Synology boxes - any issues with Mac OS/16 TB+/disk sets

[Hywel]

HI All,

  I'm looking at buying a stack more storage since I've filled my three DroboPros and HFS+'s 16 TB limit to volume size is starting to get annoying.

  Can any Synology users advise?

1) Can you create volumes greater than 16 TB? Do they have to be greater than 16 TB to start with?
I've found old postings saying that you could build an array of less than 16 TB up to 16 TB, but no further. If you wanted more you had to start off larger than 16 TB, then you could grow to your heart's content. Is this still the case?

2) Any issues with Mac OS, specifically with some HFS+ filenames being illegal under the Synology ext4 file system? Old posts refer to this causing problems with things like Aperture libraries. Any experience? I won't run Aperture off the arrays (they're essentially offline storage) but I don't want it corrupting backups.

3) Can you swap physical disk sets?
I have three copies of all my data: a "live" set, a "backup" set and an "offsite" set. I rotate the backup and offsite sets every few weeks.
With the Drobos, I can do this by powering off the DroboPro, swapping the physical set of disks, and powering up again. That means the offsite backup is literally a cardboard box of disks- I don't need to buy an expensive unused third NAS box to contain it. Which is sensible for me as those offsite disks are never accessed- they sit on a friend's shelf.

Anyone have any experiences, good or bad, with large Synology volumes? Reliability? Customer service?

Cheers, Hywel.

[Craig Lamson]

I'm running a synology 1812+ currently with 5 - 3tb WD reds in synology hybrid raid.  It's a great system, and has been perfect with OSX 10.9.4.     I have no idea what happens when I past 16 gb

[Pete_G]

Hywell,

I have a small 4 bay Synology with 4 x 3GB WD Reds. I can't answer your questions as such. But I can say that I have great faith in the company and their products. I wouldn't
look elsewhere.

I configured an 8 bay ( 8 x 3GB) for a friend, but that was over 16GB to start with.

I do know that you can move a disk set from one Synology to another and it will work, but you need to copy across config files etc, not just move the disks.

As far as I can remember the disk sleds are plastic and not designed for constant disk swapping. You may want to order a spare set of sleds if you go ahead.

I'm sure if you email support or customer service with your questions you'd get an honest reply.

[Hywel]

Thanks everyone. Synology customer service have been helpful. I probably do need three boxes, realistically, but I think I'm going to go with them as they do seem good.

Cheers, Hywel.

[photo570]

The maximum volume size in any version of OS X after 10.5.3 is,

2^63 - 2^31 = 9,223,372,034,707,292,160, which is just under 8 exabytes (EB). One exabyte is roughly equivalent to one million terabytes.

You should be fine.

Cheers,
Jason.

[jduncan]

The maximum volume size in any version of OS X after 10.5.3 is,

2^63 - 2^31 = 9,223,372,034,707,292,160, which is just under 8 exabytes (EB). One exabyte is roughly equivalent to one million terabytes.

You should be fine.

Cheers,
Jason.

The problem is not with Mac OS X is the Drobos. They have the same issue with Windows etc. The worse part is that they don't see it as an issue.  They appear not to understand that:

1) Drobos are not fast, so normally they will be used as local backups or media storage were speed is not needed. That use open the can for historical data.
2)  16TB was a super high capacity when the second generation drobo was introduced. Now we have 6TB drives and 16TB is nothing. Besides we are doing 4K raw.
3) I wrote them abut they issue: They told me that they do not have plans to fix the issue. I believe they don't see the problem.

For me that means no more drobos. I did not buy the B1200i. I am now evaluating alternatives.

Best Regards,

J. Duncan
Note:
http://support.drobo.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/23

[Joe Towner]

Hate to be late on this one, but there is one really cool thing about Synology - how you can recover one.  If all else fails, you can take the disks from a Synology and plug them into a pc, boot off a live cd and recover all your data.  NASes built off of ARM/Sparc (early ReadyNAS devices, etc) do not have this functionality.

http://www.synology.com/en-us/support/faq/579

I did this a week ago and it worked like a champ.