Commercial NAS Operating Systems - A Comprehensive Overview of Core Features
by Ganesh T S on November 14, 2016 8:30 AM ESTSetting the Stage...
As we draw the first part of our comprehensive coverage of commercial NAS operating systems to a close, it is important to touch upon one additional core aspect. The setting up of multiple users, user groups, joining domains etc., LDAP or NIS authentication etc. are very important for business NAS units, but, not so much for NAS units targeting the home market.
Since the COTS NAS operating systems are all based on Linux, adopting the standard user / group strategy is not very difficult for the vendors. ZyXEL, as expected due to their targeting of home users, has only very basic user and group settings with quota support. Western Digital goes a bit further by allowing for multiple users to be created at the same time. Asustor, QNAP, and Synology have that feature and much more too. For example, Synology even supports 2-factor authentication for certain groups. Netgear does support some advanced features like Active Directory, but there are lots of things that Netgear could learn from the aforementioned vendors.
Today's piece dealt with the core aspects of NAS operating systems - storage and how it is configured, the user interface, setting up of the desired services and shared folders, and the configuration of the network links. Even though the coverage has been very subjective, there are some clear areas for each vendor to improve.
Asustor, QNAP and Synology have the setup process nailed down to a decent extent. However, Netgear needs to make its ReadyCLOUD process more robust. Alternatively, the RAIDar program should be fixed to avoid Java requirements. Western Digital's approach is almost perfect, given that they mostly sell systems with disks pre-installed. However, it would be good if a volume is created by default when the My Cloud OS is installed. ZyXEL's approach is passable, but the slow web UI leads to an unsatisfactory UX.
On the storage and services side, Synology and QNAP turn out to very feature-rich, followed closely by Asustor. Netgear still has some catching up to do as certain aspects like advanced SMB options still require an external package to be installed.
In terms of networking features, QNAP is very much on top. While all vendors have some sort of teaming implementation, QNAP has gone beyond that and started to implement various network modes that can really take advantage of the multiple LAN ports.
Next week, we will have a follow-up article that deals with value-add features. These include media services, surveillance (DVR for IP cameras) solutions, and the public cloud (integration with Dropbox, Google Drive etc.). We will also discuss support for virtualization - in terms of being a datastore, as well as the NAS being a host for guest VMs. A look at some of the third-party applications and the usage models that they enable will round up our comprehensive coverage of NAS operating systems.
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darwinosx - Monday, April 3, 2017 - link
Browser is not the answer in many many cases. Which you know but want to sound clever like you know something others don't.darwinosx - Monday, April 3, 2017 - link
They are laughing at NAS because they are being silly and egotistical.Many of us here can roll our own but why deal with it when a NAS does so many things out of the box. I have enough work to do at work and don't need to do it at home.
How valuable is your time?
doggface - Tuesday, November 15, 2016 - link
Jbrizz has gone more in depth. But essentially the answer is yes. If you wanted to load up your has with all those things. You can. And more. And it uses a better file system. And it is dead easy to recover. And you can have bigger arrays easily.Yes. That is why we always harp on about it. FreeNas is awesome.
jlabelle2 - Wednesday, November 16, 2016 - link
- If you wanted to load up your has with all those things. You can. And moreSee my answer above and re-read jbrizz answer that prove exactly otherwise.
So it does less.
- And it uses a better file system
Synology are using Btrfs. What other "better file system" are you speaking about exactly?
- And it is dead easy to recover. And you can have bigger arrays easily
How "consumer" NAS are more complicated to recover? Those are standard RAID, standard file system. Also, bigger array like bigger than 48 disks and 480To of capacity?!?
Which normal consumer needs more than nearly half PETABYTE, you tell me.
- That is why we always harp on about it. FreeNas is awesome.
Sure, it was is is about it. Those solution are CHEAP. That's all.
They are more complicated, less capable, less elegant and bigger.
The fact that it does not do ALL the simple points I mention show how limited they are already from the get go. And I am even not entering in more advanced features.
doggface - Wednesday, November 16, 2016 - link
Btrfs < ZFS.Many people I know have had qnap/synology Nas's die. The only way they could recover those drives is to buy the exact same hardware again. This was due to their implementations of raid in hardware. The array required the same HW controller to survive. ZFS is on the other hand, hardware agnostic.
My 5 disk array is in a mini-itx case. Plenty small enough for me. The setup takes about 5-10 mins like cots if you buy the hardware pre-built.
It is not cheap, it is excellent value. It is also a full fledged home/soho/enterprise system and beyond.
Every feature you have mentioned is possible from FreeNas. So, it is feature complete. And it is open source So no worries about vendor disinterest in your particular version of hardware. And it is regularly updated, so that is not different either.
The fact is, if you have the smarts to set up COTS. You can set up freenas.
Again. It's just better. But each to their own I guess.
jlabelle2 - Thursday, November 17, 2016 - link
- Btrfs < ZFS.Well reading the comments here on the ressource hog and how it is almost impossible to extend the array, I would say that it is really a matter of opinion than facts. Important is not that but more all capabilities you lose with those DIY NAS.
- The only way they could recover those drives is to buy the exact same hardware again.
That is not true. And it has been proven several times, even here in Anandtech article. Beside, people would usually remain with the same brand to keep the same UI and experience, especially when you are using the best products in the market (QNAP and Synology).
- It is not cheap, it is excellent value. It is also a full fledged home/soho/enterprise system and beyond.
- Every feature you have mentioned is possible from FreeNas
No. It is not. Take again my points and you will see it is NOT.
- So no worries about vendor disinterest in your particular version of hardware
I have a DS412+. And it is running the latest DSM 6.2 beta version, not yet release, with ALL the features. So I have a 5 year old hardware that is running the next year software without any limitations.
And you tell me that I will have a better support with FreeNAS than those 6 years I have currently? You did not make for a very compelling argument and should try better.
- Again. It's just better. But each to their own I guess
Why are you not able to explain why then? It does not make all the functions that consumer NAS like Synology (or QNAP) offers, it is not really cheaper, what advantages does it have? Can you give some facts?
aaronb1138 - Friday, November 25, 2016 - link
One entertaining setup supported with FreeNAS is boot from USB flash drive. I'm using this in my own 15 TB (raw) setup. If the chassis were to die, I could pull the USB stick and 5x 3TB drives and plug them into any other vaguely compatible hardware and have not just my data, but my configuration instantly online. So at the moment it runs in a Dell DCS 6005 (custom D6100) chassis with 48 GB of RAM, I could throw it in a desktop and be back up and running in just the time for taking drives out of sleds. I am running a beta version of FreeNAS at the moment with a minor read cache issue which requires reboot about every 6 months (it fails to free RAM from stale read cache to fresh which slows performance a bit). On the upside, the slightly excessive amount of RAM makes XBMC's metadata read awfully fast.pwr4wrd - Tuesday, November 15, 2016 - link
I could not agree with you more. These systems are a joke to begin with. When you factor in how much they cost considering crummy hardware they cram in these things, it becomes a total circus act.jabber - Tuesday, November 15, 2016 - link
FreeNAS is fine for the hobbyist but time is money if you are in business. Buy off the shelf, arrive at the customer, 10 minutes to setup the QNAP and you are back on the road.StormyParis - Monday, November 14, 2016 - link
You don't seem to adress adding/upgrading disks after the fact, which is something that's rather important.I got a Synology because it let me add same-size disks to an existing array after a few weeks/months.
I'd get something else if I could find something that let me add different-size disks to an array, again, weeks/months after the intitial array setup.