But you won't discover it for two years?

Just when I need to use the backup.

Idea isn't for it to store anything critical. Downloaded films and TV episodes mainly. But a bit of offsite storage isn't such a bad thing for something very important

Any backup is better than no backup.

Forgot to mention the Asustor is a replacement for a QNAP TS-451 we've been running mostly without incident with the original WD Reds in RAID 10 since early 2014 (we put a UPS on it, because it don't like power outs)

The Asustor is very competitive on spec/price to the newer QNAP models. Longevity factor remains to be seen. One thing that disappointed me about the Asustor is it doesn't support RAID bitmaps (which can accelerate recovery). The QNAP does support this.

Good luck! Just beware the point Dan made about SMR drives. WD lately have been quite naughty here and have sneaked SMR technology into a number of their WD Red NAS drives. These should be avoided unless you like dreadful write performance.

After being called out they've been a more upfront about and (IIRC) have discontinued using SMR in their WD Red line (also they claim their firmware compensates for SMR speed drawbacks -- but it doesn't work in RAID). You could still get caught out by resellers though. Since Ant is not going with RAID he wouldn't benefit from using NAS drives anyway (they are generally slower and more expensive than desktop drives).

I'm just chucking in an old 1TB drive I have lying around.
No intention to make this anything more than that unless I have another bigger spare drive at some point in the future.

I wasn't aware that they'd backtracked on this. Instead I thought they'd introduced a new line called "Red Pro" which avoids SMR drives. Either way, their normal Red drives are shit for NAS enclosures unless (as you say) you don't plan to use RAID with them.

Another thing incidentally they've been found out for recently is claiming that some drives are 5400rpm when they're actually 7200rpm. They even doctored the firmware to report the slower spindle speed. May not sound like a massive deal, but if you're buying a lot of drives to pack into an enclosure that will be on 24/7, the additional heat output and power drain of the drives may come as an unwelcome surprise.

Anyway, until they stop all this fucking around, I'm avoiding WD drives until they can learn how to tell the truth and market their stuff with some degree of honesty.

It hasn't arrived yet but already potentially regretting buying something with only 100mbit ethernet.

Maybe 300mbit on WiFi will be ok

Preload the drive before you stick it in the box?

Shouldn't need any more than that for usb2.

 :-(

DIFFERENT NAS :C

Does it support some sort of ethernet over USB whachumacallit? Or can it be connected directly to your router? It's got USB3.

Possibly, worth a look. Though think the USB3 may be for connecting it to a computer as an external drive, but to be honest no idea since it's an odd little device.

Good news, it's in the UK at Atherstone RDC, hopefully arrive soon enough.

Are you sure it's only 100Mb? I can't see anything that says otherwise, and a YouTube vid that seems to discuss that NAS says it is Gigabit Ethernet.

Not sure about anything with this device to be honest!
I will find out when it arrives and I'll give it a thorough review, then probably brick it installing Open-WRT.

Been stung for customs. That adds £13.58 to the total (£8 handing fee!!).

Anyone else seen an increase in customs charges lately on stuff from China?

I've had many very expensive items slip through without checks or charges in the past. Lately I've had a couple of relatively cheap things (<£50) get charges added.

Not sure if these Chinese sellers have started declaring things correctly and not as £2 and a gift!

We got a $25 web cam shipped to Ca, no added charge. It did take ~3-months.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/ODROID-HC4-A-Raspberry-Pi-alternative-that-doubles-as-a-dual-NAS.498839.0.html

Interesting. Rather it be a unit without a drive sticking out of the top, but could put it in a box I guess!