# NAS Vs Microserver



## FreedomEclipse (Jun 4, 2013)

Ive been working a fair bit recently. and while ive been working Ive had a lot of time to think what would be the next upgrade best upgrade for my system.

Unfortunately I have drawn a blank with this train of thought apart from my hard drives that could do with swapping out for new ones.

I have decided to go down the route of taking 2 or 3 of the hard drives out of my PC and putting them into a NAS or a HP Microserver.

The NAS Im looking at will be Netgear NAS Duo V2

Unfortunately I have heard mixed reviews about this and most reviews say that its speeds are generally pretty poor

With that in mind I have chosen a second option - HP ProLiant G7 N54L The OS of choice will most likely be FreeNas.

Both of these will be used for the same purpose - as a centerhub which all my media is stored on so that i can be streamed to any device on the network at any given time.

Im leaning towards the HP as they are offering a £100 rebate on it which will work out cheaper to buy then the netgear NAS.

With that said I currently have no idea which is the best bang for buck NAS out of the market 


If you have any NAS recommendations or advice on setting up a Microserver - Id like to hear it.


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## RCoon (Jun 4, 2013)

FreedomEclipse said:


> Ive been working a fair bit recently. and while ive been working Ive had a lot of time to think what would be the next upgrade best upgrade for my system.
> 
> Unfortunately I have drawn a blank with this train of thought apart from my hard drives that could do with swapping out for new ones.
> 
> ...



My friend on here UnholyWar bought the HP microserver with £100 cashback, and he couldnt be happier. He runs a boatload of stuff on there and streams everything around his house, and dumped a couple of 2TB drives in there, for storage, and also backing up all the PC's and laptops in the house. Great for file storage.


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## FreedomEclipse (Jun 4, 2013)

what OS does he use with it?


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## RCoon (Jun 4, 2013)

FreedomEclipse said:


> what OS does he use with it?



Old fashioned Win7


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## WhiteLotus (Jun 4, 2013)

Could go down the tip and salvage an old PC and then out free nas on it.


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## FreedomEclipse (Jun 4, 2013)

WhiteLotus said:


> Could go down the tip and salvage an old PC and then out free nas on it.



I thought about this too. unfortunately I dont have a spare system and whatever spare system i do have is ATX size. Its just easier to run with a HP Microserver as building M-ITX rig would cost more the HP Microserver and i wouldnt get £100 back


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## Fourstaff (Jun 4, 2013)

I have heard good things about the HP microservers, I think you will not go wrong with it especially its cheaper than a NAS. NAS can be slow depending on the controller chip, but with this its at least "fast enough"


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## MxPhenom 216 (Jun 4, 2013)

I rebuild an old Dell desktop into a file server with all new parts for $400 including 2 2TB WD reds for raid 1. I run win8 pro to use the Hyperv program to mess around with VMs as well. full specs of mine are in my sig.


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## FreedomEclipse (Jun 4, 2013)

HP microserver still works out cheaper  just not as powerful!


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## FreedomEclipse (Jun 6, 2013)

Well, Ive made my decision and ive decided to go with a Microserver. Im not getting it right away as im waiting for pay day but I'll probably see if i can do a mini-review when i get it as there doesnt seem to be one on the forums


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## Aquinus (Jun 6, 2013)

My boss (company CIO) has been incredibly happy with his Synology NAS and always mentions it when network storage ever comes up in a conversation. It's really worth looking into what they have to offer.

http://www.synology.com/us/index.php

This might be a useful page: http://www.synology.com/products/choose.php?lang=us
You want the Home users - SMBs section. You're not looking at 100+ users.


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## FreedomEclipse (Jun 6, 2013)

yeah Ive been checking Synology out, they are pricier than Netgear but the reviews are generally more favorable from what ive seen.


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## Aquinus (Jun 6, 2013)

FreedomEclipse said:


> yeah Ive been checking Synology out, they are pricier than Netgear but the reviews are generally more favorable from what ive seen.



I've heard only good things about their products. They are a bit on the pricy side though, you're right. I would really hate to get something that wasn't good if you're going to be spending a decent amount of money on it anyways.


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## FreedomEclipse (Jun 6, 2013)

I shall see!

the HP Proliant still works out cheaper by a fair bit

the Synology DS212j is $248, the HP ProLiant G7 N54L is $324 but gives $155 cashback so in the end the N54L works out at $168, is more powerful and can support/hold more hard drives.

It just boils down to how long i want to spend messing about with setting up pretty much. Obviously the synology will be up and ready to go in a matter of minutes as I dont really care to have hard drives in raid config. gonna move 2 of my hard drives from my PC into the NAS.


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## Aquinus (Jun 6, 2013)

Ah, yeah. You have to configure that HP box as it's a mini-server practically. If you just need a NAS, I would go with the Synology box, otherwise that extra power won't be very useful. If you just want it to work, I wouldn't go with the HP. If you're planning on doing more than just a NAS, then the HP sounds like a decent plan if you can't build it yourself cheaper (it is a Turion CPU after all, it's not all that fast.)


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## FreedomEclipse (Jun 6, 2013)

well, Im gonna hang on and see if i can score a good deal on some WD 3-4TB Reds while im waiting. Theres always so place offering some cut price deals


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## Fourstaff (Jun 6, 2013)

FreedomEclipse said:


> well, Im gonna hang on and see if i can score a good deal on some WD 3-4TB Reds while im waiting. Theres always so place offering some cut price deals



Not considering Greens instead (or indeed any other colour)?


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## FreedomEclipse (Jun 6, 2013)

well since the 3TB WD Red is only £15 more then the 3TB green Id rather go for the red due to its longer warranty given the price.

Then theres the whole debate about the head parking wearing the drive out quicker then it should.


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## Aquinus (Jun 6, 2013)

The reds also have a higher platter density (1TB/platter), their performance is pretty good, and they have TLER. Everything you want in a drive that you might want to RAID.


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## FreedomEclipse (Jun 6, 2013)

I dunno about RAID, I might run with a RAID 0 setup for the extra performance. Not that i really need it as the fastest speed on my network is 100mb. Its more or less going to be a media/file storage server for me to dump a few files on but mainly my music and video collection. hence the emphasis on 3-4TB hard drives


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## Unholywar (Jun 8, 2013)

just updated it and installed server 2012 i would get a micro server, like rcoon said £100 cash back so on cost me £97 + drives


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## FreedomEclipse (Jun 8, 2013)

How much did that 2012 license set you back?


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## Geofrancis (Jun 8, 2013)

Get the micro server, upgrade the ram to 8gb and stick ESXI (free) on it. this will let you run any OS simultaneously allowing you to to run a free linux NAS operating system like freenas or unraid to manage your hard drives and an old copy of xp for any applications.

This will give you the flexibility of upgrading your operating systems in the future without ever turning it off and trying new operating systems without disturbing the current ones.

You also have the option of expanding a micro servers capacity with esata and port multipliers if you ever needed the extra drives.


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## Aquinus (Jun 8, 2013)

Geofrancis said:


> Get the micro server, upgrade the ram to 8gb and stick ESXI (free) on it. this will let you run any OS simultaneously allowing you to to run a free linux NAS operating system like freenas or unraid to manage your hard drives and an old copy of xp for any applications.
> 
> This will give you the flexibility of upgrading your operating systems in the future without ever turning it off and trying new operating systems without disturbing the current ones.
> 
> You also have the option of expanding a micro servers capacity with esata and port multipliers if you ever needed the extra drives.



It's a good idea, but considering what she is looking to use this for I think it's a bit overkill. I don't think that's the right option here because all it will be doing is storing video files. You don't need virtualization to do that. NAS devices don't tend to need to be flexible and that's what she's looking at doing. Just my 2 cents.



FreedomEclipse said:


> Both of these will be used for the same purpose - as a centerhub which all my media is stored on so that i can be streamed to any device on the network at any given time.


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## Geofrancis (Jun 8, 2013)

Aquinus said:


> It's a good idea, but considering what she is looking to use this for I think it's a bit overkill. I don't think that's the right option here because all it will be doing is storing video files. You don't need virtualization to do that. NAS devices don't tend to need to be flexible and that's what she's looking at doing. Just my 2 cents.




Yea if they are not comfortable with Linux the nas route would be simpler. But most of the things I mentioned are gui and have lots of guides on the net.


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## FreedomEclipse (Jun 8, 2013)

Just because i have an avatar of a chick, everyone automatically assumes im one? :


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## Unholywar (Jun 8, 2013)

FreedomEclipse said:


> How much did that 2012 license set you back?



You can get 180 day trial of server 2012
If I don't find any advantage to the server 2012 then I will go back to windows 7


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## Aquinus (Jun 8, 2013)

FreedomEclipse said:


> Just because i have an avatar of a chick, everyone automatically assumes im one? :



Because the women who try to make it obvious complain every time I say "him". 
I should just stop using pronouns on TPU.


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## FreedomEclipse (Jun 9, 2013)

after spending part of the night reading about raid arrays and messing about with synology's raid calculator. I decided it would be best to go with a microserver just because there are better options when it comes to expansion so in a sense its more 'futureproof' 

I'll be looking at getting four 2 or 3TB hard drives for a RAID-5 config. I have seen a 2TB Toshiba going for under £70 and its ludicrously cheap for the price. however its not as energy efficient as WD Reds & I have read quite a few reviews on newegg about the drive being DoA or having problems not long after installation.

Ideally getting a load of WD REDs would be the best option. However this isnt cheap move. Cheapest price of a 3TB WD RED in the UK is £115 the price on newegg is $150 and when its converted to GBP is just under £99 so we get shafted on price.

after looking into more hard drives for RAID, I found out that i can purchase a 3TB Toshiba drive for the same prices of a 3TB seagate so thats another option.

The market seems to be pretty messed up when it comes to pricing. why should a 3TB hard drive come to £99 when there are some that sell for £115??? 


Due to the pricing im gonna hold off on the project for a while but I might take a gamble on the 2TB Toshiba drives for £68. I'd get 4 for RAID-5. If one goes down at least they would be cheap to replace.


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## NdMk2o1o (Jun 9, 2013)

FreedomEclipse said:


> after spending part of the night reading about raid arrays and messing about with synology's raid calculator. I decided it would be best to go with a microserver just because there are better options when it comes to expansion so in a sense its more 'futureproof'
> 
> I'll be looking at getting four 2 or 3TB hard drives for a RAID-5 config. I have seen a 2TB Toshiba going for under £70 and its ludicrously cheap for the price. however its not as energy efficient as WD Reds & I have read quite a few reviews on newegg about the drive being DoA or having problems not long after installation.
> 
> ...



We don't get shafted in price, that conversion is pretty much spot on when you factor in VAT, we get shafted in taxes though 

May look at grabbing one of those micro servers myself, not too bad for the cost especially with the £100 cashback offer


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## Fourstaff (Jun 9, 2013)

FreedomEclipse said:


> The market seems to be pretty messed up when it comes to pricing. why should a 3TB hard drive come to £99 when there are some that sell for £115???



VAT?

Ill get the Toshibas, if you are going to raid them one or two failing is not going to affect much.


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## FreedomEclipse (Jun 9, 2013)

Yeah, after further calculations 4x2TB@£68=£272 provides best bang for buck. I could run with 3x3TB for better energy efficiency and less shit that can go wrong with raid but 3TB Toshiba DT series (lower power) drives go for £100 each and that would end up costing £300 to set up and my prices dont even include price of the microserver yet.


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## Aquinus (Jun 9, 2013)

FreedomEclipse said:


> Yeah, after further calculations 4x2TB@£68=£272 provides best bang for buck. I could run with 3x3TB for better energy efficiency and less shit that can go wrong with raid but 3TB Toshiba DT series (lower power) drives go for £100 each and that would end up costing £300 to set up and my prices dont even include price of the microserver yet.



Just remember, RAID is not a backup, it is only redundancy. You still should backup your data regularly to another device like an external hard drive or something so consider that price of that as well if you're really serious about doing this. You don't want to be stuck down river without a paddle.


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## FreedomEclipse (Jun 9, 2013)

Ive already got backups covered - I have 2 hitachi 4TB External drives


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## Aquinus (Jun 9, 2013)

What are the warranties like on the drives, though? I tend to go with WD black because of the 5 year warranty and the performance is pretty good. The reds get 3 years.


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## FreedomEclipse (Jun 9, 2013)

website states 2 Year Manufacturer Warranty.

Ive just found out that i can shove a hotswap bay into the optical bay. The more and more i look into having a NAS/Microserver the more the price goes up.

Its not going to be as cheap as i hoped.


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## Fourstaff (Jun 9, 2013)

FreedomEclipse said:


> Its not going to be as cheap as i hoped.



No its not, but that is the cost of having multiple backups and redundancy.


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## FreedomEclipse (Jun 9, 2013)

well Its gonna cost me around £400-500 anyway you look at it. Im trying to see if i can build a cheaper microserver based on an AMD E-350 for less.



::Edit::

Ok, scratch that Idea - its not gonna work...


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