Synology expansion unit vs 2nd NAS, and raid 5 or not?

[Joe Towner]

Joe, could you expand on the "make sure the model you're getting has their 'compute' brand disks inside, not the Archival one" comment please?

I'm going through a similar exercise myself, although with different products and am wondering about drive choice. I'm looking to end up with 30-40 TB of decent drives that don't cost an arm and a leg. Thanks.

I've been shucking drives from Costco for a number of years, and have come across the Archival Seagate HDD's once.  Archival drives are significantly slower compared to normal 5400 rpm drives because of how they write data to the platters.  I'd purchase one, test it with something like DriveDx (Mac) or HD Tune (pc) to find the model number of the inner drive, and run the model number thru Google - the ST8000DM004-2CX188 I'm looking at is the 8tb, 5400rpm Compute model.  Rumors of Seagate moving away from using the Archive SMR drives in their externals make this a fairly safe option - just remember there are no returns on shucked drives.

[andyptak]

Thanks Joe. I like to use direct attached boxes rather than NAS, but I'm re-thinking that for this upgrade exercise. However, it's for a Lightroom archive and I'm not sure if LR still doesn't recommend network use? If that's still the case, is there a good workaround?

[Joe Towner]

Thanks Joe. I like to use direct attached boxes rather than NAS, but I'm re-thinking that for this upgrade exercise. However, it's for a Lightroom archive and I'm not sure if LR still doesn't recommend network use? If that's still the case, is there a good workaround?

Lightroom is fine with the images on the network, it just wants the catalog to be local.  At the 30-40tb level, I'm more in favor of a NAS since you're beyond what 2 drives would hold (archive & live).  If you can be wired, a 6 bay NAS will be plenty, plus with all those spindles working together it's pretty fast.

Do the math with the DS1619+ saves $150 over the 8 bay, but if you can swing for it the 8 bay will give more room for growth or SSD caching (2.5" drives) + 10gb ethernet card.

[mdelrossi]

I just got the TVS-627XT with 4x 10TB Iron Wolf drives, attached to my thunderbolt2 iMac with a thunderbolt3 to 2 adapter. It also has a 10Gbe along with 2xusbC and 2x 1Gbe, HDMI, and a couple of 3.0 usb thrown in for good measure.
With 4 drives in raid5 I'm getting north of 500MBs write and reads. If I was to add Nvme cache probably end up around 1000MBs.

I have a Synology 1813+ that I have been using for backups, before I got the Qnap. it's really slow with an Atom processor, but fine for off site Backup/sync over VPN. Then again its a 5 year old box.
The Qnap has an i3 4 core 3.1 Ghz and it really helps.

good luck.

[degrub]

Are those numbers for a directory copy ( lots of files of random size ) or single large files ?

[mdelrossi]

@degrub,
Black magic disk test.

Small files will always drag the speed down.

[mcbroomf]

I changed my mind from my post above and ordered a DS1819+ but only the 6 x 12TB drives I'd planned on.  I'll run them Raid 6 so get 48TB and will swap out the 6TB drives in my old unit and build a bigger raid when the time comes (quite a few years).  And I can use the 2 spare slots as needed over time to expand.

Thanks everyone for your advice and discussion ...

I thought I would add a Post Script to this adventure.

Short story : About 2 months after setting up the new 1819+ my nearly full 1515+ started losing power randomly (not while accessing data fortunately).  I just got a replacement from Synology (over 3.5 years since I bought it) and moved the disks.  All is well.

Longer story :
Randomly turning off as stated above, but with over 3 years since I bought it (3 year warranty) I idly wondered about a repair vs just getting a different one (1515 no longer available), or even another make.  My NAS is 3rd backup and I also have a 4th JBOD upstairs on another PC and a set in the shed so the 1515 was not part of my workflow.

I came across a youtube video showing the power supply (possible a common fail point) being replaced on a similar Synology NAS.  A guy in the UK with a UK link to buy one.  73 GB pounds over there and $200 over here so I thought to buy one in the UK and have it shipped locally to my sister and get it at Christmas when I'll be there, but in the chatter after the video (or maybe elsewhere .. sorry , lost the link) someone posted a comment that Synology had extended the warranty to 4 years on some products.  I inquired with them and found mine is covered until May of next year (could not figure that out as that would be 4 years and 4 months) so they shipped me a bench tested refurb which just arrived after a hold on my CC for the cost.  Took less than 5 mins to move the disks, start it up and verify that it's working OK, so the dead one (which now no longer powers up at all) will head back tomorrow in the same box.

Now I just need to consider migrating to bigger disks (and raid 6 I think) in the 1515+ and I'm done for many a year.  I might just buy one of those PSU's though as they both use the same type (3)

Mike

[Joe Towner]

That's awesome that it ended up being covered.  It's the one thing that always has me worried - a NAS that has a custom part really can be a huge issue later in life.  I actually went the DX517 route with my 1817+ - mostly because I'm pissed off at Synology with their limited 10gbps models.  Cache or 10gbE is not a decision I take lightly.  I started with 3x 8tb Costco shucked drives, that took 3 days to initialize.  Then I had to add 2 more shucked drives and expand the SHR, which also took 3 days.

Thankfully I did, as I've been working with 360 video from Insta360 Pro2 & Titan recently and shot some 7tb of footage over 3 days last week. Plus trying to get other projects straightened out has be at less than 10tb free space again.