Personal Data Preservation Plan: (1) NAS Unboxing

Preface

After my first hard drive failure a few years ago caused me to lose files for a competition, I started to realize the importance of data security and began backing up with various cloud drives. At the time Baidu Cloud wasn't yet the sole dominant player, and none of us realized that cloud-drive backups were an extremely unreliable practice—until, due to certain force majeure factors, all cloud drives announced they were shutting down overnight. That's when I realized that data is only safe and controllable when it's always in your own hands.

As my data volume grew, I bought another 2T hard drive, but because I didn't know any better + I got ripped off by an unscrupulous merchant, I discovered after receiving it that it was an SMR drive, and after using it for over a year it frequently stuttered and lost data…

To save my precarious data, I decided to buy a larger CMR hard drive (non-SMR / perpendicular recording). While researching, I also saw that Huawei had launched a private cloud product. Although the value for money was very low so I wouldn't consider it, it did spark my interest in tinkering. At first I planned to scavenge parts and build a server myself to use as a NAS, but after considering power consumption and maintenance costs, I ultimately decided to get a ready-made QNAP NAS: the TS464C ~

Placing the Order

I'd been on the fence for a long time, but JD.com's discount was too good to pass up—two free IronWolf 4T hard drives, plus six interest-free installments with Baitiao. How could I not buy it?

So I decisively placed the order before National Day.

Unboxing

Bam, that was fast—it arrived on the morning of National Day itself (the delivery guy has it rough, still working on a holiday~ Suddenly I remembered I also had to work overtime on National Day; workers all have it tough TAT)

Because I had to work overtime on National Day, I waited until I got home in the evening after work and immediately started unboxing.

At the top of the shipping box were two hard drives and a complimentary wireless charger; below that was the NAS box.

I opened JD.com's shipping box, and inside was the NAS's huge packaging box—really huge, like a bucket. I was a bit worried for a moment that this NAS would be too bulky and I wouldn't have a place to put it~

I opened this box; there was a small box, probably small accessories and such, plus some cables.

After taking everything on top out, you can see the NAS itself is well protected~

Took it out—I didn't expect it to be such a small, delicate little thing.

A few more photos

Installation

Before starting, I need to install the hard drives first.

This is easy—just pull out the drive bays on the front of the NAS and install them.

This NAS is basically a mini PC; you can additionally install an SSD and RAM to expand performance.

Let me open it up and take a look. This is where you insert the SSD.

Where you insert the RAM stick

The RAM that comes with the NAS itself is Kingston.

Installing the SSD

By default the NAS installs the system on the HDD. To improve performance, I bought an SSD to install, planning to put the system on the SSD.

I bought a Lexar NM620, NVMe protocol. It's said the read speed can go up to 3500M/s, but my actual test seemed to only get around 1800…

A few more photos

Upgrading the Network Card

After everything was set up, I started backing up data to the NAS, but found that my desktop was still using a 2.4G wireless network card from n years ago. The speed was unbearably slow—only 5M per second copy speed. That wouldn't do, so I had to research buying a new network card (so expensive TAT)

I ultimately chose the AX200Plus+ network card, which supports WiFi6 and Bluetooth, and it's a PCIE interface so it doesn't occupy USB. Perfect.

I looked at my motherboard—the PCIe slots were completely empty, not even a graphics card~

It arrived on the third day after ordering. Quite a large box.

Opened it up and started installing.

(Ignore the messy cable management)

Done~

Wrap-up

OK, this is the first post in the series. Next I'll continue documenting the NAS usage (tinkering) process.

This unboxing post should have been written long ago (during the National Day holiday), but I kept putting it off until now, waiting until my StarBlog blog's article upload feature was finished before writing it~