What is a good 'modern' replacement for the DX4000?

WD Legacy Products Sentinel Products
1

Good evening all, I have about 6 months of warranty left on our trusty 'ol Sentinel DX4000, and come Fall I’m going to start looking at other options for the company’s needs, then have them do a purchase around December.

Question is, is there ‘modern’ Western Digital Sentinel-like NAS product out there now that offers similar features like backups and user management like the SBS 2008 OS that shipped with the Sentinel DX4000?

We have a few of the WD 6 TB My Cloud drives, but I must admit I have grown somewhat fond of some of the extra MS SBS features and options the Sentinel has, so I can’t really see just using the My Cloud drives; the company just doesn’t really have a need for a stand alone server.

Thanks for any help and suggestions

2

WD bailed on us. No more Windows Server products.
Thecus.com the w2000, or w4000 is the “current” (though probably discontinued) Thecus says they are still in it. Neweeg says not. Microsoft says they have not decided.

We can hope there will be a 2016 product but I doubt WD will offer it

3

thanks for the info Gramps.

I know of some non-WD Linux-based NAS units that I’m not opposed to checking out…

but I have got to admit that the Sentinel and it’s SBS 2008 OS + features were seemingly perfect for our company, so that’s a bummer to hear they are abandoning MS Server.

4

In all honesty I have not tried any nix boxes other than WD and they do not do well with windows. But many have said they are happy with QNAP etc.

I have just always found that a windows box actually does better with windows.

5

I had 3 excellent years with the Sentinel DX4000 (4x3TB) - not a day’s trouble. Last January with the C drive suddenly full the nightmare started, and it was downhill from there with several crashes (90% of my troubles being due to my own mistakes). Gramps was an invaluable pillar of support during it all and I read all of his advice several times. One of the drives (4th) failed twice (no prior warning) but miraculously resurrected after being removed and cooling down then doing a reboot. I couldn’t get any of the recommended replacement drives, but downloaded the patch and successfully installed a red WD 3TB HD. Now that drive is the only one that is showing as working (blue light) with the light above the others dead. Despite this it is still working so I’m not going to mess with it but have surrendered and ordered the HP Microserver G8. I would have bought a replacement Sentinel in a heartbeat if not discontinued. Thanks Gramps for being a lifeline for me over the last year!

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You are welcome. You should have looked at a Thecus. I am thrilled with them and I got all of em on sale or open box so I have very little money in them.
The w2000 has two bays plus a 60gb ssd, storage server essentials 2012R2 for $250 retail. I sold a bunch of G7 Microservers. The G8 is nice with the ILO

7

Yes, the Thecus was my first choice (based on your advice) but being based in Africa the G8 was more readily accessible.

8

So does the Thecus unit work with Veeam BAckup and Replication software?
We currently have the WD Sentinel unit and have a failed hard drive. The unit is still under warranty and I am getting the drive replaced but think it is time to investigate another option.

9

It is server 2012r2 so you simply setup a share in the storage pool as a target for Veeam. That said out of the box it wands to be the root of the forest DC so you need to join it to your domain first or just let the wizard fly and be its own lil domain. When you map to the share just provide proper creds domain\user

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Is Thecus still the best option? Did they update past 2012r2?

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They do not make them anymore. You can find some on eBay. Just depends on why you want one.
Veeam has a good free backup system for 10 or less desktops

As far as a NAS, most anything. If it is in a windows domain you need to do some research. I do not know

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Thanks