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Need a new NAS - ideas?

Nero

Nero

Re: Tired
I’m currently running a Synology 216 two-striped disk NAS for audio duties via Asset uPnP, but it’s starting to get close to being full. I could of course get some bigger drives, but it’s quite slow for other duties, and I imagine things have moved on a bit in terms of functionality and speed.
I also have an old Netgear that I’m using to back it up but that’s even slower.

Are people using SSDs in a NAS these days? What do others recommend? I would like to stick with Asset, so there would have to be a package that Spoon has written for it.

TIA
 
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It's the number of simultaneous connections that really matters. If you've got 3 of 4 people trying to stream movies from a NAS that it's going to be slow but generally it's large volume storage that you want for home use. Rusty metal is still the go to for that.
 
SSDs are overkill and considerably less cost effective in this situation. Your workload is not going to be anywhere near high enough to saturate even a single HDD over a gigabit link let alone striped. You also have the reliability factor of SSDs as smaller / consumer-oriented NAS boxes don't support the sort of wear levelling required to maintain a decent lifespan of the SSD.

The performance of older NASes is generally defined by their limited RAM and CPU performance.
 
Pay a bit more for a box designed for small business/enterprise use - more robust than the domestic jobbies and will run 24/7 for years. Don’t touch anything which purports to be specialised for music or is hi-fi related etc etc. I run QNAP and 8tb WD reds but other legitimate brands are available and I haven’t tried them all:)
 
Yes I think SSDs would be overkill and too expensive. I guess as long as I use some sort of RAID, then there should be enough reliability in hard drives. I currently back everything up to a USB drive plugged in the back.
The possibility of being able to run a Roon core might be interesting in the future, but I’m resisting streaming services at the moment.
There’s only two of us here, so only ever one client.
Will investigate the latest Synologies and QNAP.
 
I've used QNAP NAS's for a while, then changed to RockPro based one, finally to a simple Raspberry Pi based one.
The latter can be fitted to a dedicated Argon case, expensive but nice.

There are various free software suites for Pi NAS's but I found it less hassle to not use them.
 
Actually, I do have a spare Pi4+ which could be pulled into service, as there’s an Asset distro for that. Hmm.
 
Well it’s not exactly a power house anymore than your current solution.

does it have to be an off the shelf nas do you mind getting your hands dirty with unraid or similar?
 
Synology 220+ here, with 2x10TB WD Red. Cool, efficient, quiet, fast enough for purpose = streaming music.
 
I've got two re-certified Western Digital My Cloud NAS devices.
These are SATA, 8T, 1G Interfaces and cost £120 each.
They are pretty dumb disk drives as I'm not bothered with the likes of Roon - all my music systems run off fanless Mac Minis.
SATA is fine for single use environments but I'd want .M2, SSD or SCSI for multi user.
They can saturate a 1G ethernet interface depending on file size.
I hang them on fishing line in the attic next to a switch to reduce noise transfer.
(I'm not familiar with the current types of multi-disk NAS systems but, from experience, they can be noisy).
They operate independently from each other.
My Mac Mini runs free synchronisation software between the two on a daily basis.
I do this as I once had a hardware mirrored pair of disks that lost the mirror information and data.

I stored ripped CDs on them but with a 1G internet connection, local music storage is not particularly important.

I also have two Proliant MicroServers which I back them both up to during the Windows patch schedule (monthly).
These consume too much power and generate too much noise for me.
 
QNAP 251+ for me. I upgraded the RAM to 8gb but I’m not sure this made any difference to normal operation. However as the extra memory cost about £20 I thought why not? I use two WD 3 Tb Reds in RAID1 and back up to a WD portable USB drive as well.

There is more than enough horsepower to stream to my Linn DS and also to Plex to the TV should I wish to.

There is an Asset QNAP thing with instructions, which are super easy to follow, on the dbPoweramp website. I personally prefer Minimserver which is self installable on the QNAP but both work well.
 
Nero said:
Actually, I do have a spare Pi4+ which could be pulled into service, as there’s an Asset distro for that. Hmm.
Click to expand...

My Pi NAS is a Pi4 in an Argon one case with an internal SSD and a USB3 SSD, there is also a dedicated Argon case that can hold 2 or 3 full size HDs, it is quite expensive but a nice thing.

The pi3 or Pi4 with 1, 2, 4, or even 8GB ram (for the Pi4) are more than powerful enough to act as a streamer/file server.

I have gone for simplicity with mine
 
What are the 'other duties' and how much storage do you need?
If you already have a reliable backup, Raid is only really worthwhile if you need immediate access in the event of a disc failure.
Rather than a NAS, I use a refurb Lenovo M920Q (micro PC, cost £126) as a home server running Win 11 (8th Gen i3). Runs LMS, Plex, backups all our laptops/PCs, a couple of VMs. Sits in a kitchen cupboard very quietly.
https://www.servethehome.com/lenovo-thinkcentre-m920-and-m920q-tiny-guide-and-review/
 
I’ve recently migrated away from a Lenovo server box running Windows Server 2019 with 2x4tb WD Red to a Synology DS118 with one 4tb WD Red.

So far I’m very pleased. Can’t say I value the RAID bit (hence why I have a single-bay NAS), prefer to backup the whole thing regularly to two independent USB drives alternately plus an incremental backup between times.

The music tracks are played back by Asset, transcoded on the fly to WAV (from Apple Lossless or AIFF formats), and the CPU and RAM are not even beginning to get stressed.

The one-bay enclosures are quite good value compared to the 2 and above, plus I find the O/S very easy to use
 
The only other duties are providing an FTP server for external access, and DS Cam running two security cameras. That has a rolling 24 hour buffer. Oh and browsing holiday snaps on the telly.

I might repurpose an old Mac Mini as a server, but only as an IT education exercise. Not sure I can get a MacOS version of Asset though.

Or maybe I'll just buy some bigger disks for the Synology! :)
 
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