NAS Advice

[touffster]

Hi guys,

I'm currently in the market for a new 2bay NAS appliance, something not too expensive either...
I currently have the readynas duo, which is a SPARC based processor with a 266Mhz (yes 266) clock speed and 256Mb of RAM, which SAB+SB are doing a good job of crippling, its only pulling 600kb down vs my desktop which is getting 3,200kb.

I'm currently trying to decide between:
* Readynas Ultra 2 - http://www.netgear.com/home/products/st ... U2000.aspx
* Synology DS212+ - http://www.synology.com/products/spec.p ... #p_submenu

Now, both seem very quiet (noise is a deal-breaker here) and both seem to be able to run SAB + SB + CP.
The readynas has an Intel Atom processor at 1.8Ghz VS the 2Ghz ARM on the Synology.

Has anyone owned these? Could anyone offer some advice?
Many thanks!

[shypike]

It should be possible on either, but SABnzbd will still present a significant load.
CPU and memory are sufficient as such.
That's the main issue, the risk of this load interfering with normal operations.
Also NetGear warns about messing with system libraries, so installing Python
is a bit tricky. There is someone selling a Python and SABnzbd/Sickbeard combo NetGear package.

[touffster]

Hey Shypike, thanks for your answer. I'm aware of the combo package for the readynas, I'm using it at the moment and it's actually very good.
I'm just trying to figure out which one would be best and why?
A 16-bit, 2Ghz ARM processor with 512mb of RAM?
Or,
A 64-bit, 1.8Ghz Intel Atom processor with 1Gb of RAM?

[shypike]

16 bit ARM? Are you sure?
Since SABnzbd is a bit memory hungry, 1G is good to have.
Other than that, I don't know how much spare performance either device has.

[touffster]

That's the ARM one:
http://www.marvell.com/embedded-process ... 2-3_pb.pdf

Am I just better off trying to build my own?

[shypike]

That's not the type of advice I can give, depends on your skills.
I have a NetGear server, but I chose not to run SABnzbd (or anything else) on it,
because I wanted a NAS that just worked and remains rock-solid.

[browngeek]

Hi

I am in exactly the same pickle as you. I don't have time to build a nas or server, so am looking to buy one.

I'm debating with exactly the same two NAS boxes as you (except I'm looking at the ReadyNAS Ultra 2 Plus which is dual core, rather than the Ultra 2 which is single core).

Both seem very good, and both are able to load Sab, SB, CB, etc on them. I know someone who is running a Synology DS211 without too much problem with this set up, so I suspect the DS212+ would not have a problem handling this as well.

From speaking to people and asking people, Synology gets lots of love for their support, their UI and ease of use. I haven't heard too much love for the ReadyNAS (but I also haven't heard much hate either).

One thing that does slightly swing it to the ReadyNAS for me is that you can run Plex Media Server off it, not so much for transcoding, but would work well when hooking it up to an gigabit lan and an HTPC.

[touffster]

BrownGeek,

I ended up going with the ReadyNas Ultra 2 Plus - I love it.
I've got SAB+SickBeard+CouchPotato running on it perfectly (and fast!) with MySQL on top serving all of my XBMC setups with 4TB RAID 1 on a gigabit switch.

To be honest, it's cheaper than any similar Synology, easier, less bloated, quieter and I didn't want/need the fancy GUI.
I highly recommend it!

[crisoli88]

BrownGeek, it's cheaper than any similar Synology, easier, less bloated, quieter and I didn't want/need the fancy GUI.
I highly recommend it!

i agree...