Question What was your first NAS?

[itsjasper]

This is probably aimed at the old hands, rather than the recent NAS owners, but I'm curious to ask, "What was your first NAS?"

Mine was an Infrant ReadyNAS NV (the non-Plus model, and pre-Netgear purchase). Nice unit, and good for its day, but certainly no speed demon.

I then upgraded to a ReadyNAS Pro, which itself got upgraded a few times, thanks to the socketed Pentium CPU. First to a Core Quad, then a Xeon. Plex ran awesomely on this NAS with the Xeon fitted.

After that, I switched teams and bought my first Synology, a DS1511. I think I'm up to around ten units owned at this point, but currently, I own four.

 

[Shadow]

Synology DS216+II was my first.

 

[fredbert]

Iomega Storcenter ix2-200 4TB (Iomega now owned by Lenovo) came with 2x2TB Seagate drives and, thank goodness, 3 years business support. Used the maintenance three times to replace drives which were sent out first and then the faulty drive returned after.

The WebDAV support became faulty in firmware v3 and fixed in v4 but the ix2-200 couldn't upgrade to v4. I got them to replace it with the Lenovo ix2-dl. It's now completely end-of-life but runs well enough for my Time Machine server.

I thought it was dead in 2015, hence getting a DS215j, but after taking it to pieces (did I replace the battery?), cleaning contacts, and removing dust I put it back together and it's been fine since .... slow, unlikely to be able to rebuild, but fine.

It's running a RAID 0 of mismatched 2TB and 1TB drives but that doesn't matter because Time Machine is only for getting back very recent deletes, and because I might as well usie Time Machine since it's easy to do and costing me nothing.

 

[Rusty]

211j in 2010

 

[Sjeph]

DS209

 

[Shoop]

My first NAS is my current NAS ... DS918+ in 2018
I use it for :
- File Server
- DHCP Server
- Plex server
- Portainer (Docker) to manager my containers
- AdGuardHome (Docker)
- BitWardenRS (Docker)

Planning to add GIT to have a centralized dashboard for all the things I can possibly monitor on my network (my PCs, UPS, the NAS) but for now, my first attempt failed

 

[Geeked]

My first ever NAS was a Buffalo brand. I don’t recall the model number. But it was nothing like today’s NAS solutions.

My first Synology NAS was the 918+.

 

[itsjasper]

Terastation?

 

[Geeked]

Terastation?

I honestly cant recall. It was 7 years ago and I only used it for a few months before i sold it to a local friend.

 

[Danabw]

Does a 500GB drive in a portable USB case that I moved between three computers count as a NAS? Maybe paraphrasiing another "old-tech" item (Sneaker-Net), we could call it my first NAS a Sneaker-NAS.

The real stuff:

2007: D-Link DNS 323. Oh man, the day I brought that home was an exciting day, I was like a little kid at Christmas. So cool...I felt like a rock-star after setting it up and showing the family how it was going to change our lives. ;-) Hardly anyone I knew at that point had even heard of a NAS, and most seemed confused after I explained what it was. Not 100% sure, but I think I had a couple 5000GB drives in it.

2012: My trusty DS212. This felt like a big step up from the DNS 323, like I was getting into the big leagues. The DSM was pretty amazing, and this was the first time I experienced a linux command line, playing around in the configuration. Still have it, and still think of it as a cool and dependable little tank.

2019: Upgrade time = DS218+. A really nice jump up in performance, the only weak spot in the DS212. DSM UI and activities happen quickly when I ask, and was happy to see the overall build was still really solid. Upgraded to 6MB RAM just to ensure smooth operation.

Through it all I have depended heavily on other users like those of you in this forum, and really appreciate the support that has made this such a fun experience.

 

[EAZ1964]

My first nas was a netgear sc101 also called the toaster. It was launched in 2005 and by 2006 it has managed to have all my data disappear twice. The raid system was unreliable and slow and it was traded in for a synology DS207, that Functioned until 2017. In the mean time I had a DS411j, DS212+, DS415+ and now my baby DS620slim.

 

[akahan]

I'm going to go with the Ximeta NDAS in 2006. It looked like a USB hard drive enclosure, but connected the hard drive to the network via ethernet cable instead of USB, so it got an IP address on the network.
Even though each enclosure only held one hard drive, you could bind multiple enclosures into a RAID.

They were garbage.

 

[fredbert]

There was a definite tendency for some brands to design their early NAS to look like a toaster: "given that God is infinite, and that the Universe is also infinite...would you like a toasted teacake?" ... or network data storage? :p

From Red Dwarf for those that don't know!

** and this insightful gem was my 1,000th post, and possibly one of the more helpful.

 

[EAZ1964]

There was a definite tendency for some brands to design their early NAS to look like a toaster: "given that God is infinite, and that the Universe is also infinite...would you like a toasted teacake?" ... or network data storage? :p

From Red Dwarf for those that don't know!

** and this insightful gem was my 1,000th post, and possibly one of the more helpful.

I think this SC101 was produced at the Sirius cybernetics corporation, where the complaints department is the only profitable part of the company. This complaints department is located at the first three planets in the Sirius Tau system. You can read all about this company in the Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy.

Sirius Cybernetics Corporation

The Sirius Cybernetics Corporation, a decidedly inept company, is responsible for the design and creation of a wide range of robots and labour-saving devices, such as lifts, automatic doors, ventilation systems, and the infamous Nutrimatic Drinks Dispenser. The starship Heart of Gold was fitted...

hitchhikersguidetoearth.fandom.com

 

[jeyare]

once upon a time in 2006
my oldest NAS/MediaCenter based on my own custom build HW and Thermaltake case with 5x HDD (1x system, 2xRaid1, rest in JBOD):
- Media center was build on JRiver v11
- there was also Remote control .... yeap, no smart phones in 2006
- based on regular WinXP ( Media center edition was sh.t), later moved to Ubuntu
- main features - photo and movie store, media center, central backup for laptops

I still have system disk from the machine - Samsung HD160JJ SATA - 160GB/7200rpm/8MB chache

Original photo from 2006:

found in internet:

 

[WST16]

Got my first “real” NAS, the DS216+II, right when it was released. Unless you count the gimmicky offerings on some of the routers that allows you to connect a flash drive or a hard disk. I’ve always tried them but never used them

 

[GuiMSP]

DS207+ Needed it in the business I was working for back then. In those days it really was the bom. I used it mainly for storage of ghost images. But I learned what it can do! Now almost 15 years later, I have my own shop and Synology is the center in the blue-print of how we manage the IT of our customers: storage, backup, replication, AD (on some); Drive (increasing with Corona); PXE, VMM. Privately using Syno's for the above, photos, video (AppleTV) and off course Music (DJ-ing). Only using plus series.
Business-wise I have had some QNAP's in my hands. Much more powerful hardware (better in VMM) but the total package of Syno is so much better and therefor financial so much more efficient for a company.
I made one mistake in buying a dlink whatever: horrible! Garbage can (for real). In short I have experiences with other brands/types, but when you have had three minor experiences, the answer is right in front of you.
Always had great support etc. Only real downsite in my experience with Synology is the whole proces around DSM7.

 

[Coop777]

so lets continue to define the NAS term loosely - my first dive into organized storage, aside from running RAID on a client PC was back in 2010, a friend of mine in CA was running storage on (2) burly 5 bay drive enclosures. He needed to upgrade and sold them to me, along with (10) 500 GB drives. I was able to purchase a PC compatible PCI-E port multiplier card that allowed software RAID, so two enclosures mirroring content running RAID 0.

Over the next 4 years, upgraded the drives in those enclosures, one at a time to 2 TB Each, and in early 2015 I have roughly 9 TB of content and now aging enclosures. Made the decision in May 2015 to go all out with the DS 1815+ and filled it with 4 TB drives...and went from there.

 

[thehotiron]

My first NAS was the Western Digital My Book World Edition II. I still have it, as I am copying the last files off of the drives directly via a Linux laptop running Mint 19. Been using my DS418play for a couple of years now, and loving it!

mp/m

 

[Seaprobe]

A little different than the typical story…

My first was an AirPort Extreme ca. 2007. I plugged an external USB drive that the unit shared over AFP and SMB. It could also share out a USB printer to the network at the same time with a USB hub strung onto its one USB port.

It was surprisingly versatile for its time, allowing the creation of separate user accounts and passwords to manage share privileges. It just kept chugging silently (fanless) for years, burning very little power and never needing a reboot except for firmware upgrades.

It was also my stepping stone to the Synology world, as we finally outgrew it and wanted something faster.