Storage Solutions Is it Worth Buying a NAS

U

unni

Adept
I have been using a hard disk and USB drive attached to my router as NAS drives for a while. I like the flexibility it gives. But the speed is limited to a maximum of 15 MB/s download and 13 MB/s upload. So I have been thinking of buying a NAS (Synology 214 with 2 WD RED 4 TB drives), but I can't make up my mind on spending so much money. My questions are as follows:
1. I plan to keep all the data in the NAS. I will not keep anything on my laptop. I am thinking of directly accessing the files from the NAS, say for example my Outlook pst file, Eclipse project files etc. Will that work properly or will I run into speed/reliablity issues?
2. I will have a couple of TrueCrypt volumes. If I mount them from the NAS, will it work the same way if it were on the laptop?
3. Are you using a NAS at home? Other than media streaming and backup, do you use it for anything else?
4. I saw in Synology 214's specs that it gives around 110 MB/s speed. Is that speed guaranteed? Or is it similar to how the mobile companies say they have 48 hrs battery life provided you use it for 15 minutes?
 
What router do you have? Does your router and PC have Gigabit LAN ports and is it connecting at Gigabit speeds? From your USB drive speeds it looks like you're bottlenecked by either the router controller or your network is running at 100Mbps.

4. Depends on the above, in addition to the speed of the disks you're putting in. Again, this is only for sequential speeds which is if you're transferring huge files.

1. Sounds nice on paper, but the latency might make things sluggish. Probably better to keep a local copy and just backup/sync it to the NAS.
 
I have a NAS ( Trendnet TN 200 ) and advise you against using it to work actively on PSTs/Truecrypt volumes, if on wifi. The reason is that sometimes, when the wifi signal drops, the files are not closed properly leading to data loss errors ( has happened to me twice with my PST files ). I simply use it to backup everything once a week apart from using it as a media server.
On my desktop, I save the PSTs directly on the NAS as it is a wired connection and have not faced any issue in the past 3 months.
 
If you need the data to be available, and insured against single drive failures you can consider a NAS. I use two units, one exclusively for pics and the other for important data I wish to keep online for a long period of time. Some of the better units have play store/ app store apps to access data while on the move as well. This can be a driving factor for someone as well.
 
Thank you guys for the reply, and sorry for the delay. I have dropped the idea of buying NAS. Currently saving money for Xperia Z2 :).
Crazy_Eddy said:
What router do you have? Does your router and PC have Gigabit LAN ports and is it connecting at Gigabit speeds? From your USB drive speeds it looks like you're bottlenecked by either the router controller or your network is running at 100Mbps.
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My router is Netgear R7000 running DD WRT. I connect to it through wifi (my laptop doesn't have LAN port). Both USB 3 and USB 2 ports give the same speed, so don't know if DD WRT is limiting the speed.
 
unni said:
My router is Netgear R7000 running DD WRT. I connect to it through wifi (my laptop doesn't have LAN port).
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This looks like a limitation of your wifi link. Assuming your laptop has an N300 card; at 20MHz chanel width, the max theoretical speed is 150Mbps or ~18MB/s.
 
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