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NAS-Information

A curated list about NAS hardware and software, tips and tricks. This list published using the MIT license.

NAS manufacturer

These are manufacturers of NAS systems and they offer their devices with their own OS installed.

1)The fantec NAS CL-35B2 is outdated

Tune a commercial NAS

There are some tricks available to tune a commercial NAS.

1) Most of the TerraMaster NAS systems use an USB stick with the OS installed. It seems to be easy to install any kind of OS you want. Maybe the Proxmox Virtual Environment is working?

2) It seems that at least the 4 bay model is using an internal SSD for the OS. It seems to be easy to install any kind of OS you want. Maybe the Proxmox Virtual Environment is working?

DIY NAS hardware builds

In case you want to build your own NAS, you can find several instructions:

DIY NAS operating systems

For a DIY NAS you need an OS. Here are some potential ones:

1) The OS does not support RAID, more a Docker OS, the Merge Storage option (Beta) seems to bundle the disks like JBOD.

2) The code is NOT on GitHub but on their own server

3) The OS does not support RAID, more a Docker OS.

4) The former FreeNAS project is also the root of TrueNAS Core of the copmany iXsystems.

DIY NAS hardware

Promising NAS hardware will be listet here:

DIY NAS software

The basic job of a NAS is to provide storage over the network. But nowadays a NAS is more like a home server and offers countless opportunities for

So most of this software is avaliable for Docker. There is native support for Docker available at least in OMV, TrueNAS Core and TrueNAS Scale.

But there are also OS which forces the usage of Docker with less the focus on classical NAS features like CasaOS, cosmos-cloud or umbrelOS.

External cases

Maybe you want to use a PC in front of the storage. In this case you may regard an external RAID case supporting USB or thunderbolt.

Disk drive informations

Configurations

These section will describe possible configurations which are common used.

NAS with one disk drive

A NAS with one disk drive (named 1-bay) offers storage in the network. There is no security mechanism against hardware failures. In case the disk drive gets somehow broken, all data is lost.

NAS with two disk drives

A NAS with two disk drives (named 2-bay) offers at least three variants of storage. There are

  • JBOD - all disks drives are logically grouped and seems to be like one drive. The disks may have different sizes. The available storage size is the sum of both disk drives. To loose data is very high if a disk drive somehow gets broken.
  • RAID 0 (striping) - all disk drives are logically grouped and seems to be like one drive. The disk drives must have the same size. The available storage size is the sum of both disk drives. If one disk drives gets somehow broken, all data is lost.
  • RAID 1 (mirroring) - all disk drives are logically grouped and seems to be like one drive. The disk drives must have the same size. The available storage size is the size of one disk drive. If one of the disk drives gets somehow broken, the data is still available from the other disk.

NAS with four disk drives

A NAS with four disks (named 4-bay) offers various configuration options. There are

  • JBOD - see description above
  • RAID 0 - see description above
  • RAID 1 - see description above
  • RAID 5 (distributed parity) - all disk drives are logically grouped and seems to be like one drive. The disks must have the same size. The available storage size is the sum of three disk drives. If one of the disk drives gets somehow broken, the data is still available from the other disk drives.
  • RAID 6 - all disk drives are logically grouped and seems to be like one drive. The disks must have the same size. The available storage size is the sum of two disk drives. If one or two of the disk drives gets somehow broken, the data is still available from the other disk drives.

NAS with more than four disk drives

For NAS systems with more than four disk drives there are all listed configurations possible and even combinations of RAID levels of them. This is more related to professional usage and not relevant for private use.

Szenarios

Distributed NAS system

A distributed NAS system - WTF? This needs explanation. Most users misunderstand a NAS system as kind of backup system. But this is wrong. A NAS provides some kind of snapshot of data. A backup offers access to data missing in the snapshot. And for security reasons, the backup should be located on a different location than the snapshot data. In concrete this means that the NAS is at my home for example and the backup at my parents home.

The app Syncthing is important for the distributed NAS. Assume that you have two parties, and each of them will have private data in size of aproximately 1 TB. So let's have two NAS systems, one bay with a disk size of 4 TB. One moment - one bay NAS? What about if the disk drive gets somehow broken? The data is almost save!

First of all install Syncthing on the local PC and on the NAS. Then establish a two way synchronization between the PC and the NAS. This has to be done for both parties.

In a second step establish also an additional two way synchronization between the two NAS systems. This time ensure that in the section File Versioning you choose the right versioning system for your demands. For example a staggered file versioning is much better than simple file versioning. Why? Assume you get files containing a timestamp. While using the staggered file versioning somewhere old versions will be deleted. The same scenario using the simple file versioning will never delete any old version and will bloat the storage size used by Syncthing.

As summary you have

  • Your data on your NAS
  • Have a backup of your data
    • On your NAS
    • On the second parties NAS

Et voilá - this ia a distributed NAS. See the image for more details. To sync a folder means that the folder is shared between the clients.

Let's define the term NODE as for a local NAS with a Syncthing installation.

Distributed NAS

Sample config

In case you own a Synology NAS using the DSM 7.x, follow the described steps to turn it into a NODE:

  • Install the Container Manager package to run the Docker version of Synology Inc..
  • Important hint: The package Web Station is not used for a NODE.
  • Create a shared folder, e. g. syncthing, to store the data.
  • Create a folder data in this share.
  • Connect via SSH and set permission of the folder /volume1 to 777 and to the created share /volume1/syncthing to 777. If not, Syncthing will be unable write to the share.
  • In Container Manager create a project, e. g. syncthing, upload the compose file and SKIP the support in Web Station.
  • The UI will be available by this URL: http://<IP-OF-YOUR-NAS>:8384

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A curated list about NAS hardware and software.

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storage qnap synology buffalo omv nas wd truenas openmediavault truenas-core truenas-scale pibox terramaster thecus

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