2 ms·

I would never run a self-hosted nas when a synology/qnap are available as a dedicated appliance for around the same price. The hardware is much more purpose eq

by j45 3y ago

I would never run a self-hosted nas when a synology/qnap are available as a dedicated appliance for around the same price. The hardware is much more purpose equipped to store files long term and not the 2-3 years between consumer SSDs' It's not to say self-hosting storage can't or shouldn't be done, its just about how many recoveries and transitions have you been through, because it's not an if, but a when.

justinsaccount 3y ago
> The hardware is much more purpose equipped to store files long term What hardware would that be, specifically? The low end embedded platforms that don't even support ECC? > how many recoveries and transitions have you been through 3 or 4, at this point, using the same 2 disk zfs mirror upgraded from 1TB to 3TB to 10TB.
- j45 3y ago
  Qnap and synology among other have plenty of reasonably priced ecc enabled equipment. I’m not sure where low end comes from, most people start with a Pi, old computer or something, and grow from there. Storage like a home appliance is a good thing.
dbeley 3y ago
The hardware is basically the same as self-hosted NAS, the motherboard could even be of a lower quality. The software though is closed source and most consumer NAS only get support for 4-5 years which is outrageous.
- dannyw 3y ago
  You're not buying from the right brand. Synology supports their hardware for about 10 years since release. They are the "Apple"-like of NAS.
  - j45 3y ago
    I think the average # of years between buying a NAS could easily be 5-10 years.
Jedd 3y ago
I bought a QNAP about a decade ago under the same assumption, but my experiences [0] there means I'm unlikely to buy a SOHO-level storage appliance ever again. The tl;dr of my rant was around shortcomings in NFS permission configuration, and a failure of the iSCSI feature (the appliance crashed when you sent it data). Further, these appliances invariably use vanilla RAM sticks, so you're exposed to gentle memory-based file corruption you probably won't notice for years. So I'd argue the hardware is 'better equipped', and I'd also argue the software as shipped matches the marketing promises accompanying same. Things have doubtless changed - I'm sure those bugs are long gone now - but unless you're looking at an ECC appliance, I'd say you're better off building your own white box. [0] https://jeddi.org/b/brief-rant-on-trying-to-use-iscsi-on-a-qnap-569l.html https://jeddi.org/b/brief-rant-on-trying-to-use-iscsi-on-a-q...
- justsomehnguy 3y ago
  > but unless you're looking at an ECC appliance, I'd say you're better off building your own white box. Synology actually allows ECC DRAM and even sells it and list which models would accept them. But yeah, at the price of a full featured model with an x86 CPU and SO/DIMM RAM and 4+ drives you are in the territory of building your own, with a lot more of control and without DSM (in Synology case) shenanigans. EDIT: actually the biggest problem here is actually finding a good case, because even ATX cases now usually don't have more than 2-3 3.5" bays by default and often don't have 5.25" at all. https://www.synology.com/en-us/products/DDR4 https://www.synology.com/en-us/products/DDR4
- j45 3y ago
  A decade ago might as well have been 40 years ago. Both Qnap and synology wt the least offer ECC capable nas. So much so they are getting better established in the smb and enterprise space. It’s a good thing you’ve pointed out to include ECC in your appliance search. My preference and statement for storage as appliance includes experience of building my own boxes and working with servers in my own rack in a data centre for over a decade, out of my pocket. The cloud is someone else’s computer, but I want my own storage and cloud and something easily recommendable to others when it comes up, even when they aren’t techies. Besides, if we’re going that back in time we could just run a scsi raid array with a fibre channel connected to a power hungry server :)

by j45 3y ago

justinsaccount 3y ago

> The hardware is much more purpose equipped to store files long term What hardware would that be, specifically? The low end embedded platforms that don't even support ECC? > how many recoveries and transitions have you been through 3 or 4, at this point, using the same 2 disk zfs mirror upgraded from 1TB to 3TB to 10TB.

j45 3y ago
Qnap and synology among other have plenty of reasonably priced ecc enabled equipment. I’m not sure where low end comes from, most people start with a Pi, old computer or something, and grow from there. Storage like a home appliance is a good thing.

dbeley 3y ago

The hardware is basically the same as self-hosted NAS, the motherboard could even be of a lower quality. The software though is closed source and most consumer NAS only get support for 4-5 years which is outrageous.

dannyw 3y ago
You're not buying from the right brand. Synology supports their hardware for about 10 years since release. They are the "Apple"-like of NAS.
- j45 3y ago
  I think the average # of years between buying a NAS could easily be 5-10 years.

Jedd 3y ago

I bought a QNAP about a decade ago under the same assumption, but my experiences [0] there means I'm unlikely to buy a SOHO-level storage appliance ever again. The tl;dr of my rant was around shortcomings in NFS permission configuration, and a failure of the iSCSI feature (the appliance crashed when you sent it data). Further, these appliances invariably use vanilla RAM sticks, so you're exposed to gentle memory-based file corruption you probably won't notice for years. So I'd argue the hardware is 'better equipped', and I'd also argue the software as shipped matches the marketing promises accompanying same. Things have doubtless changed - I'm sure those bugs are long gone now - but unless you're looking at an ECC appliance, I'd say you're better off building your own white box. [0] https://jeddi.org/b/brief-rant-on-trying-to-use-iscsi-on-a-qnap-569l.html https://jeddi.org/b/brief-rant-on-trying-to-use-iscsi-on-a-q...

justsomehnguy 3y ago
> but unless you're looking at an ECC appliance, I'd say you're better off building your own white box. Synology actually allows ECC DRAM and even sells it and list which models would accept them. But yeah, at the price of a full featured model with an x86 CPU and SO/DIMM RAM and 4+ drives you are in the territory of building your own, with a lot more of control and without DSM (in Synology case) shenanigans. EDIT: actually the biggest problem here is actually finding a good case, because even ATX cases now usually don't have more than 2-3 3.5" bays by default and often don't have 5.25" at all. https://www.synology.com/en-us/products/DDR4 https://www.synology.com/en-us/products/DDR4
j45 3y ago
A decade ago might as well have been 40 years ago. Both Qnap and synology wt the least offer ECC capable nas. So much so they are getting better established in the smb and enterprise space. It’s a good thing you’ve pointed out to include ECC in your appliance search. My preference and statement for storage as appliance includes experience of building my own boxes and working with servers in my own rack in a data centre for over a decade, out of my pocket. The cloud is someone else’s computer, but I want my own storage and cloud and something easily recommendable to others when it comes up, even when they aren’t techies. Besides, if we’re going that back in time we could just run a scsi raid array with a fibre channel connected to a power hungry server :)