If you are wondering what NAS to buy I thought I'd write a few notes on my current move.
A couple of years ago I bought a Drobo-fs. The main reason was the five HDD slots, allied to the price. and it has performed faultlessly .....but, the fact is that as I have ripped all my DVDs, and need some significant space for some VMs, so space is getting tight. This leaves me two options: replace my 5 3TB HDDs with 4TB HDDS; or buy another NAS with more slots.
I have bought the Synology 1812+. This has 8 slots, with e-sata connectors allowing me to chaining on two more external HDD caddies.
The bottom line is that:
1. The Drobo feels better made;
2. The Synology has better connectivity and better control software.
The 1812 includes the following connectors: two RJ45, allowing trunking; 4 USB 2.0; and 2 USB 3.0.
Brilliant.
The Drobo allowed access to the underlying OS and all the main software Daemons - BUT, as add on Drobo apps. That fact is that it presents itself as a plug in, low effort design - but isn't. The Synology wins in spades, and has better integration.
One of the things I objected to with the Drobo was the requirement to have a windows box to run their control software, which is itself very clunky. NO LONGER. The Synology widget is a Java applet and will run in a browser.
Additionally, I had set up my backup regime using the windows box - by running a few unix commands to identify any files older than 5 days old, and copying them onto an attached USB drive. I have this now running as a Scheduled Task on the Synology NAS running at 02:00, which successfully ID'd the new HiDef music files I uploaded yesterday. So I have been able to turn off the windows box. I can't divest myself of it as I use it for ripping DVD-As.
The bottom line is, I believe, that you will buy the NAS that gives you the space you need at a price you are prepared to pay. However, all things being equal, Synology is a better solution.
Finally: The 5 HDDs were configured as a Drobo hybrid RAID, and resulted in 10.3 TB of space. The same discs configured as a Synology hybrid RAID render 10.81TB of space!
M
Posted on: 30 August 2013 by Bart
I've had excellent luck with my Synology nas (actually much better once I realized that to get the uServe and nas to be comfortable talking to each other, folder names on the nas must not include spaces!).
Are you using it only to backup your NS01, or as a UPnP server as well?
My uServe runs timed backups to the Synology, but I've been manually backing up the Synology to an attached USB drive. At one point I had automated that as well but must have turned it off when the uServe backup wasn't working (due to the aforementioned naming problem with my folders).
I've been using CCC (Carbon Copy Cloner) to run those manual backups from OS X. It's quite nice; does a great job on incremental backups even if it did not create the first backup, something that not all backup software seems to like to do.
Posted on: 30 August 2013 by garyi
I feel sure Drobo has moved on significantly. My experience with them was very poor.
I have been through a few options but have settled now on an HP proliant (readily availably for 200 quid with a hundred quid cash back) running OpenMediaVault. Stick up to five disk in.
Without doubt this is as powerful as the upper ranges of Synology/QNAP etc (2ghz dual core processor, 4 gigs ram etc) at easily half the price with disks. Once set up, which is easy they just work.
If you don't mind a little bit of fiddling (will admit there is a bit), this is a serious solution, small business grade server in the home for around 350 quid with 4 1.5tb disks
It also runs plex, really well.
They are proper mini servers, has expansion possibilities and can run a variety of NAS/Server solutions.
Worth a look if you don't mind getting your hands dirty.
Posted on: 31 August 2013 by tonym
Yes Gary, Drobo seems to work excellently and has performed faultlessly in the three or so years I've been using it. My son, who also owns one, decided for some strange reason to pull two of the HDs and received excellent backup from Drobo in trying to recover all his data (silly boy...)
Mr Fixedwheel of this parish kindly advised me on how to set things up when I was struggling with my QNAP NAS & I ended up with a Drobo as the main source of storage for my music & photos (I don't rip many films) which I stream to my DAC via my Mac & USB. The NAS is now used exclusively for backup purposes.
Posted on: 31 August 2013 by Mr Underhill
Hi Bart:
No I use the NAS as:
1. The home for my ripped DVDs;
2. Main share and store for my NS01;
3. The home for my photos; and
4. Host for a number of VMs that I use.
My backups are done on an incremental basis to USB HDDs I have attached to the Synology. I have a small script that IDs any files that have been recently added or updated, and copies them to the USB HDDs; when these are full I replace them and take the full ones to a nearby friend.
Hi Garyi:
I am sure things will have moved on. The Synology gives me an extra 3 slots, and has enabled me to turn off a PC that was permanently on.
I have run lots of NAS style solutions over the years - I think the dedicated NAS box is a very neat solution, as long as it fits your requirements, and at a price.
Like you I have bought a 2nd hand server, in my case from eBay. A very powerful box for a very low price. I believe these are 3 year old boxes being outed by data centres. I am using this as my VMWARE vSphere host.
Hi Tony:
My Drobo performed without error. I had one HDD fail, and the replaced HDD rebuild worked well. My only frustrations with the Drobo were:
1. The lack of more interfaces on the Drobo box, i.e. USB interfaces;
2. The need to plug in extra software to get base functionality to work, e.g. NFS;
3. The fact I had to run windows to get their management widget to run.
I use the NAS as the main home for my music, I don't use the onboard HDDs on the NS01.
If I had been using the box purely for music then only (3) would have mattered, and I would have got round this in another way.
Posted on: 31 August 2013 by garyi
Have they got the speed up (Significantly) on network throughput with drobo? The most I got was 10MB/s which they confirmed was its limit. As I say I had the first one, so this was a while ago. I got through three harddrives with it within a year, so did not trust them much.
This proliant (Not second hand, brand new for 100 quid) throughputs with Open Media Vault at around 80MB/s down. I really cannot recommend it highly enough for the money. You need pretty much top spec off the shelf nas solutions to beat it. Its dead easy to install OMV, but you could use FreeNas or Widows server, or ubunto or what ever.
