What to Look for in a NAS?
What to Look for in a NAS?
This week I finished setting up Arch Linux (It felt so good to nuke Windows 11 off my laptop!) and GrapheneOS for my new Pixel phone.
I am interested in getting a NAS for multiple purposes such as accessing files, hosting a small website, and to upload security camera footage to name a few.
Is there a particular brand to buy? I'm basically illiterate when it comes to networks aside from what an IP is and what DNS is. Any suggestions for books and reading material is greatly appreciated. It feels liberating to know more than I did before with tech!
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I'm a proponent of a do it yourself NAS using FreeNAS or Unraid. I had a standalone NAS and got burned by a ransomware attack due to a vulnerability in the software for a feature I had "disabled". There was zero way for me to know it was an issue without checking the vendor's forums and seeing everyone else who had the same issue. Upon looking into it a bit more, it seemed like most standalone commercial NAS companies had been hit at least once.
Doing it myself means that I know how it is setup and can control what has access to the internet. As a benefit, the old computer I used performs way better than the standalone NAS and is way more stable (my old NAS "lost" docker containers multiple times). I can definitely recommend Unraid as being easy to use which has a ton of resources on their website and forums, as well as many videos on Youtube on recommended setups. It was definitely a good learning experience and overall not too difficult to do.
I'm going to look into FreeNAS and Unraid. I have 2 WD 2TB HDDs that are relatively new that I've needed to just pop into the switch connected to my router. The whole networking scene has been a bit overwhelming having had so much of my foundational computer knowledge shifted I haven't gotten around to it yet. I want the router set up in a different room so I can make more stuff with Ethernet possible rather than connecting wirelessly.
How does a docker container get lost? Does it have something to do with the "contiguity" of theway the block devices partition data? Does it get separated from the other blocks physically? Or is it just a software error and I'm over thinking it? Thanks for the advice!
Definitely do your research if you are planning on starting any NAS with 2TB HDDs. For the most part you can only really add drives of the same size to a RAID Array (e.g. with FreeNAS), and with Unraid your parity drive you start with must be the largest disk in the system. So when you run out of space you might end up cursing yourself by not starting with larger drives. I have even regretted only starting with 4TB drives in my NAS.
You are overthinking the docker issue, it was just a software issue and broke the container in a way that I either couldn't, or don't have the skill to recover.
I'll have to get one of those 12 or 14TB harddrives in the future so I can actually have a proper NAS. Is TrueNAS what FreeNAS is now? I see their parent company is iXSystems. I've heard stuff about different file systems like "ZFS" and all these other fancy 3 letter acronyms. The last time I bought software was many years ago, so would you suggest paying for their OS? Thanks for the advice, now I just need to get a better job to actually afford the toys :(