Should I be looking for a NAS that specifically supports NTFS?

If your favorite file-system has some specialities then they probably will not be supported when using another FS. The meta tagging supported by HFS+ comes to my mind.

I don't knowingly have any special features I care about. I just would like to be able to access the drives through Window's Network Locations.

I'll at a later date add a UPS, maybe this one, to the setup - but probably can't do that right off the bat without things getting too expensive.

Notice please: I recommend a UPS if you really want to be protected where possible. Whether it is a remunerative investment is a good question. Not every power fail will cause damage to the data.

But does a power failure have the potential to wreck the entire drive?

You have to answer the question: How often does it happen that your power supply fails and how important are the data stored on the NAS, compared with the costs of a UPS.

The data, mostly being backups, if lost (and if I know it's lost) could be re-backed up.

Power failures occur maybe a dozen times a year (lasting a few minutes or even a few seconds each), clustered together during the rainy season.

Further, if a damage occurs it will affect a few files, not the entire drive (drives automatically put the heads into park position when power drops down).

That's fine. If it's not affecting the entire drive, and won't damage the entire drive, that's fine if I lose a random file once or twice a year, since a full backup would be remade from scratch every week anyway, and the most recent two full backups will exist at any given time.

I should have said that the 3 customers I mentioned somewhere above had the habit to switch off the computer instead of shutting it down properly. In the end we cannot prove that their habit was the cause for the damage, but it is very likely since it is like a power fail once a day.

I shut down my PC properly, using the regular (Start->Shutdown + walk away) method. My computer was crashing to blue-screen quite a bit (about every other day) a few weeks ago, but I think I got that resolved and it hasn't reoccured since.

why a NAS device, instead of something fixed to the PC?

Good question. I guess it's mostly an illusion of security by separating my aging desktop from my data backed up from that desktop. If the desktop dies I don't want it to kill its own backups as well.
I don't know if that's actually a risk, but mentally it seems like a risk. It'd give me psychological peace of mind, if nothing else, to be able to look at a physically separated object that holds the backup data.

If your PC is going to be on during the entire duration, you save yourself the money of the NAS box itself, and you don't need to worry nearly as much about performance issues associated with the comparatively crumby SATA 1/2 interfaces. Most PCs have tons of spare 3.5' bays and SATA controllers.

My PC is a few years old now - ~6 years; I think I got it in 2007 (though I've made some minor hardware upgrades since then). Since it's working fine for my current needs, and performs smoothly enough, I'm hoping it'll chug along for another year or two before I replace it with a more recent and upgraded computer.

It has two SATA 3.5" bays, both are now being used with harddrives (one 350GB and one 500GB - currently the laptops, and itself, backs up to the newer one of the internal drives, though both drives are also used for non-backup data).
It has four SATA ports. Two of them are SATA-2, which I have the two drives plugged into, and two of them are SATA-1, one of which is used by the CD/DVD drive and one of which is (iirc) unused.

I also have an aging external harddrive, USB-2 and 350GB, that I really want to migrate away from for important data. If I setup a NAS or something equivalent, I'd either use the harddrive as an extraly redundant backup of important data that's synced less often (maybe monthly), or leave it plugged into the desktop just as an extra bit of space - though I really wouldn't need the space since the desktop's memory would be majorly freed up.

Does that make sense, or am I being ridiculous?

I don't knowingly have any special features I care about. I just would like to be able to access the drives through Window's Network Locations.

Yep, the NAS will appear there.

Power failures occur maybe a dozen times a year (lasting a few minutes or even a few seconds each), clustered together during the rainy season.

Regularly a dozen times a year is too much to be not worried about, in my opinion.

Does that make sense, or am I being ridiculous?

No, it is not ridiculous to have a 2nd level.

A NAS is an extra component. It allows for access by several clients. It allows for access in a more flexible period of time because it is not coupled to the operation time of a desktop computer. It costs relatively low current. It can serve as a versatile server with easy configuration tools.

On the other hand: The components inside a NAS are not as simply exchangeable as in a (perhaps self-build) desktop computer. Redundancy at RAID level is of no value if the power supply unit of the NAS becomes broken. Even worse: You cannot simply plug in the drives (from a hardware RAID) into a SATA slot of an arbitrary machine and hope for it coming back to life. Mostly every other machine will tell you that the drive is unformatted or corrupted.

This implies that a backup strategy (especially using a proprietary NAS as first level) should *ever* have a second level as well. This second level should be an external device, preferably plugged in via eSATA or USB to the NAS (that is why I have mentioned that the ZyXEL doesn't have eSATA or USB-3.0), initialized with a common file-system. Even better it should be a couple of devices / data media that are used in a round-robin mode. The external device(s) should be plugged in and switched on just for the time of making the back-up, and they should be deposited apart from the NAS. In dependence on the importance of the data and of course their change rate, a week for the 2nd level backup interval may already be too long.

Well, in a private environment one has to make compromises due to costs, and driving such an effort for more-or-less unimportant data will yield in displeasure after some time anyway.

I'd recommend a HP Microserver (usually cheaper than a decent NAS if you get the cashback offer) and some WD reds.

Then whack either a linux distro or windows server on it, and it'll do whatever you want it to, and more.

I've currently got the not-so-latest one, you can get upto 16gb memory in it and run a load of VMs from it, but i'm just using it as a simple server, running arch linux. Using it with sickbeard/sabnzbd for grabbing TV shows, but it's mainly for storing all my media which i can stream to pretty much any device in the house, via a simple samba share (takes about 15-20mins to set up samba on arch linux, without any knowledge, nifty!) plus makes it available in windows so you can use it as a network drive for backups etc. (i've got it set up so that every night it backs up from my windows machines the stuff i need and once done automatically sends the really important stuff to an offsite VPS for extra security, just actually need to have some stuff that is that important!) along with various other things.

Run it headless and ssh into it for administration etc, otherwise can just leave it on to do it's thing with minimal fuss.

I did have a fairly cheap NAS (about £50 cheap) but that just sucked, even when trying to use it properly, the HP microserver ended up costing me about £40 more after the cashback, so worth splashing out some on one, imo. Especially as 'good' NAS's seem to be about £200 around here.

I ordered two 1TB WD Reds, but I still haven't made my mind up about which NAS to go with. The HP Microservers look expensive ($350 and up) compared to the one I was looking at originally ($100). I'm looking for a NAS server that is under about $175, considering I'm already spending about $175 on harddrives. Any suggestions?

Also, I pulled out the UPS I have, and looked up its specs, and it seems like it'd do the job. I don't know if the company will still honor the equipment protection/replacement policy, but at least the UPS will provide backup power for ~6 minutes at 400 watts (13 minutes at 200 watts), and optionally send a shutdown signal to the NAS. Further, in the event of real surges, it'll hopefully eat the brunt of it, if not protect the electronics entirely.

About the UPS sending signals to the NAS, the UPS came with an install disk (Win95/98/..../Vista/Server2008 and "Linux"), which I could install on the NAS (uhh, I guess by copying via NFS? Just realized the NAS obviously won't have a cd drive). However, the UPS sends the shutdown signal via an "RS-232 communication port", which I've never heard of before, instead of USB.

I guess I could get an adapter cable like this one, but then how does the UPS's disc software installed on the NAS recognize to check the USB instead of the (non-existant) RS-232 connection? It looks like that adapter cable comes with USB drivers that then mimic a RS-232 interface to software running on the OS... does that make sense, or am I misunderstanding something?

The software that came with the UPS is called 'upsmon', and seems to be fairly standardized software.

About the UPS sending signals to the NAS, the UPS came with an install disk (Win95/98/..../Vista/Server2008 and "Linux"), which I could install on the NAS (uhh, I guess by copying via NFS?

Installation depends on the NAS, of course. E.g. the QNAPs run linux, and they use a specific package system for installation (under linux there are some such systems available, dependent on the distribution). Installation is done there by using the QNAP client software.

If installation from the NAS drives is possible at all, then putting and mounting an ISO image may be possible, too.

However, the UPS sends the shutdown signal via an "RS-232 communication port", which I've never heard of before, instead of USB.

Thanks that you remind me how old I am ;)

Under Windows the RS-232 ports are called COM1, COM2, …; you can find them in the Device Manager. Usually there is one (COM1) shown although no hardware is attached. If you attach an adapter (see below) and has the driver installed, then an additional COM port will be shown there.

I guess I could get an adapter cable like this one, but then how does the UPS's disc software installed on the NAS recognize to check the USB instead of the (non-existant) RS-232 connection? It looks like that adapter cable comes with USB drivers that then mimic a RS-232 interface to software running on the OS... does that make sense, or am I misunderstanding something?

Such adapters do exactly that: At the RS-232 end they are, well, RS-232 ports; at the USB end they have a driver to be installed that emulates a RS-232 port on the OS side, so that it looks like a standard RS-232 to clients. To my knowledge adapter cables with FTDI chipset (e.g. FT232RL) are the ones with the widest support.

However, there is another caveat: You know that an ethernet patch cable is to be used for computer to switch connections, but a cross-over cable is to be used from computer to computer. This exists for RS-232, too. But even worse, there are male and female connectors for RS-232. This means that eventually a so-called "gender changer" is required (search amazon for it). To make things more complicated, adapters exists that handle both the crossing over and the gender changing. The only thing you probably need not to consider is that RS-232 plugs exists in a 9 pole and in a 25 pole version; most probably you would need the 9 pole version.

Now if you need to stay with RS-232, your problems are:

* You need to find the correct adapter configuration.

* You need to have a driver on your NAS suitable for both the NAS OS and the adapter cable.

* You need the software that shuts down the NAS controlled by a command coming from a COM port.

That may require you some searching and perhaps trial-&-fail to get that to work!!

The ZyXEL NSA320 runs a stripped down version of Linux that you can't really access. There are online tutorials about how to install different versions of Linux, but since the default NSA320 install doesn't have the necessary 'boot from USB', you have to physically wire it up to your computer to upgrade the 'uBoot' firmware, before being able to install what you want.

I don't feel like doing that. One too many steps outside my current comfort zone, not being a hardware guy, and not having much Linux experience. There's a real possibility of bricking the NSA320 if the firmware update fails.

Most my power outages last around twenty seconds or so. The UPS will provide power for between 6 and 13 minutes. Only about twice a year I get real power outages. Further, the likelihood of an extended power outage that occurs right when a backup is going is is unlikely.

Just plugging the device into the UPS should protect it from powersurges and most of the power outages, so I think that's good enough for me.

The NSA320 says, "APC USB UPS monitoring and auto shutdown", but the UPS has RS-232 (9 pin) - since the NAS already has software installed for handling standard USB APC signals, and the UPS emits RS-232 signals, is there a cable available that converts between the two? I don't know in what way the signals might vary.

I just asked customer support for the UPS, and they said, "Regarding your UPS and communication – I cannot speak for APC protocols, however, you CAN use a standard RS232-USB converter to connect your UPS via USB to a computer.". That doesn't quite clarify for me, but it might give you gentlemen some insight.

The NSA320 says, "APC USB UPS monitoring and auto shutdown", but the UPS has RS-232 (9 pin) - since the NAS already has software installed for handling standard USB APC signals, and the UPS emits RS-232 signals, is there a cable available that converts between the two? I don't know in what way the signals might vary.

I just asked customer support for the UPS, and they said, "Regarding your UPS and communication – I cannot speak for APC protocols, however, you CAN use a standard RS232-USB converter to connect your UPS via USB to a computer.". That doesn't quite clarify for me, but it might give you gentlemen some insight.

IMHO (what includes a "but actually I don't know") a direct link "as is" will not work, because of the following reasoning: The NAS binds to a USB port, the UPS binds to a RS-232 port. So a suitable adapter need to convert the protocol by itself, in hardware, without any support by a computer board on the one or other end. Because RS-232 does not has such a protocol stack like USB has, the adapter further need to be build explicitly to understand the UPS' protocol and to looks like a UPS on the USB side. All adapters I'm aware of are generic and use the lower complexity of RS-232 on both endpoints, i.e. give a RS-232 to RS-232 connection from a client software's point of view (this is true for the USB and for the BT adapters I've used so far).

Maybe there is somewhere a niche product especially build for the job. It is not too complex to build such a thing even for electronic hobby enthusiasts. Nevertheless I've never seen such a thing to buy.

You can perhaps try to find a solution with a computer in-between where you have full access to install drivers and such, i.e. like a bridge between UPS and NAS. The downside is, of course, that you need to run the computer as long as the NAS.