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Ask Slashdot: Stepping Down From an Office Server To NAS-Only?
First time accepted submitter rawket.scientist writes "I'm a full time lawyer and part time nerd doing most of the IT support for my small (~10 person) firm. We make heavy use of our old Windows Server 2003 machine for networked storage, and we use it as a DNS server (by choice, not necessity), but we don't use it for our e-mail, web hosting, productivity or software licensing. No Sharepoint, no Exchange, etc. Now old faithful is giving signs of giving out, and I'm seriously considering replacing it with a NAS device like the Synology DS1512+ or Dell PowerVault NX200. Am I penny-wise but pound foolish here? And is it overambitious for someone who's only dabbled in networking 101 to think of setting up a satisfactory, secure VPN or FTP server on one of these? We've had outside consultants and support in the past, but I always get the first 'Why is it doing this?' call, and I like to have the answer, especially if I was the one who recommended the hardware."
I highly recommend nas4free. Easy setup all around including windows shares. Plus zfs is a big plus and high on the geek scale
I just did the same for a client who had downsized. We moved from a rackmount Xserve and RAID solution down to a Mac mini server (for DNS and few other tasks) and a Synology NAS. It was my first Synology, but I was very pleased. It was fairly easy to configure, and has been trouble free so far. It offers excellent outside access via web interface, and has a built in SSL VPN. The largest issue I had with it was configuring a rotating backup. I ended up using the Mac mini for the backup. The client's been very pleased with the solution, which sits on a desk. The server room has been cleared out.
I recently installed a small DS212+ for a small office of 5 using around 1tb of data. The NAS was chosen as a low cost option but after running it for a few weeks it's actually better than a windows box for this use case, mostly because of its excellent software and ease of use. It has a built in VPN server and access to a host of 3rd party apps. Highly recommended.
If you just want networked storage, anything will do. Don't forget backups (several of those, some offline, some in a safe place), access control, intrusion detection... Probably get RAID too (RAID is *NOT* a backup) for higher availability and uptime.
You mention stuff your server doesn't do. Does it mean you'd like to do it ? Are you doing it another way ?
If you work in a law office (you said you're a lawyer, not that you're in a law office ?) are there specific legal requirements regarding auditing, security, confidentiality ... ?
Are you OK with people making backups of files and leaving with them when they are fired or resign ? ...
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
Do you have an Active Directory domain? Domain users and groups are much easier to manage for file access than a bunch of local accounts. I'd keep using a full server just for that, but that depends on your security model.
Since you want to be the IT admin guy off the side of your desk, the short answer is - can you manage it on a NAS? If not then stick with what you know and focus on your day job - the first time you have to spend 2 days fixing or configuring something that's new you'll have blown any cost savings from getting a server anyway. I run what you're describing, though I let the router handle VPN access. If you stick with Windows Server, everything you want to try and do will have a solution you can find in 2 mins on Google, if you go onto a proprietary NAS you will end up working around a lot of things to get them how you need them - Offline files for your users will be a little bit cranky, how you do backups will be limited to the NAS' interface, if you want your security settings 'just-so' (presumably important in your industry) you'll need to make sure the NAS software can cope with that.
Unfortunately, you are not familiar with technical ineptitude of the laws of the US. There is a quite a debate within legal communities regarding whether storing data in the cloud (encrypted or not) breaks lawyer client confidentiality.
After how they massively shafted their entire customerbase (including me) with the NMP-1000 and NMP-1000P mediatanks, I will never buy a QNAP product again.
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Don't know about client-attorney privilege, but anything medical is a HIPAA no-no. We actually used a "cloud" vendor who we caught using our info for their marketing purposes. We called them on the carpet about it, but they denied all such use, and they had the balls to threaten us with slander lawsuits. The doctors decided that they couldn't afford to make a big stink about it, but we immediately stopped using them.
My conclusion: NAS devices are for non-technical home users who want to plug in and go. If you're running a real business with serious requirements, and you have moderate Linux skills and/or a modest budget to bring in someone who does when you need them, then buy a real server with a specification suitable for your requirements. There is absolutely no advantage to buying a NAS for someone in that position, IME.
Depends on the NAS device. I work for a UK clearing bank and we have customer and financial data on a SAN but there are terabytes of documents in various forms on NAS devices.
Sure, these aren't your £240 WD Live Book Duo (which I use at home, can install my own software on, and am delighted with) but don't be dissing off the shelf NAS solutions. Just buy one that meets your needs.
you can't easily install other server software (e-mail, calendars, DHCP, RADIUS, whatever) unless whoever supplied your NAS happens to make some sort of plug-in available for their particular style of firmware
Oh, my misunderstanding. I thought that when you said "running a real business" you actually meant a real business. Who the fuck installs email, calendaring or DHCP servers on their NAS device?
Your experience with the QNAP NAS sounds pretty crappy.
I have installed Synology NAS DS212s in a couple of my retail locations to replace servers (that were really only used for hosting shared folders...) and found them to be inexpensive, fast, quiet, reliable, simple to configure and maintain, small footprint, and extremely energy efficient.
The Synology NAS is currently configured for:
(users are on Macs, Windows, and Linux desktops)
(HR and Payroll desktops are backed up once daily, point-of-sale is backed up hourly using a plugin that allows a snapshot backup of the databases without interrupting it's near constant use)
(the host system then backs this data up as part of it's own backup scheme)
The Synology NAS boxes are running a fairly standard Linux with a custom GUI overlay. They maintain their own packages for various applications, but you can log in to a shell and install/configure as you wish.
YMMV
"You want to know how to help your kids? Leave them the fuck alone." -George Carlin
Link to the official QNAP forum: http://forum.qnap.com/viewforum.php?f=176
Many open bugs in core features, no support.
Here's a short list of NMP-1000 features, and how well they actually work on the latest firmware:
* Playback of video files encoded in H.264 - Almost no H.264 encoded files work. Most playback either choppy or not at all.
* Plays lots of digital music format, including FLAC, PCM, WMA, AC3, DTS, and WAV - Many WMA files don't play. Not all DTS encoding works.
* Supports almost all popular media formats files such as MKV(H.264), M2TS(Bluray) and AVI - MKV files rarely work.
* Apple movie trailers & Flickr, Youtube, Internet Radio, Shoutcast - Only Shoutcast works for about half of the listed channels, the rest doesn't.
* Bittorrent support - Maximum download speed ~13kb/s, cannot recover from paused downloads, crashes every few hours.
* NAS - Transfer speed less than a cheap NAS harddisk.
These are just the issues I encountered personally. Apparently playback is much worse depending on how you rip the files.
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