I'm looking to store all my media that is currently scattered through multiple external drives into some internal drives and stuff them into an enclosure. I want to make it redundant and currently am thinking of doing Raid 1 or Raid 5 so I wont fall into despair if a drive fails on me. I have already lost too many external drives due to drive failure. Primarily gonna be using it to store all the obviously legally downloaded content. So when I needed to I will connect my laptop

My requirements:
- Minimum 4 bay.
- Raid ready
- usb 3.1 gen 1 or gen 2 (output using usb c would be a bonus)
- sub RM1k

If i am missing anything let me know and I'll update asap.

NAS will be the better option.

Try Synology, it's simple to manage and can double up as DLNA server.

Get regular PC, RM1k too low for what you want.

AMD Athlon 200GE - 199
ASROCK B450 STEEL LEGEND - 450
Kingston 4GB DDR4-2666 X1 - 90
Thermaltake Litepower 450W - 119

Look for 4-6 HDD bay case.

Small size setup

Pentium G5400 - 299
Asrock H370M-ITX/ac - 429
Kingston 4GB DDR4-2666 X1 - 90
Thermaltake Litepower 450W - 119
Fractacl Design Node 304 case (6 HDD bay) - 359

4 bay, less than RM1k budget. Nope!

This post has been edited by TristanX: Jul 31 2019, 05:21 PM

Lol, true.

If TS brave enough to tinker then by all means use the FreeNAS or OpenMediaVault approach.

Are you sure? I saw this and was thinking there are more options similar like it.
http://orico.com.my/index.php?route=produc...1&product_id=28

Don't see RAID and USB 3.1 Gen2

http://orico.com.my/index.php?route=produc...2&product_id=31
Sorry wrong link. It's still under 1k.
It's software raid I think and it's gen 1. As you can see its within my requirements.

This post has been edited by nixuotan: Jul 31 2019, 07:08 PM

Thats up to you. I would wait for USB 3.1 gen 2 though. Got USB 3.1 Gen 2 SSD running at PCIE X2 already.

I read a lot of amazon reviews saying orico killed some hardisk.
For NAS, buffallo died on me once.
Been on asustor couple years, still alive, but i doubt i will buy nas ever again.
So thats my experience.
Suggest you go Freenas. No raid controller failure.

for the DAS i will choose come with fan if not the temperature is very high.

If you just want RAID-1 and have 4 free sata port on your mobo, you basically can have a pair each for RAID-1 using Windows 10.

Why not get/build a NAS? You can centralized your data storage and can be accessible by PC or laptop or anything else that connected to your home network.

If you good at technical and troubleshooting then can build your own NAS using PC components for about RM1000, not including HDD. FREENAS with ZFS filesystem is usually the recommended choice. It support protection against bit-rot.

If you don't want to delve into too much technical but want something highly functional like FREENAS then get a NAS, for 4 bays prepare about RM2000 for Synology or RM1500 for Asustor. Synology been in market for much more years so their software have much better function and more stable while Asustor more value for money but software not as polished as Synology. The best part is both support BTRFS filesystem, a protection against bit-rot. The downside is BTRFS didn't support RAID-5 or RAID-6 so you have less storage space.

Why you will not buy NAS ever again?

Better build freenas. Anything dies, just replace the component. You can add 10Gbe nic in the future. You can add hardisk,
If the raid controller on your NAS dies the whole thing can throw, hopefully your data intact.

not sure what your experience on using NAS if you have existing hardware i would say just use freenas os and build your own nas , if your qnap or synology you bought below 1k they are mostly junk

Ok. I have no experience with a NAS or RAID so far. But could you explain why going with freenas leads to no raid controller failure? Is it because of software RAID instead of hardware RAID? Or more specific features of freenas?
All of your replies have been super helpful so far. So I think I'll update what I'm looking for to include NAS and increased budget to 2k.

Freenas uses zfs file format. Enterprise lvl best storage format. Software raid unlikely to fail.
But if you want plug and play, consumer nas is for you. But not 4bay rm1k. Have to budget more.
Freenas will run on any low powered multicore. From what i surveyed, cheap ryzen 2200g with 32gb eec ram (1gb per terabyte storage). Just need casing, psu, motherboard, cpu and ram. Leave in your store room, install plex server, every room with internet can play your data.
Lagi cheap will be your idea of a direct attached storage, but limited to one device to play media.
Slow slow youtube freenas lah.

I'm running this for my home server

Core i7-6700T
Gigabyte Z170X Ultra Gaming
Crucial 8GB DDR4-2400
Plextor M6 Pro 256GB
WD Gold 3TB + 4TB
WD Red Pro 3TB
Seagate SV35 3TB
Seagate Skyhawk 8TB X3
Seasonic M12II Evo 520W
Corsair Carbide 400R
Cooler Master 4-in-3 device module

Current case can store up to 10 HDDs.

37TB of raw space

What OS and RAID type you using?

Windows 10 Pro and IIS. No RAID. Just file sharing

Automatic backup using Acronis and external HDD X4 dock.

This post has been edited by TristanX: Aug 3 2019, 04:10 PM

Exactly, software RAID instead of hardware RAID.

If build own NAS either go for second hand hardware (CPU, mobo, RAM, PSU, case) so that it's more affordable than prebuilt NAS. Or because prebuilt NAS can't accommodate or too expensive for your need so better to go building own NAS route.

160TB!

But you need to be good in hardware and software installation and troubleshooting.


Any mitigation against date degradation?

Which is why you have backup. Slowly get more disks.

1000 budget is quite tight.

If just for backup and some redundancy, most will be fine with a 2 drive setup with RAID 1 Mirror. How many TBs do you need?

4 drive bay and RAID 5 is a waste if you don't need the Parity and a NAS that can have a hot spare and automatic rebuild (since you need 4 drives for that). If you need that then you need to rethink your budget.

I used to use 2 cheap DLINK RAID 1 NAS to do my daily server dump on alternate days.

Once HDD past the 2/3 years mark, you can start migrate data to other HDD or have duplicate.
i haven't tried enterprise hdd yet, but for desktop class 3.55'' HDD that is pretty much their lief expectancy, i owned a lot of hdd, many of them couldn't last more than 3.

I'm considering ordering Silverstone Kublai KL04

https://www.silverstonetek.com/product.php?...area=en#fgo-top

Crazy mad amount of storage. lol

This post has been edited by TristanX: Aug 4 2019, 04:19 PM

But the need to periodically rewrite it to refresh that makes it troublesome.

So far I still can't find a permanent form for backup.


Yup, hdd does not last long. Even have duplicate also I worry it will fail. Maybe not the drive, but some files due to data degradation.

10 3.5" hard drive
maybe you need buy server rack

Wut u guys think of buying refurb desktops to start a NAS? Though I think it needs to be at least half in cost to the most-cheapest buy-new-component DIY plan.

Took a look at shopee but the cheapest and numerous remains BTX-era PCs so have to be careful not end up with those traps.

I regularly update my NAS guide, have a look.
https://forum.lowyat.net/index.php?showtopic=4570708&hl=nas

It's gonna be cheap AND good

For a NAS, even a DDR2-grade socket 775/771 PC works very very well. My repurposed acer with E8400 is still running well for a networked steam drive, with quad nic giving me about 450-480MB/s transfer rate.

I do not get why so much talk about it here for example - I do assume it will be something like for example like suitable case and something more other than that. Care to see that here for many many reasons out there;) I do hope it will get only better for many reasons.

^
What's this joker trying to do? Copy paste someone else reply for his every post.