Subj : Re: Dead NAS...
To   : Ogg
From : poindexter FORTRAN
Date : Tue Sep 17 2024 07:18 am

-=> Ogg wrote to Arelor <=-

 A> As far as canned solutions go, I have to agree. An out-of-
 A> the-box commercial solution for storage is quite expensive.

 You're paying for convenience and features. And, they're buying lock-in
 with their features and convenience.

 I picked up a Synology NAS a couple of years ago for around $100. It
 was long in the tooth by the time I got it. I had a handful of 2TB
 drives laying around from an older machine that had a mirror array,
 plus a couple of external drives I'd used for backup. Put them in the
 drive and worked for a couple of years.

 The chassis died recently, and I could have built a new system from
 scratch and used TrueNAS, but instead I had some gift cards burning a
 hole in my pocket and I bought a new chassis. Put the drives in, booted
 it up, it recognized the drives, all of the settings, and the array and
 I was back in business in about 10 minutes.

 A> I have seen some NAS boxes aimed at tiny businesses with
 A> good manuals and tons of features starting at 450 bucks,
 A> drives not included. I can't vouch for them because I have
 A> never tried them. My boss has one of those at home. I might
 A> ask him tomorrow.

I started out consulting setting up businesses with Microsoft Small
Business Server; with a Synology NAS, out of the box, you could set up
AV scanning, file sharing, mail, chat, calendaring and a bunch of other
tools.

Unfortunately, nowadays, I think you'd be better off with Google
Workspace, but if you wanted to keep your data off grid, this would be
attractive.

 Og> This one looks good, but it doesn't seem clear if the disks are
 Og> included.

 Og> https://www.amazon.ca/Synology-DiskStation-II-QuadCore-
 Og> 2xGigabit/dp/B01EG1RLBY

Based on the price, I'm guessing no drives.

 Og> ( ..although I've heard that Synology machines are hard to use
 Og> with one's own choice of software)

I've not seen anything like that, but without more info I couldn't
comment.

 Og> These with disks included look good too:


 Og> https://www.amazon.ca/BUFFALO-LinkStation-Private-Included-LS220D1202/dp
 Og> /B08DZS265Q/


 Og> https://www.amazon.ca/BUFFALO-LinkStation-Private-Included-LS220D1202/dp
 Og> /B08V5L1X1C/

Bear in mind that with those Buffalo systems (and other 2-bay systems with
drives) they are two drive systems, the 12TB system is probably 2x6TB.
You'd want to mirror the drives to provide redundancy, but that halves
the effective space.

I do like Buffalo - they used to include a "friendly" version of DD-WRT
on their routers instead of developing their own firmware, and made it
easy to flash the full version on them. I used them for a small office
network back in the 2010s.



 
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