NAS recomendations

[Zydox]

I've been using a QNAP TS-409 PRO with 4x1.5TB disks for about a year now and it's getting full... so I'm searching for another NAS to attach to my network... anyone here got any recommendations?

Requirements are that they support NFS, CIFS/SMB, RAID-5 and SATA 3.5" disks.

Right now I'm considering these two:
Qnap TS-410 (390Ôé¼)
Netgear ReadyNAS NV+ RND4000 (270Ôé¼)

I would prefer to buy a six disk version with RAID-6, but those seem to be much more expensive...

[HeavyLancer]

You almost may as well build your own, using one of those embedded Intel Atom Mini-ITX motherboards and an external RAID card for more ports. Then you wouldn't have to worry about software issues, because you could just run your own

[Zydox]

I'm not a big fan of software raid... have had some issues with that years ago... perhaps it's gotten better now... but one of my favourite features with my Q-nap is that it was quite easy to exchange the disks in it...

I started with a build of 4x1TB disks, and after a few months I exchanged those for 1.5TB disks, without having to destroy the array... basically I just had to replace one disk, let it rebuild the array... exchange the next... and so one...

When all four were exchanged, I could just extend the array and get 1.5TB more space on the existing share

[HeavyLancer]

Well, I'm running a Netgear ReadyNAS Duo and haven't had any issues with it, but that might be a bit too small for your requirements as it only has 2 drive bays. I think the Netgear ones run hardware RAID; they are also built like tanks. I dunno much about the Qnaps though.

[Zydox]

Yeah, I'm considering the 4bay version from netgear... though I've read some reports saying that one of the downsides for that NAS is that it's noisy...

Have you had any issues in this area?

[aegis]

I went the atom/raid card route (used a microatx atom instead of mini-itx for the extra expansion slots) and I have an 8-port raid-capable system for $250ish USD... will be about $100 more for the hotswap bays when I upgrade to eight drives.

[HeavyLancer]

I haven't really had noise problems, because the office where I keep all of the network equipment is at the other end of the house
I must admit that it is sort of noisy on startup and when it is doing disk read/writes; no more noisy than a hard drive in a normal PC case though.

[Zydox]

Aegis, which OS are you running and are you using software RAID?
More specs pls