Hey folks
I am thinking about getting a NAS for home use and would love some feedback.
I read a lot in the past couple of days, but I haven't done anything IT related in 10 years. If I'm stupid, let me know please.
The NAS will be used for data storage mostly and as a media server sometimes.
I might run a tool for download automatization (JDownloader), but this is not essential.
I'm considering buying a "Thecus N5810" NAS with 5 bays, mainly because I can get a slightly used one for a very affordable price.
I want to get 3 NAS certified 10TB HDDS for now (from different manufakturers), as 20TB additional storage will suffice me for at least 6-8 months and because I'm somewhat aiming for a decent cost /performance ratio. I'm not a professional user.
I want to set up my raid 5 with 3x 10TB HDDs --> 2x data, 1x redundancy --> 20TB capacity.
I use a combination of real time backup on one external HDD and manual backup on another HDD for backups of my essential/ non replaceable data.
The real time HDD is connected to my PC, but will move to the NAS asap if its backup functionality is satisfactory.
Most of the other data that will be stored on that NAS is replaceable. I still want to have it relatively safe, as replacing it would take years.
Q1: can I expand this raid later on? 2x data, 1x redundancy + 2x additional data --> 40TB capacity?
Q2: can I do it with the Thecus machine? i never even heard about this company before.
Q3: is this relatively safe or do i have to do backups of literally everything before i try it?
Q4: am I better off setting up with 5 HDDs and having a stable system, even though i won't need them until much later and might even loose one before I need it?
Q5: That Thecus NAS is probably not fast enough on it's own to be a media player for high resolution videos (8GB RAM, but slow CPU).
But is it fast enough as a network device to feed a dedicated multimedia device or is there a bottleneck somewhere?
Q6: Any recommendations for such a device? Youtube, Netflix and Media center functionality are essential, a browser with AdBlock would be nice.
I'm thinking HT-PC, NVidia Shield or a last generation gaming console, but have never used one of them before.
Q7: Any opinions on the Thecus NAS itself? I could buy one from Synology instead, but it'd cost me a couple hundred Euros more.
HDD - USB --> NAS - RJ45 --> Router/ Switch:
- RJ45 --> PCs
- RJ45 --> multimedia device --> audio/ video output
- WLAN --> Laptop <-- manual backup HDD
Thank you for your time.
(Sorry for the wall of text
)
Happy new year!
This post was edited by Magc on Jan 1 2021 11:04pm