Please kindly advise the more appropriate method(s) for setting up a wifi home NAS system (mainly for streaming music, HD movies and files transfer), thanks.
NAS is new to me, and I am planning to purchase WD EX2 6TB (2x3TB) as follows:
1.) 2 units EX2 6TB, both setup as RAID 0, i.e. the second unit will serve as 100% auto backup of the first unit. Reason, RAID 0 is faster speed.
Or 2.) A single WD EX2 8TB (max size currently available), maintaining the original factory setting of RAID 1. Slower?
[Note: WD EX4 prices are higher, reason for not consider. But, if it has strongly justification, then I may do.]
Currently, I am subcribing to a 20Mbps optical broadband system, and we like high quality musics (multiple locations) and movies sharing at home (4 TVs). New EX2 NAS will be connecting through the ethernet cable with a router (planning for Asus AC87 model as access point for stronger singals at difficult locations).
This is going to be the beginning of a hard working process…
I wouldn’t bother with the dual setup primarily as you will not get the performance benefit. Your Gigabit LAN connection from the EX4 will only usually deliver a fraction of that bandwidth (<100Mbps) so that will be your constraining factor. Anyway for your usage, you do not require super high performance. If you are streaming 4 TV’s at once with HD, you will saturate your broadband connection anyway. If streaming from the EX4, then your internal network will likely become the constraint prior to the disk reads…
Better to go with a single unit and use RAID 5 whcih gives you a nice compromise between performance and reliability - RAID 5 uses block-level striping with parilty distributed amonsgt the drives. Reads are handled by the best drive (i.e. fast). Failure of a single drive can be tolerated as the parity blocks can rebuild the lost unit.
Clarity: I need to maintain sufficient high speed for devices. The signal strength (wifi and also with erthernet cables connected to devices) should not be of concern, for using Asus RT-AC87 to be set up as a router or an access point, working with WD NAS.
Sorry, I don’t mean using all 4TVs at same time; but I mean mainly streaming the HD movies from “home NAS system” (not from internet) by individual users/TVs. FYI, I plan to convert a few hundred musical CDs (as FLAC or WAV) into the ex2, connect up to 2 units of oppo 103D (wifi and erthernet wired) to ex2 for movies; not sure it is possible or too slow access speed?
I get your point, and will start with a single NAS (ex2 8TB & re-configure - cheaper; ex4 8TB US$1250 too expensive!) Also, I may attached the ex2 with external HDDs as additional source.
I need to learn doing “RAID 5”…lol
Reliability is the top priority, reason: Do not want to re-do for many weeks again if HD clashed. Speed/signal strength come next.
Now it is a good start, and will be learning from many gurus…
If you haven’t already purchased, I suggest you have a good hard look around before buying a WD MyCloud EX2 or 4. I haven’t tried the EX2. But I regret buying the EX4. It’s not a strong device. Its not well maintained. The software that implements raid is a version more than 8 years old. Maybe spend a little more on the device you do buy and you may save yourself much regret and a lot of work trying to make the best of what is essentially a bad device.
