No matter your setup, I totally recommend a brand with lots of experience
and a powerful OS, like "Synology" 920+ with 4-bay, which I tell everyone
to get.
On Sat, Jan 24, 2026, 12:10 PM R. C. Miessler <
0000003d9a31e078-dmarc-request_at_lists.clir.org> wrote:
> I did technical support for Iomega's NAS boxes in a previous life. And
> yes, they found ways to destroy your data outside of ZIP drives. Budget NAS
> appliances seem like a good idea until they warranty bomb, but generally
> they do what's on the tin and are a great way to store and serve up data on
> your local network. If you're going with one appliance and 2 4 TB drives,
> I'd recommend to set it up as RAID 1 and backup the NAS elsewhere. You're
> only getting 4TB of space that way, but at least there's internal
> redundancy in the device in case a drive fails and you can move the drives
> to a new appliance in case that fails.
>
> I don't use a NAS at work (IT would murder me) but I do use a RAID 1'd USB
> 3.0 device that's locally connected to a PC, and sync that with AWS
> Glacier.
>
> R.C. Miessler | Digital Initiatives Librarian
> Gettysburg College | Musselman Library
> 300 North Washington Street | Gettysburg, PA 17325
> <https://www.google.com/maps/search/300+North+Washington+Street+%7C+Gettysburg,+PA+17325?entry=gmail&source=g>
> Schedule an Appointment
> he/him/his
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Code for Libraries <CODE4LIB_at_LISTS.CLIR.ORG> On Behalf Of Eric
> Lease Morgan
> Sent: Friday, January 23, 2026 11:35 AM
> To: CODE4LIB_at_LISTS.CLIR.ORG
> Subject: [CODE4LIB] nas -- network-accessible storage
>
> CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not
> click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know
> the content is safe.
> ________________________________
>
> As I may have alluded to previously, this is the time of year when I
> routinely curate the past year's data/files. This process almost always
> includes applying the same process to the previous years' data/files.
>
> This year's solution to my curation issues is/was "cold block storage". I
> have been playing with Digital Ocean's implementation. So far I have only
> uploaded 400 GB of data, and the estimated costs will be about a $1/month
> Wow!? In the end though, I may have about 4TB of data, and to some degree,
> I will want to access/churn it, which is not amenable to cold storage.
> What's more, when it comes to cold cloud storage, I do not really own my
> own data/files because they are "over there".
>
> I am now very serousluy considering NAS -- network-accessible storage. A
> NAS is essentically an appliance. It is a set of hard drives literally
> wrapped in hardware with proproetary operating system used to do I/O,
> provide access control, implement file transfer protocols, and to some
> degree, analyze the saved data. I could build my own, but then there is the
> convenience factor.
>
> In the end, I think I will buy a UGreen DH2300 and two 4TB drives for a
> total cost of about $400. This ought to be plenty of storage space and
> allow me to own my own data. I will probably continue to put stuff into
> cold storage, just in case.
>
> Do you have experience with NAS? Seems like a very good idea for library
> archivists.
>
> --
> Eric Morgan <emorgan_at_nd.edu>
>
Received on Sat Jan 24 2026 - 03:23:15 EST