Data Storage upgrade. Local vs NAS vs server

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Ultimate Geek

#3283328 17-Sep-2024 20:23

Jase2985:

ratsun81:

Ive been burnt by OOB systems such as synology and qnap and wont do it anymore.

I would like to know why you say that? These systems are super reliable and well supported.

Surely your suggestion has more risk and offers less functionality and requires more management than the above options.

Widely reported and personally experienced hardware failures... qnap and synology both have had major issues with power plane delivery and causing disk outage/failures.

PBtech of course were involved and while it could have been argued with(CGA or warranty) when it comes to getting your data back online quick smart that wasnt going to happen.

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#3283370 18-Sep-2024 05:29

ratsun81:

Widely reported and personally experienced hardware failures... qnap and synology both have had major issues with power plane delivery and causing disk outage/failures.

For Synology, there were a couple of models that had issues. The rest were and have been fine.

Handle9

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#3284062 19-Sep-2024 15:16

Jase2985: Surely your suggestion has more risk and offers less functionality and requires more management than the above options.

A RYO NAS offers quite a bit more functionality than Synology et al. It’s Linux under the hood so you can do whatever you want. It’s a lot more work though.

Scott3

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#3284070 19-Sep-2024 15:42

In terms of disk's, I have NAS grade disks in my current NAS, but I have it set up as two volumes (so if one fails I only use half my stuff). Currently looking at used disks, both locally (trademe & facebook marketplace), and internationally (Amazon USA).

With a Raid, N-1 setup are consumer grade, shucked, 5400 RPM disks a reasonable purchase. Am I better to stick with NAS or data center grade disks?

Other than SMR is their any other tech to avoid.

Will most NAS allow an extra drive to be be added later if I did say 3x 16TB now?

-----------

For a PC based system, is running windows 11 reasonable? Or an I best to run one of the specialist NAS operating systems?

Handle9

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#3284074 19-Sep-2024 15:50

If it’s just a file server you can run potato os of your choice. You’re just setting up smb shares. Obviously it’s the easiest but you don’t get the functionality of a NAS os.

If you want to run some sort of containers for use cases like photo management or media automation then I’d look at a NAS operating system. IME Unraid has the lowest barrier to entry but it’s paid software so there’s that.

For disks I look at it as a 5-10 year investment. I’ve had nas disks fail (all WD reds) but most are reliable. If it’s data that is protected by parity and backed up it’s really no big deal to have a drive failure.

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#3284196 19-Sep-2024 19:57

Handle9:
Jase2985: Surely your suggestion has more risk and offers less functionality and requires more management than the above options.

A RYO NAS offers quite a bit more functionality than Synology et al. It’s Linux under the hood so you can do whatever you want. It’s a lot more work though.

Synology runs Linux under the hood, and has the ability to run docker or Virtual Machine Manager so has the ability to run almost anything on it as well.

At the end of the day its up to you which you choose and how much work/effort you want to put into it.

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#3284197 19-Sep-2024 20:00

Jase2985:

Synology runs Linus under the hood,

Torvalds or Sebastian?

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#3284199 19-Sep-2024 20:06

Scott3:

In terms of disk's, I have NAS grade disks in my current NAS, but I have it set up as two volumes (so if one fails I only use half my stuff). Currently looking at used disks, both locally (trademe & facebook marketplace), and internationally (Amazon USA).

With a Raid, N-1 setup are consumer grade, shucked, 5400 RPM disks a reasonable purchase. Am I better to stick with NAS or data center grade disks?

Other than SMR is their any other tech to avoid.

Will most NAS allow an extra drive to be be added later if I did say 3x 16TB now?

-----------

For a PC based system, is running windows 11 reasonable? Or an I best to run one of the specialist NAS operating systems?

Raid is not a backup, and i wouldn't even consider using shucked disks in it unless you could guarantee they were enterprise drives in them (which has been the case sometimes)

I would get enterprise or NAS drives, be it refurbished or new.

RAID type will affect upgradeability later on Raid 5 will require the same size disk to upgrade the pool to 4x16TB, and if a drive fails you need a 15TB drive to replace it with. Synology and others use a hybrid raid which allows you to add 2x drives the same as or larger than the smallest drive to upgrade the pool and will use all the space on the drives.

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#3284202 19-Sep-2024 20:15

Handle9:

Jase2985:

Synology runs Linus under the hood,

Torvalds or Sebastian?

was there really any need?

concordnz

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#3284391 20-Sep-2024 09:59

I agree, Raid is NEVER a backup.

Don't run Raid - But Do back up your NAS.

For your purposes,
Stick with a prebuilt NAS,
It's a lot more power efficient, and 'balanced' design.
it's also a lot more secure (unless you want to waste hours of your life every year, ensuring it stays secure yourself - and know what you are doimg )

get 2 x 4TB
& and 2 x 8Tb NAS drives and put them in Externals,

Use the External drives to back up your NAS Monthly,
and take it Off-site to your friends place each month(don't run a 2nd NAS at his place mirroring yours). & Rotate these drives monthly.

If you plan it right, you can score a free dinner at your friends place each month, and it's both a good reminder to do your backups & a reminder to catch up with friends.....

When your 4Tbs, run outta space
Migrate the 8Tbs into the NAS,
And buy 2 x 16tb's for your new 'External Backup drives'

That gives you a nice clean system with strategic growth plans and low cost.

Scott3

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#3284467 20-Sep-2024 13:37

I understand the comments about RAID not being a backup.

Keen to do a much bigger jump in usable size than you are suggesting. My 4TB NAS has been full for many years, requiring a perpetual cycle of deleting older stuff to make room for newer stuff. Now that I have made the jump to a high end 4k TV, file sizes I am working with are going to leap. (amusingly it looks like I will be spending a heap more on my data setup than my TV. Thinking of jumping usable capacity to 30+ TB.

Two distinct classes of data.

~2TB of photos & personal files requiring backup, currently done by keeping on my laptop which has an active subscription to blaze back.

~4TB (but I would expect this to expand to 20+ TB of replaceable Media, which I don't require backup.)

I don't currently run RAID (or backup) on my 2 disk NAS, meaning if I lose a disk I just loose 50% of my data. But I think it would be convenient to have A single volume in my new setup, and if I go for more disks than I have now the odds of drive failure increase.

Appeal of just shoehorning a bunch of drives into an old windows PC is that I could move my blaze back subscription on to that PC, and given their flat rate fee, I could move to backing everything up. (perhaps could even get rid of the Raid, and just rely on the backup if a drive fails).

I get the logic behind cold monthly offsite backups, but realistically am unlikely to do them that regally, or store them off site. Keen for a more set and forget solution.

concordnz

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#3284578 20-Sep-2024 16:34

Then look at a 4 Bay NAS,
And install
1 x 4tb (for personal stuff)
2 x 12tb drives(or 18tb) (simple drive/partitions)

And have one bay 'spare' for an additional drive further down the track. (this is what I do)

(Don't go down the track of 'Single Spanning volume across multiple drives' )- That's a disaster, just waiting for a currupting to happen.

You can't beat a offside drive for security (theft or fire)
Just use an external 4tb to backup your 'personal 2tb drive stuff)

Handle9

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#3284591 20-Sep-2024 17:49

concordnz: Then look at a 4 Bay NAS,
And install
1 x 4tb (for personal stuff)
2 x 12tb drives(or 18tb) (simple drive/partitions)

And have one bay 'spare' for an additional drive further down the track. (this is what I do)

(Don't go down the track of 'Single Spanning volume across multiple drives' )- That's a disaster, just waiting for a currupting to happen.

You can't beat a offside drive for security (theft or fire)
Just use an external 4tb to backup your 'personal 2tb drive stuff)

That doesn’t make sense. Single volume spanning multiple drives is industry standard, much easier to administer and the reason to have parity/RAID to provide redundancy for a single drive failure. NAS file systems are significantly more resilient than windows and allow for automatic rebuilds in the case of failures.

You have offsite backup for disaster recovery if it all goes horribly wrong.

Scott3

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#3312926 25-Nov-2024 22:34

Thanks everybody for your suggestions in September.

Just purchased a used Synology DS1819+. (8 bay NAS, Intel atom quad core 2.1GHz, 4GB of ram (upgradable to 32gb) with a Pcie expantion slot if/when I go to multigig networking.

https://global.download.synology.com/download/Document/Hardware/DataSheet/DiskStation/19-year/DS1819+/enu/Synology_DS1819_Plus_Data_Sheet_enu.pdf

About the same cost as a new DS423+, and a few hundred more than the new 1GB ram 4 bay ASUSTOR with 2.5G ethernet I was looking at.

Not sure it it was the right call, but at least I will have abundant bays now.

Planning to initially populate with 3x 18TB drives (in N-1 for 36TB usable).

Available used on trade me for $300 with 25,000 hours or $340 with 19,000 hours.

https://www.trademe.co.nz/a/marketplace/computers/components/hard-drives/sata/listing/5030081980

Idea of going with a lesser number of bigger drives is:

Reduced power consumption
Lesser numbers of drives reducing the odds of a failure and need to re-place and rebuild.
Longer time before they become obsolete e-waste.
If I do want more space (in the future when used 18TB drives get much cheaper), I can hit the comically high limit of the NAS of 108TB (7 drives in n-1, or 8 in n-2)

Thoughts on those particular drives?

Handle9

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#3312929 25-Nov-2024 22:48

Seems like a great solution as NAS rather than a homelab. It's certainly a better solution than the Asustor has heaps of capacity as well as having the ability to put a decent network card in it if you go 2.5Gbe or 10Gbe. I believe Synology also offer a combo card with NVME and 10Gbe support if you decided you wanted cache down the line.

Ultrastars are good drives. I'd do it but also check prices on Amazon.

Go as big as is economically viable, I've found 12TB to be the sweet spot where I am with used datacentre drives but of course I'm not in NZ.

If you want to homelab it down the line a minipc would go perfectly with this NAS.

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