revised 9:15 AM to add Synology
I was reading some additional NAS discussion on a photography list serve and was introduced to yet another NAS vendor that deserves consideration, QNAP. They appear to have wide distribution in North America (I found two online retailers that list them, CDW.CA and CanadaComputers.com. While the comparison was made to the Drobo products in the discussion I saw, these products appear to be similar in pricing and quality to Thecus and Netgear and offer some interesting options. Thecus units are more difficult to obtain, but Netgear units are also available at the two online dealers listed for QNAP. Yet another name just came up in the discussion, Synology. QNAP, Synology, and Thecus are all headquartered in Taiwan, while Netgear is headquartered in the U.S.
My experiences–mostly positive–have been with Thecus and Netgear, but I wanted to pass along QNAP as yet another contender. While Synology is also distributed by the two suppliers I listed above, it seems to be less in-depth than the QNAP and Netgear distribution, focusing on lower-end products at higher prices.
I currently own two Thecus N5200PRO 5-slot models and four Netgear ReadyNAS NV+ RND4000 units. My neighbour (with whom I share off-site backup) has just bought a pair of the ReadyNAS NV+ units. In all cases, one of each pair is in my home and the other is in my neighbour’s.
I would suggest professionally rated drives if you want to spring for them, but they tend to be 3x the price of the desktop drives. I’ve used mostly desktop drives and 1 TB and less seem to work fine. The 1.5 TB drives have been developing a few “reallocated sector” errors.