Isn't a much cheaper 2 bay QNAP NAS with a Vantec HX4R 4 bay RAID enclosure much more economic choice comparing with this expensive NAS?
1430933
The Vantec is not a NAS, if you don't know what that means then go with the Vantec. If you aren't sure the difference between 4 + 2 drives and 8 drives, go with 6. Seriously your question suggests you should take the least expensive path you can find. It really sounds like you are not looking for a NAS but for an external drive so that would be the approach you should take. If you have builod up a home network or small office network get back to us.
1300888
Yes. I did exactly that when I purchased my Synology NAS. The BlackArmor NAS was a piece of crap, but the drives are fine and the Syno. NAS will play well with them.
2138931
This is a diskless NAS, so it has no storage. You will need to purchase your own HDD, and each bay supports 4 TB
252679
I have a variety installed - mainly used for storage of movies/music and vmware. If you want reliability, stick with the reds. I went for cost - so have WD, Seagate and Hitachi. Have only had 1 WD give me an issue in 3 years (10 3 Tb drives) - so when the 3 Tb drive failed, I replaced it with a 4 Tb and let the hybrid raid expand..
517981
True. But you'll be getting a tremendously noticeable faster speed simply from the thunderbolt interface cable. I was surprised at how well it performs while not in a Raid config.
607375
I have a Synology DS1812+ with eight standard Seagate 3TB desktop drives, and a five bay expansion chassis with five of these Seagate 4TB NAS drives. Over the past two or three years that it's been running, I've had to replace about 5 of the 8 desktop drives, but not one single one of the NAS drives. Now as the desktop drives are failing, I'm replacing them one at a time with the NAS drives, as I can't afford to keep buying new drives every 3 months or so, since most of the drives are out of warranty now. Even though these may cost a few bucks more up front, they certainly save me money in the long run, since they are better designed to handle the heat and 24 hours/day usage of a typical NAS. I feel much more confident with the data that is on these drives than the data on the desktop drives, since these drives seem to fail so much less frequently (at this point, I can't even give you a comparison since not one of these has ever failed, yet - knock on wood).
558268
The two-bay unit supports RAID1 and RAID0. The unit also supports synology hybrid raid which I highly recommend. It basically divides your disk into one or more chunks which allows easier future expansion. Their website offers a more detailed explanation. http://forum.synology.com/wiki/index.php/What_is_Synology_Hybrid_RAID%3F Although for a two-bay unit it really doesn't matter. Using RAID1 you would be able to upgrade to a larger disk and expand the file system later. RAID0 offers more performance but at the risk of total data loss if a drive goes bad - and you won't be able to easily upgrade to larger disks later too. There is little need for performance when the bottle neck is the Gigabit Ethernet network throughput.
1267397
This is not a good choice for non-RAID. The Red drives are designed to stop re-trying bad sectors sooner than (for example) a comparable Green drive. This is great if you want the drive to continue operating while your RAID recovers the missing piece. If you don't have data redundancy, then you're more likely to lose data with a "NAS" drive.
1162548
DS713+ is best suited for business use. Is a more robust system. The DS214+ is intended for home use. So if you are looking for something to have at home to store the pictures of your kids, some files and videos. the DS214+ will do the job. But, if you are looking for a NAS storage for your small business and can't afford at the moment the more expensive models with 4 or 5 bays, the DS713+ is a good start. later on you can attach the DX513 for expansion. Cheers!!
2207817
You are paying for their software, which is arguably the best one. I haven't tried FreeNAS but I would be very surprised if it was better. In any case the enterprise drives are the bigger part of the cost. Also these boxes come with excellent cooling and temperature monitoring.
184227
Price?? This is cheap compared to my Synology NAS that I use for shared storage. This particular device is great for network storage or as a backup device for a 1:many scenario. It is not difficult to setup, just read the documentation. I have had mine running now for 2 years without a hiccup. If you have problems call tech support up. The tricky part is understand one has to claim a volume before one can use it.
1824429
It is not really a NAS in my estimation since it is really for working on large files across a network. Additionally, the RAID element of it is not really terribly "safe". I returned mine and got a Drobo instead for the hot-swappable no data loss aspect to it. I run a busy multimedia studio that, in addition to other services, offers photography and video for our corporate clients. I use the Drobo for this purpose and it works great with 5 people accessing the Drobo 5N.
239434
5400 is slow. It also allows the drive to produce significantly less heat. Pack several drives into a small space and heat becomes an issue. I don't need my NAS to be fast. I do need it to be reliable. Cooking the drive in the middle caused me trouble in the past.
2181554
It depends upon how it is being used. Stand alone or in a raid setup. The less expensive unit is fine as a standalone. The other is better in a raid setup.
1327927
I've had problems with Greens on servers/RAID before (not on this machine, though), so I was wary of them and bought a bunch of 4TB Reds that work great so far (about 4 months in). Combined storage spaces over 6TB are no problem - my RAID 5 is just under 12TB total, and you could go much higher with larger drives and a different configuration.
388114
One answer said you should get one with good consumer reviews. Forget it. Get one with a good sturdy case and a built-in fan. Multiple RAID drives as well. Too expensive? Right. Forget NAS and get a better solution.
594127
I know nothing about the 2TB one. I bought the 3TB and that has been the first one I purchased from Micronet. So far, it works fine.