Would you buy a 2Big today?

[jpjpjp]

I've been shopping around for a new two disk NAs to replace my failing NS2, mostly looking at Synology and WD offers.

Now that I know about the FDVW firmware I wonder if I should stay in the Lacie family? This forum certainly seems more "responsive" than the big manufacturer support forums!

But what about the hardware itself? I'm curious what 2Big owners like, don't like about their NAS.

Thanks,
--jp

[Jocko]

Hi jpjpjp,

It seems that for several nas type synology has better performances :dry

[fvdw]

it depends on processor speed and RAM.

But do you really need up/download speeds of 50 MB/s or more ?

Most of the time the speed of the lacie's is more then enough, I would more look if the nas has firmware with the options I want.

[jpjpjp]

Thanks for the quick and honest feedback.

I know that so far I really love fvdw for one simple reason on my NS2...ssh. Synology comes with SSH so it probably comes down to price with a slight edge going to Synolgoy over Lacie if the prices are similar since the speed will be better. I'll do some research and post back here.

Actually, in my quick research, the write speeds and price differences on two similar models, the Synology DS214se http://www.amazon.com/Synology-DiskStation-Attached-DS214se-2200/dp/B00G9X5NFO/ref=dp_return_2 and the 2Big http://amazon.com/LaCie-Network-Attached-Storage-9000225/dp/B008IFXRPY/ref=pd_cp_pc_0 don't seem that different. I found an example of each spec'ed with 2 2TB drives in it:

Big2: $349. 55Mb write/100Mb read
Synology: $371. 60Mb write/98 Mb read

Both have USB 2.0. Big2 has an external eSata ports as well.

I guess it's worth asking...are there any features that FDVW has that you think might be missing from Synlogy? (One thing that I'm interested in is an easy way to auto sync directories with an offline service like Amazon Glacier).

Cheers...I'm still a newbie but so far am thoroughly impressed with this. Honestly, i was going to chuck the NS2 into the garbage! It's boneheaded "feature" to move all data from OpenShare to a MyShare/restore partition and then providing no simple way to move it back, made it almost useless given that it failed a few times a year.

Look for a donation from me!

[fvdw]

I think in practice boot will not be able to reach the specified speed, it depends also on if it concerns big files or many small files.
Also running more then one application or having more then 1 user active will influence speed.
On my 5big2 I reach around 40-30 MB/s for read and write
You should compare the cpu frequency and RAM size.

Does the synology have more features, to be honest I don't know, never had one. But I have seen good reviews of Synology devices regarding hardware and firmware.

I think our firmware will have some that you won't find on the synology like rsync server and the various media servers
What our firmware lacks is raid support. fvdw-sl 16-0 has raid support but need manual setup. In the next release we plan to have a setup menu available.
Furthermore our firmware is completely open and let you if you want to and have some linux skills add any feature you want.
Last but not least the fvdw-sl firmware is supported by two enthusiastic persons that made a hobby out of it. At Synology side you have a large workforce of professionals.

[jpjpjp]

At Synology side you have a large workforce of professionals.

Synology does have a good reputation, but a large workforce doesn't guarantee quality or responsiveness. (Before I discovered you I bought a WD My Cloud Mirror box and after a week it still hasn't copied my ~2G of data from an external USB without crapping out in the first hour. Your software did it over USB 2 in 3.5 days with a single rsync ssh command).

I do want RAID in my next NAS, but given that fvdw has restored my NS2 to usefuless, a NAS upgrade (the WD is getting returned!) isn't quite as urgent. Perhaps I'll play with the latest firmware and see if I can get raid working. Can I configure Raid with a single drive in an NS2 and an external USB?

[fvdw]

In principle you should be able, if you use the instructions of Jocko, our raid expert, it may fail as his how to was not meant to use in this way. But I think he will comment to this

[Jocko]

I do want RAID in my next NAS, but given that fvdw has restored my NS2 to usefuless, a NAS upgrade (the WD is getting returned!) isn't quite as urgent. Perhaps I'll play with the latest firmware and see if I can get raid working. Can I configure Raid with a single drive in an NS2 and an external USB?

Yes jpjpjp, you will be able to do a RAID with a single drive in an NS2 and an external USB

Currently, I made some change in the boot script to do this so that rspb2 may handle raid partition with usb partitions but the script is still bugged and I need to do some more changes.

I think to fix this issue in next days and make a patch (because it will fix also other bugs detected with version 16.0)

So you need to wait few days

[jpjpjp]

I'm happy to give it a try if you like Jocko, but only if this is something that you want to support. If so it would be a privilege to be an early beta tester!

Is there a thread where you are posting the raid instructions? I'll monitor that for your update and instructions.

Cheers!