Considering a NAS for storage, backup, VPN, Plex
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Hello everyone.
Over the years, I have several external HDD drives of 3.5 and 2.5. Then, I bought some without a casing and a base to connect them.
I was considering using NAS, with WD Red drives or the Seagate Iron Wolf special for NAS.
I see that there are (at least) four distinct purposes for a NAS: storage and backups, software and virtualization, multimedia services and for surveillance and security.
The NAS will be in my room next to the PC and the router. Therefore, better with Gigabit ethernet connectivity via cable.
The use I will give it will be storage, backups and some software that has NAS (Synology had some manager type Plex of video library and audio, to create a VPN, etc.).
I know that NAS have many functions. I discard, I think, that it has HDMI connection: H.264 hardware and real-time transcoding; HDMI Full HD 1080p output for direct multimedia playback. Reason: the TV is in the living room. There I have a Xiaomi TV Box connected to the TV.
I have no idea about setting up RAID or anything similar. The idea I have in mind: a NAS in RAID 1 (redundancy), synchronize in the cloud (whether with Dropbox + Google, or a paid account if you recommend one) and also copy to an external HDD.
I see that Synology has its own RAID management system "Synology Hybrid RAID (SHR)".
Delving deeper and seeing comments, it leaves me with doubts:
"A NAS can be an interesting option as part of a good security plan, but it should not be the only one.
A RAID is never a substitute for backup, as it protects us against hardware failure of a disk, but if something is encrypted on a disk it does it on the rest of the mirror.
Usually it is recommended to follow the 321 plan, 3 backups, on 2 different media, and one of them in 1 different place. If we do not want to exaggerate at least we can make one copy on the NAS and another on an external USB hard drive that is taken to another physical place and that is left connected only the time necessary to perform the copy."
"In tomshardware they did the test with a NAS, a PC with raid and in the end the PC with raid won, for being able to choose the processor, the RAM and the transfer. With the NAS they did not get more than 12-15MB/s, and with the PC they could reach 35MB/s, with a gigabit switch."
"there are Linux distributions like FreeNAS (FreeBSD), OpenFiler (CentOS), XigmaNAS (FreeNAS-FreeBSD), that can be mounted on an SD card so that the equipment to which you plug it automatically becomes a NAS with the advantage that you choose the size and number of disks, take a look at it."
Now I have more doubts:
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I need storage (documents, photos, and video library, audio library, etc.), and a NAS could be interesting.
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If I have it in RAID 1, I could have it mirrored in case a disk is damaged. But in the end, a backup is required. I doubt that I would be interested in a RAID.
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The Backup (backups) should be on external disks and not permanently connected to avoid ransoware, cryptolocker, etc.
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If I think it contributes to the NAS applications of VPN and movie manager.
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finally, what could be a good security plan?
In short, everything that can help me clarify if I am interested in a NAS and how to get the most out of it, I appreciate it.
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Well I see that you are very well informed, especially considering that a RAID1 is not a backup and that you know the 321 plan (which I know but don't follow and should).
I'll tell you what I have and how I use it so you can get an idea. It's a Synology DS215J NAS, already with its time.
- I have two 1Tb drives as independent volumes. In the first one I have all the series and movies, in the second one the rest of things. The most important data (documents and photos that are in the second) are backed up periodically in the first and in an external USB drive.
- For multimedia I also use a Xiaomi TV Box with Kodi, and although my TV doesn't support it I was able to play 4K content without cuts.
- The transfer from my NAS to the PC over Gigabit is usually around 80-90 MB/s, although if there are many small files it becomes slower, of course. I don't have RAID, as I mentioned.
As for a PC of my own with a NAS distro (you're missing Open Media Vault) it's fine if you like to tinker, and I like it, but I realized that I was just changing PCs, components, system... until I went for the NAS and that way the data is always in its place, and the tests that are not with important data.
Best regards!
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With permission, a question.
Regarding NAS, I'm interested in knowing to what extent the controller issue can be a problem.
I understand that for RAID 1 it doesn't matter, but for levels like 5 or 0+1... would there be problems if the NAS, for whatever reason, had to be replaced with a different model even if it's from the same manufacturer?
The issue came up here, and despite everything, I still have that uncertainty.
Thanks in advance.
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@whoololon said in Considering a NAS for storage, backup, VPN, Plex:
With permission, a question.
Regarding NAS, I'm interested in knowing to what extent the controller issue can be a problem.
Sure, for a RAID 1 it doesn't matter, but for levels like a 5 or a 0+1... would there be problems if the NAS, for whatever reason, had to be replaced by a different model even if it's from the same manufacturer?
This topic came up here, and despite everything, I've always had that uncertainty.
Thanks in advance.
Well, I thought I had seen this, and supposedly it can be done:
I say supposedly because it clearly states that yes, at least within the same brand in the cases of Synology and Qnap, but without a backup it gives me a lot of respect.
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Thank you very much for the comments and your experiences, very valuable. More than well informed, I have collected a lot of information and now I must clarify doubts and decide which one may suit me best.
Like everything, at the beginning, putting in hours to get comfortable with each one. Whether it's NAS Synology, OMV,..The main use would be storage and movie manager -Plex, Emby-.
The VPN issue would be for later, in any case, for access from work to home.For multimedia at home, I have the Xiaomi TV Box, I would have to investigate Kodi addons. I had the Cine addon but it stopped working.
Open Media Vault (OMV), seems very powerful as you say: web servers, VPN, DLNA, SMB, NFS, virtualize, set up periodic tasks. But you would probably have to tinker a lot.
NAS Synology from the Plus range, up to 6 GB RAM, I have read that they are very powerful:
"A ds218+ with 6 gb ram, it eats everything at the multimedia level, through the network (everything well wired with a minimum category 6 cable)"
"VPN with L2TP/IPsec with the Synology NAS and it worked very well."
"the VPN issue now I have it through the router, but in its day I had it with the NAS VPN Server, and it works wonderfully well... you have 3 types of VPN, and well configured and opening router ports, it works great..."
"your own cloud with Synology Drive is a joy, as well as using DS photo so that it automatically makes a copy of the photos from the mobile to the NAS detecting from the last copy what is new and uploading it directly.."I read that you could use a program, Hyperbackup, for the backup of system configuration and applications (not data).
In addition, that with some scripts you can mount the disk (if you connect external ones via USB) to make the backups, and unmount it after finishing.Thanks!
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I will comment a little on my personal experience, in case it is of help and also because I appreciate advice/opinions \uf04a.I think that about 12 years ago I started managing a large amount of data, previously I used a lot of dvd/cd + some internal disk that I connected sometimes. Most of that data was not critical, but it took up a lot of space... the typical Movies, series, games, music, programs or operating system ISOs. The most critical part was photos and documents, easy to manage since it was not a large size (Of course, anyone who has a large amount of photos would be a separate case because it could occupy a large amount of space).
Initially I went crazy for wanting performance and capacity and used a Raid 0 of 3 disks in the main PC and a BCK per USB disk... yes, crazy jajaja. Later I set up an old secondary team (with Windows server) to make copies + the USB disk.
But I ended up getting angry because I saw that I had some disks turned on when 90% of the time they did not access their information. Although I was also not happy with the size that the equipment occupied, etc. But well, the solution was to have that equipment turned off and turn it on when I needed it... and well, after that I tried other configurations in other equipment and in the end you go crazy giving it so many turns.
Currently I have two teams to store things, the important thing I set up a small server with a low-consumption Xeon for important data and 2TB media in raid 1 and two 2TB USB disks for external copies... I have to configure it in the cloud to save some things that are what would hurt me the most to lose.
And I have another NAS team but it is a C2D with an OMV, you can't see the trouble I went through to configure it... and that I tried Nas3free and some other version that I don't remember. But in the end I have it turned off almost always and in it I only have movies, series, games... the typical thing that I keep more for digital Diogenes than for anything else.
Anyway, I hope that with time and money I can invest in a couple of larger disks and for NAS (for its anti-vibration technology) and possibly leave everything in a Windows Server that in the long run is easier for me to touch than to mess with the NAS. Initially it looks nice and it's cool to configure it, but if something happens to you, you are going to go crazy looking for information when if you are accustomed to the Windows environment you can manage on your own.
That said, I think the simplest option is to buy a NAS, put two good disks (size and NAS technology) in Raid 1 and have another USB disk for copies in addition to having some copy of the essentials in the cloud or another USB disk.
In my company we know very well what storage is and they usually use Raid 5 for storage issues, but keep in mind that the larger the size, the longer it takes to rebuild a volume in case of failure and the more risks you have that during that reconstruction the system will fail again and you will be left with a mess.
Of course, here it goes a bit depending on each user, since someone who has 6 TB of information cannot store their data the same way as someone who has 500GB or 1TB...
By the way, I have a mess with the information I have saved that stresses me out and I can't seem to put order!! And I'm sure I have duplicated things and crap that is worth nothing and is taking up space... currently I have about 5 TB of useful copies although occupied I will have about 3TB or a little more... but as I said, for sure, by cleaning up I could lower it to less than 2TB and that's counting on having things that are not important.
Regards and sorry for the long text! -
@_Neptunno_ said in Considering a NAS for storage, backup, VPN, Plex:
but keep in mind that the larger the size, the longer it takes to rebuild a volume in case of a failure and the more risks you have that during that reconstruction the system will fail again and you'll be left with a broken system.
But we're talking about hours, right? What are the probabilities? I've had to replace a couple of disks in RAID5 servers and it's been very convenient. What does decrease the performance while it's doing the reconstruction, at least in my case.
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@krampak said in Considering a NAS for storage, backup, VPN, Plex:
@_Neptunno_ said in Considering a NAS for storage, backup, VPN, Plex:
but keep in mind that the larger the size, the longer it takes to rebuild a volume in case of a failure and the more risks you have that during that reconstruction the system will fail again and you'll be left with a broken system.
But we're talking about hours, right? What are the probabilities? I've had to replace a couple of disks in RAID5 servers and it's been very convenient. What does decrease the performance while it's doing the reconstruction, at least in my case.
Well, as I mentioned, it depends a lot on the size of the Raid 5 and to a lesser extent on the type of disks and the controller itself. The truth is that it's a topic to talk about at length, I think a Raid 5 is a good solution although you should also consider the server where it's mounted and the model of the disks.
I say this because in small companies or some local administration, for not investing money in a good server and disks for that environment, a raid 5 can give some problems since during the reconstruction time users continue working and they notice that slowdown of the system... and for the administrator it's a pain because it can take hours during which you know that if another disk fails, you're in big trouble.
The issue of disks seems trivial but in the long run I realize it's fundamental, sometimes those disks stop working in raid but in normal mode they don't give problems. With a raid 1, if that disk fails, you can even plug it into another machine and access that information. I'm talking about typical disks like WD blue, or green... it's not the same as the red ones, to give an example.But in the case of the equipment we set up in my company, they are digital preservation systems and they handle many Terabytes of information, so to rebuild a Raid 5 of 20-40TB (just to give an example) is crazy for Raid5. I think what my colleagues do is make smaller groups in raid 5 and avoid having to spend several days on reconstruction.
I'm not saying a Raid 5 is bad, maybe I'm explaining myself wrong, but I mean that there are certain conditions that can be a bit of a pain... having a backup shouldn't be a problem even if you have a total loss of the raid.
But I'm talking more at the level of a home or small business or organization, where a raid 1 of 2 or 4TB disks plus two other disks aside in a server for copies save you more than enough... of course the performance offered by the 5 is a plus to consider and more if you have many users working.In short, I think it's important to see what you need in each circumstance since there are people who prioritize performance, space, security and above all money.
Sorry for the long post!!
