Recommendations for a NAS or opinion on AC68U using USB storage

Sybertiger

Sybertiger

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Jun 30, 2018
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I'd like to have some extra storage available primarily to back up files. A personal cloud NAS or even a USB drive hanging off my ASUS AC68U come to mind. I've heard that the USB drive off the ASUS router works fine but not to be wowed with performance. I don't know enough about that feature to know what the performance implications are when trying to assess it or impact to the network in general. Also, I don't know how efficient it would be with regard to the USB drive spinning all the time (or not). I'm a newb on this topic so I'd like some feedback from those of you who already went down this path. I suspect a personal cloud NAS is probably going to be the most desirable and efficient route to take. With Black Friday and Cyber Monday coming up maybe there's a opportunity to score a decent NAS. I'm not looking for fanciful redundancy that'll cost the big bucks but I envision that maybe I can get a decent and recommended 2-bay system for under $300 given a great Black Friday or Cyber Monday sale.

Anyone have thoughts on this and/or perhaps a recommendation on a NAS I should keep an eye out for that might go on sale the next several days?

Does QNAP or Synology make a product you'd recommend?...maybe some other manufacturer?...maybe you think that hanging a USB drive off the ASUS is the way to go?

I haven't given any thought to using it as a media server. For now, strictly automatic backups would be nice.
 
I have in the past used a 2 TB USB hard drive running off of an Asus router as backup feed for my blue Iris camera. Had 8 cameras writing to it. No problems.
 
I should have specified that I'm not trying to create an IP Camera server using NAS. Just thought I'd ask the general question about NAS like a 2 disk unit. Wonder if folks here prefer Synology or QNAP?
 
there are a lot of reviews of this comparison on youtube. figure out what the critical functions for you and maybe start watching videos of the reviews of them in the price ranges you were thinking of.

my general notes.

qnap is usually less expensive.
qnap usually has newer/more powerful hardware for the same money.
synology usually has cleaner software and more features for them , which only matters if you want those features to be delivered from the NAS vendor.


FWIW, zyxel makes a pretty cheap 2 bay NAS if you need cheap and really, really, basic NAS storage.


if you are trying to do this on the cheap , a single drive / thumb drive via USB off the back of the router might be the cheapest / easiest to test first before getting something else.

QNAP and Syno are both decent at a wide array of things, but not super stars, IMO, at any one thing.



i've got a synology DS916+ (older 4 bay thing).

it's backing up 3 iphones photo albums, 2 macbook pros and 1 macbook air with time machine.
backing up a two linux desktops with some hacky cron jobs I droped in.
some archived stuff that I keep multiple copies of. (think wedding photos)
is a media server for music and video. mostly throughout my home.
runs my vpn (that might change)
has a few cameras pointed at it.
 
Sybertiger said:
I should have specified that I'm not trying to create an IP Camera server using NAS. Just thought I'd ask the general question about NAS like a 2 disk unit. Wonder if folks here prefer Synology or QNAP?
Click to expand...

Hi @Sybertiger

I had a old 4U case around, got a super deal on an older model CPU + MB + RAM + Powersupply. Picked up a drive bay from newegg on a BF deal, got some SATA HDDs on a BF deal - and with freenas on a USB drive to boot - ended up significantly more cost effective compared to many of the NAS boxes. Naturally this works if you like to mess with PC hardware.

The issue I found with many of the affordable NAS boxes is that they have lower power CPUs and limited RAM.
 
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I ended up buying a Synology DS718+ that was $90 off for BF. In the beginning I'm just going use it for data backup. Eventually I'll look into Plex and other features.
 
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