Advice on Network attached Storage??

Data can move across those cables in the local area network (“LAN” or “your house” if you prefer) without touching the internet or your data cap. Unless you block it, they’ll also be able to talk to the internet.

Basically, they’ll be part of the same LAN as the Wi-Fi devices unless you do something to separate them.

A VPN is a virtual private network that is used to communicate across two or more private networks as if they were one. It generally works in both directions.

You can use a VPN to hide the true destination of your traffic from your ISP (what most people are talking about when they say “get a VPN” these days) or you can use it for secure remote access since the data flowing across the VPN will be encrypted. I’m not sure that your ISP router would support it, but you could use OpenVPN or wireguard to set up a VPN for remote access from one of your computers for free.

I was thinking today that I can plug my NVIDIA shield directly into the NAS with a USB 3.1 cable so that i won’t have any issues with enough bandwidth. The shield will be sitting right beside the router and NAS, with an HDMI and CAT8 going up through the ceiling into my media room and plugged into my 4K Laser projector… This will be so sweet

My network struggles if I’m streaming a large 4K HDR Atmos video across my network

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If my ISP router is a turd and I cannot set up for remote acess to the data on my NAS. Would I still be able to keep all of the data secure where guests accessing the wifi network would not be able to get into it? Or is it an all or nothing deal, either your router supports VPN or it does not?

Sorry to be a bit late replying…

It’s a thoroughly trimmed down Debian Linux distribution, apparently. The file system is either EXT4 or BTRFS.

If your NAS are Synology, then it like computer and you can protect access to it with username and password.
VPN are for other things.

Matik’s point is a good one, that you will be able to set up access control (via username/password ) on most NAS devices.

VPNs are more for remote access (like if you take a trip, but need to work on some of your files at home from the road), or privacy on networks you don’t control (if you’re out and about, and need to access your bank account over some public Wi-Fi or hiding your activity from your internet service provider).

Your router may have a “guest mode” for your wireless network, which would be the easiest way to protect your network from untrusted devices connected to the Wi-Fi. Typically “guest mode” will isolate each wireless client connected to the guest network so that they can only communicate with the internet and not anything on the local network. This, plus password protection on the NAS should be pretty good for anyone you’d trust in your house but not on your network. If you don’t have a “guest mode” option, you could get a device called an access point that would have that feature, and run your Wi-Fi network off of that instead of your router. I like the Uni-Fi AP AC Lite for about $100. You’d have to run a cable from the router to a central location in your house and mount it to the ceiling like a smoke detector.

It looks like there’s a way to run an OpenVPN server right on a synology NAS Set up OpenVPN Server on Synology NAS – Tyler Woods

I’m not knowledgeable on network stuff though… I’d love to be able to securely tunnel into my home network

The VPN functionality is another reason why I plug Mikrotik routers, they come with VPN functionality built-in:

I use SyncThing. That’s going to make all your file access local, and synchronizing just runs in the background. That means synchronization may not be instantaneous, but except for huge files, by the time you get up and walk to the other computer, they’re usually going to be up-to-date.

ETA: Syncthing is like your own private dropbox optionally using the NAS as a central server/backup.

That only works if you have enough space on all your PCs/laptops for a local copy of everything. I don’t have a Synology, but according to DDG, syncthing can run on it.

I’ve never had a network and drive fast enough to let me do video editing on a remote mount. Even raw photo editing is sluggish over the Wifi for me, so I avoid the “one server with everything mapped to the same drive” approach, but it might work for you.

@manithree: I’ve read a lot about SyncThing, looks like a great product. How CPU and RAM intensive is it? The problem for me is that my NAS is extremely under-powered, basically enough for the kernel and SMB and rsync to run and not much else.

That’s a good point actually. Same experience for me with WiFI. But the thing for me is that I need different data on different machines, my main workstation needs to have a local copy of most of the important files as well as any heavy projects that I’m currently working on, and I would want most of those same folders to be duplicated on the NAS. But then my auxiliary laptop might only need occasional access to some of those files. I guess I could choose with SyncThing different folders to be synced on different machines right? And only 1-way syncing too?

The only time I’ve had a problem with that is on Android. If I leave it running I notice the battery drain. I usually just start it when I want to sync, then stop it.
On my desktops, I’ve never even seen it show up in top. Compared to Crashplan, it’s trivial.

Besides using some battery on Android, my only other issue with syncthing is that it has a power user interface. Yes, you can have multiple shares, choose 1-way or bi-directional synch. It is VERY flexible. A little confusing at first, but once you get it set up, it just works.

I have my two desktops synchronizing with each other and my htpc. The htpc is the “backup” but if it’s down the 2 pcs keep right on sharing. And I have a small share for things I want to share with my phone.

Cool, thanks @manithree, good to know that.

HA! I happen to have a Mikrotik. They’re amazing but they’re also a royal pain in the butt to program and setup if you’re not a CCNA or something.

I’m using SynologyDrive to sync files between my computers and back them up. Best thing I’ve found about it thus far is that it is a LOT faster than GoogleDriveShareFileWhatever-its-called-now. I shouldn’t be surprised that it is faster since the storage is local…

:smiley: True enough. Under the “Quick Set” tab you can get most of the common functionality working with a few clicks like in any other router. But anything beyond that does get a bit arcane.

Wow that looks amazing. So you can easily access your files remotely without the hassle of VPN’ing into your home network? I’m like out of space on all my drives. So tempted to grab the D18 you guys showed me and some of the 18 TB helium drives

I wonder if it’s possible to stream music from the Synology NAS to my iPhone that way?

Mikrotik has some good stuff. I have come across a few here and there and they give a nice feature set for the money.

I’ll typically install Ubiquiti gear (Edge series over UniFi typically) when I’m on a budget for similar reasons. You can run OpenVPN directly on an Edgerouter lite and it’ll route 1M packets per second. A lot of the setup is command line though, so it’s hard to recommend for someone that doesn’t already know what they are doing or at least a desire to learn. In my case I have scripts for common setups and all I have to change are the relevant IP addresses then run the script. Makes setup super quick and repeatable for how I use them.

I think in OP’s case, using LTE means he probably has to contend with CGNAT and a VPN probably won’t work without an endpoint outside his network to keep the connection open (or get a static IP from his ISP if available).

Something like ZeroTier might work if he needs layer 2 esque networking when remote. The free offering allows 50 “network members”, which would be plenty.

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I have the NAS hooked up now. I ran those cables from my router to the NAS and one to each of my PCs. The cables were fairly long, 100 foot. Right now I am transferring about 250 gigs of data from the HDD on my main computer to the NAS via the LAN connection, but it’s very very slow. Getting about 11mb/s, I’m wondering if I’ve done something wrong?

Are you using CAT 6? That’s pretty slow - maxes at 1 Gbps. But even so, you should be getting faster than 11 megabits per second. I’d check task manager or resource monitor on your PC to see what % of your disk throughput you’re using as well as your Ethernet adapter

I took a little video of that. Not sure what it’s telling me though.

I am really worried that this pile of crap is running all of that data over my internet connection. Everything is hard wired, but if that is true the speed at which it being done is the very least of my worries.
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EDIT: Here is the info I get on my adapter. I am also wondering if maybe amazon sent me a fake cable. Like a cat5 instead of cat 6.

If you are going from a LAN device to a LAN device, there should be nothing passing over the internet in your setup.

Even CAT5 will do gigabit over a 100ft cable all day, and you only have a gigabit network adapter in that computer (and probably any other device in in your house) anyway. There isn’t a huge cost difference between CAT5/CAT6, and for a 1G network with shorter cables like yours there isn’t really a performance difference, but I hope they sent you an honest cable. CAT6 can do 10G for 55 meter. The cable isn’t your limiting factor unless it is damaged (this doesn’t seem likely based on your description).

File transfers are measured in MB/s (megaBYTES per second) and network speeds are typically measured in Mb/s (megaBITS per second). There are 8 bits to a byte, so you have to convert. In a perfect world, with gigabit adapters and a cable capable of full throughput, you can get a theoretical 125 MB/s. This is the maximum speed, but it does not account for overhead or other activity.

You also have to factor in the limitations of the disks. A NAS with 2 drives in a RAID1 (mirror) will only be as fast as 1 of the members. Most drives max out around 150MB/s, but some are much slower (typical “NAS” drives on the cheap end are 5400rpm which are slower than the 7200rpm drives typically found in desktop computers. Laptops often have 5400rpm drives as well). Sequential data is much faster than random data, which is what you probably have unless the drive was defragged shortly before you started the transfer (don’t do this, you’ll spend more time than just waiting and it’ll tax your drive). 20-50MB/s is pretty good normally for a single disk with normal data.

Another factor is the type of data being moved. 1x 1GB file will transfer faster than 1000x 1MB files. If you have lots of smaller files and a lot of data the initial sync will take a LONG time, but in the future you’ll only have a few files to sync at a time and it’ll go faster. Watch the file transfer and you’ll probably notice that the speed increases when it hits a larger file and slows down when there are lots of small files.

Do you have other devices putting data on the NAS at the same time? This will slow the process down.

If your ISP provided router is not great (most aren’t) they can have a hard time with large data streams (research “bufferbloat” for info on how that works). Essentially they choke when you put a large load on them. It also may only have 100M ports, which could slow you down. Do you have a network switch in between the router and the devices? If yes, check and see if it is only “10/100” or 100M instead of “10/100/1000” or 1000M/1G.

Another possibility is that you are actually transferring things over Wi-Fi (both can be connected simultaneously). Try disconnecting from Wi-Fi before transferring the files and see if it is faster.

Lastly, 250GB is going to be a pretty long wait unless you have that workload distributed over more disks or faster disks and use a faster link (10G is pretty cool).

If you are just moving files with file explorer in Windows, I’d recommend doing it in smaller batches so if you have an issue in the middle of a transfer you don’t have to start all the way over again.

EDIT: after typing all of that I saw that you are connected at 100M, so that is the reason for the slowness… Check any device you have in between that computer and the router to make sure it can do gigabit. If there is nothing, it may be the router only has 100M ports.

Take a picture of your router or provide the model info so we can research.