NAS replacement recommendations for curriculum/teaching staff

[DrBeaker]

Hi All,

 

Been advised we can finally replace the old NAS boxes that are from 2012 that the teaching staff/departments use with multiple file shares to store various things on there. Typical file server stuff that we don't have space for on our RM file server - it's mainly for storage, PPTs, word and Excel docs etc.

 

So we can buy a new one, yay!!

 

Anybody got any recommendations for a replacement NAS for this usage scenario?

 

Currently they are a 4-bay 2012 QNAP way out of warranty with only a few TB of space total.

 

Looking for ideally a minimum of 4-bay so we can RAID 10 the HDDs. I've no experience of the 5-bay or more models. Are they really worth it for nearly a grand or more? Is it worth the extra price for the potential extra storage space and features with redundancy?

 

Any advice appreciated. I need the hive mind to bounce some ideas around as no-one else at work to do that with.

 

All ideas appreciated. Thanks guys and gals.

[3s-gtech]

Synology DS420+. We have a couple of DS413 that have done great service for years now. The software is still top class, though it misses some things like 10Gbe. Cooling is good, build quality is good, and I use mine as iSCSI targets for Hyper-V backups amongst other things like Robocopy targets and archives.

[TechMonkey]

I always go with Synology as never had an issue. They do 4 bay rack mountable models like the RS819 or RS820 if you want some future capability. There are also options with 8 bays if you want to have some future scalability.

[Jcx500]

We went with a synology rackstation , we use it for IT Support storage and some backups

[XiJ]

Three words. Synology.

[Wubbalubbadub]

10 Words. SharePoint.

 

We have Petabytes of storage.. and it costs us zilch..

 

However QNAP is a good brand..

[Sonic007]

Google Drive not an option?

 

 

If not then Synology al the way.

[Zammo]

Seriously look at moving to cloud storage - Google Drive or OneDrive/SharePoint

 

For some reason I thought you were in a MAT - do they not have an opinion?

[DrBeaker]

Google Drive not an option?

 

 

If not then Synology al the way.

 

We're using a combination of both cloud (Office365) and local.This is to replace a NAS that was already out of warranty by about 3x years when I started and has already had the internal PSU fail.

 

We still need some sort of local file storage system for the time being due to legacy stuff and procedures etc.

 

Seriously look at moving to cloud storage - Google Drive or OneDrive/SharePoint

 

For some reason I thought you were in a MAT - do they not have an opinion?

 

We are and the money has come from them.

It's to fix a lot of neglected systems and infrastructure from my predecessor.

 

But for some reason our finance team only gave me less than 24x hours to decide on a replacement unit before going off on annual leave otherwise the money would have been gone. [emoji53]

Edited August 24, 2020 by DrBeaker

[Zammo]

We're using a combination of both cloud (Office365) and local.This is to replace a NAS that was already out of warranty by about 3x years when I started and has already had the internal PSU fail.

 

We still need some sort of local file storage system for the time being due to legacy stuff and procedures etc.

 

 

 

We are and the money has come from them.

It's to fix a lot of neglected systems and infrastructure from my predecessor.

 

But for some reason our finance team only gave me less than 24x hours to decide on a replacement unit before going off on annual leave otherwise the money would have been gone. [emoji53]

 

Ah yes, the usual tale of no money all year and then suddenly you have £20k to spend, 12 hours to spend it and and no forward warning to allow for research and good procurement practice so you are buying on a wing and a prayer

[DrBeaker]

Ah yes, the usual tale of no money all year and then suddenly you have £20k to spend, 12 hours to spend it and and no forward warning to allow for research and good procurement practice so you are buying on a wing and a prayer

THAT.... Was pretty much the subsequent conversations and emails after I'd been told that.

Bear in mind I had other IT projects I'd been working on all summer of mine, with other teams and companies etc that I wanted to get finished before leaving. As I was owed some TOIL it wasn't a normal finish time either.

 

Bear in mind I'd told them this about 12x months ago, given then a rough price and cost with some options. 12x months later my research is outdated and prices have changed. [emoji33]

[Davit2005]

Quite a recent Video about Synology by Lawrence Systems.