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new to NAS looking at 214 and need to know what drives are best to use
I looking to buy a RN214 NAS that does not come with drives and I would like some advice on what brand and type of drives to put into it. I will be running 2 Mac's that also run Parallels 12 on them with Windows 10 pro along with MacOS images. Also I have another desktop running Win 10 Pro. My iMac is also a server running a website. I will need to use it for backups, cloud services, access to dropbox, I also run multiple iPad's iphones and multimedia devices including a apple tv, and fire-tv and roku etc.
Also I like to know what Raid would be best to use
Thanks
Rich
I've had really good luck with the WD Red Drives. I'm using 4 of the 3TB versions of them currantly, the oldest over 4 years old now and still slowing zero errors. The slower drives are more then fast enough, especally for the 214. Your limitation is your network speed and not the drives themsevles. The slower drives will not only run cooler, but will be quiter. In general there's only the single fan in the back cooling everything. I think Less heat = longer laster HDD. You do wany to use a NAS HDD, not just throw any old thing in.
I would get the LARGEST HDD you can afford. I would go 2 4TB HDD over 4 2TB HDD. Just for the simple fact that you can never have enough space. You think 8TB is more then you ever need and then you about MAX is out and think, darn should have got a larger HDD. Why be stuck at 8 when you can go to 16TB!!!
I upgraded my NAS from a 4 bay Home unit to a 6 bay ReadyNAS 516. I currantly have the 4 WD 3TB Red drives in it that I moved from my old NAS having to reformat them for the new NAS, plus a new 3TB Seagate NAS drive I'm giving a try with plus a spare I can pop in at any time. Those 5 3TB drives give me a total space of 10.9TB in a XRAID5 format. I'm down to 1.3TB now, but I have space for that 6th drive. After that I can expand to larger HDD. Start popping in 6 or 8TB sized HDD and grow that way. But to make use of that extra space I would need to add 2 larger drives. Not at once of course, but pull one, let the system rebuild onto the new larger HDD and when done, rebuild onto the 2nd larger HDD, at which point I belieave it would expand to add the extra space of those drives. I'm not 100% sure as I've never done that. I think that's what happens with XRAID. I beleave you can expand UP, but not down.
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just check hard drives compatibility list
for me i go for performance and reliability so wd re is my priority
for cheap i go with toshiba mg04 series
WD Red Pro is another option with enterprise specs.
I like WD Red myself. Though they don't have enterprise specs I have found them reliable and they run cool.
I've had really good luck with the WD Red Drives. I'm using 4 of the 3TB versions of them currantly, the oldest over 4 years old now and still slowing zero errors. The slower drives are more then fast enough, especally for the 214. Your limitation is your network speed and not the drives themsevles. The slower drives will not only run cooler, but will be quiter. In general there's only the single fan in the back cooling everything. I think Less heat = longer laster HDD. You do wany to use a NAS HDD, not just throw any old thing in.
I would get the LARGEST HDD you can afford. I would go 2 4TB HDD over 4 2TB HDD. Just for the simple fact that you can never have enough space. You think 8TB is more then you ever need and then you about MAX is out and think, darn should have got a larger HDD. Why be stuck at 8 when you can go to 16TB!!!
I upgraded my NAS from a 4 bay Home unit to a 6 bay ReadyNAS 516. I currantly have the 4 WD 3TB Red drives in it that I moved from my old NAS having to reformat them for the new NAS, plus a new 3TB Seagate NAS drive I'm giving a try with plus a spare I can pop in at any time. Those 5 3TB drives give me a total space of 10.9TB in a XRAID5 format. I'm down to 1.3TB now, but I have space for that 6th drive. After that I can expand to larger HDD. Start popping in 6 or 8TB sized HDD and grow that way. But to make use of that extra space I would need to add 2 larger drives. Not at once of course, but pull one, let the system rebuild onto the new larger HDD and when done, rebuild onto the 2nd larger HDD, at which point I belieave it would expand to add the extra space of those drives. I'm not 100% sure as I've never done that. I think that's what happens with XRAID. I beleave you can expand UP, but not down.
JBDragon1 wrote:
I would get the LARGEST HDD you can afford. I would go 2 4TB HDD over 4 2TB HDD. Just for the simple fact that you can never have enough space. You think 8TB is more then you ever need and then you about MAX is out and think, darn should have got a larger HDD. Why be stuck at 8 when you can go to 16TB!!!
Most new users do underestimate the space they'll want.
3 TB and 4 TB drives are the most cost-effective at the moment (in the case of WDC Red's they cost about $35/TB). Other sizes (larger and smaller) cost more per TB. So I also don't recommend 4x2TB.
Since I didn't know the space needed, I guessed 6 TB was the minimum, and suggested 3x4TB because that gives 8. Starting with 8 TB, with easy expansion to 12 TB seems reasonable.
If you have a lot of video you could also start with 2x6TB. That would be the same total price as 3x4TB. You'd only get 6 TB initially, but you'd have 2 empty slots for future expansion. That's convenient because you install a larger drive pair later if you want (for example 2x6TB+2x8TB, giving you 20TB of storage).
Makes sense and is why I've been going with 3TB WD Red drives myself. Having the 516, I have room for 6 drives, which makes things nice. I have 5 slots filled and a new HDD still sitting it it's box ready to install when I need it. No need to put wear and tear on it until I'm close enough to need the space. I hope when the time comes that I need more room, I can expand by installing 6TB HDD's and the prices will have dropped to where the 3TB prices are now as the 8TB and larger drives start to comeout. It just takes time. I still remember paying over $500 for my first HDD, which was a 40 Meg SCSI drive and that was a deal at the time, used on my Amiga computer. Now we're past Meg's, and Gig's and into Terabytes. It's simply amazing.
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