple information of something that appears to be a bundle of a QNAP NAS "and two TB" - neither in the online product description online nor when personally asked on the phone (number of disks, make and model of disks, ...) - is obsolete and should be avoided. Just so dave a few bucks? Sorry, the community is glad to ofer support - but for my part, I'm not willing to do sales support for resellers taking a low marigin and providing a sub-standard service.