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Suggestions for an affordable NAS for backups and Plex (media center)

Tags:
  • Media Center
  • Storage
  • NAS / RAID
  • Qnap
  • Linux
  • Backup
Last response: in Storage
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June 13, 2014 9:19:43 AM

Hello everyone,
i've got this in idea in mind and i need your suggestions: i would like to buy a NAS that is reasonably cheap but totally reliable and that can be my Plex media center too.

I want to put all my important data there and i want to be 100% sure that i won't lose them. So far, i'm still making DVD of the stuff i want to keep for a long time, and using an external drive for "light" stuff, like music, and a WD TV Live with an external drive for "heavy" stuff, like movies and TV series.
I would like to use Plex as media server and media client so i'm oriented towards a QNAP, that has the integrated Plex app and is cheaper than a Synology.
I was thinking about a little Raspberry Pi with RasPlex (http://www.rasplex.com/) linux, connected with HDMI to the TV and with wireless or ethernet (i can't decide) to the LAN.

I was considering the Qnap TS-212P (http://www.amazon.com/TS-212P-Personal-Network-Attached... / http://www.qnap.com/useng/index.php?sn=862&c=355&sc=688...)
It's cheap, 173 dollars, it has 2 bays, so i can do a RAID 1, but i'm not sure it could do some good transcoding when needed because of CPU (Marvell 6282 1.6GHz) and RAM CPU (512MB DDR3)

I've got a Western Digital Elements 2 TB USB 2.0 Desktop external disk (http://www.amazon.com/Elements-Desktop-External-Hard-Dr...) and i could open it and use it as one of the disks for the NAS.
I also have got an external USB Western Digital My Book 2 TB (http://www.amazon.com/Book-USB-Hard-Drive-Backup/dp/B00...): is it a 3.5' drive? I could open it, so i'll have 2 free disks.

Then a 40 dollars Raspberry Pi (http://www.amazon.com/RASPBERRY-MODEL-756-8308-Raspberr...) would be the only thing left.
Total cost: 173 + 40 = almost 210 dollars, pretty affordable.

Now, the point. I've got some doubts:
01) Is it a RAID 1 a good choice for reliable backups? It's simply a mirror, so if both disks don't fail at the same time i should be pretty safe, shouldn't i?
02) What other kind of RAID or storage could i do with a 2 bays NAS?
03) Considering that i should already have 2 free 2 Tb disks, i could buy another Western Digital Green 2 TB SATA3 (http://www.amazon.com/WD-Green-Desktop-Hard-Drive/dp/B0...) for 82 dollars and then a 3 bays NAS. Could i have more space like that? Maybe doing a RAID5 using 2 disks for data and 1 for bit redundancy, so that i have 4 Gb of space?
04) Is the CPU of the Qnap TS-212P good enough as a Plex server?
05) Is a Raspberry Pi good enough as a Plex client? Could it work in wireless? I can download up to 5 Mb/sec (40 Mbit of bandwidth) with my wireless N router.

Sorry for all those questions. I know it's a long post but it's an intriguing project and trying to keep it cheap isn't so easy. Besides, i'm a total newbie in this stuff.

Thank you in advance.

More about : suggestions affordable nas backups plex media center

a b G Storage
June 13, 2014 12:00:58 PM

sberla54 said:
Hello everyone,
i've got this in idea in mind and i need your suggestions: i would like to buy a NAS that is reasonably cheap but totally reliable and that can be my Plex media center too.

I want to put all my important data there and i want to be 100% sure that i won't lose them. So far, i'm still making DVD of the stuff i want to keep for a long time, and using an external drive for "light" stuff, like music, and a WD TV Live with an external drive for "heavy" stuff, like movies and TV series.
I would like to use Plex as media server and media client so i'm oriented towards a QNAP, that has the integrated Plex app and is cheaper than a Synology.
I was thinking about a little Raspberry Pi with RasPlex (http://www.rasplex.com/) linux, connected with HDMI to the TV and with wireless or ethernet (i can't decide) to the LAN.

I was considering the Qnap TS-212P (http://www.amazon.com/TS-212P-Personal-Network-Attached... / http://www.qnap.com/useng/index.php?sn=862&c=355&sc=688...)
It's cheap, 173 dollars, it has 2 bays, so i can do a RAID 1, but i'm not sure it could do some good transcoding when needed because of CPU (Marvell 6282 1.6GHz) and RAM CPU (512MB DDR3)

I've got a Western Digital Elements 2 TB USB 2.0 Desktop external disk (http://www.amazon.com/Elements-Desktop-External-Hard-Dr...) and i could open it and use it as one of the disks for the NAS.
I also have got an external USB Western Digital My Book 2 TB (http://www.amazon.com/Book-USB-Hard-Drive-Backup/dp/B00...): is it a 3.5' drive? I could open it, so i'll have 2 free disks.

Then a 40 dollars Raspberry Pi (http://www.amazon.com/RASPBERRY-MODEL-756-8308-Raspberr...) would be the only thing left.
Total cost: 173 + 40 = almost 210 dollars, pretty affordable.

Now, the point. I've got some doubts:
01) Is it a RAID 1 a good choice for reliable backups? It's simply a mirror, so if both disks don't fail at the same time i should be pretty safe, shouldn't i?
02) What other kind of RAID or storage could i do with a 2 bays NAS?
03) Considering that i should already have 2 free 2 Tb disks, i could buy another Western Digital Green 2 TB SATA3 (http://www.amazon.com/WD-Green-Desktop-Hard-Drive/dp/B0...) for 82 dollars and then a 3 bays NAS. Could i have more space like that? Maybe doing a RAID5 using 2 disks for data and 1 for bit redundancy, so that i have 4 Gb of space?
04) Is the CPU of the Qnap TS-212P good enough as a Plex server?
05) Is a Raspberry Pi good enough as a Plex client? Could it work in wireless? I can download up to 5 Mb/sec (40 Mbit of bandwidth) with my wireless N router.

Sorry for all those questions. I know it's a long post but it's an intriguing project and trying to keep it cheap isn't so easy. Besides, i'm a total newbie in this stuff.

Thank you in advance.


I think you're misunderstanding the term "backup". Regardless of what RAID configuration you use, you'll need a second copy of the data somewhere else. If you want to build a NAS as the second(centralized) copy of your data, then you don't really need RAID. You can just use 2 independently formatted drives. If you want to minimize downtime in case a drive fails, then use RAID1.
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June 13, 2014 12:13:09 PM

That's kinda the same thing that another user answered me when i asked this same question on the Ubuntu forum (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2229188).
Maybe I've really misunderstood the concept of NAS as a backup machine.
I'm going to reconsider that part of the project.

Anyway, what about a simple media center? The Plex part of the topic...
Does it worth the effort to build it on a NAS or it's easier to use a small Linux desktop?
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a b G Storage
a b 5 Linux
June 13, 2014 4:49:41 PM

@Sberla,

NAS is considered "storage solution". As such, with two drives RAID can add you capacity (JBOD), performance (RAID 0) or redundancy (RAID 1). Backing up your data is another story, and it is best handled by (pair of) lasrge-enough external drives.

I would keep NAS part separate from media part. I am not sure RPi will be powerfull enough to transcode each and every video format (at leasy my RPi with XBMC cannot display some videos). So, I would either beef up the NAS part with something powerfull and capable of full transcoding, or beef up media / player part with some PC.
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June 30, 2014 3:05:27 PM

Thank you for your suggestions!

Right now, i'm considering the idea of buying a NAS and using it as a storage location for a second copy of my important data. I would like to backup my important stuff on the NAS but keeping it on the PC anyway.
And i'd want to keep the heavy uninportant stuff, like film and tv shows, only on the NAS.
It's always better than the two separated external hard drives i'm using right now and i could create the Plex media server, for music and videos.

Isn't that a decent idea?

A direct question: if i'd want, let's say, an amount of 4 Gb total of storage, but i'd also want to be sure that if an hard drive fails i don't lose any of my data, what kind of RAID i should choose? And with how many disks? How large?
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a b G Storage
June 30, 2014 3:41:24 PM

sberla54 said:
Thank you for your suggestions!

Right now, i'm considering the idea of buying a NAS and using it as a storage location for a second copy of my important data. I would like to backup my important stuff on the NAS but keeping it on the PC anyway.
And i'd want to keep the heavy uninportant stuff, like film and tv shows, only on the NAS.
It's always better than the two separated external hard drives i'm using right now and i could create the Plex media server, for music and videos.

Isn't that a decent idea?

A direct question: if i'd want, let's say, an amount of 4 Gb total of storage, but i'd also want to be sure that if an hard drive fails i don't lose any of my data, what kind of RAID i should choose? And with how many disks? How large?


Yes, that's a decent idea.

If you want 4Tb of storage with basic single drive redundancy then you can get 3 X 2Tb drives in RAID5.
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June 30, 2014 4:55:20 PM

So i need a 4 bays NAS, because i can't find any 3 bays ones anyway, am i right?
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a b G Storage
July 2, 2014 10:20:07 AM

sberla54 said:
So i need a 4 bays NAS, because i can't find any 3 bays ones anyway, am i right?


Right. You can always add another drive later into the 4th bay if you want more storage.
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July 3, 2014 9:18:29 AM

It's not gonna be a so "affordable" project with a 4 bay NAS but i will deal with it :) 

I really must study well how the different type of NAS work: in RAID 5, with 3 x 2 Tb drives, if i add another 2 Tb disk, i will have 6 Tb, without losing any data if one breaks?
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a b G Storage
July 6, 2014 3:22:33 PM

sberla54 said:
It's not gonna be a so "affordable" project with a 4 bay NAS but i will deal with it :) 

I really must study well how the different type of NAS work: in RAID 5, with 3 x 2 Tb drives, if i add another 2 Tb disk, i will have 6 Tb, without losing any data if one breaks?


Yes you'll have 6TB with 1 drive redundancy of course, but you'll need to restore from backup when adding the 4th drive.
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July 13, 2014 4:06:49 AM

Uhm, that would be annoying, maybe it's better if i buy a 4th hard disk with the NAS, so i start with 6 Tb.
Thank you for your advices.

Now i only have to understand which NAS is transcoding capable.

That project is no more so "affordable", anyway :) 
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