Recommend me a NAS solution

In reply to Swank Force One:

Yes, security for the most part.

You can create a RAID from about any 2+ drives you want, they should be the same just for compatibility's sake, but they don't HAVE to be, it's a little silly not to use matching size/manufacturer drives though.

If it's data you value, spend the extra bucks on enterprise level drives. I had a rough time with 4 640 Gb Caviar Blacks in a RAID 10 back in the day on CAD Workstation. One drive took too long for error recovery once, and the RAID controller decided that drive was dead, even though it wasn't. I had to replace the drive and rebuild the RAID, unnecessary and preventable headache, and down time.

I'm more familiar with Western Digital's RE & RE2 drives, they have Time Limited Error Recovery (TLER) natively, which works better in a hardware RAID. WD also has had a more affordable NAS series out (Red) for a few years now. Other manufacturers have similar features for their NAS/RAID/enterprise drives.

My experience is with PCs, so it might be moot for the standalone NAS boxes, but still worth it for a higher quality drive in my opinion.

Swank Force One wrote:

Paul_VR6 wrote: I use a synology disc station for your exact situation. Bought three 2tb drives and swap/backup once a month and keep the spare drive at work. Probably overkill but my wife would kill me if we lost all the pics of the kids. Little spendy but I have a lot of data and cloud solutions are slow and expensive monthly in comparison.

This thing? http://www.amazon.com/Synology-DiskStation-Diskless-Attached-DS214se/dp/B00FWURI8K/ref=sr_1_4?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1429492987&sr=1-4&keywords=synology+ds215j Here's my next question: Do i need special drives to run a mirrored/RAID setup? Or is it more about buying a reliable drive than anything else? $150 + 2x 1TB drives would be within budget.

Yes. Bought three drives so I have a spare offsite as an actual backup.

Great, thanks!

And because it'll be run into my wireless router, i'll be able to access this wirelessly, right?

Belay that, that was a dumb question.

Ok i'm going to do the Synology DS213J.

I need 2x 1TB drives. What do i want? Thinking Western Digital because that's what everyone seems to like.

Blue, Red, or Green?

Green is $53, Blue is $55, Red is $65.

From what i understand, Green will probably be the slowest in practice, as they stay energy efficient by spinning down as often as possible, which when i'm accessing wirelessly and not more than a few times a week, i wouldn't think is a big deal.

Blue is the "base model."

Red seems to be pretty similar to Green, but with a "NAS" label on it.

Any other brands i should be looking at?

I've been running 2TB Samsung drives in my Dlink DNS-323 for the past 3-4 years and have been happy with them. They're mirrored, and then you should back them up using another USB drive/cloud solution.

WD red in mine.

Have heard their Green drives are not suitable for NAS use.

Wd red in mine. Good package deal from newegg.

I had a WD green and a black both fail this year. Get the red if you go WD. I would recommend HGST drives for the spinning variety; samsung 850 series (evo or pro) for SSD.