On Sun, Mar 03, 2019 at 03:30:09PM -0800, Community support for Fedora users wrote:
In my experience, USB3 and Ethernet are about tied with each other
for speed. It does not matter how fast your Ethernet goes, if
your computer can not process the data. eSata runs at the speed of
internal hard drive. (The Rosewill is Sata III.)
The biggest problem I've encountered is that the third-party devices for
external drives are cheaply made and sourced. Doesn't matter how good the
hard drive is if the chipset and implementation of the docking station are
cheesy.
As far as NAS devices go, I find them pains in the neck. They
always have some weird quirk that ...
I have had that experience--especially in the earlier days (and
*especially* with Buffalo). The problem, AFAICT, has been expertise
on the vendor's part. All of them were--and are--dedicated embedded
Linux boxes, relying on Samba. Every single one. Some were because the
implementors were overstating the compatibility and capability of the
then-current version of Samba. Others were because they simply didn't
understand how to configure an embedded Linux server. The third problem
was a bad GUI implementation between you and the underlying Linux/Samba
OS. Surprisingly, rarely did I confirm the hardware itself was at fault
(although that may well have been in the mix.)
This has led me to stick with any that HAS worked. Even though there are
some quirks, properly implemented current Synology NAS boxes have proven
reliable. There are some implementation quirks--but after dealing with
systemd, I can't criticize anyone for bad decisions. Certainly none I've
not been able to ignore or work around.
I prefer just setting up a Samba server instead.
That's effectively what a NAS is. The problem with setting up a RYO Samba
server is that you now have another server to manage, with all the
downsides that implies. Not a big deal for a home system, but I have to
roll these out to dozens of client sites--I simply don't have the time and
inclination to build yet another system. IF the NAS works, it's the
better choice.
Does not mean that all NAS devices are bad, just that I haven't
found one I like yet. Their big problem is the same problem as USB
hard drives. They are meant to be cheap. No one even
looks at the expensive ones.
What do you mean by expensive? A Synology RAID1 DS218+ is about
$325-$350, less disks. For home, that might be a dealbreaker; for a
business looking for cheap external storage (much cheaper than a 10-15K
RPM extension to their internal server RAID10 storage), not at all.
I look at it this way, when you need your data back, you need it
back. The last thing you want to deal with is an extra layer
of complication.
Absolutely. Data is expensive, hardware is cheap. For backup or storage,
failure is not an option.
Cheers,
--
Dave Ihnat