NAS vs Shared Enclosure

Is there any reason to use a NAS rather than a multiple bay hard drive enclosure shared over a wireless router for backing up computers and sharing files?

More specifically:
I'm looking get a 4 bay NAS or enclosure and use it for backing up computers as well as storing/sharing media. Going off of TigerDirect I can get an enclosure for $150 less than a NAS. Both are SATA, 3.5", and include hardware RAID 0,1, and 5. The NAS supports PCless torrent downloading, and appears to be able to backup USB devices simply by plugging them in and pushing a button (I doubt I would use either feature enough to justify $150). My wireless router supports USB file sharing, so I could simply hook the enclosure to it and share it in that manner.

I understand that a NAS will provide it's own file system while an enclosure does not. What sort of pros/cons come along with that?

Does a NAS offer anything to justify the $150 difference?

 

yes windows server, that is the sole reason of nas being superior than a shared hd via the ethernet

 

NAS includes firmware that allows it to act like a server and offer programmable features, access over the internet, and smart backups, etc. An enclosure is just a dumb box that attaches via network or USB or other kind of port that is just seen as an external hard drive. Software for backup on an enclosure is usually on the client PC, completely driven by the client PC.

 

Had a NAS for 24 hrs - sold it.

Why? File system (some sort of UNIX disaster).

If you're backing up photos, video, etc. and you have metadata stored in those files, the EX3/4 file system can't store it. In other words your 'backup' is a joke.

Put a Windows server with NTFS and back up your data properly - or, use external NTFS formatted HDD's. However, don't use a network connection: use eSATA or USB3/2 (in order of preferance). Unless you can live with a connection (network) that is slower than molasses - even if you're using GB ethernet.

 

or stop depending on the filesystem to store/link metadata...........

 

Lol...

My mind is too full to store the metadata too - where/how would you suggest to do a backup of electronic data?

 

Most consumer-level NAS devices are powered by extremely weak SoCs. Common complaints involve extremely low data transfer rates, slower than USB 2.

Given the relatively high price of these things, I'd rather just get an Atom box or even a full-fledged WHS machine instead.

 

Yeah, WHS is best option. Especially if you happen to have an older PC around so your investment will primarily be in your storage HDD's. I'm about to turn a Core 2 Duo with 4GB DDR2 system in to a WHS 2011 system. I already have the hard drives in my WHS v1, so investment is pretty much $0.

 

on another note why dont you build a nas? My last one I:

got a AMD e350 processor with a itx board, and put this all in a small form factor case. I use at home windows server 2008, but you could do with windows home server which from what I have read is quite good.

All this totals at:

4g of ram

3 2tb HDD

mobo + cpu

psu

possible cases

Newegg.com - LIAN LI PC-V354A Silver Aluminum MicroATX Mini Tower Computer Case
Newegg.com - SILVERSTONE Fortress Series FT03B Black Aluminum / Steel MicroATX Mini Tower Computer Case
Newegg.com - SILVERSTONE Sugo SG03B-F Black Aluminum / 0.8mm steel MicroATX Mini Tower Computer Case

I like the Ft03 much better, although I have the silver model (its coming!)

currently I use and old desktop atx mid tower case

 

If set up properly, with either a NAS or WHS box, you can get really good read/write speeds. Like 20-100 MBps wired, 12-30MBps wireless (that's Bytes by the way and not its). Whereas with an attached USB storage enclosure via router, the speeds are around 6MBps. I would say all "off the shelf" routers do not have enough resources to drive an enclosure to it's full speed potential. Plus USB2.0 is terrible, you never see the theoretical 480Mbps let alone get near half of that in real world usage.

 

hm, i'm having >100MB/s troughput from my whs server over gblan (up to 125 it is, i think). i don't think i could get much faster with any other connection.

 

davepermen,

I agree that with a server the throughput can be high (as you stated). My comment was directed for external HDD's.

In my experience, LAN connected externals are the slowest connection you can experience - especially with a large number of smaller files.

To sum up: to use a GB LAN connection properly - you need to use a dedicated server.

A NAS box just doesn't cut it.

 

ah okay

depends on the nas, but yes. most are cheap slow crap things.

 

Thanks to everyone for their replies!

Building a NAS or server sounds appealing but I don't have any spare PC stuff so I'd have to buy it all. I know I could save some money on the build by going through craigslist or ebay, but an extra $100 for WHS isn't terribly tempting. How is NAS software (freeNAS, Openfiler, etc.) compared to WHS?

I want to use RAID and I'm assuming the best way to do it is to get a motherboard that provides a RAID controller, as it appears that the price of a RAID controller card that supports 4 SATA drives is going to be fairly steep. Any comments on that?

In regards to RAID, I want to make sure I have this right. If I have 4 disks and I want to break them up into two groups then I want to mirror the one group on the other. Is that RAID 01?

jalaj: what would one have to do to set up a NAS or WHS box to get 12-30MBps wireless?

 

BUMP.

Still trying to find answers for this. Anyone have any useful input or is it time to let the thread die and move on?