Recomendations for a NAS Box

[Gonk]

Morning all,

 

I'm looking to add two NAS boxes to each of our networks (Academic & Admin) to add some extra backup storage.

 

I'm considering two BuffaloTerastation Pro II NAS boxes. Buffalo Technology - Products - TeraStation Pro™ II Rackmount

Does anyone have any advice or recomendations??

 

Cheers

 

Ross

[AWicher]

We have 2 NAS setup on 2 £100 Dell servers. I installed 2 250gig HD and installed openfiler for OS. Works a treat, then on server(s) setup a scheduled task and shadow copy.

[john]

I'm still wary of the Buffalo NAS's boxes, the AD Integration is still problematic with them so if you wanted that then just be aware that there are still niggles and problems with it.

[ricki]

HI

 

The Buffalo servers are ok. I have used them for years and never use ad. I set them up with there own users that only school ict people know and a folder with user protection. The only down side with them is if they go wrong. They make it as hard a possible to send them back for repair.

 

Richard

[PhilH]

:feedtroll::feedtroll:We have a Thecus Nas with 2Tb of storage, and its pants, its supposed to be AD aware, it is when it wants to be. Access rights fail frequently leaving users with no access. It allows access when using its IP number but yet when trying to use its DNS name it falls over We are scraping it and going to try it out as a media streaming server. Cant beat a good old windows server filled with masses of drive space. There are a lot of reasoably priced servers, and you know you can add an extra sever role to it if needed.

 

[mattx]

Make one yourself with Freenas - FreeNAS: The Free NAS Server - Home

Much better than the crappy Buffalo NAS's boxes.

[timbo343]

We are running the netgear nas boxes. Cant say i have had any problems with it, though we only use it for storing our backups.

[User3204]

We have a netgear NAS, I forget which one, but we don't feel it is good enough, for the way we are trying to use it.

 

We have it for use on our staff network, so about 150 staff using it, although most of the teachers (100 or so), save their files locally on their laptop hard disk.

 

It was supposed to be a central storage for the staff network, to replace the older windows machine, but it is slower than the old machine. It does sometimes "hang" under load, we had a bunch of users who had network profiles, but we found that it was just too slow to load.

 

 

As a straight backup, form the other servers, it is fine. Small and shiny...

[ranj]

I would recommend SNAP servers, a bit expensive for a NAS box but the AD integration is excellent, you can copy NFS, AFP shares also to it, you can snapshot the shares and very simple to access the shares whether its a windows or mac client.

 

can be expensive though I think they retail for about £2500 but you can add more storage as your schools grows and for that reason its a good buy. Used to be Adaptec but now been brought by Overland. Touch wood not had any problems with it but we use it for a mixture of backup and shared drive storage.

[mac_shinobi]

Make one yourself with Freenas - FreeNAS: The Free NAS Server - Home

Much better than the crappy Buffalo NAS's boxes.

 

saw this thread and was just about to suggest that but got beat to the punch line as usual lol

[mattx]

saw this thread and was just about to suggest that but got beat to the punch line as usual lol

 

I keep banging on about Freenas [ as people well know ] but you really have to give it a go as it really pi55es all over the other stuff out there you can buy.

Its also so much cheaper as you can buid a basic NAS box yourself for around £500 with a hell of a lot of storage.

You can do much more with a Freenas box and build it to your own requirements.

[ejsaunders]

I've been using the ICYBOX at home for (well more than one tbh), for a while now, and they're amazing. Not sure if it works on a network with integration into its authenticaton systems, but it works fine for simple users.

 

Could you have people access the NAS with a simple login, or is it that you want more secure, no delete other's files, type of storage?

 

They do however also make network boxes that can take upto 8Tb. And I would recommend them through and through. Have used Buffer Low, and tbh, they don't do what it says on the tin, except maybe you should 'recycle' it.

 

If you have the space however, I'd probably just add more storage to the existing hardware you have than to add a NAS, but it depends on what you're intending to do with it? Is it for pupils, staff, media storage (i.e. for say VirtualDrive?)

[ejsaunders]

Ah sorry I was really busy when I read through, got the NAS but not the story, so I'd say, if its storage, add more drives or replace the current for larger, on existing or use external storage like eSATA to add space.

 

Is it necessary for everyone to intergrate with the existing logins, or can people share space?