Hello weirdguy,

Instead of buying external and internal HDDs as a bandaid to patch an open wound, let me suggest a 2-phase solution.

Phase-1

Buy the following parts :-
- Dlink DNS-320L RM250
- 2x WD AV Green 3TB RM818
Setup DNS-320L as RAID1 (mirrored). This will provide you some breathing space while you work on completing phase-2.

Total investment for phase-1 RM1068

Phase-2
Buy or build a 4-8 bays NAS which will address your storage needs in the next 3-5 years.

Estimated investment for phase-2 RM2800 to RM10000 depending on the solution. Note that 60-75% of the cost will go into buying the HDDs. Start reading up on NAS and RAID technologies so that you can make informed decisions later.

What do Synology, QNAP, Dlink, Thecus and Asustor have in common, they are all Taiwanese-based companies that manufactures NAS. Nowadays the techonology behind NAS is just pretty much the same across the board due to the close competitiveness among these TW companies. From what I have seen on the forums, HW failure rates are almost the same among these manufacturers.

However the key difference is still user experience. Many end users prefer and swear by Synology's sleek GUI, hence Synology's popularity and price. As for me, as long as the NAS supports NFS and SMB/CIFS, I don't care how the GUI looks like as it will just be a box where I will throw all my data into from my Windows PC. I don't have the time to spend 8 hours everyday staring into a nice NAS GUI. So for me a Dlink-320L is as useful as a Synology DS-213SE which cost over twice as much just as a storage box on the network.

Since DSL-320L only have 2 slots, you are limited to RAID 0 or 1. RAID 1 offers HDD mirroring redundancy and protection from 1 HDD failure but doesn't protect your data from NAS HW failure. Stay away from RAID 0 as you run a great risk of loosing data if any HDD writing glitch, electrical glitch, HDD failure etc happens.

Go for Synology for the ease of setup, peace of mind and if you don't mind paying extra for all the bells and whistles. And if you are technologically inclined, build your own and you are more likely to end up with a more powerful box that does all the same things that Synology does at a cheaper price.

Both AV Green and Red are designed for 24/7 operations and comes with 3 years warranty. You can use either for RAID 1, however only Red is designed for RAID 5 & 6 setup and is generally more expensive.

Hmmm, I'm not sure you really need a NAS judging from your response above. NAS is essentially a server that holds and makes available all your data on the network for you. IMO if you just need a place to store/archive your data and only access them occasionally, then external HDDs may be the best fit and value solution. WD MyBook external HDDs are quite affortable and reliable.

for backup only get those 4bays hotway usb box more than enough. got usb 3 and esata... pay more if u want FW