[kenreau]

I just purchased my first NAS, a Synology DS412+ and I'm in the early process stage of setting up its architecture.

My current quest is to determine what size hdd's to acquire for my music library files.  I currently have ~3.2TBs of music files. My intent is to allow it to grow to no more than 4TBs eventually.

My idea was to reserve 2 bays of the NAS for my music library and 2 bays for the family/household central storage duties and back up (this requires less than 1 TB). 

Given primary consideration to the music files, long term hdd's life and trouble free redundancy / file safety, I'm wondering if I should purchase 2 ea of 4TB hdd's for the music files (RAID 1)?, or rely on 2 ea of 2 TB hdd's in a RAID 0 format?  I like the idea of 2 x 4TBs music drives to mirror one another, but wonder if the 2 x 2TBs offer any significant performance, or safety benefits.

I currently have a Seagate USB outboard Backup Plus 4 TB that I make safety back ups to monthly. (I also have two Oyen mini pro 2.5" firewire drives I use as my current mac mini music library which I plan to retire as part of this move to the Synology DS412+ NAS).

Any recommendations, or direction to other resources would be appreciated.

Thanks
Kenreau

[jtwrace]

Don't forget that you need at least one backup since a NAS is NOT a backup!

[JohnR]

My idea was to reserve 2 bays of the NAS for my music library and 2 bays for the family/household central storage duties and back up (this requires less than 1 TB). 

Hi, I'm not sure the benefit of doing it this way. The downside is loss of flexibility. Instead, put in say three drives and make a disk group in SHR. Then create two volumes, one for music library and one for backups. (Or more than one for backups, depending on how many computers and how you want to configure all of that). Make the volumes only as large as initially needed as it's easy to make volumes larger as you need more space on them (up to your total disk capacity) but you can't ever make them smaller.

If you used 3 x 3TB drives, that would give you 6 TB, and you have an extra slot for easy future expansion. Or using 4x2TB will give you 6 TB also.

PS FWIW perusing drive reviews on newegg will probably be useful too.

[kenreau]

Don't forget that you need at least one backup since a NAS is NOT a backup!

I'm just getting started on this new NAS world learning curve.  Can you tell me how going a RAID1 with 2 x 4TB drives would not act as a backup?

I do intend to keep going with the Seagate USB outboard as a backup safety every month or so.  I usually back up to it and then unplug it until I need it again.

Thx
Ken

[JohnR]

I used to wonder about that too, but I think I'm getting it... some thoughts -

RAID1 allows for continued operation in the event of a single drive failure, but when you rebuild the "array" with another drive, the probability of the other one also failing then is significantly higher.

If your house gets struck by lightning/something goes seriously wrong with the NAS PSU, both drives are fried.

If you delete something by mistake, the other "copy" is also instantly deleted. Same with any form of data corruption (not caused by the drives themselves).

[jtwrace]

I'm just getting started on this new NAS world learning curve.  Can you tell me how going a RAID1 with 2 x 4TB drives would not act as a backup?

I do intend to keep going with the Seagate USB outboard as a backup safety every month or so.  I usually back up to it and then unplug it until I need it again.

Thx
Ken

Well, the biggest form is what happens if your house burns down?  The next is exactly what John talks about too.  I use SHR-2 but it's still not a backup per se.  I have 3 copies of all my data on and off site.  Maybe it's a bit extreme but I refuse to have to re-rip all my source data again.      Throw in the fact that I use it for other stuff too and it's just too valuable to loose.  Either way, make sure you have a backup!  I'm amazed at how many people have a NAS and have no backup. 


Here is my setup.
Zero Surge > UPS > Synology 1813+ > Synology DX513 via eSata for local backup.  I also have multiple copies on bare drives stored in a safe and offsite.  The next step will be to add another 1813+ offsite and the two will replicate. 

I also have two local drives (USB) that are the second local backup copies of two very important folders.  These are all on a schedule for backup.  Very easy to do through the Synology UI (Control Panel > Backup & Replication).


 

[bsudiro]

Hi ..
I've had a DS411j for a few years now with a 4 x 2TB drives configured with Synology hybrid RAID (SHR) - this gave me a capacity of 6 TB. This configuration worked great and has saved me a few times. I've had the drives failed and the configuration saved me, where I just replaced the drive and after about 1 days' time of rebuild, the configuration was back up and I did not lose any data.

RAID 5 and SHR should inherently be safer than either RAID 0 or RAID 1. If you have a 4 drive NAS, SHR or Raid 5 will be the way to go.

Also, I've put an external USB drive connected to the NAS to back up important data periodically. The new Synology DS 5 allows NTFS external drive, so I did not have to reformat it to ext4 or ext3 file system.

Cheers .. Gus

[jtwrace]

And while we're at it, might as well cover some very basic things that should be done part of your maintenance program.


Data Scrubbing:
 


S.M.A.R.T. Test
 

[kenreau]

Thanks, that is certainly a belt and suspenders IT plan.  Hopefully you also have a solid wood stud backing to attach that shelf bracket screw to? 

Thanks for all the input!

Kenreau

Well, the biggest form is what happens if your house burns down?  The next is exactly what John talks about too.  I use SHR-2 but it's still not a backup per se.  I have 3 copies of all my data on and off site.  Maybe it's a bit extreme but I refuse to have to re-rip all my source data again.      Throw in the fact that I use it for other stuff too and it's just too valuable to loose.  Either way, make sure you have a backup!  I'm amazed at how many people have a NAS and have no backup. 


Here is my setup.
Zero Surge > UPS > Synology 1813+ > Synology DX513 via eSata for local backup.  I also have multiple copies on bare drives stored in a safe and offsite.  The next step will be to add another 1813+ offsite and the two will replicate. 

I also have two local drives (USB) that are the second local backup copies of two very important folders.  These are all on a schedule for backup.  Very easy to do through the Synology UI (Control Panel > Backup & Replication).