NAS, Personal Cloud and Networking

[MasterShrive 2,018]

Mmmm. Well I had hoped to do more with it, but as my XFire hours will attest I've been far too busy with work and football. Even my post count is down over the last week. Ultimately, the NAS will be a bit of a play thing which I intend to fiddle with when I have the time. Hopefully Thursday will give me a few hours to experiment, though I'm also in the process of trying to get Star Wars to work again

[PistolKnight 554]

not to hijack this thread, and this is very nubby, but is this setup preferred for shared networking files and access? We are near completion of a house reno and thoughts have turned to setting up new study

 

atm i have my desktop with shared files/folders which everyone accesses for movies/tv shows and music (achieved rudimentary setup is hanging a 1TB WD "My Book" via USB off the back of my desktop and using shared folders). I also back up the kids outlook and my documents folder to it. Downside is that for eg on Sat nite, the wife and kids watched a movie (streamed it wirelessly to samsung TV), whilst I played fb3. There was a bit of a performance hit to the PC. I also do the same with the two printers (all in one laser & photo). I already have a dlink rangebooster 650 wireless router (cable broadband connection)

 

I use a diffident shared folder to segregate what the kids access, downside is some movies are duplicated in the kids and adults folder. The other downside is my pc needs to be on for any of this to work.

 

Ideally I would like to have a single source point for streaming (wired and unwired) tv shows, movies, music, (to laptops, desktop, smart TV, etc) networked printers and backups. better would be the ability to "rate" things so that i need to only keep one copy but can still restrict access (only needs a simple yes/no decision)

 

we are all pc based (only other is 1 ipad and 2 iphones) but this will prob change when my daughter hits high school in 18 months as all schools we have looked at the kids will be on mac

 

be gentle i am on a steep learning curve here!

[MasterShrive 2,018]

Basically, this is my aim - to have my music, movies and other media at a central source point. I'm not sure about "rating" media, but it may be possible. The main reason I went with this option though is I can also set up a personal cloud, similar to Drop Box. I am looking at setting this up soon so I can share mainly my work related documents easily. I'm looking forward to seeing how the media side of things does.

[MasterShrive 2,018]

I think I got my NAS set up so the world can see it It took a bit of fiddling, but in the end I needed to change some settings in the router so it would pass the domain name on to the NAS. A little bit of fiddling, but now it seems to be systems go.

 

Next step is to actually put some data on it and get set up for media streaming and as my own personal cloud. I'm hoping I might be able to play with some of this tomorrow now that I should (may?) be able to access it from school

[Duckz 474]

Given you've had close to a year of play time Shrives, how's it all going?

 

I've noticed that Synology's 2013 range of products have come out, and I'm yet to buy a NAS (I'm looking at the DS1513+ now), so I think I'm going to start purchasing a few things to go along with the overall setup. Mainly a decent gigabit switch with 802.3ad support and a new modem/router.

[MasterShrive 2,018]

Mate, I could not be happier. It has worked like a charm right from the start (and, given this is where I've been doing my backups too, its saved the cache drives arse more than a couple of times as well).

 

I use it for backup and movie streaming mainly. Can access both from outside the network. OS is very easy to use, although once I had it set up I've hardly had to return to the web interface. Speeds have been terrific. I'm very happy I bought the 4 HDD bay version, as I've been running with one disk redundancy. I originally only had three drives in use, but I bought 2 more 3TB drives, replacing one of the old ones. This upgrade happened seamlessly as well and the NAS was able to rebuild the array without issue. Because it worked so well I plan to upgrade to 4TB or 5TB drives over the next 12-18 months as my space needs increase.

 

Obviously I haven't used a lot of the "power" features and I'm sure you've got far more to store and far more uses for the NAS. That DS1513+ would probably be right up your alley I'm guessing. I found their forums to be very useful, as well as all their help guides for different set up requirements. There is a LOT of information out there.

 

On a consumables note, I haven't noticed any hit in the power bill (but I don't pay a lot of attention to these things really either). In operation it is whisper quiet and even though it is under my desk I've never heard it.

[Duckz 474]

Well I've done some upgrades to my home network, in preparations of someday buying a NAS.

 

Purchased:

• TP-Link TL-SG3216 16-Port Gigabit L2 Managed Switch
  
• Billion BiPAC 7800NXL

 

No, they are not the stock antennas that come with that modem/router. I bought 2 TP-Link 8dBi antennas as well, but I had no idea they were going to be a foot long

 

I also bought various CAT6 cables (Couldn't be bothered making them), and routed those through the shelving unit I bought so they're all nice and neat. The 4 on the left are for the NAS when it's eventually purchased, 3 going right are for the modem/router, server and main system.

 

And Dwight Schrute finally has a place to stand proud

 

[MasterShrive 2,018]

Wow. They certainly aren't small, lol. Looks like a great set up mate.

[NevilleBartos 405]

Hmm wonder if I could steal Duckz' wifi from here.

[MasterShrive 2,018]

If we hooked it in with Vegi's power plant I think we'd be right.

[RallyMan 304]

shrives which one did you end up buying

 

im about to purchase one for my house as i want to be able to stream media to all the pcs, phones and tvs ect.

 

i was looking at these ones

http://www.mwave.com.au/product/sku-ab4 ... ifications

http://www.mwave.com.au/product/sku-ab4 ... 35_3tb_hdd

http://www.mwave.com.au/product/sku-aa3 ... _16ghz_cpu

http://www.mwave.com.au/product/sku-aa3 ... abOverview

 

i dont need alot of the advanced functions just want 16TB of storage, raid 5 capability and be able to stream media quickly.

 

i would be intereseted in your thoughts or anyone elses on these or other alternatives

[MasterShrive 2,018]

I'm still pretty noob with this stuff still to be honest so I might not be much good at recommending.

 

Depending on your time limit, there are 4 and 5TB drives due out later in the year. I went a Synology DS411 and I couldn't be happier, but with only four bays it might not be big enough for your purposes. I currently have 2xTB and 2x3TB drives in mine, but I plan to replace the existing 2TB drives with 4TB ones towards the end of the year as I am slowly running out of space. The 411 only has 4 bays though obviously, so it might not be enough for your needs. You can get extension bays though which I think can connect to most of Synology devices.

 

The Synology software is excellent though and it's been very easy to set up and stream from (including outside the network if your net connection is up to it).

[Duckz 474]

That bundle with the WD RED's is a pretty sweet deal and that unit is part of Synology's latest range, not to mention that the RED's are designed for 24/7 operation.

 

Once set up in RAID5 and formatted, you'll only have somewhere in the 11-12TB range of usable space.

 

This calculator on the Synology website should help you, but it doesn't take into account formatting the array to EXT4.

[MasterShrive 2,018]

That's pretty damn handy Duckz. Nice find.

[RallyMan 304]

yeah the space thing is an issue but its also a when to stop issue as well.

ideally id love a 8 bay setup but all starts becomming expensive quickly when you add the drives up.

 

I also find that the systems become more business orientated then home media solution the more expensive you go. not sure if this is a good thing or not.

Im only after the media server capabilities so we can watch movies and stream music ect and i have 16TB already on my PC that can handle the space for everything else.

 

ive only just started the exploring stage of this so dont have alot of experience with servers and raid drives.

[MasterShrive 2,018]

The expansion units here might give you some more options: http://www.synology.com/products/index.php?lang=enu I'm not really sure, but one of those might allow you to keep a home orientated main device but also have room for expansion later.

[PistolKnight 554]

bit the same Rally (intended usage) - have not pulled the trigger on this yet. Sounds like I dont need anywhere near the space you guys are referencing. I am only after 2 x 3TB drives to begin with, but cannot see it getting much greater than 10TB ~ 12TB

 

The 1513+ looks good (great software, almost plug and play) but at >$800 just for the unit (WD Red drives for 3TB are about $150ea, 4TB is ridiculously expensive in comparison - staticice) is there a better way to go?

 

The 412+ is ~$640 for the unit (so about $200 cheaper than the 1513+) but whilst on the Synergy site is says that some of the software options are part of add-on packages but do not reference the cost. So I did not want to purchase the 412 only to spend an equivalent amount mail server, itunes server etc when I could have got the 1513 with all of that for the same price

[MasterShrive 2,018]

I thought those packages were free to download PK, they just did not come with the original install. However, I could be completely wrong about that. (That said, I just logged in to my NAS from work and had a look through the packages - iTunes, Mail and a number of other ones are available for download for no cost as far as I can tell - I just don't have them installed at present).

 

I only started with the 2x2TB drives. Then then they started getting full I got the 2x3TB. Now I'll just keep adding new drives as necessary as the RAID repairs itself each time a new drive is swapped in (though I can obviously only do one at a time). I think four drives is good for future-proofing - any less and it might be too restrictive, especially if you're wanting data security via the Synology Hybrid RAID setup (which I've found to be very good).

 

Also, people might wish to give this a go: http://www.synology.com/products/dsm_li ... hp?lang=us It's a live demo of their software. I found it really good to have a play around before I purchased.

[PistolKnight 554]

kk thx for confirming that

[MasterShrive 2,018]

Pleasure. Just don't send me the bill when you have to play $100 for an app to access your iTunes account, lol.

 

Edit: one thing I forgot to mention from my experience was the CloudStation app. This was originally one of the reasons I purchased the NAS as I wanted to use my own personal cloud for all my work documents etc. Unfortunately (at the time at least, 12 months ago) it wasn't up to scratch for me. It failed to sync some things and deleted others on me, probably because it struggled with the multiple devices I had connected. At the time, it also couldn't handle the proxy at work, which made it pretty pointless. Therefore, I changed everything over to Dropbox instead (also signing up to the unlimited backup option) and I have never had any problems since. So while people might have a different experience to me if they did give the CloudStation package a go, I certainly wouldn't make a purchase based on this feature.

[RallyMan 304]

thanks for the advise guys

 

took the plunge and purchased a synology ds1513 with the 5x3TB WD red drives.

 

going to the snow for the next 2 weeks but will let everyone know what its like when I get it up and running.

 

reason I went this path was the extra 10 drive slots you can use by purchasing the 2 x dx513 add-ons.

75TB plus in the future should be a good start I reckon

[MasterShrive 2,018]

Nice mate! I look forward to seeing how it all goes.

[RallyMan 304]

okay some feedback on the synology ds1513+

 

hardware set up was extremely easy and took a whole 2mins

 

initial software was a different story

had to go to a web site to start the install

would not give me an option to set anything but synology raid at the beginning.

initial install of desktop software failed so had to download and install manually which was a pain

then had to redo the hard drives with raid 5.

so frustrating 20mins initially but otherwise all good so far.

 

one of the things i found really disapointing with the initial setup is that the system came with no instructions at all other than go to the initial website and press start. This meant that at the beginning i couldnt see the server with anything, had issues sending files over and just wasnt sure what i had to do to get it going ect ect.

 

you have to actually install synology apps on the media server for it to do anything. once I figured this out the thing has run incredibly well. although obvious now this should have been made more apparent in the inital setup

 

the video and audio server components are streaming to everything in my house including TV's, phones computuers ect ect. love that you can set the videos into movies, tvs and home vids and it will catalogue them all serperately based on how you set the folder systems

 

the torrent program is very good and downloaded 50gb in the first day with my pc off very easy to set the schedueler so that it runs in off peek bandwidth and also how long you want to seed each individual file. will auto expand rar files ect into a chosen folder as well which is a nice touch when you have 24 tv episodes all individually compressed.

 

i felt the transfer of data was slower then i expected given that i connected the ext HD via usb3 directly to the server.

 

i love the fact that every folder on the server can be assigned permissions on access and visablity.

 

overall been very very happy with it after the first 30mins.

can see myself getting another 2 long term as they will fill up pretty quickly

 

ill post a pic up when i get home

[MasterShrive 2,018]

Nice mate! Glad you've got it all working.

 

The torrenting program is one I've never tried. I've just got an old laptop which I run, but perhaps I should look in to doing it on the NAS as it sounds pretty easy.

[RallyMan 304]

yeah its super easy and pretty good to!

 

just set up a folder to save your .torrent files in the synology prograpm.

save them to this network location

the nas will auto start downloading them when ever one is dropped into this folder i.e you dont even have to open the software that simple.

it can sent you a email or desktop reminder when its done and you can set teh criteria you want to seed it for.

 

ive been downloading alot of tv shows for my kids and i hate the fact you have to sit for 20mins un archiving the individual shows so the auto extract function is fantastic!!!

 

ive only installed the torrent, video, audio and media server software so far but there seems to be alot of other things that will be fun to play play one i have more time.

 

the http remote access works very well and the ability to get accces via the ds file app on my phone is really good as well.

 

only thing that didnt seem to work so far is the auto reencoding of video files when the player wont support them. i was trying to send some go pro vids from skiing last week to my tv and it wouldnt recode them to a viewable format ill have to look into this more.