Yeah CAT8 will get you up to 40 Gbps but the only widely available hardware that’s not super expensive is 10 gigabit
I thought about going with fiber which can go to 100 gig and even beyond but the idiot who’s building my house didn’t want to wire it at all and then he wanted to use CAT5.
Here’s some info on the new Wifi 6e
As to the first part, I think that’s correct. Those computers (only) would have access to the internal network, and no one from the outside should. Possible to get hacked, ie, once the computer itself is compromised, it might sniff around and see what else is connected, but that’s kinda remote.
But you never know, nowadays.
As to the second part, pretty much.
You could connect to the internal-only wifi channel, ie, innernet disabled.
You could connect to the full-access wifi channel, ie, internal network and innernet.
You could enable “guest” mode, ie, innernet only and (ideally) no access to the internal network.
As for me, when I’m not using the NASes, I keep ’em powered off to save wear’n’tear. It’s only when I want to dump more stuff down the hole that I even power it up.
Yeh, the WD NASes have small Linux boards inside, and you could actually SSH right in.
That’s great info, thanks. They have helium filled 18 TB drives now but I’ll probably go with SSDs. Right now I have a difficult time streaming 4K video to my Nvidia shield across my wifi network
Thinking of doing RAID 6 to avoid losing stuff that can’t be replaced (family photos, etc.) and then doing an offsite backup
I just RDP to what ever computer I need to pull the file and keep on trucking…
All these fancy NAS, extra computers, supper routers and stuff with the Network sharing going on. What, do you guys live in 2021?
It is ok, I just don’t worry about sharing things across the network at home. My needs are generally all on one computer and several tablets and 2 TVs that I can watch youtube how to vids…
Someone mentioned it.
But don’t forget UPSs. For the router, NAS, and, PC.
They are not sexy hardware, but a decent UPS is the best gift you can give a network where data integrity is paramount.
And airgap is a good thing. If you can see the Web. The Web can see you.
All the Best,
Jeff
Great advice! Any recommendations for a good large heavy duty UPS?
I have a Cyberpower GX1325U that has my computer, modem, router, and NAS all hooked up to it. I wanted to get a pure sine UPS so that’s why I chose said model.
APC is not what it used to be but probably still the best.
I only have experience with QNAP. It's very reliable and has lots of features. My first NAS is still running since 12 years ago.
APC used to be The Fæces, but lost its lustre a while ago. Things check out, even the self-test, but pull the plug, and it can’t detect a dead battery (even though the self-test says everything’s fine) and the stuff just drops dead from no power.
And you’d have to replace the Pb-acid batteries every coupla years at worst if you wanted protection.
I got (for no other reason than it was on sale) a Cyberpower or something like that. Surge suppressors for network cable, coax, usb, other stuff. Seemed pretty robust, but it’s well out of the way and I can’t get to it, so who knows the condition of the battery inside.
What I personally think should be best would be to have a bank of raw 12VDC power, and everything and its grandmother that takes 12VDC input (external usb drives, routers, NASes, cablemodems, you name it) gets plugged into that, and separately would be all 120VAC stuff that needs AC power would run off the inverter. Rather than have the battery inside and generally inaccessible, you could have a bus-battery for power and keep crap going overnight in case of a power failure, if you wanted to.
In fact, one idea I had (never implemented, though) was just that, all my NASes and external drives in a vented/cooled cabinet, all fed off the same 12V rail, with battery backup and an ATX supply providing the bulk 12V. Let the battery trickle charge when not needed, but kick in and switch over within microseconds if the ATX would lose AC input.
I used to be an APC fan. In fact I was an authorized dealer for a while. .
But of late the consumer level APC have not impressed me. I have old APCs from DOS 3 era still going strong. But I have ones from 5 years ago that are now junkers. The are not correctly charging the batts.
Cyberpower is what I have been recommending of late in the consumer side.
With Cyberpower you need to check the Web site to see what replacement batteries the things use.
The 1500VA (at least the ones I know about) use a pair of 12v 7AH (or 8AH) batts.
These are common and you can make up a pack easy and not have to pay for a high dollar OEM replacement pack.
All sorts of equipment uses these things.
Some of the 1350VA UPS use 12v SH7 size. Think 3/4 the length, taller, and thicker than the 12v 8AH.
Nobody has those things locally. So you get stuck with shipping a lead cell.
So it’s worth paying the extra to get a UPS that uses a common sized battery.
The UPS will last for years, but you will be replacing the frigging batteries ever 3 years or so.
I keep threatening to make up a LiFe UPS, with a good BMS. But the darn things are so expensive.
If you want long run times, you can always makeup an external lead-acid battery pack and cobble it into a source for a consumer UPS.
All the Best,
Jeff
Electronics fail eventually, capacitors etc. Can’t blame APC for that. They used to be the gold standard though.
I wasn’t really joking all that much about using a bus-battery. One of my old… 150VA? 200VA?… whatever was the cheapest long’n’skinny APCs with just the lit rocker-switch up front, no other lights… I couldn’t find a replacement battery that wouldn’t cost as much as a whole new UPS (ain’t kidding), so I drilled a hole in the little trapdoor on the bottom, and used quick-connects to run nice thick wires out of the now scarily-light carcass and to a spare car-battery I had. (Car took something like an 80AH but the “emergency” one I got from the boneyard was only 60AH or so.)
Worked great, lots more runtime even if not that much oomf.
Back when the only competition they had was TrippLite and that other brand that slips my mind. It was all about quality in the mid-high level single workstation UPSs. Like the SMART 1500s and the XL versions with more batteries. These things refuse to die.
The little flat jobbies that sit on the floor are good for a few battery replacements. But I’ve had too many fail in clients systems to recommend them for critical stuff.
The APC enterprise type UPS are still worth looking at, but are way too expensive and who wants to deal with a UPS that arrives on a pallet?
I also like that you can get a Sine wave output in some of the Cyberpower UPSs at reasonable prices. An O-Scope shot of some older cheap UPSs was an eye opener. Yet still they kept the systems running.
I do have some failed Cyberpower units at the shop. Often it is the LED display that get flaky. One had BMS problems and couldn’t’ be trusted not to over cook the batts.
But none have caught fire and burst into flames like an APC that was on a server several years ago.
It was out of warranty, but still I expected something more from APS other than, well, you are SOL. Buy another.
Then again, I bet I’ve sold 20 or 30 APCs to 1 Cyberpower, so my sample base is skewed.
The problem I face with most users is what to do when the power actually fails. Depending on the battery capacity, a smaller UPS is really only good for giving you (or the OS) time to shut down in an orderly manner.
They are not designed to let you keep working for the next hour.
Another benefit of UPSs is power conditioning. When the guy with the welder comes online next door, the UPS will protect against brownouts and the like.
And LB, I’ve got a pair of deep cycle truck batts powering my test bench power. I don’t want to be shut down in the middle of a data recover run that I may only get one chance at.
All the Best,
Jeff
Wow I definitely asked this question on the right thread. Thanks for all the great advice!
> Must be FAST when I open files. Little to no load time.
Things would be easy and quite inexpensive it if weren’t for this requirement.
Ok, if you’re using Microsoft Office (or, like me, Google Apps), you can take any supported document and open it via web-interface in parallel on all computers attached to the drive the file is on. Easy. Often used this feature in seminars and workgroups.
My setup is a HP Microserver with 4 HDDs. One boots the system (240GB), two keeps the data in RAID1 (have a spare HDD lying around, each 1 TB), the 4th is a 2TB backup HDD that keeps backups from the RAID system (only data files), the boot HDD (the shortest working image) and my laptop. Disadvantage: It’s good but slow hardware (AMD Turion). Last key element is a USB flash-key that keeps a bootable Linux with my backup software (Acronis True Image).
If you need everything superfast, you’d need a real Proliant-type server for lots of money. If you’re going this route, spent some more money for extra safety (hot-plug drives to keep backups in a safe).
Of course, today you’d take SSDs for the data. They work well if there are not too many writes. Sooner or later I’ll replace HDDs with SSDs in the RAID1 system.
Edit: Of course, a Cyberpower UPS powers the Microserver and the router.
What about the cables. Are Cat5s going to give me what I want or do I need to be getting something fancy like this
https://www.amazon.com/Ethernet-Outdoor-Connector-Weatherproof-Resistant/dp/B08JVG63TS/ref=sr_1_3?crid=1GZN6TN8J6E53&dchild=1&keywords=cat8%2Bethernet%2Bcable&qid=1614361377&sprefix=cat8%2Caps%2C358&sr=8-3&th=1
I’m a bit late to this thread, but I do this type of thing for work (on a different scale).
Lots of text to follow… TL;DR - CAT6 is my recommendation (check the link) and don’t trust the second HDD in your NAS as a backup unless the data isn’t critical.
First some thoughts: 2 Bay NASs are pretty good for your use case, but a mirrored drive is not a “backup”. Mirrored drives (RAID1 in this case) are for continuity, not disaster recovery. It is possible to lose both at the same time and without a proper backup you would be sad. I always tell people to follow the 3,2,1 rule for any data that is critical:
3 copies of the data, 2 different mediums (disk, tape, cloud, DVD, etc), 1 copy offsite.
In your case, you have LTE internet which likely has a data limit or speed limit. As you’ve mentioned, cloud isn’t really an option you would consider.
You can network your devices with a wired connection or over the existing Wi-Fi network. Wired networks tend to me bore reliable and faster as a rule, and Wi-Fi is more convenient for non-fixed location devices like a cell phone or a laptop. If you plugged the NAS into an ethernet port on on your cellular modem/router/wireless access point combo unit (sometimes called a “gateway” by the ISP) it would be available to anything on your network (wired or otherwise) and should be functional in this configuration.
If you wanted to connect several other devices with wired connections, you may not have enough ports on your gateway device to do so, and you would need a network switch.
If you want to keep your NAS inaccessible to the main Wi-Fi network, the easiest way would be to use a guest Wi-Fi network for non-trusted devices if your gateway has that functionality. If it doesn’t, you can get an access point that does.
What I do at my house is I have several different VLANs (virtual LAN) that separate devices I want to keep more secure or to keep certain devices from snooping (smart home devices, visitors, etc). Setting this up takes a bit more equipment, and if budget/time is a concern, it is probably not the best path to take in your case.
On your question about the cable:
I’d recommend CAT6 cable like this: Amazon.com
They have lots of length and color options, and I like the “flexboot” style connectors. I have these installed all over and they’ve been great. You can get them directly from Monoprice, but I shared the Amazon link since that is what you had listed.
CAT6 can do 10G, but I’d bet your equipment is only 1G anyway. CAT5E is capable of 1G, but the price difference between quality CAT5E and CAT6 isn’t that much for a few cables. As was previously mentioned, CAT8 isn’t a “real” thing at the moment anyway. If I install permanent cable for a business these days I use CAT6.
You can install the cable in your walls and run it through an attic or crawlspace. If you want to go that route, you need solid wire instead of stranded, and that typically comes in a big spool or a box. You also need special tools to terminate the cable, so if you only need a couple of runs, I’d go with the pre-made cables above.
I’m happy to answer questions you may have, and provide recommendations on hardware if needed.
EDIT: UPS is a good call, but match the output and runtimes for your needs. those little powerstrip style UPSs work ok for a router, but you probably need something bigger for the NAS if you have a longer power outage. APC/Schneider has a calculator on their website for sizing a UPS.
I have a DS1817 connected to my desktop via 10gb ethernet with a Netgear switch in the middle. For large files, it is FAST. I regularly see 500-600mb/s. If you can reserve two bays for SSDs and enable read/write caching, it is probably even faster (I haven’t tested that just yet)
I don’t use “nas” disks. I just shuck WD external drives and wait for sales. ~$15/tb is when I buy. I currently have 6x 8tb drives but I’ll likely upgrade to 12tb if they go on sale again.
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On the other hand, there is this…
