Cloud Computing NAS drives- have they come on any?

trevortron

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A few years ago I got a 1TB NAS drive (Iomega) and it worked fine- plugged into a spare port on my router, I could (usually) access it from any device on the network.
What did niggle me a bit was that the (Seagate) hard drive was spinning away 24/7, and I felt the drive would eventually pack up irrespective of whether it was actually being "used". And it did!
It still comes to life sometimes and I have managed to copy most of its contents to a portable drive.
I want to replace it, probably with a bigger one. I did notice that said portable hard drive spins down when it's idle, does anyone know of a NAS drive that does the same, perhaps a 'Wake On LAN' function?

TIA.
 
Lots of people recommend WD Red drives as they are built for NAS. Maybe worth looking at those.
 
I thought red drives were meant to be used and excel in RAID applications (hence the NAS) .

Most hard drives will sit in a low power state and only spin up when accessed. Not sure how long ago you got the seagate one, but the functioning doesn't sound too proper. The good news is that drives have become dirt cheap. You can get a good 2tb drive for around 60 USD.
 
I thought red drives were meant to be used and excel in RAID applications (hence the NAS) .

Most hard drives will sit in a low power state and only spin up when accessed. Not sure how long ago you got the seagate one, but the functioning doesn't sound too proper. The good news is that drives have become dirt cheap. You can get a good 2tb drive for around 60 USD.

I think the thing is about 5 years old. Not that it's been in continuous use all that time. I've never seen a 2TB drive that cheap, not here anyway, and as the old adage goes, you get what you pay for. Often the value of the data is many fold the cost of the drive. Not in my case, it's simply a consolidation of all the MP3's I've downloaded over the past 10 years or so, it would be a shame to lose it all.
It is still copying at a snail's pace. Frequent re-booting seems to help it along its way. Immediately after a re-boot, it reached the heady speed of 6MB/second. By the morning it's less than 1, or even stopped altogether. I have left it out of its case, sitting on a large server cooling fan so I don't think it is a thermal issue. It's not noisy either.
 
The nas might still be good. It would be worth updating the firmware on it. I have seen hacked firmware for some nas drives about which may help. As you already seem to have found a descent hdd is a must. And again as has been said they aren't that dear these days. Some are designed for nas purposes specifically . Happy storing
 
Quick update. I ended up with one of these: TS-212-E :: QNAP
a QNAPS TS212 (empty) NAS, new for £75 off fleabay. I had a dig through my bits drawer & dug out a virtually unused 3TB WD 'Green' drive.
It's not without is faults but pretty much does everything I want of it. Very user-friendly UI (if a bit slow at times) and the ability to add some useful apps for downloading, torrenting etc. etc.
It also has power management, it can be scheduled to turn off & on at set times (it'll wait if it's busy) and it also lets the disk(s) spin down when no data are being transferred.
I will probably get a WD 'Red' for the other bay in due course, thanks all for the advice. :)
 
Quick update. I ended up with one of these: TS-212-E :: QNAP
a QNAPS TS212 (empty) NAS, new for £75 off fleabay. I had a dig through my bits drawer & dug out a virtually unused 3TB WD 'Green' drive.
It's not without is faults but pretty much does everything I want of it. Very user-friendly UI (if a bit slow at times) and the ability to add some useful apps for downloading, torrenting etc. etc.
It also has power management, it can be scheduled to turn off & on at set times (it'll wait if it's busy) and it also lets the disk(s) spin down when no data are being transferred.
I will probably get a WD 'Red' for the other bay in due course, thanks all for the advice. :)

Sorry, bit late to the game here.

Word of warning, QNAP went through a whole load of problems with 'green' drives, they removed and added them back and forth for a number of years on their compatibility list (lots of different models, but more specifically Seagate which I had originally in my TS-569). I won't use green ever again as they don't handle power management very well. WD Red all the way.
 
Sorry, bit late to the game here.

Word of warning, QNAP went through a whole load of problems with 'green' drives, they removed and added them back and forth for a number of years on their compatibility list (lots of different models, but more specifically Seagate which I had originally in my TS-569). I won't use green ever again as they don't handle power management very well. WD Red all the way.

WD Green were discontinued and merged into the Blue range :). The drive problem was probably something to do with the drive firmware spinning the drive down without the NAS knowing about it.
 
Are you just using the single drive?

In an actual NAS there is usually an option that you can check off to spin down the drives when not in use. If you're just using a single NAS drive in an enclosure, then most likely you won't have that option.

You could of course purchase the enterprise level drives that Seagate or WD sells. They tend to last much longer and are designed to be spinning 24/7.
 
I built a raid nas around 2 months back for someone.

I got a hp microsever with cash back.
And 4 x 3TB red drives in raid (soft raid)
installed FreeNas on a USB drive and its running perfect. No problems and freenas has a built in plex server!

I have a synology nas to install tomorrow for someone, it was £75 on Amazon. And a 3TB hard drive as also 75 I think?

But cannot comment on it yet...
 
I bought a buffalo 3tb nas box and with a little customisation it is perfect for what I need it for.

It has the transmission torrent client built in and with a little tweaking it is set up with a login to stop anybody else accessing it.
I have paired the torrent client on mine with transdroid on my android phone and can manage my downloads while out and about.

Also my nas is paired up with my stb to manage recordings when my usb stick gets full.

Pretty sure it has a WOL feature too. I will try to find out later in the settings. The model is Buffalo LS210D
 
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