Recommendations for NAS for our IT Support team

[DrBeaker]

Hi All,

 

I'm after some recommendations for a NAS for our IT Support team.

 

Sort of a private NAS for our IT Support team and only for them - for items like storing drivers, ISOs etc - the typical sort of IT support files. Ones that it's not really practical to store in the cloud anywhere and don't really need to be on a fully-fledged server. As we're an RM school we can't just stick it on the file server as we'll run out of space for stuff that's sort of non-essential.

Integration with the AD would also be a very useful feature, not too bothered about any video apps etc anything like that. Just secure, reliable file storage for the team.

 

Just wondering if other staff/IT support teams have gone a similar route? If so what sort of NAS device, make, model and setup etc have you gone for?

 

Not sure whether to go for a 2-bay NAS for now and upgrade/replace at some point in the future. Or just get a 4-bay one now and go for broke (so to speak) and get it over and done with?

Synology looks quite good value for money, but some of their high-end 2-bays I could get a cheaper 4-bay and go for RAID 5/6 or RAID 10 instead?

 

What are the thoughts of fellow edugeekers?Thanks

[XiJ]

I wouldn’t look past synology tbh.

[ShellfishClive]

I agree with XiJ a desktop Synology is great or QNAP to be honest, real easy to setup and build.

[3s-gtech]

We’re Synology only now (aside from a Netgear unit that I’ve managed to hack to run SMBv2) across a good number of units. They’ve been superb. The support life for them, reliability and the add-on devices have all been big positives.

[mikeprice]

I looked at this a while ago - although I left before I had a chance to implement it

 

My thoughts were that if it is just basically static file then RAID was not needed - clearly a decent backup is necessary anyway so I decided that a could backup of the data was sufficient security

In the unlikely event of a disk failure then it could be fixed in a day or so by replacing the drive and restoring from backup. This was of course based on the assumption that there is only a remote chance of a disk failure and things like ISOs are not frequently needed in situation that need fast response

Even if a system is down and needs to be re-imaged it can normally wait 1 day - which it would have to do if e.g. the motherboard was fried - and in the event of 2 system failures at the same time (i.e. disk in NAS and user computer ) then the things have to be delayed a bit

 

hence RAID would only be needed for striping - maybe

 

YMMV - obviously - but in my case there was no good reason for the extra expenditure for RAID

[DrBeaker]

I looked at this a while ago - although I left before I had a chance to implement it

 

My thoughts were that if it is just basically static file then RAID was not needed - clearly a decent backup is necessary anyway so I decided that a could backup of the data was sufficient security

In the unlikely event of a disk failure then it could be fixed in a day or so by replacing the drive and restoring from backup. This was of course based on the assumption that there is only a remote chance of a disk failure and things like ISOs are not frequently needed in situation that need fast response

Even if a system is down and needs to be re-imaged it can normally wait 1 day - which it would have to do if e.g. the motherboard was fried - and in the event of 2 system failures at the same time (i.e. disk in NAS and user computer ) then the things have to be delayed a bit

 

hence RAID would only be needed for striping - maybe

 

YMMV - obviously - but in my case there was no good reason for the extra expenditure for RAID

 

Interesting. I'm trying to invest in and improve the setup for the team compared to what's in place now, which is pretty much nothing except local storage.

 

Most data would be static once setup, but also a case of offloading any videos etc the team are working on onto the NAS instead of the central servers.

 

I was thinking of something like this https://www.amazon.co.uk/Synology-DS418-Bay-Desktop-Enclosure/dp/B075D98BF8/ref=sr_1_35?keywords=2+bay+nas&qid=1570377505&sr=8-35 and then 4x 2TB Drives https://www.amazon.co.uk/Western-Digital-WD40EFRX-NASware-Internal/dp/B008JJLZ7G/ref=pd_bxgy_147_3/260-2103043-0021533?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B00EHBERSE&pd_rd_r=09d669cc-7b35-4aa2-92ef-7763de7ed134&pd_rd_w=jT9OM&pd_rd_wg=69TNP&pf_rd_p=7a9d3b22-47b7-4932-be38-57f4219c3325&pf_rd_r=KESS35G4YJ80WZG2G1AR&refRID=KESS35G4YJ80WZG2G1AR&th=1 giving a total of 4TB in RAID 10 and then at a cost of under £500 that's good for at least 3-5x years so at a cost of £100 per year approx.

[mikeprice]

Maybe think of 2 4TB drives instead of 4 2TB - I always like to have spare capacity where possible - and it would cheaper

 

You could even go for 3 4TB - leaving one as a disaster spare - which only you lot know about!

You know the requirements will increase - they always do - so plan for it now???

 

maybe - just an idea

[XiJ]

Yep. For the type of data storage you’re looking for is go for 2x4tb in a mirror. Easy enough to expand.

[Davit2005]

+1 for Synology. Will give you some good features including MFA, RAID, easily expandable, Active Directory authentication etc. plus a whole load of extra possibilities.

 

I have 2 at home now and cannot fault them.

Edited October 7, 2019 by Davit2005

[TechMonkey]

Another vote for Synology. We have three of the beasts for various things. Much easier since they did rack mounted ones.

 

As an alternative, if you have Office 365 or Google, why not an area/site/drive on there? Allows collab and access in case of complete network failure.

[Jcx500]

We've got a synology rack station here

[FragglePete]

Synology DS1815+ here and works well - only issue we had that the PSU died in it suddenly a while back just inside the warranty; whole unit was replaced with a new one relatively quickly. Just moved all the HDDs over and the new one picked up the config and imported it without too much fuss.

 

Pete

[Driftingforlife]

My Asustor has never done me wrong in the years I have owned it so far, very easy to use and plenty of features for the money. Edited October 7, 2019 by Driftingforlife

[Sonic007]

Always been a fan of Synology. Good interface and easily mapped drives.

Works well.

 

The one bay ones are cheap and can backup to a USB drive too.

I have the DS118. Great little box.

[PotNoodleTech]

Been using Synology here for years, fast and reliable. I wouldn't bother looking elsewhere to be honest.

[DrBeaker]

Thanks for all the replies so far folks.

 

We might have to end up storing any IT photos and IT videos on here now too. As well as the normal IT stuff us folks have.

 

Any particular Synology units folks would recommend? Ones's they've had good experience with?

 

Anybody use the SHR RAID setup on these units in production, or bog-standard RAID 5, 6 or 10?

[rich_tech]

We have a rackmount 12Tb synology that we paid about £850’for here, it’s 4x 3tb disks though it offers us less space as we run it on software raid5

[MatthewL]

QNAP, got a couple at home and been great, would quite happily use in production. Synology also highly recommended and would be considered if I was to buy another one, both score for me.

[PotNoodleTech]

DS2412+ here and I bought my own 12 x 4TB drives to go in. Running Raid 6.

[Davit2005]

Thanks for all the replies so far folks.

 

We might have to end up storing any IT photos and IT videos on here now too. As well as the normal IT stuff us folks have.

 

Any particular Synology units folks would recommend? Ones's they've had good experience with?

 

Anybody use the SHR RAID setup on these units in production, or bog-standard RAID 5, 6 or 10?

 

Any + model with 5bays minimum would be my choice. When you say Videos, is this going to be just storage i.e. no editing from the NAS?

 

Always used SHR for a plain old NAS I don't think it should not matter SHR gives you some flexibility https://www.synology.com/en-global/knowledgebase/DSM/tutorial/Storage/What_is_Synology_Hybrid_RAID_SHR

 

I have before now easily upgraded an SHR by swapping disks for higher capacity one by one. Saves having to move the data off then back on again. I'd still recommend a backup of the data if it cannot easily be sourced again however.

[DrBeaker]

Any + model with 5bays minimum would be my choice. When you say Videos, is this going to be just storage i.e. no editing from the NAS?

 

Always used SHR for a plain old NAS I don't think it should not matter SHR gives you some flexibility https://www.synology.com/en-global/knowledgebase/DSM/tutorial/Storage/What_is_Synology_Hybrid_RAID_SHR

 

I have before now easily upgraded an SHR by swapping disks for higher capacity one by one. Saves having to move the data off then back on again. I'd still recommend a backup of the data if it cannot easily be sourced again however.

 

Seems as always in IT there's been some scope creep from the original idea, to all the extras.

 

What I envisioned as originally:

* ISOs

* Drivers

* IT support documentation

* IT Support files

 

Has gone to storing any photos, videos etc on there too. Likely just as storage for the raw footage, video project files etc. Mainly for any one doing any video editing (Full HD at most) like exams, drama stuff etc. Just as a dumping ground for that. Likely to process on their PC and then store/backup to the NAS rather then edit it from there.

 

I was going to go with RAID 10 purely a lot of other forums etc say SHR or RAID 6 would be best, so I'm not so sure now.

[Davit2005]

Seems as always in IT there's been some scope creep from the original idea, to all the extras.

 

What I envisioned as originally:

* ISOs

* Drivers

* IT support documentation

* IT Support files

 

Has gone to storing any photos, videos etc on there too. Likely just as storage for the raw footage, video project files etc. Mainly for any one doing any video editing (Full HD at most) like exams, drama stuff etc. Just as a dumping ground for that. Likely to process on their PC and then store/backup to the NAS rather then edit it from there.

 

I was going to go with RAID 10 purely a lot of other forums etc say SHR or RAID 6 would be best, so I'm not so sure now.

 

I have 5 SamSung SM863 SATA SSDs in my DS1517+ at home with a 10Gb dedicated connection to my desktop, to be honest I have never tried editing videos directly from that as I treat it as a fast backup only for the videos and raw footage, NFS storage for a few VMs and NAS storage. If you had multiple editors needing access there may be a valid reason but to be honest I'd just copy the video files to local SSDs for editing as you intend to do :-)

 

Linus Tech Tips YouTube channel might be worth a look as he does much on the video editing storage side of things :-)

Edited October 9, 2019 by Davit2005