Storage Solutions NAS with independent access to disks

Lord Nemesis

Lord Nemesis

Overlord
Skilled
I am looking to extend my storage using a NAS. However I do not want to do RAID or JBOD.

I want to setup multiple drives (2~4) such that I can have independent access to each over the network. I also need to be able to add drives of different sizes. For instance, I have a 5 TB drive with me already and I want to buy another 4 TB drive.

Is this possible with any out of the box NAS solutions? If not, what is the best way to go about a DIY solution. I don't want this consuming a lot of power, so if possible I don't want to build a full fledged computer for this.

I can spend up to 20k (without the HDD of course) if I can get a solution that I can scale to 4 drives
 
I already considered the option of using a RPi since I have a RPi2. But based on previous experiments, I don't think it would give good enough throughput to be of practical use considering the USB2 ports and 100 Mbit LAN.
 
I recommend against any of the ARM boards. not all usb3 based devices are compiled into the out of the box kernel most of them provide. its a pain to figure that out and recompile linux kernel.

I bought an ASUS RT-N66R router and connected the usb 3.0 hdds and some sd/cf cards that I had lying around. works perfectly for me. the router has many more goodies apart from NAS server.
 
Are there any low power mATX/Mini ITX boards with 4 SATA3 ports worth considering? I have a spare computer in a Stacker 830 lying around, but the only problem is its power consumption. If I can swap out for low power parts, I might as well make use of the Stacker.
 
Celeron NUC as a NAS? use usb 3.0 enclosures for connection, plus it has builtin gigabit lan.
 
vivek.krishnan said:
Just make a network share with individual names for each folder on individual HDDs. Simple.
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That's exactly what I was thinking. Most good NAS devices such as Synology will let you group whatever disks you want together, including just leaving a disk as a single. Create a volume on each disk, create a share on it, map it, and you're done.
 
Well I had a similar solution with a home Dell poweredge 2950 which I picked up cheap 2nd hand. However for 24/7 operation it was too damn loud and power consumption was massive. So last month I picked up a QNAP TS-563 with 5 bays. What you are describing should be possible in the QNAP nas. Can setup multiple storage pools with independent access control. I even have 2 VMs running on the NAS now. One arch and one puppy linux managing my downloads behind a VPN.

For me the main concern for any NAS is the network speed. Old PCs do not have enough power to manage the storage pools.
 
Use a n3700 board,with windows server for os. The asrock mobo has 4 sata ports, usb 3 ports and has one of the most energy efficient quad core cpu from intel. Use a120w pico psu and a small ssd for os.
 
ronnie_gogs said:
Well I had a similar solution with a home Dell poweredge 2950 which I picked up cheap 2nd hand. However for 24/7 operation it was too damn loud and power consumption was massive. So last month I picked up a QNAP TS-563 with 5 bays. What you are describing should be possible in the QNAP nas. Can setup multiple storage pools with independent access control. I even have 2 VMs running on the NAS now. One arch and one puppy linux managing my downloads behind a VPN.

For me the main concern for any NAS is the network speed. Old PCs do not have enough power to manage the storage pools.
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Are QNAP products available in India or did you buy from outside?
 
Vasishta.Sushant said:
Look at the Synology offerings. I have been using the DS213 (just 18W) with two 3TB WD Red drives. Has been working excellently from the last 3 years.
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+1 for Synology. I have one unit (DS212) I've been using for about 6 years without so much as a hiccup or crash, and now another DS1813+ that I run. The variety of plugins for it are awesome, so you can make it do about anything.
 
Buy a large chassis and put a pentium/sempron + Mobo (with six SATA slots) + RAM. Should not cost more than 20k. I had built one (CM690+Sempron+Asus M4A88t-m+CM PSU+4GB RAM) a while ago (dismantled now).[DOUBLEPOST=1458669417][/DOUBLEPOST]For software, FreeBSD (or Linux or Windows).
 
Lord Nemesis said:
Are QNAP products available in India or did you buy from outside?
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Well I am not India. This was in Singapore. However I do see QNAP on amazon.in.. Prices seem really steep though. You might look into Synology options but not sure about prices. I have built my own NAS solutions with itx mobos in past. But I just find a polished system from vendors like QNAP and Synology makes life so much easier.
 
I got in touch with QNAP and their products are available with warranty in India. Considerably overpriced compared to US though. I also asked for the prices of the 251+/451+ and 431+ series.

QNAP TS-251-1GB RAM @ Rs. 31000 + tax
2-bay, Tower, Diskless, 2 years warranty;

QNAP TS-451-1GB RAM @ Rs. 47000 + tax
4-bay, Tower, Diskless, 2 years warranty;

QNAP TS-651-4GB RAM @ Rs. 65000 + tax each
6-bay, Tower, Diskless, 2 years warranty;
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Lord Nemesis said:
I got in touch with QNAP and their products are available with warranty in India. Considerably overpriced compared to US though. I also asked for the prices of the 251+/451+ and 431+ series.
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Buy the following :

Assuming you are not planning to run Plex -

Mi NAS 25 from ebay for 4.5K, includes Atom D2500, dual LAN, 6 SATA ports. Additional case and PSU of your choice. Would require DDR3 1.5V SO DIMMs.

Else, go with a desktop class i3 + B85/H97 with 6 SATA ports, which will do transcoding easily. This would be ideal for Plex.
 
It all depends on what you plan to do with the NAS. I wanted AES NI hardware 256 bit encryption, ability to run plex which can trascode on the fly for atleast 2 devices and ability to run VMs. Which is why I choose the TS-563. If all you want is access on network and full control get the cheapest 4 bay NAS as you want multiple storage pools.

Custom NAS with freeNAS and zfs array is fun to play around with but I just didn't want to bother with it again. I had the ESXi VM running freeNAS on the Dell poweredge. The dell had a Perc 6i h/w raid card so was a Raid 5 array with 5 drives and one hot spare. issues ranged from complexity, noise and power consumption. After the QNAP everything has been smooth and I can use my Dell for home projects such as firewall servers, hosting and mail servers.
 
^^ To be more specific,

1. Primary purpose is as I said to extend the storage of my rig (which already has 5 HDD + 2 SSD making it difficult to add more). As I said, I don't want RAID/JBOD. I want to be able to install multiple HDD of different sizes/makes and have access to them with high throughput.
2. I want to be able to share the content across all the devices on my wireless network (2x Windows Computers, Surface Pro 4, 2x Android tablets, iPad, Smart TV, 4x Smart phones).
3. I have a Netgear Nighthawk 7000 Gigabit capable router. If Possible I want the NAS to be in a different room connected over the WiFi rather than wired LAN.
4. Torrents + File downloads (without file size restrictions and such) is also highly desired
5. Access to specific shares over internet as a personal cloud will be a major advantage.
6. I run VM's on my main rig and being able to run it from a separate device would be great, but I don't think these devices would be capable of the performance I need when running VM.

The problem is that I don't see a lot of 4 bay NAS options available in India. Even when listed, prices are bloated. The ones that I could most commonly see are WD My Cloud EX4, Seagate Business Storage series. Not sure about true prices of these things and if they are capable of what I need. Synology, I rarely see listed anywhere. Unfortunately, I don't see a Mini ITX boards that I can use to build a custom NAS either.
 
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