Synology NAS ok for non-technical user? Or is there a better solution?

[hirsthirst]

I bought a fairly basic Synology two-drive NAS when I got a camera that produced RAW images & had to move off Apple Aperture at the same time, and partly because I wanted to learn more about how it all works.

I found it do-able, but there's a lot I still don't know - as per a post earlier in the thread, there are many many options that are unnecessary and confusing for a simple user / Use Case - but now it's set up it just works & I don't need to do anything. I did manage to swap over to two larger HDDs once I outgrew the first two, which I count as an achievement too!

Priorities were to not to fill my iMac hard drive & iCloud with RAW files and movies, and for the computer itself to be easily replaceable whilst the media persists, and also the whole lot backed-up to cloud too:

• iMac with Apple Photos for my iPhone photos (separately synced with iCloud)
• installed OEM Lightroom 'perpetual' (not subscription) edition that came bundled with my Leica Q
• whole computer (including Lightroom library, but not media) backs up over home wifi to one volume on Synology NAS regularly using Time Machine
• Lightroom library lives on the iMac, with RAW images held only in a separate volume on the Synology NAS mirrored disks
• NAS itself is in turn backed-up incrementally to AWS Glacier archive service using the native Synology desktop app option - it's unbelievably cheap, depending on options. Glacier was originally intended as deep storage, so it would be a slow and relatively expensive process to restore everything in the event of a fire or theft etc, but it's safe and cheap in the meantime
• created a third volume for ripped DVD discs which I stream to TV via Playstation 4

 

[HDFan]

Has anyone here with these very large drives done a test for a restore?

Haven't had, tested or needed a restore, but I do have very rough numbers for RAID scrubbing which is recommended every month by QNAP. A 5 disk array scrub of 16 TB disks with service priority takes hundreds of hours. Setting to scrub priority the numbers drop to 2 digit hours. At ~90% complete I still have ~3 hours to go, so that should be around 30 hours total for a "scrub priority" scrub.

The 30 hour number is consistent with what I have experienced in setting up a new RAID 5 from scratch with large disks - somewhere between 1-2 days for 4+ disks.

I have done a small number of rebuilds as I either added larger drives to went from 4>5>6 disks and have never had a problem. Don't remember performance being that bad. I will be adding a disk to a Synology RAID5 system in the next few weeks and if I remember will update with the times.

 

[phrehdd]

Haven't had, tested or needed a restore, but I do have very rough numbers for RAID scrubbing which is recommended every month by QNAP. A 5 disk array scrub of 16 TB disks with service priority takes hundreds of hours. Setting to scrub priority the numbers drop to 2 digit hours. At ~90% complete I still have ~3 hours to go, so that should be around 30 hours total for a "scrub priority" scrub.

The 30 hour number is consistent with what I have experienced in setting up a new RAID 5 from scratch with large disks - somewhere between 1-2 days for 4+ disks.

I have done a small number of rebuilds as I either added larger drives to went from 4>5>6 disks and have never had a problem. Don't remember performance being that bad. I will be adding a disk to a Synology RAID5 system in the next few weeks and if I remember will update with the times.

Thanks for sharing your experiences and numbers. I have done drive swaps with much smaller drives and they do take a substantial amount of time with moderately filled RAID 5 system. I have seen a few swap/rebuilds fail as well (not mine but 3 off the top of my head with friends and a RAID 6 from before at a work place).

 

[Infinite Vortex]

Thanks for sharing your experiences and numbers. I have done drive swaps with much smaller drives and they do take a substantial amount of time with moderately filled RAID 5 system. I have seen a few swap/rebuilds fail as well (not mine but 3 off the top of my head with friends and a RAID 6 from before at a work place).

And that's one of the big reasons why we're implemented on SSD at the front. We have no interest in waiting day, or more, with each attempt at a rebuild.

 

[Marshall73]

I have 2 SYNOLOGY DS918+ units with 4x6TB disks in each. I migrated my data from my old QNAP then synced both of the 918’s. Now one lives at my parents and I sync my 918 to it. Works a treat, mine also runs Plex and some other stuff. I upgraded the RAM in both to 16GB but didn’t bother with SSD cache as it made no difference to performance in my setup.

 

[Alameda]

A Raid 5 array of 8 Seagate Ironwolf Pro 16 TB drives. Each drive is rated between 215-240 MB/sec by QNAP's storage test.

Ok. That’s a heck of a lot of cheddar, but you’re right.

 

[kalantan92]

I used to have a Synology NAS for backing up the images from my professional photography business. It's not difficult to set up, but it's definitely not "plug and play" I found the included disk management software had way too many endless layers of options, 99% of which I did not need and many of which related to managing several different users. It was fine, but not so fast and just ok. And I seemed to have to deal with almost daily updates to all the little included apps for managing your music, photos, mail colllections etc that I didn't need (because those are already managed on my computer)

About a year ago I replaced it with a Promise Pegasus RAID drive https://www.promise.com/us/Products/Pegasus/Pegasus32 This was a massive improvement for my particular needs. Whilst you still have to initialise the RAID setup, it's as close to plug and play as you can get. And for my needs with just one user (but several computers) it's really fast to get going and it is just a huge, fast external drive/server. It was accessible straight away over my wireless network (via the main Mac its connected to, the drive itself isn't wireless) so I can access it from other machines around the house too. It's a little more expensive perhaps, but not much. In my particular use case I'd recommend this 100% over Synology NAS.

I have had a Promise Pegasus 2 R6 unit for 9 years and other than replacing a drive or two, it's going strong. Now, with DROBO's demise, I will be getting a Promise Pegasus 32 R8 for primary use and relegating the older Pegasus 2 R6 as my backup / dumping grounds.