New NAS Help

Posted by: AndyP19 on 15 March 2016

Just looking to overhaul an old NAS setup. Currently, I have one 6TB WD Red holding my entire ripped 10,000+ CD collection backed up to an external WD 6TB drive.

If I go down the QNAP route (Not interested in RAID) should I get the TS 251 - 2 enclosure version and just add another say 4TB or 6TB WD Red giving me 10TB or 12TB in all which should last me a life time. With 8GB of RAM running on Minimserver? Does this sound right (not sure I need the QNAP 451 four enclosure)?

Also, just not sure how I back up the QNAP if it has 6TB + 4TB or 6TB + 6TG with external drives?  Do I get another 6TB external (to go with the existing 6TB external) and somehow backup the QNAP?

Thanks for advice.

 

 

 

 

Posted on: 15 March 2016 by Harry

That's what I'd do. I have about 8TB of video files backed up across four USB HDD drives, and backups of each.

Music wise I have a TS-470 with 4GB RAM running Asset. I also have a TS-410 with 512K RAM running Minimserver. There is no difference in performance or audio quality.  They will also both stream video without difficulty.

The less HDDs you employ (and providing you have good backups) the less things there are to fail. Running anything with a HDD is a time to failure model, regardless of how long they last.

Posted on: 15 March 2016 by Mike-B
Harry posted:

Music wise I have a TS-470 with 4GB RAM running Asset. I also have a TS-410 with 512K RAM running Minimserver. There is no difference in performance or audio quality.  They will also both stream video without difficulty.

................    I've spent some time recently moving a friends music from US to NAS & he has insisting on getting a NAS wiv loadza RAM.   I've argued the point its not needed at all with music,  not much luck & gave up.   I have just linked your post on an e-mail to him.  

Posted on: 16 March 2016 by Adam Zielinski

If I recall QNAP has a back up function.

However: what is wrong with RAID, since you already use an external drive for security back ups? (I do the same by the way ). With RAID you will always have two identical drives with your music. I do realise RAID function is not designed for that, but.... If one drive fails, your second one will be a perfect copy.

Posted on: 16 March 2016 by Harry

Nothing wrong with RAID if you want a mirror image. All of my music is mirrored on NAS. That takes care of one disk failure but doesn't cover you for simultaneous multiple disk damage or the box failing and taking it's HDD array with it, as happened to me with a ReadyNas.  No more than an inconvenience because it was all backed up on a USB HDD. And the reason I moved from Netgear to QNAP.

Posted on: 16 March 2016 by Adam Zielinski

External copy is paramount.

Posted on: 16 March 2016 by AndyP19

Thanks for the helpful advice as always.

What I don't quite get (sorry bit dense here) is I have a 6TB WD Red almost full that goes into one bay in the QNAP. I then buy another say 6TB for the other bay for future rips and FLAC downloads. So I've got a potential of 12TB. How do I back this up externally (I have the first 6TB backed up with a WD External drive).

But the bit I don't get is how to achieve 12TB of external capacity backup. Does the QNAP say hang on your external backup drive of 6TB is full unplug it and plug in more backup capacity? Do I just buy the WD My Cloud EX2100 12TB external drive which is a bit pricey.

Thanks again.  

Posted on: 16 March 2016 by Adam Zielinski

You can always do partial manual back ups. 

Is this 6TB of only music? If there are movies on it, perhaps a 2nd NAS with a film library might be a safer and cheaper?

Another solution is to set up a second NAS used for back up only and get your main No 1 to back up automatically to No2. 

Posted on: 16 March 2016 by Dr_J

Agree comments re RAID - if the box or controller fails, it may be unrecoverable.

Backup is trickier - a simple copy needs another 12TB of storage and even via GB Ethernet, let alone USB 2/3, that's going to be slow. A real backup system will let you make an initial copy and then backup subsequent changes, but that depends on what Qnap, or possibly 3rd parties, may offer. Backup via your PC or Mac from the Qnap to another device will also not be spectacular performance-wise.

Synology, which I use, allows me to sync folders/sub-folders from one NAS to another, which is what I currently do, albeit for less than 4 TB. Once the first sync was done, it only syncs changes, including deletions, so care is required. But it does probably provide a path back, providing I remember to do it regularly and keep the second NAS in a fire safe.

Probably worth checking the Qnap manual, website, App Store (?) to see what's on offer.

KR, J

Posted on: 16 March 2016 by robgr

RAID shouldn't be seen as a backup (but ifgten is) butit  does offer resillience (with little effort), I'd recommend RAID and a backup strategy

Using a second NAS as a backup is fine as long as it's remote to the primary NAS else both are at risk from the same fire, flood, theft etc

Ideally the second NAS should be remote or at least in a different part of the house, either might be challenging from a networking perspective (backup over wifi would take for ever)

External drives are relatively cheap and a simple to emply backup strategy but just be certain to store them elsewhere from your primary NAS