AIO NAS vs building your own?

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steffeeh

steffeeh

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I'm planning on grabbing a NAS which will solely be used to regurarly fully backup 3 computers at home. To be clear, I won't use it as external storage. I'll just set everything up and let it automatically backup 1 computer each night, so I won't actively use it and browse it.
To this NAS I'll also hook up an external HDD with the same size to backup everything from the NAS, which will be once a week or maybe more. This is to have a safe backup in case of a ransomware attack. Wether the HDD will be hooked into the NAS all time, or stored offline, I have yet to decide (will do more reading regarding the one solution vs the other).
There will be no RAID. I have no plans on setting up snapshots or similar, since it's a bit beyond my knowledge.

At this moment I'm not sure how I want my setup - an AIO complete NAS, such as WD My Cloud, Seagate Personal Cloud, etc... or to set it up myself and buy a QNAP empty NAS server or similar brand and a WD Red HDD.
It all comes down to what will suit my needs the most in terms of functionality etc.
If there are no advantages in my specific use case scenario, I'll just grab an AIO since it's cheaper.

Any recommendations?
 
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USAFRet


Backups remotely will be slow, simply because "internet".
It can be done, but a 1TB backup upload from your parents house to your NAS will be slow. Prebuilt or DIY...makes no difference.
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USAFRet

USAFRet

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I recently changed from a PC used for the house server/backup system/HTPC...to a Qnap TS-453A. 4 x 4TB IronWolf drives, RAID 5.

Much, much easier, many more features.
Set it and forget it.

My house systems back up to the NAS every night. The entirety of the NAS backs up to an external USB drive once a week (Every wednesday @7AM).
All on automated on a schedule...don't have to mess with anything.

Mine is also 'external storage', in that it also holds the whole movie and music folders.
 
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alceryes

alceryes

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Jun 11, 2004
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Do you want to spend more money and time building and setting up (but possibly learning more)? ...or do you want to just buy a finished product and be done?

The above will be the deciding factor. Your setup is pretty simple so a AIO solution will cover you just fine.
 
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das_stig

das_stig

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Jul 24, 2009
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2 Bay NAS with disks in RAID-1, as it sounds like you don't need something with major horse power.

You could probably get it cheaper if you supplied your own drivers rather than as a bundle.

As for using a secondary backup drive, if the backup is not overly large, some NAS come with free cloud backup or even pay the few $ a month for somebody like Backblaze.

No association, but here's a review : https://www.lifewire.com/backblaze-review-2617894
 
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steffeeh

steffeeh

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At the moment I just want to set things up and be done, then just do some basic maintaining (whatever that could be) every now and then.
Elsewhere someone mentioned that it's common that people start with an AIO NAS that does the simple, but then move over to DIY systems to get access to more features as their knowledge about NASes has grown.
What would be the typical early advantages people start using once going from AIO to DIY?
 
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USAFRet

USAFRet

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I went the other way. DIY -> Qnap.
The NAS box is much more feature complete, and easier to manage.

The newer NAS boxes from Synology or Qnap are not just simple drive holder boxes with a rudimentary OS, but rather a whole Linux based PC, capable of being a movie/music player, and a backup target, and a file server, and etc, etc, etc.

They often also include a dedicated cloud storage space, if you want to use that. Mine does.

I was on the cusp of rebuilding my previous house server, with another DIY setup. WinServer 2012 or 2016, i5-3570k, 8GB RAM, etc, etc...
But after investigation, the prebuilt NAS box did 99% of the featureset, with a LOT less 'management'.

Oh, and less noise and power consumption... ;)
 
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steffeeh

steffeeh

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I forgot to mention that I still live at home, so I'll share the backup solution with the rest of my family, however I might move out within a year or so - and my intention is to hopefully let my family back home still be able to access my backup solution across the internet with automatic backups to my NAS.

With this in mind - AIO or DIY?
 
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USAFRet

USAFRet

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Backups remotely will be slow, simply because "internet".
It can be done, but a 1TB backup upload from your parents house to your NAS will be slow. Prebuilt or DIY...makes no difference.
 
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