Cheapest 4-bay HDD enclosure or alternatives...

[saketb]

Congrats. :clapping:

I also get 60-70 mBps while copying from Desktop-PC to NAS. That's acceptable speed. I filled my 8-9 TB earlier than I had thought.

Please share your experience once you explore it.

Filling up that much data is quite fast indeed. Regarding the data transfer rate and to achieve higher speeds from PC to NAS there are many factors involved. As per my knowledge goes the max data transfer rate with GbE network is about 125MBPS (1000/8bits=125), purely theoretically. Getting around 100MBPS speed is considered as excellent but getting that speed depends on factors like hard drive spin rate (RPM), PCIe bandwidth (on PC), Network cabling, operating system used, electrical interference, etc. The main bottleneck is the hard drive spin rate. As most of us are using a drive with 5400 & 5900 RPM the transfer rate will not go beyond 75MBPS. I did some benchmark with transferrring data and I achieved...

File Size: 4.37GB
Time taken to copy from PC -> NAS - 1:20secs Avg transfer rate: 56MBPS (peak 70, least 45)
Time taken to copy from NAS -> PC - 51secs Avg transfer rate: 88MBPS (peak 95, least 70)

It clearly shows that pulling data from the NAS is much faster rather than pushing. Yes, if a 7200 RPM HDD is used one may see a little bump in speeds, but more heat and power consumption. If one tries transferring data from a ssd->ssd or a RAM Drive->RAM Drive, one may get speeds past 100MBPS. Haven't tried though, as my other PC & laptop does not have a gigabit port, has a 100megabit port.

My experience in a separate post.

What's the power consumption on this device? The specs on Netgear's website indicate 45W which is rather good, but does the power comsumption go up with additional HDD's?

Also, there are quite a few reviews on Amazon.com indicating that the Plex app does not transcode HD video well (CPU not able to keep up) and so on, plus reports of drives going missing after some time. Any feedback from FM's who have had this thing a while?

One last question, the box does look rather large in the pictures but the dimensions on the Netgear site indicate a rather svelte unit. Pictures with a reference scale would be much appreciated.

The power consumption on this NAS box is quite as specified on the website. At full load with 1 HDD (5900 RPM, 7 watts full load) it consumes 25-27watts, the 45watts mentioned on the website is with full load with 4x4 HDD's attached and spinning together.

Haven't tried Plex app yet, but I'm sure that this NAS does not support transcoding on the fly, you may have to look at the big brother RN314 which also has a HDMI port and has an x86 processor. Price is somewhere close to 35K.

Yes online reviews on amazon and newegg does not look good for this unit. May be George who I think is using this unit for a long time to give the feedback how does this perform and any of the issues that he may have come across as reported by some users on these sites.

Thanks

45W should be fully loaded. It would be too high a power consumption if only NAS box needed that much.




There are bad reports about virtually every NAS product out there. When I was taking my plunge, I went with Buffalo based on real experience of talking to their sales rep (who sounded knowledgeable about their product) and less number of complaints on Internet.

A NAS box can sometimes be a miss or hit. Specially once you start using all of it's promised functions. As a simple cloud storage most NASs work without glitches though. Drives going missing would be too bad, specially for not-so-tech-savvy users. Despite all my care, I have lost some data while swapping drives (my own carelessness). So this is definitely something worrisome. But in the end all NAS products have their share of negative reports on Internet. Pick your poison.

The rate at which the said NAS box is available right now, I'd say grab it while it lasts. I couldn't find similar price in other markets.

PS: Some Netgear NAS can have their RAM upgraded, which helps with tasks such as downloading, media streaming. With default amount of RAM, not much should be expected.

Indeed, the reviews on the internet are not favorable at the moment and there are more negatives than positives, but if one sticks to what this NAS can do, I feel he will be happy with it. For the price, its working great as a multi-usage NAS. Lot more details discussed in a separate post.

RAM cannot be upgraded in the 100 series of ReadyNAS products.

One thing I wanted to mention (as I learnt the hard way)...depending on the configuration that you want to have do think about how many drives you put in initially and how you set it up right from the start. My data is backed up externally on HDDs. So I wanted to set the volumes up as individual volumes in FLEXRAID. I thought I would be able to add HDDs as I needed, but being a newbie, I did not know that to configure the NAS drives in JBOD you need to have the total set of drives populated (if that is the way you intend to use the NAS). On the other hand if you do want redundancy for your data - which is probably the most common way of configuring the NAS - then the default xRAID2 is very useful.

@Saketb: If you leave the default XRAID2 then the second disc you add will automatically copy the contents of the first drive for data protection. Then the third and fourth added become storage drives. The good thing about the single-volume architecture of XRAID2 is that it allows you to add additional drives without reformatting your drives and having to move your data somewhere else. You can continue to use the NAS while you do the needful to increase your volume capacity.

Very true, currently with 1 drive in the NAS, its formatted as JBOD and once I insert another drive it re-builds itself to XRAID2 with redundancy. Further drives will give volume expansion and space and that is the reason I wanted to go with the highest compatible hard drive. I plan on putting 3x4TB drives at a later stage so that I will get a total capacity of 11.022TB from 4x4TB drives.

 

[saketb]

Trying to connect to my NAS from my office using ReadyNAS Remote but unsucessful. ReadyNAS Remote is up and running on the NAS.

Whenever, I start ReadyNAS Remote on Windows 8 it gives me the following window: Probably you have an issue with "Leaf network adapter, you might resolve this issue by trying "Enable/Disable" "Leaf Networks Adapter" or reinstall application.

Tried everything but in vain. Anyone, who has been able to connect it remotely can help, would be great.

 

[haisaikat]

I had got 100+ MB/s while reading data off my NAS drive over a LAN and also over USB 3.0 with a USB 3.0 portable drive.

 

[saketb]

I had got 100+ MB/s while reading data off my NAS drive over a LAN and also over USB 3.0 with a USB 3.0 portable drive.

Maybe, your 7200 RPM drives (saw your signature) would have helped in achieving that speed. But whatever the matter, 100+ MB/s is great.

 

[Staxxx]

saketb - the guys at Netgear support were really super with helping set up. I haven't yet installed the remote application on my laptop but will be doing so over the weekend. The support is free for the first 90 days. The toll free number is 1 800 1024 327. By the way, the NAS 104 falls under the prosafe option and not the consumer option.

 

[ukjeyaraj]

^^
Thanks for the piece of info. It will help when I setup my NAS

 

[jsmithe]

A few more questions about this NAS:

1. What's the fan noise like? Too noisy, bearable. I know that the answer to this is that it depends on the person and the environment, but any thoughts/info' is appreciated.

2. Do we only have to use the HDD's on the list of HDD's approved by Netgear for this model or can any HDD's be used?

 

[saketb]

saketb - the guys at Netgear support were really super with helping set up. I haven't yet installed the remote application on my laptop but will be doing so over the weekend. The support is free for the first 90 days. The toll free number is 1 800 1024 327. By the way, the NAS 104 falls under the prosafe option and not the consumer option.

Yes, I did contact the customer care which is located at Philippines and was talking with a lady for 45 minutes and I've to agree that not for a second I felt that she wanted to hang up. I discussed regarding the issue but even she could not solve, so she, created a ticket and escalated the issue to the back-end team at Netgear. I also received a courtesy email from her saying that she will get back in a couple of days with a solution.

I request you to install the remote application on your laptop from ReadyNAS website for Windows OS and enable the same in the NAS and revert back with any success or so.

 

[saketb]

A few more questions about this NAS:

1. What's the fan noise like? Too noisy, bearable. I know that the answer to this is that it depends on the person and the environment, but any thoughts/info' is appreciated.

2. Do we only have to use the HDD's on the list of HDD's approved by Netgear for this model or can any HDD's be used?

Well, the fan noise is very negligible and quiet. Even when I'm streaming media its quiet. Mine runs at 700-800 RPM at low load and 800-900 RPM at load with 1 HDD. This would increase if more drives are added, my guess.

One thing to note is the CPU temperature... Idle temps are around 60-70 C and at load, especially transferring data to the NAS it reaches 80-85 C, which I feel its a bit high for normal usage. Even at this high temps the fan runs at max 900 RPM and does not go higher. But when I try to feel the heat from behind the box where the fan exhausts air, its rather cool. Quite surprising.

No, you do not need to use the listed HDD's which are approved by Netgear, others do work and people here are using. Its only that if you use other than the listed ones, Netgear will not give any support if anything goes wrong due to the drives.

 

[dheerajjotwani]

Is disk spin down implemented yet?

tapped on Note II cdma

 

[saketb]

Is disk spin down implemented yet?

tapped on Note II cdma

No, I do not see any such option on the Frontview, though my hard drive supports disk spin down function. It may be implemented in a newer firmware release.

 

[mowgli80]

Nice to see lot of people starting with NAS boxes . Although it may be too late for some, I do not suggest readymade NAS boxes to people who are still in planning stages. The implementation is proprietary and in future if the NAS fails, you will not be able to recover your data back unless you buy another NAS box of the same company. In such a scenario, if the company is dead, so is your data . Essentially, you will be tied to the box/company for your and their lifetime because only they know how your data is laid out on the disk. With some help, you can get the same functionality from operating system (LVM and RAID on Linux and I think dynamic and spanning disks + RAID in Windows) and you are guaranteed will always have means to recover your data without being dependent on a single vendor. My suggestion is to go for an x86 box running Windows/Linux and using it as a NAS.

 

[dheerajjotwani]

@mowgli

I guess some people just want out of the box functionality. So they are taking this route. Besides most if them have a 1:1 backup on spare hdds outside the nas... nas box here is mainly being used as simple jbod layout.

You and me both love tinkering so would never like this ready made solution... lol

tapped on Note II cdma

 

[mowgli80]

My warning was for people planning to use XRAID or Big Volume functionality which is proprietary. Simple JBOD layout will not be affected. But then, why use a NAS when a simple enclosure provides JBOD functionality. Also, if you exporting disks, you can't have multiple hosts working on same JBOD disk at the same time otherwise data will be corrupted. Now, to use with multiple hosts concurrently, you need SAMBA i.e. Windows Share or NFS i.e. Linux Share on NAS to export at file system level. This backend file system most probably is proprietary so will not be available on Windows or Linux if disks are directly attached. Based on info here, looks like it stored in big endian format which is another major pain point for intel based systems. Unfortunately they do not mention which file system it is . Based on my knowledge, I feel running a Windows based NAS on x86 box is the safest bet for newbies. Adventurous people can also use Linux. All in all, the message I am trying to convey is you should have access to the software (or binaries), capable of running on any hardware, which wrote your data in a particular layout as only that will understand the data back.

 

[dheerajjotwani]

Roger that.

tapped on Note II cdma

 

[Staxxx]

My warning was for people planning to use XRAID or Big Volume functionality which is proprietary. Simple JBOD layout will not be affected. But then, why use a NAS when a simple enclosure provides JBOD functionality. Also, if you exporting disks, you can't have multiple hosts working on same JBOD disk at the same time otherwise data will be corrupted. Now, to use with multiple hosts concurrently, you need SAMBA i.e. Windows Share or NFS i.e. Linux Share on NAS to export at file system level. This backend file system most probably is proprietary so will not be available on Windows or Linux if disks are directly attached. Based on info here, looks like it stored in big endian format which is another major pain point for intel based systems. Unfortunately they do not mention which file system it is . Based on my knowledge, I feel running a Windows based NAS on x86 box is the safest bet for newbies. Adventurous people can also use Linux. All in all, the message I am trying to convey is you should have access to the software (or binaries), capable of running on any hardware, which wrote your data in a particular layout as only that will understand the data back.

Hi Mogwli
I wish I could understand what you have written, but I am too much of a newbie for that.
I have backed up my data on external hard drives and copied them from the external hard drives into the NAS' internal drives. Each time I play an album, I need to copy the file from the NAS' drive to an SSD in the music server (which is also networked). Which part of this will not work please?
Since I had six eternal HD drives, I bought the NAS for convenience sake. I also wanted to access my music files remotely.
I am aware that the software is proprietary but I was nervous about going down the route of building a Windows based NAS at my first attempt. I suppose I could always switch to such a one later - use the same HDDs (after reformatting them and recopying the music files from my back ups) as I get more comfortable with the concept and functionality of a NAS.

 

[mowgli80]

@Staxxx - As long as you made backup by connecting disks to windows and not through the NAS, its fine. However, I have had few disks die when not used for some time. Read somewhere that it can be lunbricant problem in the hard drive motor. I would suggest using and checking the backup disks on regular basis to keep the problem at bay.

My suggestion is for people who can't afford to have multiple copies of their data. If your NAS dies, you can't access your data without a new NAS from same company. Its like putting all your eggs in one basket. Setting up a NAS on windows is just a few clicks. Google for "Sharing Files Windows". IMO, Intel based system with a bunch of disks is the safest bet as a NAS.

 

[saketb]

My review or say an experience with what I have figured or used with the Netgear ReadyNAS RN104 4 BAY NAS OS ver. 6.1.2.

First things first...
As, already stated my requirement and got several suggestions for a NAS for media storage and streaming, the ReadyNAS RN104 was the best fit for my needs as well as my budget. The thread title is rightly stated "The cheapest 4-bay HDD enclosure", as actually, there is no other product currently in the market which provides a decent line of online and offline services, applications and other user specific uses. This even supports a low-level SSH programming interface for people who want to play around with this product for developing applications and changing configurations not visible in the Frontview (I'm working on that).

Well, this a small unit and occupies a small space but does big jobs. Comes in a nice and protective packaging with some brief manuals, a resource CD, power adapter and power cord (similar to as a laptop's adapter), an Ethernet cable (cat5e) and few screws for mounting hard drives other than 3.5". A door on the front when opened reveals the 4 drive bays which can be removed by pressing a notch at the bottom of the bay and pulling it out. The hard drive goes into the cage and is a snug fit, so no fall off here. There are directions mentioned on the bay for installing the drives. The power cord plug which goes into the unit has a pull-back outer sleeve which has to be pulled if you want to remove the plug from the socket on the unit. There are two USB3 ports and a eSATA port on the back for further expansion as well as backup and one USB2.0 port in the front. A re-set button for factory default settings (disc drives are wiped out) and Kensington lock. There are two gigabit LAN ports on the unit named as LAN1 (top) & LAN2 (bottom), its preferable to use the LAN1 port as it supports Wake-On-LAN function, discussed later. Next on to booting up.

Powering up...
Once its powered up the unit starts to boot up and takes a while for the user to connect to it. Once the power light is stable, one can connect to it either online through a internet browser or offline through the supplied software. Once, online and logged in with a user name and password created earlier, the unit is ready for taking instructions on building the volume for the drive/drives. If only 1 drive is installed it creates a JBOD (X-RAID) volume and that takes roughly 10-15 minutes, and the system is ready. Its recommended to install further drives one-by-one as a second drive when installed, the volume gets converted to X-RAID2 with redundancy, so its better that the next upgrade be 2 drives for getting volume expansion. When all the four bays are occupied one gets storage space of 4-1=3 drives. There is another option of Flexraid (Raid 0) for getting full storage capacity without redundancy, but no volume expansion as the drives grow.

The Frontview...
Everything on this NAS enclosure, is done through the web log-in which is called as the Frontview. All of the OS properties, settings, shares, backup, apps, etc are available from here. Its an Operating System in a browser. There are various network services which can be enabled/disabled from here. There are a few default directories created once the volume is up and running, like, "document", "music", " "videos" and "pictures". One has the option of selecting multiple network shares applied for these or new folders/files so that these can be seen from other OS's.

Notable Apps & Network Services
There are many network services and apps available with this NAS, but I've just used a very few of them. Some of them which I'm using are mentioned below.

ReadyDLNA
The ReadyDLNA service is available from the system->settings menu. Once enabled, the folders or directories can be set for DLNA shares. It will take a considerable amount of time for ReadyDLNA to do a scan of the said directories where the media files are stored and once done it can be seen from any DLNA device (TV, Blu-ray player, Mobile phone, etc). The DLNA service on this NAS supports almost all kinds of audio/video/pictures formats but the compatibility really depends on the receiver. Like my Samsung TV (series 5) cannot play flac audio but my Panasonic Blu-ray player plays it perfectly. Same with a few video file formats.

Transmission - Torrent Downloader
This application is a great addon for downloading torrents from the internet and is available from the app tab. Once installed on the NAS, one has to enable it from "installed apps" and then login with "admin" and password "admin". The settings related to authentication can be changed by editing a file called "settings.json" available at data\transmission\config folder, using notepad, preferably Notepad++. This file contains many settings and can be changed here as per requirement. Transmission has a slick and intuitive interface with user friendly options and settings. It is a full fledged software with complete control of individual files within a torrent. One can even specify where to download the respective torrent.

ReadyNAS Remote / ReadyDrop / ReadyCloud / ReadyNAS Replicate
These services are built into the ReadyNAS and have to be enabled for using it. Once a user name has been created and linked for these three services, one can use these services for controlling the NAS, keep files/folders in sync with remote systems and the obvious "Cloud". For ReadyNAS Remote to work remotely one has to install the application available for Windows, MAC OS, Android, etc and login with created user for access to the NAS. ReadyDrop is very similar to a DropBox thing. It creates a folder in your remote system and what ever file you drop to this folder gets uploaded to the NAS and vice versa. If you have multiple system at remote locations it syncs the files once they are connected to the NAS. ReadyCloud on other hand can access your NAS from anywhere without any application installed, one has to login to the website https://readycloud.netgear.com/ and your NAS is up. The only downside of ReadyCloud is that you cannot use the admin page for managing the NAS and can only browse/download/upload files. And lastly, the ReadyNAS Replicate feature can be used for creating backup jobs, monitoring backups, restoring data, etc by logging to https://replicate.readynas.com/. This feature can also be used to clone a NAS with a NAS.

Anti-Virus Plus
Well, application is great but if used with default settings, slows down the system as it will scan every file read and that takes considerable amount of time. Best to avoid the media folders and specify certain folders where one downloads from the internet like bittorrent and ReadyDrop, so that it will only scan, when files in these folders are accessed.

Wake-On-LAN
This is a very common service used in a LAN and can also be used here with the NAS. It has to be enabled from the system->settings->power and then can be configured in the router/mobile app/pc app for waking it up. If using it from a remote location then port forwarding has to be implemented in the router. For Wake-On-LAN to work the NAS has to be powered on (not booted or running). Only the LAN1 port has this feature and the MAC address of this port has to be used for this service.

Overall the ReadyNAS RN104 is very good if used as a server for multi usage with limited number of connections. As the processor is an ARM 1.2Ghz with a very minimum 512MB of RAM, its not that very powerful. There are many more apps and features to be used in this NAS and I would update here as I come across further utilities.

 

[rahuln]

Does it supports Logitech media server for Squeezebox, it is my key scenario?

 

[saketb]

Does it supports Logitech media server for Squeezebox, it is my key scenario?

As per the Logitech website the media server only supports ReadyNAS Pro/Ultra/NX and the NV/NV+/Duo v2, but not on the RN104.

George, here is using LMS on his NV+ V.2 4 Bay Unit.