FlyerTalk Forums - External Drive Help/Suggestions

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Quote:

Originally Posted by Skyman65 (Post 21719108)

Do you have any opinion/experience with the QNAP products, like the TS-220?

This model has 2 x USB 3.0 ports and 2 x eSATA ports in the back. Not sure how much of an advantage that is, or if I'd ever use them, but they sound cool. :)

I'm running the QNAP TS-559 Pro II at home. It's a great unit and you can add to disk arrays without formatting them (unlike devices others have mentioned here). Before I bought this unit, I looked at Synology and Thecus but QNAP had more features for the money and they have an excellent support community. I originally favored Thecus, but QNAP appeared to be a more robust product at a similar cost. QNAP also runs Linux, so the features are essentially limitless.

Features I use (without issue):
iSCSI for my Windows SQL server that needs a SAN
Serviio for my home DLNA server
SAMBA for my linux and windows clients
MariaDB as my RDBMS for syslogs and data from my home devices (thermostats/cameras)
MongoDB for development
I've also set it up as a client on my domain so I can use domain accounts/permissions.

I can easily pull about 85-90MB/s up and down from it (website stated ~80)

After 2+ years with this unit, I would highly recommend QNAP. They're more tailored towards business users, but that's probably what I fall into at home. :)

I don't use the USB ports much, but they are handy. Occasionally, I copy a customers 1+ TB DB and it's nice to just plug my USB3.0 drive and transfer it that way.

So, sorry to be dense here...

After reading through this thread, the consensus seems to be Synology...

For a two-drive RAID1 configuration, would the group recommend the DS213+ ?

What about drives? Are the WD Red drives the way to go these days?

Quote:

Originally Posted by bkafrick (Post 21755471)

When I was doing my comparison, I thought seriously about the DS213+. I opted instead for the DS214 as it was less money, and the only difference in the specs was that the 214 doesn't have an external eSATA port or a SD card reader.

I also went with the WD RED drive, as they seem to be highly recommended for NAS applications.

HDQDD's advice on Qnap also looks good. I haven't heard of them before, but their software looks a lot like Synology's.
Their NAS arrays also seem to have higher specs (and higher prices, at least on Amazon) than the equivalent Synology ones.

Also check out the Synology DS213j - it's the "home" version of the 213 family and is much cheaper ($199).

I debated getting a dedicated NAS, then decided that for the same money it was more fun to have a full-fledged PC running Linux to play with.