Network attached storage

[Steevo]

Drives with a 5 year warranty is a very good idea - I've lost a few. However, never lost more than one at once. However, soon as you lose one on a 4 bay then you need to turn the thing off and not use it until you have a replacement. As a second drive failure could cause loss of data. More drives you have, the better of a safer you are. 8 Bay Synology with 8 drives must be close to £2k inc vat - hell of a bit of kit though.

Assuming RAID 5?

 

[Chris F]

RAID 10

 

[Pheasant Surprise]

What swayed you to them in the first place please? 8 bays is a monster of a unit!

Reading back through the threads on here I saw mention of your previous 4 bay Synology.

I guess it was a bit of a leap initially as I’d never used them before, so the little DS214+ units were a bit of an experiment. Having used them now for several years, I guess (in no particular order) these are the things I like:

1. The operating software - it’s got a very clean easy to understand user interface, the apps are well integrated, it’s fairly straightforward to setup and use
2. Hardware and software are very stable and reliable - can easily run 6 months between rebooting (though in practise now I let it do auto updates/patching and it reboots itself out of hours every month or two).
3. Synology are really committed to providing a very wide variety of developed and ported apps and software for all sorts of needs
4. I’ve become used to and like very much the Surveillance Station app for CCTV recording
5. Can securely access the device from anywhere, from any device, 4G wan shenanigans doesn't phase it, and doesn’t cost anything and there’s no subs etc.
6. The hardware is good quality and they provide solutions from very cheap and basic single drive units right up to commercial spec devices supporting dozens and dozens of drives using host and multiple expansion units- they all run the exact same operating software.
7. There’s plenty of expansion capability on this device - RAM memory upgrades, it supports SSD caching on a seperate card or you can slot SSD into regular drive bays - multiple 1Gig LAN ports, supports 10Gb Ethernet.

This 8-bay unit is admitty a huge step up from what I’ve had, but I’m expecting it to run as a “digital bunker” 24x7 for at least the next seven+ years or so for basically all content storage, CCTV recording and archival and general server needs.

 

[Steevo]

Thank you @Pheasant Surprise.

Now for a game of eenie meenie minie mo...!

 

[Chapelton]

It’s worth remembering that in a complete catastrophe (such as a fire) you’re still in trouble. If you can run another unit (ours is pretty simple) remotely or in an outbuilding or something which takes a backup of the NAS every 24hrs or so it might come in handy one day. You may be able to get fire-proof ones now which might make this redundant though. Rebuilding a house would be bad enough but losing the entire office at the same time would be absolutely horrendous so it’s worth thinking about.

 

[Chris F]

Thank you @Pheasant Surprise.

Now for a game of eenie meenie minie mo...!

Yep - time to get your wallet out! A bit like @Pheasant Surprise its not a purchase I've ever regretted.

 

[Steevo]

Good thinking that @Chapelton!

I currently use cloud backup for a lot of things, which I would plan to keep going with. But I can see a lot of sense in your suggestion.

 

[Steevo]

Yep - time to get your wallet out! A bit like @Pheasant Surprise its not a purchase I've ever regretted.

Gotta weed it down a bit yet!

Synology DS418 seems a reasonable option.

Or QNAP 431/451.

There seem several options of each too!

 

[Chris F]

This looks pretty good for £596:

http://www.broadbandbuyer.co.uk/products/30347-synology-ds418-12tb-siw/

 

[Steevo]

Tad more than I was looking to spend, and doing i’d use anything like half the capacity.

Pity they don’t do a “half populated” version.

 

[RushesToo]

Some stats on what to plug in:

But if I am honest, I would buy disk space rather than own it. If you look at this site you will see the tests that they do to get the best performance - like how to reduce failure due to poor chassis design.
It is interesting and you can enjoy DIY, however maybe there are somethings where it is better to buy expertise than acquire it. For me data storage is definitely one of those where I want to buy it rather than learn how to do it.

 

[Steevo]

Some stats on what to plug in:
View attachment 635704

But if I am honest, I would but disk space rather than own it. If you look at this site you will see the tests that they do to get the best performance - like how to reduce failure due to poor chassis design.
It is interesting and you can enjoy DIY, however maybe there are somethings where it is better to buy expertise than acquire it. For me data storage is definitely one of those where I want to buy it rather than learn how to do it.

As in cloud storage?

I agree.....but two factors where it helps to have your own:

1. Cloud storage can’t restore/backup huge changes on a slow net connection. Local can, and then cloud can catch up after.
2. Local can do disk images for instant replacement of SSD running drives.

As said in posts above-local RAID backup to prevent disk failure, backed up on cloud storage to provide file deletion safety is the real answer.

 

[rollestonpark]

I have qnap and synology NASes, both are good, but the qnap hardware quality seems quite a bit better to me. But you'll be happy with either I'm sure. I'd buy the drives separately and install them, but that's just me. I always use western digital drives, because when ever I come across a hard drive failure on a computer or NAS it's nearly always seagate when I open the computer. Yet others I know are on WD drives and seem to just keep going. Just something I've noted over the years when fixing computers. No doubt others will disagree, but I've bought seagates in the past and ALWAYS had problems, so I don't risk it. They WILL break at some point (whoever made the drive), so be prepared for it.

 

[Steevo]

Which models do you run @rollestonpark?

 

[rollestonpark]

I have an 8 bay qnap with 3 * 4tb wd drives in, so far.
An old 2 bay qnap from years back, still going strong on ancient wd drives, expected a failure with that ages ago.
2 bay Synology with 2 wd reds running the security camera system around the yard.
All good, just ensure you use nas grade drives or you'll quickly have problems

 

[Storeman]

I have qnap and synology NASes, both are good, but the qnap hardware quality seems quite a bit better to me. But you'll be happy with either I'm sure. I'd buy the drives separately and install them, but that's just me. I always use western digital drives, because when ever I come across a hard drive failure on a computer or NAS it's nearly always seagate when I open the computer. Yet others I know are on WD drives and seem to just keep going. Just something I've noted over the years when fixing computers. No doubt others will disagree, but I've bought seagates in the past and ALWAYS had problems, so I don't risk it. They WILL break at some point (whoever made the drive), so be prepared for it.

I found the same with WD drives, so started using them myself many years back. I had my first WD fail a few weeks ago, I installed it 10 years ago, so it done very well

 

[rollestonpark]

Wow that is impressive, normally once the drives are 5 years old your in dangerous territory I think.
But I've had Seagate's break in anywhere from 1-2 years more often than I'd like. Maybe they just don't like me. Lol

 

[RushesToo]

Wow that is impressive, normally once the drives are 5 years old your in dangerous territory I think.
But I've had Seagate's break in anywhere from 1-2 years more often than I'd like. Maybe they just don't like me. Lol

@rollestonpark have you had other brands that haven't failed? that is a horrific failure rate and something seems wrong..

 

[rollestonpark]

well there are really only the 2 brands that make most of the drives these days, so now I stick with WD I'm OK. But a few years back I put 2 seagates into a computer I built and both failed. So put in WD and run fine for many years.

 

[RushesToo]

well there are really only the 2 brands that make most of the drives these days, so now I stick with WD I'm OK. But a few years back I put 2 seagates into a computer I built and both failed. So put in WD and run fine for many years.

Interesting - thought it might be environment but if the other disks held it can't have been. Most likely then some vibration triggered by the seagates, spin speed / weight distribution.