10 PC Office Data Storage Recommendations
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@johnhooks said:
It will do Samba with users and permissions through its web gui.
Meaning SMB. Samba is the name of the underlying code but not relevant to the users of a NAS - that's just under the hood. It is an SMB server like Windows. It does the same SMB features that Windows would do.
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@BRRABill said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Active Directory, email server, instant messaging, database, etc.
Right, yeah I don't think so, nope.
The NAS (like the Synology) can do users?
The synology NAS's are actually rather impressive. I'm much more fond of having a server, but with these beasties being so good it's hard to justify all the extra expense and maintenance of a server.
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@scottalanmiller said:
What would you describe as "doing users?"
Yeah after I typed that I thought it needed clarification.
Having never installed one of these things, how does it integrate with Windows, I guess is the question.
They'd have a Windows desktop logon, and then attach to a share, using the user account on the NAS?
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@MattSpeller said:
The synology NAS's are actually rather impressive. I'm much more fond of having a server, but with these beasties being so good it's hard to justify all the extra expense and maintenance of a server.
Looking at the website, definitely looks interesting.
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Now pure hosted is a very valid approach too. It depends on the scenario, robustness of features desired, etc. Of course we expect any email, intranet and other features to be hosted. It is only the storage that we are discussing here.
Products like Google Apps include Google Drive. MS Office 365 includes One Drive for Business and SharePoint for storage. And you can build your own like ownCloud for cheap on services like Vultr. Plus there are third party products like ownCloud's own hosted server, DropBox, etc.
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@BRRABill said:
Having never installed one of these things, how does it integrate with Windows, I guess is the question.
"Integrate with Windows" is a hard phrase to answer. They do SMB Share Security as designated by the SMB protocol specs and NTFS ACLs.
Answer this question: "How would a Windows server integrate with Windows." If you can answer that, I can help explain where a Synology would diverge from that, if at all. But since to me they are identical, I'm not sure how to describe one or the other.
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@BRRABill said:
They'd have a Windows desktop logon, and then attach to a share, using the user account on the NAS?
Better than that, you can setup ... how to describe it... stealth folder backup (like folder redirection but data stays local and gets copied to NAS by a small application on the PC)
You can also setup plain old network shares and the permissions work just like the NTFS ones you're used to.
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@BRRABill said:
They'd have a Windows desktop logon, and then attach to a share, using the user account on the NAS?
Same as attaching to any share, yes. This is just SMB that you are looking at.
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@MattSpeller said:
You can also setup plain old network shares and the permissions work just like the NTFS ones you're used to.
That's the answer to the question I having trouble writing!
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@BRRABill said:
@MattSpeller said:
You can also setup plain old network shares and the permissions work just like the NTFS ones you're used to.
That's the answer to the question I having trouble writing!
I have already answered that
SMB Shares and NTFS ACLs. -
Too many answers, I was having trouble keeping up. If I could mark "ANSWER" on both posts I would.
This seems VERY intruging. VERY.
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Using a NAS (which size is purely determined by storage capacity and performance, not features) locally or all hosted (cloud, as it is often called incorrectly) are the only two standard answers for an environment like this. Those two cover effectively all use cases.
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@BRRABill said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Active Directory, email server, instant messaging, database, etc.
Right, yeah I don't think so, nope.
The NAS (like the Synology) can do users?
Some NAS devices can do 'users'... however you will be better suited to use a full server running AD...
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@BRRABill we have 4 of the Synology ones if you have any questions or want screen shots etc. Perhaps in a new thread? Whatever works.
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@gjacobse said:
Some NAS devices can do 'users'... however you will be better suited to use a full server running AD...
This is confusing. "All" do SMB shares and all of the associated permissions of them. Drobo is the least capable out there (B800fs, 5n) and it does this.
Nearly all except for Drobo do SMB and AD Integration.
All business class ones like Synology and ReadyNAS do SMB, AD and NTFS.
You can't have a NAS without users, but it is what OTHER non-user features that you want that changes the capabilities.
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@MattSpeller said:
Synology DS412+ (cloudsync user's folders is niiiiiice)
Is there a particular reason you recommend that model? (Which has apparently been replaced by the DS415+.)
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@scottalanmiller said:
@johnhooks said:
It will do Samba with users and permissions through its web gui.
Meaning SMB. Samba is the name of the underlying code but not relevant to the users of a NAS - that's just under the hood. It is an SMB server like Windows. It does the same SMB features that Windows would do.
The NAS user still has to be added to Samba to allow them access to the share.
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It's likely the model he could buy at the time.
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@BRRABill nope, I think we actually have 2x 415+ and 2x monster size one. Been a while since I shopped for them but I think they have a couple tiers. The ones we have are the fancy pants models.
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@johnhooks said:
The NAS user still has to be added to Samba to allow them access to the share.
Same as you have to add them to the SMB Server on Windows. Given that the point of a NAS is to abstract to a higher level, thinking of it in terms of being Samba (which it does not necessarily have to be, it's just any SMB server, sometimes it is others) is confusing.
