After a few weeks of doing research and asking around I think I mostly have a handle on things, but I wanted to quadruple check with people here and on other subs.
Among a lot of other files, I save a lot of history/archeology material and need a better organization system then having files scattered across a half dozen drives: I'm wanting to buy a pair ~16tb drives to use in either a DAS or NAS, with one for storage and the other to back data up to once a month (I know this isn't best 3-2-1 backup practices, but I don't have money for more drives).
A DAS would be cheaper, and I don't plan to access my drive from another building or use software like Plex. I'm also not sure I'll really use RAID much, and it's not like I need to access the data on the drive from tons of different devices, so unplugging and replugging the DAS might not be a big deal. But it'd also be nice to avoid extra wires and to have the option to access files from multiple devices at once, and some people have said (tho others have said it's not an issue) that USB DAS's have connection stability/file transfer integrity issues that can lead to corrupted or failed file transfers, saves, etc. So if i'd have to spend $200+ for a decent DAS anyways (I was looking at the HUR5-SU31C for $90, though somebody said the HF2-SU3S3 was a better model: Any differences beyond it having 2 extra bays?), i'd rather just get a NAS
All that said, the prebuilt NAS's I am looking at are, as I said...
- The Terramaster F4-423: The former is was on sale for $370 and I bought one, though can still return it
- The Ugreen DXP4800 which is ~$460. I am MAYBE open to the plus model if I can borrow money from family, but probably not
- The Asustor AS5304T which is $460, though I might be able to get it for around the same price as the F4-423 I already just bought
...based on both price, and that I'd want the NAS to allow third party OS installation: If the default OS works fine, great, but I want the option, especially given the Synology fiasco
I have heard some inconsistent things about how these compare: I know that the Asustor has a slightly worse CPU then the Terramaster, but I've heard Asustor may or may not have a better warranty/customer service (I do know for sure Asustor will honor their hardware warranty even if you install a new OS, as does Ugreen, wheras Terramaster won't), and I've likewise heard the native/default OS can be finnicky for all 3, though Ugreen's apparently has improved quite a bit, though apparently I may not be able to easily install a custom OS on the non-plus version since it has a eMMC as it's storage? (I can always just get an NVME SSD and install the OS on that, no?)
I'm open to other model suggestions too, though, if people have others. I know people will tell me to build my own (and I do have old desktop PCs I could use: One with a AM3 790FX GD70, a Phenom II X4 965 etc, and another unbuilt one with still a unopened 8700k, Z730-E etc), but I really don't have time for that: maybe if I could get the parts/a prebuild for a small form factor build for ~200 or less i'd consider it, but even then I'd want a DAS to use in the short term, and at that point i'd still be paying nearly the same $370 I already am for the F-423
Aside from the actual enclosure itself:
- I mentioned that I do amateur archival, and I have many photos of artifacts and manuscripts I end up putting the year, culture, and country of origin, material, dimensions, current location etc into the filenames of, often breaking Window's normal character limit on filenames/paths. I want to not do that and to instead find a way to easily edit/view that as tags/metadata for each file (ideally integrated into the windows right click context menu within Windows explorer file viewer) or some sort of database software. Anybody got suggestions (or words of caution, if any won't work with files in the NAS?)
- Is there anyplace I should be looking at to purchase drives beyond serverpartdeals and goharddrive? Also, does anybody have a complete guide to what the model numbers mean on different WD, Seagate, etc drives? I've seen some documents but the naming scheme seems inconsistent even for drives made by the same company.
If there's anything else I should be aware of as a newbie to this, please let me know!
