NAS help needed

[Dilby]

Hi all - after a bit of a data disaster and also about to move into an outdoor office, I'm contemplating employing a NAS setup and was hoping I could get some input, as I'm finding it really confusing!!!

I'm a web design and my wife is an illustrator - she has an office upstairs in the house and I'll be out in the garden in my outdoor office. We both need to backup our whole computers regularly, but I also want to store all our photos separately, so that we can both connect to it via adobe lightroom, and would also like to back this drive up again as I've already lost some important photos.

I'd also like to be able to dial into the box if I'm at a meeting or working remotely.

I've added a diagram of how I imagine this:

I've looked online for drives to go in an enclosure but they are all huge. For example my wife's iMac is only a few hundred gig max, but the drives I'm seeing are 4TB etc. Is it then common to just use one drive for multiple things, or is it best to separate such as my example?

Also, my outside office is connected to the house via 2 ethernet cables - could one be connected to the nas box or does it always go through the router?

Thanks!

 

[Hellhammer]

There's no need to have separate hard drives for each usage. For your usage a dual-bay NAS is likely sufficient and you should configure the drives in RAID 1 (i.e. mirroring) to protect data against drive failures (data is written to both drives, so one drive can fail and you still have all your data).

I have WD MyCloud Mirror Gen 2, which is pre-configured in RAID 1, and it's very easy to set up and use, plus it's fairly inexpensive as well. It also supports remote access.

It doesn't really matter where the NAS is located if your house has Ethernet cabling. Just put it somewhere, attach it to a router, and you can access the files anywhere in your local network through either Ethernet or WiFi. Just make sure your networking gear support Gigabit Ethernet as it provides the best transfer speed.

 

[Dilby]

That's great advice, thanks! Would you recommend a brand like WD then? I've seen a lot of cheaper options but not sure how they compare. Also, do all NAS boxes allow me to dial in remotely to work and when doing this what are the speeds normally like? (For example could i open a remote photoshop document and work on it quite easily?) Thanks!

 

[satcomer]

If you need something for work and home I suggest a larger NAS like the Synology DS 1515+. You then would be able to store are work from pleasure very easily.

 

[Hellhammer]

That's great advice, thanks! Would you recommend a brand like WD then? I've seen a lot of cheaper options but not sure how they compare. Also, do all NAS boxes allow me to dial in remotely to work and when doing this what are the speeds normally like? (For example could i open a remote photoshop document and work on it quite easily?) Thanks!

I've been happy with mine so I would recommend it. There are of course plenty of other options, but keep in mind that most NASes you see are drive-less, meaning that you'll have to purchase drives separately, which adds cost. Pretty much all NASes support remote access, though.

 

[phrehdd]

I'll agree that at minimum get a drive NAS set to RAID 1. A larger NAS might be set to either RAID 5 or RAID 10 and so on.

You asked a question about working with files using your apps (file resides on the NAS). This is a real no go for speed and access. You are better off to acquire the file and work on it from your desktop then take the new file and put it on your NAS (either replace original or better to have incremental change files). This hold especially true for files on the NAS being engaged by WAN (via internet).

What you might want to investigate as well is VPN, FTP and Cloud services (all are doable on better NAS units).

 

[haddy]

There's no need to have separate hard drives for each usage. For your usage a dual-bay NAS is likely sufficient and you should configure the drives in RAID 1 (i.e. mirroring) to protect data against drive failures (data is written to both drives, so one drive can fail and you still have all your data).

I have WD MyCloud Mirror Gen 2, which is pre-configured in RAID 1, and it's very easy to set up and use, plus it's fairly inexpensive as well. It also supports remote access.

It doesn't really matter where the NAS is located if your house has Ethernet cabling. Just put it somewhere, attach it to a router, and you can access the files anywhere in your local network through either Ethernet or WiFi. Just make sure your networking gear support Gigabit Ethernet as it provides the best transfer speed.

Okay this is from a previous post of mine:
#15

Guys... I have 2 x Synology DiskStations....DS215j (10TB) and DS414 (16TB) on my LAN.

Both are RAID 0 ....... I want the fastest throughput. Not interested in data mirroring or recovery.

From RAID Wikipedia:
"Correlated failures[edit]
In practice, the drives are often the same age (with similar wear) and subject to the same environment. Since many drive failures are due to mechanical issues (which are more likely on older drives), this violates the assumptions of independent, identical rate of failure amongst drives; failures are in fact statistically correlated.[11] In practice, the chances for a second failure before the first has been recovered (causing data loss) are higher than the chances for random failures. In a study of about 100,000 drives, the probability of two drives in the same cluster failing within one hour was four times larger than predicted by the exponential statistical distribution—which characterizes processes in which events occur continuously and independently at a constant average rate. The probability of two failures in the same 10-hour period was twice as large as predicted by an exponential distribution.[64]"

 

[Hellhammer]

Okay this is from a previous post of mine:
#15

Guys... I have 2 x Synology DiskStations....DS215j (10TB) and DS414 (16TB) on my LAN.

Both are RAID 0 ....... I want the fastest throughput. Not interested in data mirroring or recovery.

From RAID Wikipedia:
"Correlated failures[edit]
In practice, the drives are often the same age (with similar wear) and subject to the same environment. Since many drive failures are due to mechanical issues (which are more likely on older drives), this violates the assumptions of independent, identical rate of failure amongst drives; failures are in fact statistically correlated.[11] In practice, the chances for a second failure before the first has been recovered (causing data loss) are higher than the chances for random failures. In a study of about 100,000 drives, the probability of two drives in the same cluster failing within one hour was four times larger than predicted by the exponential statistical distribution—which characterizes processes in which events occur continuously and independently at a constant average rate. The probability of two failures in the same 10-hour period was twice as large as predicted by an exponential distribution.[64]"

What you're saying is true. RAID 1, or any form of RAID, is not a backup. If OP wants full data protection, he should use a cloud backup service to backup the NAS (or at least the most important files) to ensure protection against data corruption and fire/theft. However, RAID 1 does increase data availability in case of a drive failure as you don't have to rely on a backup immediately.