Need a new NAS

I run a 410 and it has been faultless, Fast enough to stream all my hires stuff and reliable. I don’t think what you are getting out of your 412 is representative and there is always a worry that it is being tripped up by something else.

We recently said goodbye to our HDX in favour of Minimserver. We had a go with Asset but couldn’t make it work. Minimserver has performed faultlessly. We then pushed the boat out and got a 470., expecting it to be a lot faster and it wasn’t. In fact, the 410 seems to rum Minimserver with fewer delays to start up and rescans. We have other uses for the 470 so it wasn’t wasted.

We bought WD Reds because they are still recommended far and wide and we use them in our other NASs. One failed two weeks later. I don’t know about their physical performance but the three year warranty makes a lot of sense to me. 

WD Reds (not the WD Red Pros) are ideal for NAS solutions that don't use the higher RAID orders.  They are not particularly quick and run at variable speed (if you let them use their own power saving mode).  This is a major contribution to their reliability (Harry you were just unlucky with the premature failure - that can happen with all types of HDD).  They also do not default to running in TLER mode.

Making a HDD quiet often involves compromise to reliability.  In general drives designed for 24x7 NAS use aren't as quiet as desktop drives, it's not that they are loud, that the arm actuators aren't as quiet.

Why are you restricting yourself to QNAP and Minimserver solutions only?

Be aware that there have been significant problems with some of the larger WD Red models with respect to drive firmware, especially when running S.M.A.R.T self-test during data access. Do your research before you blindly commit to a specific drive vendor based on third-party recommendations....

Don't buy the 4 Tb Reds, they're not so reliable as the lesser capacity versions.

An interesting thread as I'm just looking at going down the NAS route myself.

However, I'm also looking at servers that act as a ripper and NAS like RipNAS or ZoneRipper.

Does anyone have any views on benefits/disadvantages either way?

Thanks

The Assetnas is a server based around windows home server, it doesn't auto rip although its easy enough to set your pc to do that. Advantages to me are that I can upgrade just like a pc and I can run any upnp software I want, so I have asset for music and a separate piece of software to stream films. I can configure it to autobackup and it will monitor and backup any pcs on my network.  I did try home nas drives but had problems with the built in upnp software,  for me this is much more robust and reliable and its very easy to forget its there, which is just how it should be

Thanks for that.

I'm a MAC user and not very techie so please forgive me but is the AssetNas and the others mentioned, essentially PC's used as a server? i.e sharing the contents of the HDD over the network via UPnP?

I have a QNAP 421 (not to be confused with the older 412) running Asset.

The has 2 x 3TB WD Red mirrored.

Yesterday, I archived my complete photo collection up to the NAS, 9000 photos / 28GB.

The QNAP Photo app was creating thumbnails as well.

This the QNAP handled while Asset was streaming and transcoding FLAC to WAV.
Not a single interruption in music.

I was very happy with that performance, so I would recommend the 421.

I use my Windows laptop; when I first loaded the NAS I used a Samsung Pro DVD read/writer,  now with the occasional CD rip I use the laptops inbuilt DVD drive. 

The ripping process is all done with the superb dBpoweramp.

I just bought a QNAP 451 and put 8GB into it.  works superbly so far though i have barely begun to explore what it can do. Twonky is preloaded into it though i've been using the HDX to serve.  It sits very quietly in the living room.  A LOT quieter than the aging  ReadyNAS which i banished to another room.

If you can be bothered, try installing Minimserver (and Java if applicable) and comparing what you hear to what your HDX delivers. For the purpose of testing you'll have to live with no tags in Minimserver but you may be interested in the musical portrayal. We set up Minimserver to get us by when our HDX needed to go back to the factory. One evening was all it took to convince us to sell the HDX. Different people will get different results but if you are inclined, it might prove interesting.

It is interesting Harry, guessing i would would have to bring my ND5XS into the system to get the signal from NAS to nDAC and into the pre?

As long as your QNAP and ND5XS are connected to the same network, which I am assuming is the case, you can take the HDX out (or power it down) and when Minimserver starts it will be seen as a uPnP source on the player and in the control app. It will look clunky because of the tagging but navigation is OK if not visually rich. It's just a suggestion. I'm not on an anti HDX crusade - I have the greatest respect and much affection for our now departed one.

I don't know why but things didn't work with my TS-412.

My network speed is OK -- I can easily stream HD video for hours without  single drop-out.

But if I copy something to the NAS the uPnP server starts failing (both Twonky and Minimserver).

So it's down to NAS, not a network.

I kind of hope that 6 or 8 slots NAS will relieve the load on HDDs and make the streaming seamless even during heavy-duty copying.

The other complain is Minimserver restarts and rescans really slow (I mean 5-10 minutes !!!).

I also had issue with HDDs and replaced two of them (in less than  year).

I wonder what brand and model is rumoured to be the most reliable regardless the price -- I may not afford it but I want to know.

That is not normal,  When I stayed in Dubai power failures - including voltage drops causing a so called brown out - used to be quite common.  

A power failure when the disks are working is very liable to cause damage.  

How is the Dubai power these days ??? & if you do get power failures, do you have a UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply)  ???

I stay in Jumeirah Islands and the power is solid here. But the servicing company sometimes switches the main power to do a maintenance. It didn't come to my mind that this may affect QNAP.

What if I back it up wit UPS? Any recommendations  on the rating/model ?

I have an APC CS350 (BK350EI) rated at 350VA (210w)

I don't see much point in getting anything with a higher capacity as the streamer & amps have no power so all thats actually needed is power to complete a safe shut down. 

Its connected to my NAS (Synology) by USB cable & that is programmed to order the NAS to go into "safe mode" after waiting for 30 seconds on battery.

Once in safe mode it remains in that state until the battery runs out when it powers off - I've never tested the actual duration - but I also have phone & internet powered from it & it gives more than enough time to either finish a call or save & shutdown laptop work.

Mike, thanks for the tips. I shall try a similar installation.

AMA, in addition: I suppose the NAS is up-to-date with the latest software (recently some vulnerabilities showed up, fixes are on the QNAP site) and has a wired connection with the switch?

Cheers, Fred

ps. the 412 has 2 RJ45 sockets and supports Link aggregation to speed up things.

pps. smallnetbuilder.com is a good source for some NAS investigation (hopefully not necessary :-) 

+1 for this....

I use a mini-pc running windows to act as nas. Before that I tried two different NAS products running different UPnP servers and had several issues. Now, as it turned out, it was my ND5 player that was the problem but finding that out was a lot easier using the windows box as a nas than it was with the dedicated nas products. It's so much easier to configure and manage things on the windows system. As you say it also allows you more flexibility with UPnP software. Just my 2d worth :-)

I have recently bought a Qnap HS-251 with 4Tb Red disc and I am very happy:

To serve music to my NDX I use Twonky (that was already installed on the Qnap); Assetnas (that I bought on the dbpoweramp site) with which I transcode Flac to Wav on the fly and Minimserver (got free from the Qnap store) as alternative server. Everything works flawlessly. The HS-251 can act also as XMBC server, Internet access for TV etc.

I can only recommend

I'm in the process of upgrading my QNAP 412 also.

It has 256MB Ram and is always at 75% plus capacity (with none but absolutely necessary apps running) and when it goes 80% plus steaming becomes flaky.

When swap memory and RAM go above 50%, it's had it and nothing will stream.

I'm moving to a QNAP 469L, going to put 2 WD Red 3TB discs in over the week-end and then use the  412 for back-up .

The limitations of the 412 for me is that I need twonky running for streaming video and Logitech Media server for 3 Squeezeboxes around the house and Asset or Minim (or both) for my Uniqute. I keep having to turn on and off some of these services to keep the whole show on the road.

Hopefully I'll be able to confirm later  that all works seamlessly with a bit more power under the bonnet.

SJB

If your NAS getting anywhere near 50% CPU usage then something is very wrong.  I have a DS112j (i.e. the lowest powered CPU Synology use) running DSM 5.0 with Media Server and it runs at:

Resting          15-20% CPU   20% RAM

Streaming 24/192          20-30% CPU    25% RAM

Streaming 24/192 and transcoding to WAV  25-35% CPU   25% RAM

Streaming 24/192 and doing a backup         25-35% CPU    25-80% RAM

And no drop-outs.  The only thing that really taxes it, is a full re-index when CPU and RAM use can reach >90%

Mine is different again 

Synology DS214 - DSM 5.0 - Media Server

Resting                   1-2% CPU   15% RAM

Streaming 16/44     2-8% CPU   15-18% RAM

Streaming  24/192  4-20% CPU 15-20% RAM

I have .wav files only so don't transcode 

Although CPU moves more or less all the time, RAM seems to be mostly fixed at 15%