Preface

In recent years, the concept of NAS has been widely accepted by everyone. There are many brands of NAS, and the prices of different models vary greatly. I believe that everyone is quite entangled when choosing. So this article mainly talks about my views on NAS purchase from the perspective of a heavy NAS user (I have bought 8 NAS and currently have 5 NAS), and I hope it will be helpful to everyone.

Before getting into the main text, I think what everyone should figure out is whether you really need NAS.

The main advantages of NAS are as follows:

1. Low power consumption and low noise

2. Big brand NAS offers many application options

3. Support many data storage functions, such as raid, data encryption, data tiering optimization, etc.

So: if you don't need to keep it on all the time, then the advantages of NAS's low power consumption and low noise will be gone; if you just need something non-special and can just install a piece of software on your computer, then the advantage of rich applications will be gone; if you think data security is not that important and don't have such high requirements for access speed, then data encryption and data tiering optimization will be gone (RAID is not only available from NAS, but also from disk cabinets that support RAID). If the advantages of NAS are of no value to you, then what's the point of spending a lot of money on a NAS? You might as well save the money and eat a few more good meals (rich people can do whatever they want).

NAS User Classification

I think today's NAS users can be simply divided into three categories: light, medium and heavy.

Light users:

It is mainly used to store photos, videos, work files, etc. This type of user is usually just an ordinary person who does not have much technical foundation or does not like to tinker, so the lazy NAS solution is the most suitable. For this type of people, the performance of NAS does not need to be too strong, nor does it need too many functions, as long as it can meet the needs. Therefore, when purchasing NAS, it is not necessary to choose a first-tier brand. Domestic NAS is not out of the question. After all, domestic NAS is usually in line with national conditions.

Moderate users:

In addition to the needs of light users, the field of tinkering begins: computer folder synchronization, PT downloader, remote backup, personal home audio and video center (emby, plex, jellyfin), etc. This type of user generally has a certain technical foundation and usually has a desire to tinker. At this time, the choice of NAS is very important. The suggestion for this type of user is to choose a first-tier NAS brand: QNAP or Synology. As brands that have been deeply involved in the NAS field for many years, these two brands have rich product lines and cover both personal and corporate fields. The most important thing is that many official applications will launch apk installation versions adapted to these two brands, such as emby:

This is very important for people who like to tinker, and the key is that even if some applications do not have official apk adaptations, these two brands have so many users that it is inevitable that some experts will not be able to resist making their own apk, and we can follow suit:). Of course, these two brands are much more expensive than domestic nas with the same configuration, and Synology is even more expensive, so this depends on everyone's wallet.

Heavy users:

This type of user (including me) is usually upgraded from a moderate user, and has more requirements: virtual machines, docker, databases, etc. These new requirements are mainly high requirements for NAS performance, so several different branches have begun to evolve:

1. Banknote ability

This group of people have a lot of money, and they can save time by buying a higher-end product of the NAS brand they are currently using to solve the performance problem. This method is actually the best, because the brand and the operating interface have not changed, but the performance problem has been solved. It is the most efficient method, but it can only be said that the cost-effectiveness is not high (cost-effectiveness is an adjective that only belongs to losers~). I used to belong to this group, but unfortunately, I have fallen into a lower class now.

2. Diaosi

If you don't have a big wallet but want to have the experience of a high-performance first-tier brand NAS, is it possible? Don't tell me, it really works, that is Black Synology. If you don't mind the trouble, you can assemble a high-performance host and install Black Synology's software yourself. If you want to save trouble, you can also buy the finished Black Synology from others on Taobao (I also bought 3). The price is far different from that of White Synology. This kind of reasoning is generally no problem in use, the key is to save a lot of money. Of course, there will be some troubles, such as the hard disk slot number recognized by the system may not correspond to the actual one. If you want to replace the hardware and directly insert the hard disk in order like White Synology, it is impossible. The most important thing is that you can't open a case. Don't underestimate this function. When you encounter problems in use, it is likely that you will have to open a case to ensure that the data is not lost. I opened several cases with QNAP and solved them every time. This is still very important. This is a considerable reason why the first-tier brands are expensive.

In addition, there is still a difference between black and white in terms of power consumption and noise control. The white one is indeed much better (the white one can be placed in the bedroom, but the black one is a bit difficult). Of course, this also depends on whether the NAS is often turned on, whether there is a silent cabinet (or the rich have a special computer room), and whether you care about the difference in power consumption.

3. Transcendence

For this group of people (including me), it is too cost-effective to upgrade NAS for performance (mainly because they don't have money). Wouldn't it be better to spend a few thousand yuan to equip a mini host? The hardware configuration and performance are much higher than NAS of the same price. So, I started to promote the return of NAS to its original nature, and let NAS return to its core function as a storage device: storage. I used the money saved from upgrading NAS to buy a mini host: CPU i5 13400; SSD Samsung 980 pro 2T; memory 64g memory. Wouldn't this configuration be great for running virtual machines, LXC, and docker? As a storage device, I choose NAS in two categories:

1. QNAP NAS + QNAP expansion storage

Why did I choose QNAP? Because of the existence of the two expansion storages, TR-004 and TL-D800C, it is very easy to expand the system capacity (the key is cheap). You can compare the price of Synology expansion storage to see the key point, so the key is that I don’t have money (QNAP is really a blessing for losers). This part of the storage is mainly used to store the types of resources I often access, such as movies, TV series, cartoons, variety shows, MVs, etc.

2. Black Synology

I had too many hard drives left over from the previous hard drive design upgrade: 8 6T and 8 8T. In order to fully utilize these hard drives, I bought 2 4-bay Black Synology and 1 8-bay Black Synology:

This part of the storage is mainly used to store the types of resources that I don’t often access, such as nostalgic movies, documentaries, concerts, etc.

If you choose this method, the only thing you need to pay attention to is that the QNAP NAS model you purchase needs to support TR-004 or TL-D800C expanded storage, which can be checked in the official compatibility list.

Important parameters for purchasing NAS

In addition, I will also briefly talk about my views on purchasing NAS hardware. There are a few points that you need to pay attention to:

1. 2.5G port (or 5G, 10G)

This is not necessary for ordinary families, but if there are requirements for transmission speed, such as frequently transferring large amounts of data (film resources, material libraries, etc.), then it is still necessary. For example, I have to copy the downloaded resources from the PT downloader NAS to other NAS every day for sorting (after the film resource library becomes large, it is necessary to save them by categories. I will write an article to talk about my experience when I have time). At this time, the 2.5g port is more important. However, everyone should pay attention to the fact that it is meaningful to have a 2.5g port between devices that transmit resources to each other. Otherwise, a 2.5G port will only have a 1G port in the future, and the transmission speed will still be 1G, which can only be said to be lonely. But I have good news for everyone. As long as there is a USB3.1 interface, you can buy a USB to 2.5g port module for a few dozen yuan online, plug it in and you can use it. QNAP is still very generous in this regard. Several years of models have USB3.1 interfaces, so there is no need to buy expensive models for the 2.5g port.

2. 2.5-inch slot

This is actually quite important to me. If I have a 2.5-inch slot, I can install an SSD as the system disk without occupying the 3.5-inch slot. If I don't have one, I can only reluctantly insert a 3.5-inch mechanical hard disk (my TS453Bmini is like this, which is equivalent to losing 16TB of space, which is really painful). However, if you don't care about whether to use an SSD as the system disk, then this is not a big deal.

3. Hardware decoding

This is actually not so important to me now, because I usually use local decoding on the playback end for playback. But if you want to set up your own personal audio and video library (emby, plex, jellyfin) and often watch it through a browser or client, you still need to consider the hardware decoding capabilities of the NAS. For models without independent graphics cards, they rely on the CPU core graphics, so you need to focus on the CPU factor when choosing a model.

4. How many disk slots

For general personal users, 2 drive slots plus 2 large-capacity HDD hard drives should be enough, and 4 drive slots is the best. In addition, I personally do not recommend the use of raid technology, which is not very meaningful. For critical data, it may be more economical to buy a mobile hard drive as a cold backup (this is purely personal experience and may not be suitable for everyone). If you consider capacity expansion, then 2 or 4 drive slots (preferably with a dedicated 2.5-inch slot to install SSD and support TR-004 or TL-D800C), if you really need to expand capacity in the future, you can achieve it through extended storage.

other

Of course, there is another solution now, which is the all-in-one solution. This is to run NAS in a virtual machine in a device (it can be open source or black Synology). I will not go into details about this.

In fact, I wrote this article because NAS selection and deployment solutions (centralized or distributed) are very important in my home data center solution. My capacity requirements are too large, exceeding those of most small and medium-sized enterprises, so I face huge challenges in capacity expansion. Moreover, I don’t have money, so affordability is the primary requirement (otherwise, wouldn’t it be enough to just submit a request to the purchasing department?). This is also an important reason why I promoted the NAS back-to-basics route, which ultimately gave birth to the current distributed independent storage solution.