[Big Red Machine]

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-Details.asp?EdpNo=8573366&sku=WED-102014227&SRCCODE=WEBBP2553&cm_lm=c57ecefe1da1ecb81a9a6a26a35a7178&cm_mmc=email-_-Retro-_-WEBBP2553-_-tigeremail2553&utm_source=EML&utm_medium=main&utm_campaign=WEBBP2553

What It Is And Why You Need It:
•4 bay tower; increases the storage capabilities
•512 MB DDR3 of memory; ensures speedy processing performance
•2x Gigabit Ethernet Ports; offers quick network connectivity
•RAID; expands the protection level for all your stored data

Network Protocols:
 Ethernet, Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, Fast Ethernet

[jtwrace]

For that money get a Synology. 

[jpm]

+1

[Big Red Machine]

Well in the email link it comes out at $599 with the 12TB of WD Red hard drives.  It just seemed the ram was slow. Amazon is $789.

The Amazon price for a 12TB Synology is $1054. But the Synology has twice the ram and USB 3.0:



    Dual Core CPU with Floating-Point Unit.
    Dual LAN with Failover and Link Aggregation Support.
    1GB RAM Boosting Multitasking Power.
    Features Super Speed USB3.0.
    Hot-swappable & Tool-Less Hard Drive Tray Design.
    Running on Synology DiskStation Manager (DSM).

[jpm]

As I've observed in a previous thread, buying expensive drives like WD Reds is the wrong priority. 3 x 4TB WD or Seagate drives should run ~$300 these days. Pick a NAS enclosure with room for expansion - 4 bay pr 5 bay for example and you'll be on a much more solid footing.

I understand that the whole spending a lot extra for promised quality is more in our veins as audiophiles, but the proof is different. What we hear individually, versus statistical evidence of drive longevity and reliability should not be equated, even if subconsciously. If budget is a priority, which it sounds like it is in this example, the first thing that should be sacrificed is expensive hard drives.

[GentleBender]

I've been using my Synology DS413 for a couple years now to stream movies and really like it. You could start out with two drives if you are trying to keep the price down and and more later. This one is under $500 right now. http://smile.amazon.com/Synology-DiskStation-Diskless-Attached-DS414/dp/B00FWUQY5I/ref=sr_1_15?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1436095362&sr=1-15&keywords=synology

[JEaton]

As I've observed in a previous thread, buying expensive drives like WD Reds is the wrong priority. 3 x 4TB WD or Seagate drives should run ~$300 these days. Pick a NAS enclosure with room for expansion - 4 bay pr 5 bay for example and you'll be on a much more solid footing.

I understand that the whole spending a lot extra for promised quality is more in our veins as audiophiles, but the proof is different. What we hear individually, versus statistical evidence of drive longevity and reliability should not be equated, even if subconsciously. If budget is a priority, which it sounds like it is in this example, the first thing that should be sacrificed is expensive hard drives.

It's not sonic quality that most people seek in a hard drive. WD Red drives aren't as cheap as the cheapest desktop drives available, but they're hardly "expensive".  Many people  (myself included) wouldn't touch Seagate drives with a ten foot pole. In any case, currently on Amazon currently the cheapest 4TB desktop drives from either Seagate or Western Digital are about $130 each, while the 4TB WD Red is $154. That's a small premium.

With WD you shouldn't use their Green desktop drives in a RAID array in any case due to firmware tuning that may cause healthy drives to be dropped from RAID array, so the Red series is the least expensive of Western Digital's offerings that you should use.

One of the benefits of the Red drives is their three year warranty instead of two years. My home file server uses no RAID, but I buy still buy WD Red drives just for the additional warranty and the possibility that the drives may be of higher quality.

[jpm]

Not wishing to discount your personal experience at all, I've known equal numbers of people have a prejudice against one HDD manufacturer or another over the decades. They've all had a problem here or there, which is why there are are only a couple of factors that are relevant for choosing a drive:

1 - NAS manufacturers list of supported drives
2 - Statistical data on drive reliability

Over the past few years, HDD manufacturers have trended to reduced length warranty on their drives. This, in turn, has offered them the opportunity to sell what are essentially extended warranties in the form of "designed for NAS / Security applications" sub ranges.  Of course there's no problem buying an extended warranty if that has value to you, but statistically significant increased reliability is not a feature.

Priorities and price: Regarding price, currently $100 should be the target price for a 4TB drive. Paying $150 for a "Red" drive is the equivalent of adding a 4th drive to a 3 drive RAID 5 array. The opportunity cost of the "Red" drive is the option to have a hot spare in your NAS, or being able to use RAID6 instead of RAID5, or having a dedicated backup volume .... all of which provide enhanced real world levels of fault tolerance versus a warranty which provides peace of mind.

Cost consciousness: If cost is no object, then by all means buy expensive drives. When cost is a consideration, other choices offer much more significant, tangible benefits.

Buying technology commodities requires research, timing and a degree of patience to get the best value. Interesting for me to realize, is that after decades purchasing multiple thousands of hard drives in relatively small batches (100 or less) I've never used Amazon for this once! I have encountered (and managed warranty replacement for) ranges of faulty drives in the hundreds, and nothing makes you more aware of the importance of fault tolerance and backup strategies!

[JEaton]

Priorities and price: Regarding price, currently $100 should be the target price for a 4TB drive.

What does that even mean? You're not going to find 4TB drives today for $100, unless you happen find them at a great one-day sale at Fry's or on sale in an external enclosure and pull the drive and void its warranty.

If I were building out a data storage center with massive redundancy, I would buy absolutely the cheapest possible hard drives I could find. If I'm populating a single device with three or four drives, not a chance. Even with the redundancy, I want to limit my chances of drive failure, running an array in a vulnerable condition, and just the general hassle of replacing drives and rebuilding very large RAID arrays.