Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Cheapest NAS

sigwait.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 308 posts

Re: The Cheapest NAS

#131

Post by superkuh »

transpute wrote: post #82
superkuh wrote: post #79

The entire concept of network attached storage is kind of cargo-cult in the vast majority of personal use cases. Just put the drives in your computer. Fewer abstraction layers, fewer problems, cheaper, faster, less fragile, easier to debug and fix if problems do happen. It's just not as hip or cool sounding as "NAS".

> Just put the drives in your computer NAS works with phones, tablets and laptops with egregiously expensive, non-expandable storage. On iOS/iPadOS, use SSH/SFTP to workaround business-model-challenged "Files" client.

A NAS is not magical. It is just a rather limited computer. Anything a NAS can do so can a normal desktop, and it'll do it better. Sharing files over a network is one of these things. Managing the files is way, way, better since you just use your normal desktop file manager rather than some NAS web stuff that'll break due to CA TLS issues in a few years.

Re: The Cheapest NAS

#132

Post by superkuh »

k8sToGo wrote: post #94
superkuh wrote: post #79

The entire concept of network attached storage is kind of cargo-cult in the vast majority of personal use cases. Just put the drives in your computer. Fewer abstraction layers, fewer problems, cheaper, faster, less fragile, easier to debug and fix if problems do happen. It's just not as hip or cool sounding as "NAS".

Good idea to put your backup on the same machine! /s

Or just put drives in all your computers and back-up between instead of buying a limited (potentially proprietary) NAS computer just for the purpose and having it being one central point of failure.

I just don't understand the reluctance of people to put storage in their actual computer(s).

Re: The Cheapest NAS

#133

Post by [deleted] »

jstanley wrote: post #4

When people set up these NAS's, how are they accessing the files? NFS? SFTP? And how are you accessing it when away from home? A VPN that you're permanently connected to? Is there a good way to do NAT hole-punching? Syncthing kind of does what I want, in that it lets all my computers sync the same files no matter what network they're on, but it insists on always copying all the files ("syncing") whereas I just want t…

[deleted]

Re: The Cheapest NAS

#134

Post by [deleted] »

superkuh wrote: post #131
transpute wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just put the drives in your computer NAS works with phones, tablets and laptops with egregiously expensive, non-expandable storage. On iOS/iPadOS, use SSH/SFTP to workaround business-model-challenged "Files" client.

A NAS is not magical. It is just a rather limited computer. Anything a NAS can do so can a normal desktop, and it'll do it better. Sharing files over a network is one of these things. Managing the files is way, way, better since you just use your normal desktop file manager rather than some NAS web stuff that'll break due to CA TLS issues in a few years.

[deleted]

Re: The Cheapest NAS

#135

Post by transpute »

superkuh wrote: post #131
transpute wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just put the drives in your computer NAS works with phones, tablets and laptops with egregiously expensive, non-expandable storage. On iOS/iPadOS, use SSH/SFTP to workaround business-model-challenged "Files" client.

A NAS is not magical. It is just a rather limited computer. Anything a NAS can do so can a normal desktop, and it'll do it better. Sharing files over a network is one of these things. Managing the files is way, way, better since you just use your normal desktop file manager rather than some NAS web stuff that'll break due to CA TLS issues in a few years.

Among many features, ZFS offers storage snapshots, deduplication and file integrity.

Re: The Cheapest NAS

#136

Post by MobileVet »

dudus wrote: post #113
rovr138 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are all strategies and the price point of the unit doesn’t affect it. Need extra drives, buy extra drives. Need extra NAS for backups?, buy an extra NAS. Need an offsite copy?, buy space and get an offsite NAS and drives for an offsite copy. Price point of the unit doesn’t change anything here.

Synology sure provides an expensive but complete package for home office and enthusiasts. Just buy it and be done with it. It's certainly more expensive than DIY it yourself using off the shelf components and things bought out of online classifieds. But for most people that have no interest in tinkering or don't know what to do, just paying the price of a complete solution might be worth it.

Totally. If you enjoy the config and have the time, by all means.

If you just want it to work, by a Synology. Mine has been running strong for several years now and has docker images for my unify controller, pi hole and Plex. Took minimal time to setup and none since that day. Love it

Edit: And my encrypted cloud backup in Backblaze B2 was equally as easy to setup and costs a whopping $2 a month for every family pic, video and doc.

I have triple backup, with mirrored RAID for one of those. No effort, maximum peace of mind.

Re: The Cheapest NAS

#137

Post by mech422 »

iforgotpassword wrote: post #27

My secret protip: old Fujitsu desktop/nuc PCs. At least in Germany (Europe?) they are cheap on ebay since a lot of businesses use them and upgrade on a regular schedule. If you care about power consumption like I do, you can Google "$model energy consumption white paper" which contains very accurate data about idle usage, for example https://sp.ts.fujitsu.com/dmsp/Publications/public/wp-energy... In one case I had a…

ODroid H-series SBC's are standard Intel CPUs with (at least for the H2+) Linux supported hardware for pretty much everything (haven't tried running X on them though :-P )

they are my favorite 'home server' currently...cheap, standard, and expandable - oh! And SILENT! :-)

Re: The Cheapest NAS

#138

Post by ac29 »

superkuh wrote: post #131
transpute wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just put the drives in your computer NAS works with phones, tablets and laptops with egregiously expensive, non-expandable storage. On iOS/iPadOS, use SSH/SFTP to workaround business-model-challenged "Files" client.

A NAS is not magical. It is just a rather limited computer. Anything a NAS can do so can a normal desktop, and it'll do it better. Sharing files over a network is one of these things. Managing the files is way, way, better since you just use your normal desktop file manager rather than some NAS web stuff that'll break due to CA TLS issues in a few years.

Desktop computers are becoming increasingly uncommon. I'm a pretty technologically inclined person and I havent owned a desktop in years. For most people, laptops have been more than capable enough for their needs for a long time. And for general purpose computing, smartphones are pretty heavily used too.

Re: The Cheapest NAS

#139

Post by green-salt »

iforgotpassword wrote: post #27

My secret protip: old Fujitsu desktop/nuc PCs. At least in Germany (Europe?) they are cheap on ebay since a lot of businesses use them and upgrade on a regular schedule. If you care about power consumption like I do, you can Google "$model energy consumption white paper" which contains very accurate data about idle usage, for example https://sp.ts.fujitsu.com/dmsp/Publications/public/wp-energy... In one case I had a…

My local electronics resale shop had the Dell versions of these, they make great hypervisors!

Re: The Cheapest NAS

#140

Post by earleybird »

russdill wrote: post #115
test6554 wrote: post #85

Everyone is an expert at storage as long as everything is working great. It's when stuff fails that you feel like an idiot and wished you had one extra hdd in your RAID array or a secondary NAS you were backing up to or one extra site you offloaded your data to. I don't do cheap any more. But I can see the appeal.

Kids today have no idea just how often drives failed back in the day.

IBM deathstar[0] drives in a collection of RS6000's is still too fresh in my memory :-)

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deskstar

Post reply on HN