NAS Recomendations

[axgillette]

So i have decided to go ahead and upgrade my NAS from the crappy ts-231 that i have.

So i need to help on what i should get, and i do have a budget. First let me tell you what i will be doing with it.

1. Storing my massive music collection
2. Storing my massive graphic design elements
3. Storing pictures from different devices
4. Storing MISC data.

So the only thing that i will probably be streaming would be my music.
Budget from $600 to $1200, but would rather not spend it all on one unit so i can get new hard drives too.. lol

Any advise is greatly appreciated.

[dolbyman]

where are the issues with your "crappy" ts-231 right now ?

I store a MASSIVE audio,video,photo collection on my old 419p+ and can't really complain (granted I cannot fully utilize 1GbE speeds, maybe 50%)

[Moogle Stiltzkin]

If all your doing is simple storage, you can opt for a celeron or arm model budget model. probably 4-6 bay?

if you want to do transcoding, vm or anything cpu intensive, you can then consider a model with a better cpu.

not sure what you consider massive, but for me my stuff is bordering 10tb... i store on a 6bay NAS in raid5

[axgillette]

where are the issues with your "crappy" ts-231 right now ?

I store a MASSIVE audio,video,photo collection on my old 419p+ and can't really complain (granted I cannot fully utilize 1GbE speeds, maybe 50%)

Super slow, cannot run any other apps than the basic ones or else it will drop off the network. I am down to just running file station, photo station and music station and that's all i can run.

[axgillette]

If all your doing is simple storage, you can opt for a celeron or arm model budget model. probably 4-6 bay?

if you want to do transcoding, vm or anything cpu intensive, you can then consider a model with a better cpu.

not sure what you consider massive, but for me my stuff is bordering 10tb... i store on a 6bay NAS in raid5

I have 6TB of music, 12TB of photos, and about 6TB of design files. So i am having to keep most of this off on external drives.

[dolbyman]

ahh .. ok .. I run none of the stations, just file services and DLNA (twonky)


24TB of Data needs a solid backup strategy .. I have a feeling with leveraging external disks to extend your NAS storage, you might be lacking here .. so budget that in

[axgillette]

ahh .. ok .. I run none of the stations, just file services and DLNA (twonky)


24TB of Data needs a solid backup strategy .. I have a feeling with leveraging external disks to extend your NAS storage, you might be lacking here .. so budget that in

Most of the photos i now keep on external drives. I guess about maybe 2 to 3 TB would be on the NAS on a given time. As i go through them i also retire them. So this would be to a minimum. Normally i just tend to keep 6 months worth on photos at a time plus those off my devices.

So all together i would say maybe i will need 12TB of space? A 4 bay unit would be good i guess. I just want to get a good one that will last me a few years.

[Trexx]

Most of the photos i now keep on external drives. I guess about maybe 2 to 3 TB would be on the NAS on a given time. As i go through them i also retire them. So this would be to a minimum. Normally i just tend to keep 6 months worth on photos at a time plus those off my devices.

So all together i would say maybe i will need 12TB of space? A 4 bay unit would be good i guess. I just want to get a good one that will last me a few years.

So what is your backup when an external drive fails?

External drives are for BACKUP of data on the NAS itself.

Realistically if you want 24TB of usable space (getting the data off your unprotected external drives), you should look at something like the TS-453a or TS-653a as a starting point.

I would probably lean more toward the 653a so you can go with lower density drives (say 6TB) to get your 24TB of capacity. It also is x86 based so you can run pretty much all QNAP apps, although there will be limits due to the slower celeron based processor.

Factoring in NAS rated HDD's though, you are likely going to be above your budget. You could start with the base model and say (2) 6TB drives in RAID-1 config. Then over time add additional drives and migrate from RAID-1 to RAID-5/6 expanding your capacity as you go. Add a UPS to help protect against data loss due to brown outs/power failures and you are good to go.

[axgillette]

Most of the photos i now keep on external drives. I guess about maybe 2 to 3 TB would be on the NAS on a given time. As i go through them i also retire them. So this would be to a minimum. Normally i just tend to keep 6 months worth on photos at a time plus those off my devices.

So all together i would say maybe i will need 12TB of space? A 4 bay unit would be good i guess. I just want to get a good one that will last me a few years.

So what is your backup when an external drive fails?

External drives are for BACKUP of data on the NAS itself.

Realistically if you want 24TB of usable space (getting the data off your unprotected external drives), you should look at something like the TS-453a or TS-653a as a starting point.

I would probably lean more toward the 653a so you can go with lower density drives (say 6TB) to get your 24TB of capacity. It also is x86 based so you can run pretty much all QNAP apps, although there will be limits due to the slower celeron based processor.

Factoring in NAS rated HDD's though, you are likely going to be above your budget. You could start with the base model and say (2) 6TB drives in RAID-1 config. Then over time add additional drives and migrate from RAID-1 to RAID-5/6 expanding your capacity as you go. Add a UPS to help protect against data loss due to brown outs/power failures and you are good to go.

Yeah, those external drives i plug in, then leave them unplugged. Yet still very unreliable and agree with you.

I do keep it all plugged into a UPS. So am good there.

Interesting, i had not thought about a 6 bay unit, but you never know. I was planning on using minimum 6TB drives.

What do you think of the TS-653B unit?

[Trexx]

Yeah, those external drives i plug in, then leave them unplugged. Yet still very unreliable and agree with you.

I do keep it all plugged into a UPS. So am good there.

Interesting, i had not thought about a 6 bay unit, but you never know. I was planning on using minimum 6TB drives.

What do you think of the TS-653B unit?

I like the 653B as it gives you quite a bit of flexibility in a small chassis, but for the money you are better off with a TVS-673.

Minimal increase in cost (based on Amazon US pricing <$100), but ALOT more performance and expandibility. You have 2x+ CPU performance increase, up to 64GB RAM capability, built-in M.2 SSD slots, plenty of USB 3.x ports for your external drives Plus option for adding 10GbE, expansion disk chassis, etc.

[reader50]

I've been watching HDD prices for my own upgrades. In my observations, 8TB drives currently offer the best price-per-TB (approaching $30 per TB), with 10s slowly getting there too. The 5s/6s have not dropped enough to compete. For example, the HGST 10TB NAS model is on sale today at B&H for $299. A 6TB would have to be under $180 to represent a better deal.

I woudn't buy a 6 today. It locks you into buying a more expensive NAS with more bays, with no offsetting value on the storage side.

[Trexx]

I've been watching HDD prices for my own upgrades. In my observations, 8TB drives currently offer the best price-per-TB (approaching $30 per TB), with 10s slowly getting there too. The 5s/6s have not dropped enough to compete. For example, the HGST 10TB NAS model is on sale today at B&H for $299. A 6TB would have to be under $180 to represent a better deal.

I woudn't buy a 6 today. It locks you into buying a more expensive NAS with more bays, with no offsetting value on the storage side.

But I would counter that with 8-10TB Drives, you really have to be looking at raid-6 for most deployments due to the LONG rebuild time. The other downside is your IOPS/GB drops way down as well. This can have a big impact in multi-user environments where you have alot of concurrent disk i/o usage (users, VM's, docker, etc.)

Here is a comparison of (2) different 20TB usable configs (4x10TB Raid-6 vs. 6x4TB Raid-5) based on calculator on http://wintelguy.com/raidperf2.pl

Config #1: 4x10TB R6
Config #2: 6x4TB R5
Assuming 7200 RPM drives @ 100 IOPS per drive (single drive perf) for both drive models

Code: Select all

Results:                     Config #1 Config #2
Total performance  (IO/s): 	160      315.79
Total usable capacity (TB) 	20       20
RAID type:                    RAID 6	RAID 5
Reads / Writes (%): 		 	70 / 30  70 / 30
Total number of drives:	 	4		  6

[storageman]

I've been watching HDD prices for my own upgrades. In my observations, 8TB drives currently offer the best price-per-TB (approaching $30 per TB), with 10s slowly getting there too. The 5s/6s have not dropped enough to compete. For example, the HGST 10TB NAS model is on sale today at B&H for $299. A 6TB would have to be under $180 to represent a better deal.

I woudn't buy a 6 today. It locks you into buying a more expensive NAS with more bays, with no offsetting value on the storage side.

But I would counter that with 8-10TB Drives, you really have to be looking at raid-6 for most deployments due to the LONG rebuild time. The other downside is your IOPS/GB drops way down as well. This can have a big impact in multi-user environments where you have alot of concurrent disk i/o usage (users, VM's, docker, etc.)

Here is a comparison of (2) different 20TB usable configs (4x10TB Raid-6 vs. 6x4TB Raid-5) based on calculator on http://wintelguy.com/raidperf2.pl

Config #1: 4x10TB R6
Config #2: 6x4TB R5
Assuming 7200 RPM drives @ 100 IOPS per drive (single drive perf) for both drive models

Code: Select all

Results:                     Config #1 Config #2
Total performance  (IO/s): 	160      315.79
Total usable capacity (TB) 	20       20
RAID type:                    RAID 6	RAID 5
Reads / Writes (%): 		 	70 / 30  70 / 30
Total number of drives:	 	4		  6

This is true but that's what caching is for, to get the random IOPs up.
Bear in mind that MB/s vary considerably, for example WD Gold has higher MB/s the bigger the drive.

[Trexx]

I've been watching HDD prices for my own upgrades. In my observations, 8TB drives currently offer the best price-per-TB (approaching $30 per TB), with 10s slowly getting there too. The 5s/6s have not dropped enough to compete. For example, the HGST 10TB NAS model is on sale today at B&H for $299. A 6TB would have to be under $180 to represent a better deal.

I woudn't buy a 6 today. It locks you into buying a more expensive NAS with more bays, with no offsetting value on the storage side.

But I would counter that with 8-10TB Drives, you really have to be looking at raid-6 for most deployments due to the LONG rebuild time. The other downside is your IOPS/GB drops way down as well. This can have a big impact in multi-user environments where you have alot of concurrent disk i/o usage (users, VM's, docker, etc.)

Here is a comparison of (2) different 20TB usable configs (4x10TB Raid-6 vs. 6x4TB Raid-5) based on calculator on http://wintelguy.com/raidperf2.pl

Config #1: 4x10TB R6
Config #2: 6x4TB R5
Assuming 7200 RPM drives @ 100 IOPS per drive (single drive perf) for both drive models

Code: Select all

Results:                     Config #1 Config #2
Total performance  (IO/s): 	160      315.79
Total usable capacity (TB) 	20       20
RAID type:                    RAID 6	RAID 5
Reads / Writes (%): 		 	70 / 30  70 / 30
Total number of drives:	 	4		  6

This is true but that's what caching is for, to get the random IOPs up.
Bear in mind that MB/s vary considerably, for example WD Gold has higher MB/s the bigger the drive.

MB/s do, but IOPs generally don't since for HDD's that is mainly a function of drive RPM speed.

Most users don't have SSD caching/QTier to help with this, and with base memory configs have limited "free" memory for OS caching (assuming they have enabled it even in the first place).

As you well know, several concurrent sequential client streams comes QNAP RANDOM I/O.

While I like seeing the increased capacity of the newer drives, there are many other factors to keep in mind with that (recovery, performance impacts, how to backup, etc.). Just trying to keep those in peoples minds as well since they don't deal with this like we do all the time.