Dude, Follow the happy crowd.

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Added on March 6, 2010, 11:51 am
Custom NAS should be ok if you are not running 7/11. Otherwise consume power alot. Use a low voltage and low speed proccesor.

You can buy a raid card to slot to expand your raid HDD. I ve a raid card which can raid 4pcs HDD. Using it 9yrs already and still good now.

I m not sure what is the price now. Last time I brought cost me rm200. The famous raid card is rocket raid brand I guess.

Look for old low speed proccessor should be ok too. Cheaper ma. NAS no need high speed proccessor. 90% is sleeping. Unless you use it as pc too.

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Added on March 6, 2010, 12:39 pm
Yes. it consume more. That is why if you run 24hr, not practical. The 4bay synology NAS is just use 56watt when full load. Compare pc NAS power supply 250watt.

Synology quite pricey for me, is there any low-cost NAS?

If buy used 1 ,maybe below RM 500

if u use custom NAS for everyday , the electric bill sure more than RM 50

Electric bill won't cost that much. Max running only rm40/mth. But add up a yrs will cost rm480. Use this rm480 add up can buy a 2bay synology NAS. 

My calculation is base on running max 250w/hr. Which will come to 6kw/day and 180kw/mth. From TNB tariff, that will cost rm40/mth max. Of course your custom NAS won't run max whole day. Depend your software setup and hardware qty.

And do remember TNB tariff discount is for first 200kw. Your home consume more than that.

Last time, I use laptop to dl torrent 24/hr whole yrs. It consume less power which max only 90w. (base on the adaptor spec). Cheaper alot compare pc.

After u use the SSD , then u can buy a good NAS

qnap and synology should be good enough. Get the 2bay type for backup. Easy to use and can access anytime, anywhere and any OS.

My office and spore branch use synology. Have been using 3yrs now.

get DNS 320 its newer and cheaper ~RM260 vs RM300+ for the 323

Actually, the Black was never marketed for NAS. I think you mistook the Black with the RE4 which is for NAS (like the WD Red).
Thanks for the heads up. Especially useful for people for pop in and who are not aware of the prices and what is the latest available from Synology. If one is prepared to pay the price of the DS412+, might as well go for the 5 bay 1512+ for a little more.

Anyway for people who are budget conscious and using simple file storage and DLNA sharing, the Synology does not make sense. As a comparison, you can get similar performance from the N36L Microserver with 2GB memory and equip it with 5 x 3TB drives in RAID 5 under WHS 2011 and you would arrive at the cost of a bare 5 bay 1512+ with zero drives.

Yeah, one can argue that the 1512+ has USB 3 and dual Gigabit ports. But with not so much money, you can equip the Microserver with a PCIe USB 3 card and a PCIe dual port network card in the x1 and the x16 available slot.
Depends on the capacity of the drives you select but RM 1k for a 4 to 6 disc setup is not possible I think. Taking the cheapest 1TB drives and you are already close to RM 1k.

If you're just looking for the enclosure alone, the HP N36L (not the newer N40L) is going for RM 699 brand new and it can be made to fit 5x 3.5" drives excluding the 160GB OS hardisk even though it's meant to officially fit 4 drives. You need to flash a modified BIOS and use a eSATA to SATA cable to re-use your external eSATA port though.

thanks for the information...now i have some question regarding NAS basic thing i guess..

first of all i wanted to ask...if lets say all my movies are stored in this NAS and connected to my router....if my samsung tv from my living room is connected to my router as well...will my tv be able to access those video from the NAS? and another question in this same topic...lets say if my tv can access them...will it be able to play all kinds of video files like rmvb etc? i believe that my samsung lcd does not support much codec for movie...is it those codec processing happens in the NAS itself?

as for the OS...i think it will be able to install windows 7? since it acts like a small pc?

Planning to get a decent NAS....any recommendation? Below RM500...

I had used before the Synology (2 Bay), both the normal and junior ones.... they are really good... but I don't have a budget for that....

My question is, what would be the "Most Value for Money NAS 2 Bay" under RM500....

I was considering the Buffalo Linkstation Duo Pro or the Dlink 320?

I am using Buffalo Pro Duo for almost 2 years, bought at 400++.
Performance wise is ok, transfer rate at 30Mb++ with Gigabit switch.
Can support Apple device and can remote access from internet.

My bro bought Dlink 320 on last year ~ 300. (Can get less than 300 on PCFair)
He regret of getting it, performance is slower than Buffalo.
User Interface is very simple but not much feature compare to Buffalo.
And worse is he notice Dlink 320 doesn't support his 3TB HDD.

For me, I am happy with my Buffalo Pro Duo.
The decision is up to you.