For the longest time I have thought of adding a NAS to my desktop computer.
I've been looking at Synology and Qnap.
While researching one article stated that using a NAS protected the user from ransomware is that possible? I would have thought that the ransomware would have locked everything up including the attached NAS.
Secondly if I off load all my movies, and photos etc. to a NAS will that in and of itself speed up my desktop ?
A NAS is just a storage device that's connected to the network via LAN cable. It has nothing to do security as far as protection other than keeping data off the PC that might get infected and then would loose said data. For speeding up your desktop (PC tower).....yes and no...Yes, maybe if it's on a HDD rather than a SSD as far as the data being contiguous on the HDD. No if a SSD is being used in the NAS.
Simple put, a NAS is just your personal storage device for storing and sharing data accross the network. What you should be looking for is if the NAS is NAT protected behind your router.
What Plankton said is correct but it’s not the whole story on a NAS. The way I use my NAS is not to hold my data per se but to hold the BACKUPS of my data and OS, and as long as you have it (the NAS) shut off unless you are actually making backups then if ransomware hits you, the backups on the NAS will be safe from being to ransomware.
So this begs the question, are you making regular backup of your data, and OS, so that you will be able to easily recover from not only ransomware but bad updates, viruses, and dumb things that all users inevitably do.
Hi folks
@smalltown
I HATE the idea of yet another proprietary OS. (QNAP / SYNOLOGY etc)
If you want a decent NAS server -- any OLD piece of hardware will do running any reasonable version of LINUX - e.g UBUNTU, MINT, OPENSUSE, CENTOS, ARCH etc etc -- including using any junk of a computer that might be destined for a 1 way trip to your local municpal tip.
A lowly CELERON CPU is probably also sufficient - no i7 type of stuff needed for a NAS server. -- just install any sensible LINUX distro on it, add HDD / SSD drives to taste, fire up SAMBA and whatever multi-media servers you need, establish shareable directories and you are in business with a FREE OS and it will work pretty well on any old bit of hardware you have -- there's no reason either why you can't test the whole process on a Virtual machine before comitting real hardware.
With a Linux NAS you are in 100% total control over software etc -- things like QNAP make adding software quite tricky.
Note for this type of server CPU power isn't that important as you will be mainly file and multi-media serving -- quality of HDD's should be good but otherwise even an old machine with 8GB RAM will work just great.
PLEX / KODI / VLC etc all work perfectly well on any form of Linux - so multi-media access is covered.
Also for backups - a Linux NAS can use "Crontab" to schedule regular jobs so you can backup your Windows clients automatically at set times too -- and the clients if they need to restore their data can do it as well.
As far as Ransomware etc -- Linux is far better protected than Windows so won't be an issue in any case.
Also on Linux Networking usually works every time straight out of the box --Unlike problem with another OS I can mentioned --Redmond - taking note !!! please.
Cheers
jimbo
Yes I'm backing up using Macrium. I back up my OS only, but realize that I should also be doing my data. So far I have only backed up whenever a CU will be offered. Next backup will be everything.
I was thinking about installing a NAS in the ceiling below along with my router and modem to neaten things up. Just don't like the idea of not being able to glance over at the status lights when something doesn't seem right.
Not to change the subject, but I have never restored from a Macrium backup so in the back of my mind I wonder is this "thing" going to work especially after several Macrium software updates? Do you have a way of testing the backup without my mucking things up ?
Sorry if I am rambling, but this corona self isolation thing is really getting to me.
@Compumind
Ok at that price one certainly can't really complain. !!
However I can beat that -- got an old HP PROLIANT GEN 8 Microserver (the old one) that an office was chucking out -- had 2X XEON processors on board and 16GB RAM. Has 4 HDD Bays (not Hot swappable though)
I populated it with 4 X HDD's and an SSD for the OS plus /home data etc. The box cost me 0 USD !!!! and I had my own spare HDD's etc.
The only problem was that the built in RAID was hideous so I set it back to AHCI (standard SATA) -- but in this mode you can't boot from the SSD (I used the DVD slot with molex adapter for power and sata connector to mobo for the sata bit) but you can from internal micro sd card / internal USB slot or external USB ports. I had /boot on a 32 GB internal microSD card also re-cycled from an old SAMSUNG phone !! and everything works brilliantly.
The /boot area is only a small fat32 partition -- OK takes slightly (or a "little bit") longer to boot than if booting from an SSD but after the MBR boots and the boot part of the linux kernel gets loaded from the SD card the rest of the OS is loaded from the SSD and then the whole kybosh runs totally from the SSD after boot.
There's then no writes to the microSD card after the boot so no probs with card going "bad" -- and this thing runs more or less 24/7 so it's not booted very often.
This "Old clunker" once booted beats my more modern desktop and 2 laptops any time -- the old dual XEON processors are 100% brilliant even though there's more modern CPU's out there today. Software RAID 0 (mdadm) works an absolute treat for the 4 X HDD's (20 TB in total)
Not for the fainthearted but as a cheap machine it can't be beat -- runs a load of VM's as well --dual XEON's are brilliant even today -- only limitation is that 16GB is the Max RAM I can have in the box -- still for 0 USD what do you want !!!! and it's much better using it at home than sending it to the Tip !!!!
I think a lot of people could learn a lot by re-using old gear instead of just junking things for "shiny new hardware" and also save a lot of waste.
As an "Old timer Engineer" we always had to "Cannabalize" bits of old gear to keep things working so 2nd nature to me -- perhaps nearer retirement I should give some courses on "Reusing hardware" !!!!
@smalltown
Cheer up -- we are coming out of this Coronoa thing -- it won't last for ever -- we managed it a bit differently - people from outside EU Schengen area (including UK) have to still quarantine for 14 days --not in jail etc -- just a registered address / hotel etc before being able to move freely -- otherwise Bars etc are beginning to operate again with gatherings of up to 1000 allowed --and for Iceland 1000 people is quite a lot)
I'm sure USA will be OK after all this --don't believe all doom and gloom -- most decent civilized democratic countries would rather have USA on their side than China etc !!! -- and we all have things to say about some or our "leaders" too !!!
Cheers
jimbo
Last edited by jimbo45; 04 May 2020 at 09:14.
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