Please can someone help me on how to setup a NAS system?

truewraith · 30 Sep 2019 at 19:39

hi,

I currently have all my media across 6 MyBooks ranging from 1-3tb each and all on their own power plugs, but i was wondering about one day learning how these work and how to set them hope but i have no idea where to start or what to buy first but im sure i can use less power by doing it the nas way!

thanks in advance for any help and time on this.

jsmoke · 30 Sep 2019 at 19:43

USB is probably your best bet for power consumption. It supersedes anything else

EssexBoy · 30 Sep 2019 at 19:46

The synology range is super easy to setup and use i would go that route if you want simple.

Donnie Fisher · 30 Sep 2019 at 21:33

When you say you want to learn about NAS, are you meaning something along the lines of how to setup, from scratch a device which will become a NAS ? (FreeNAS, Unraid, Ubuntu Server etc etc )

Or to simply to buy one and plug it into the network and see what options there are to play with ?

truewraith · 30 Sep 2019 at 22:51

Donnie Fisher said:
When you say you want to learn about NAS, are you meaning something along the lines of how to setup, from scratch a device which will become a NAS ? (FreeNAS, Unraid, Ubuntu Server etc etc )

Or to simply to buy one and plug it into the network and see what options there are to play with ?

yeah i meant buy and plug it in to my network and connect to my laptop which i use kodi on

Donnie Fisher · 30 Sep 2019 at 23:58

There are tons of websites out there where various NAS devices are compared. The most common entry level ones are generally 2 matched drives in a box, often run as a mirror. so if there is 2x 4Tb disks you'll get 4tb of storage usable. thats what mine is set as.

Generally you plug it into the network, run a program to find it / log into it. Set a few options and after that, you get a drive on the nework to use ... and then it just sits there getting used.

Synology do get a good name. I personally have a WD EX2 ... it does the job fine for me.

Avalon · 1 Oct 2019 at 05:23

Just a side note, you’re powering 6 MyBook’s, assuming you move the 6 drives from them to a NAS, you will still be powering 6 drives and a NAS, this won’t save you anything in power, quite the opposite.

You have two main options: Buy or Build.

If you have suitable hardware already, perhaps from an old upgrade etc. then build is cheaper, more flexible and can be tweaked to your requirements. It’ll take slightly more set-up, but realistically it’s minutes, not days.

If you buy, you are going to pay over the odds for a device with a limited support lifecycle that will have a relatively underwhelming spec and very limited upgrade options. It will be slightly easier to set-up, and you get some level of support, though that may or may not be better than community based options.

Either way, better media experiences exist than Kodi and a bunch of drives to search through. If you give us some idea of budget, if you want an off the shelf product and/or if you have anything that may be if use, then you’ll probably get a more useful response.

bledd · 2 Oct 2019 at 08:36

4 bay Synology with 4x 10Tb drives will give you 20 Tb of space in Raid10.

sja360 · 5 Oct 2019 at 07:34

bledd said:
4 bay Synology with 4x 10Tb drives will give you 20 Tb of space in Raid10.

Wouldn't that cost North of £1k though?
That's quite an outlay compared to 5-6 portable 1-3tb drives that already purchased.

Is there any chance the drives could be removed from the mybooks' and taken into. 4+ NAS by synology or qnap?

Bluecube · 5 Oct 2019 at 08:06

AFAIK both Synology and QNAP need to format the disks before they can be accessed through the NAS.

Avalon · 5 Oct 2019 at 10:45

Shucking mybooks is a well documented and relatively easy process. Also surely even the low end Synology/QNAP stuff lets you mount a drive and copy the contents to the array? You can with Unraid and it’s such a basic function I’d be amazed if it wasn’t possible with other options (file system permitting).

Bluecube · 5 Oct 2019 at 10:48

It’d be a simple matter of plugging the USB drives into the NAS while still in the Mybooks caddy. However, you’d need drives already in the NAS to copy the data onto.

bledd · 6 Oct 2019 at 13:45

sja360 said:
Wouldn't that cost North of £1k though?
That's quite an outlay compared to 5-6 portable 1-3tb drives that already purchased.

Is there any chance the drives could be removed from the mybooks' and taken into. 4+ NAS by synology or qnap?

In a word, no.

Ideally you want matching NAS spec hard drives. They will get formatted as you add them. I'd buy them all at once.

Avalon · 6 Oct 2019 at 15:21

If you want to use mixed drives and are willing to take them out of the cases, then UnRAID is ideal for your usage, you will still need a parity drive for redundancy though, and it needs to be the largest of them all.

Matching NAS spec drives is a nice idea, but the evidence doesn’t always backup NAS drives being significantly more reliable.

MrWhippy · 11 Oct 2019 at 19:39

Encrypted Google gdrive for business. Few quid a month, backups and power bill not your problem.
Nominal data cap has never been enforced.

Really don't understand why anyone is hosting their own data for media these days. Just not worth the outlay, surely.

Bluecube · 11 Oct 2019 at 19:49

How much are you storing and how much are you paying?

Avalon · 11 Oct 2019 at 23:15

Bluecube said:
How much are you storing and how much are you paying?

Let’s just say that some people don’t measure things in TB anymore and it’s under £8/m and leave it at that.

MrWhippy · 13 Oct 2019 at 09:55

Avalon said:
Let’s just say that some people don’t measure things in TB anymore and it’s under £8/m and leave it at that.

What he said