Entry-Level NAS Storage Servers Compared 182
snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Desmond Fuller provides an in-depth comparison of five entry-level NAS storage servers, including cabinets from Iomega, Netgear, QNAP, Synology, and Thecus. 'With so many use cases and potential buyers, the vendors too often try to be everything to everyone. The result is a class of products that suffers from an identity crisis — so-called business storage solutions that are overloaded with consumer features and missing the ease and simplicity that business users require,' Fuller writes. 'Filled with 10TB or 12TB of raw storage, my test systems ranged in price from $1,699 to $3,799. Despite that gap, they all had a great deal in common, from core storage services to performance. However, I found the richest sets of business features — straightforward setup, easy remote access, plentiful backup options — at the higher end of the scale.'"
one-page version (Score:5, Informative)
Synology is nice (Score:5, Informative)
I have a DS1010+ 5-bay model and absolutely love it. It's got 10TB in it right now but I may replace the drives with 3TB models eventually. With a dual-core 1.6GHz atom and 1GB DDR2 ram it easily reads and writes at 100+MB/s via a RAID5 array on my simple home gigabit network.
Also the new NAS' that are Intel-based can run most CLI linux servers and programs which is great. You may need to add more RAM if you run lots of heavy servers or have lots of concurrent users but most have spare ram slots.
The best thing I find about Synology is their every updating and cutting edge Web GUI. They are already using HTML-5 features to support things like dragging and dropping files right into your web-browser to upload files to the NAS remotely.
Wow. (Score:3, Informative)
Holy cow! $1,699 to $3,799" for "10TB or 12TB" of storage?
Case with 8 internal bays: $40
600 Watt Power supply: $35
MB with 8 SATA3 ports: $115
2.5gig dual core processor: $73
8 2TB drives: $800
1 Gig of RAM: $30
Total: $1093, for 16TB of storage. Yeah, yeah, you need one of them as a spare drive for redundancy, and you need an OS. You also need a few minutes to assemble and install. But for that price? Why pay twice as much? Hell yeah, roll my own, baby!
That PSU is to cheap and more ram can help as well (Score:5, Informative)
That PSU is to cheap at least get a $50+ one and don't just go for high watts.
get 2-4 GB ram mini should only be about $50-$60 for good 8 GB DDR 3 you want at least dual channel ram.
8 sata ports you may want to get a pci-e raid card / sata card. Maybe even SAS.
redundancy you may want raid 6 on a raid card and not on board fake raid and most south bridges only have 6 ports any ways.
Also some low end MB only have 10/100'.
Re:unRAID (Score:4, Informative)
Re:one-page version (Score:4, Informative)
This is one segment where build-your-own is still *way* cheaper than any of these crazy setups:
Intel Pentium G620T: $83
Intel DB65AL: $85
8GB DDR3: $50
Hyper 212+ with fans removed: $20
Fractal Design Mini: $100
Corsair CX430: $40
FreeBSD: $0
Total without disks: $378
5 * Hitachi 5k3000: $700
Stick the disks in a raid-z, and wham bam, there's $1078 for 12TB of RAIDed NAS.