Recommended drives for a NAS

[jimborae]

I hate it when this happens. Just about when I'd settled on the 920+, a friend asked me "Why not the QNAP TS-453D?"

"Because, well, Synology ease of use, and DSM" I said, and the bar-steward went on to point out :-

- QNAP have upped their game (somewhat) in the OS-polish stakes

- 2x RJ45 (like 920+) BUT 2.5GBe out of the box, and upgradeable

- many more USB ports

- PCIe Gen2 x2 can add all sorts of stuff, easily and with good performance

- HDMI 2 port, up to 4K 60fps

- 8 IP camera licences vs 2 on 920+. I need 3, maybe 4.

And so on. On the other hand, I do like some of the 920+ apps.

So now, having decided 920+, I'm thinking if I'm just predisosed to Synology, but that QNAP really do deserve a real look, especially on hardware grounds, having also upped their OS and S/ware game too,

@Jimboreae especially .... any thoughts? Did you consider the 453D?

Rabbit-hole, here I come again. This is getting to be a habit, and is so not-me. I must really be out of touch with tech to be this indecisive. I think. Or am I? Yeah, old joke, I know.


Bear in mind, re-CPU loading, this device will really just be supporting me, mostly. I know IP cams can hit CPU loading, etc.

@Saracen, sorry but I didn't really even consider any other makes of NAS as my main use case was to turn it into a fully fledged download box & I knew I could quickly & easily do that with a Synology box. Yes I saw that for the same money I could get better hardware with other makes but I wasn't familiar with say QNAPs or Drobo's OS so for me it just wasn't worth it. Plus I don't need 2.GB network ports, when & if I upgrade the whole home's network it will be straight to 10Gb so it's a non issue as far as I was concerned.

Parm has actually reviewed the 453D for Hexus, don't know if you missed it?

https://m.hexus.net/tech/reviews/net...s-453d/?page=7

This was was older 453B but Ithink the same points generally remain

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76yW1sUwpag&t=2s

By the way my 16GB RAM just turned up and all seems good, I'm now rocking 20GB RAM in this bad boy.

[Saracen999]

Thanks, Jim. The company I'm looking at for NAS supply do offer 8GB 'legit' memory options, as well as 12GB (4=8) and 20 (4+12) using non-Synology. They pointed out that the CPU limit was 8, so anything beyond that is really only for dedicated RAM for a VM. That's not really my bag, but I might go to 12GB because, as non-Synology it's cheaper than their 4 upgrade, will max out for CPU usage and gives me headroom for a VM if I ever do need it.

[Saracen999]

Also, the Asustor 6604 is nearly hardware-identical to that QNAP, other than internal NVMe caching slots, and not having the PCIe expansion slot. My brother has an Asustor and rates it highly.

[virtuo]

I threw 32gb of compatible Crucial RAM in mine, it moans every time you reboot it that "unsupported memory" is installed, but then still happily runs on it without any issues. It's not ECC but I'm happy risking it. Never heard of anyone having issues with non-ecc ram (from a decent manufacturer).

I actually came back to comment on the warranties on the EXOS drives that I shucked. After commenting on this thread previously, I went back in to my seagate portal and the warranties had been wiped from all my registered bare drives - I'm emailing them to find out why, maybe I managed to slip mine through and they fixed the issue since. Without telling me.

I registered the serials from the enclosures themselves, and they come up with 2 years. Not bad, just a pain, lucky I kept them.

[Saracen999]

It'll be interesting to see their response .... assuming they respond.

[DanceswithUnix]

It's not ECC but I'm happy risking it. Never heard of anyone having issues with non-ecc ram (from a decent manufacturer).

You wouldn't, which is sort of the point. The corruption is silent.

My Ryzen 3700X box here reported a corrected bit flip yesterday morning. It is really rare and possibly wouldn't have had lasting consequences, so I can utterly see why most people don't bother with ECC. But errors do happen, and in my case it happened while I was working, so nice to shrug it off and carry on working.

[Saracen999]

....

You could always buy one crack it open to see what's inside and decide your next move from there

I might well do exactly that.

The worst that can happen, assuming I don't use a sledgehammer to crack it open, is a ruined enclosure, and a drive not suitable for NAS use. In which case, I can stick it in a 3rd party enclosure, or in a removeable drive bay in another machine, or even into a USB "dock" (/makes note: current one is still USB2, acquire 3.x version) ad use it to back up the NAS, then stick bare drive (in anti-static bag/box) into safe.

[ik9000]

Saracen, have you built your NAS now? Prices are going nuts/going OoS. Don't leave it too long

[Saracen999]

Saracen, have you built your NAS now? Prices are going nuts/going OoS. Don't leave it too long

Sadly, no, not yet. And for a while, i think it's already too late, Prices have already jumped, if you can get the drives.

I did get the backup I'll be using for certain categories of data (a 12 TB USB drive) but nit the NAS itself.

[jimborae]

Hey Saracen not sure where you're at with the NAS purchase right now but the Synology 920+ is only £404.39 in Amazon right now. That's a brilliant price.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Synology-DS...dp_ob_title_ce

Look for other sellers and you'll see Amazon are now selling it £403.19 with 1-3 week delivery

[Saracen999]

Rather caught by the scarcity, and/or drive price hikes. I got a 12TB WD external USB drive, partly for backup but also to identify what drives it used, and immediately after that, drives became hard to get. There's some availability again, but .... about £60 more per drive that a couple of weeks ago. I'm kinda stuck as to whether to swallow the four to six lots of £60 price rises before they go up more, or wait hoping they settle back down.

Also, pretty much decided on QNAP, either TS-473D (4-bay) or 673D (same NAS, but 6-bay). The reason is that while Synology are very strong on 1st party software suite (and DSM7) the QNAP is looking better on hardware, and I wont use much of the Synology software anyway.

Then, QLocker hit and that put a kink in my plans, after which the drive thing hit.

Thanks for the heads-up, Jim, but I've pretty moved moved to the QNAP route.

[[GSV]Trig]

Be careful with QNAP if its got any access to the internet, they seem to have issues every year or so with security.

[ik9000]

Be careful with QNAP if its got any access to the internet, they seem to have issues every year or so with security.

this.^ IIRC they just had a major breach with lots of people's NAS's being remote encrypted with ransom ware via an UNSECURE BACKDOOR. And this in enterprise grade NASs. I mean seriously?

[Saracen999]

Be careful with QNAP if its got any access to the internet, they seem to have issues every year or so with security.

this.^ IIRC they just had a major breach with lots of people's NAS's being remote encrypted with ransom ware via an UNSECURE BACKDOOR. And this in enterprise grade NASs. I mean seriously?

Indeed. Warning appreciated, but note the "QLocker" comment in my post.

One of the reasons that put a dent in my tmetabke was exactly that - considering whether I needed the NAS to have net access or not. My conclusion was that for most or all of what I want, it might be convenient, but not essential. The biggest pain was the media server aspect. It was probably the biggest factor in finally ditching the plans to go Plex, for Jellyfin. That way, my intention is to set up most of the media offline, maybe briefly connect up to scrape metadata, etc, but then keep the NAS air-gapped.

I can't think of anything I really need the NAS to have a net connection for, though some things would be nice. I might have to just not do one or two things I otherwise might have, on the NAS.

Meantime, I finally got around to replacing my old router with what I think is a much, MUCH more secure option. I just need to spend some time working out how to lock down what I possibly can, and don't need open, on the router.

That said, QNAP aren't the only ones to have had issues with NAS security. Obviously, NAS boxes tend to hold what is often large amounts of important data, so are going to be prime targets for hackers and other *rude word* types to target.

I am already pretty careful with my data. Some of my data never goes near any machine with a net connectiom. It is strictly offline only. Other bits, like my media files, well, I can back those up relatively cheaply to optical media. And the volumes of data, other than video files, on the NAS are small enough for a set of relatively modest HDs to provide about three layers of backup, on a plug-n-backup basis.

It does require some planning to ensure that nothing I can't afford to lose is exposed on the NAS, so if despite precautions, I get it crypto-locked, I can just reformat, rebuild the RAID and reinstall media server, etc.

The other important stuff, to me, is photo stuff. The NAS will just be a data repository for that, and I won't be using the photo apps, etc, from QNAP (or Synology) as I use ACDSee and Affinity Photo on several PCs for that. If need be, I can restore backups of that quickly and easily.

All told, yeah, the risk of getting a NAS hacked/hit is real, but it existts with any NAS and the only way to really protect it from online threats is to keep it offline, regardless of manufacturer. And that, frankly, is true of any data, on NAS or PC.

I've had a systematic approach to data for several decades, backing up some to HD, some to tape, some to optical media. That has involved everything from "Jumbo" tape drives to both DAT and SLR tape (Tandberg drives), and to both DVD-RAM and MO drives. the volumes of data involved with sticking tens of TB of data, mainly video, on the NAS have required some quiet contemplation of my backup regime and a change or two, but it still comes down to separating different types of data from each other and using type-appropriate methods accordingly. Stuff that is relatively small and changing often gets a different treatment to stuff that, once created, rarely or never changes (like RAW photos direct from camera, edited/finished versions of those, digitised video, etc) where sizes are large but one "archived" copy, and maybe a spare for photos, will do.

As ever, it's a balance between the cost (whether money or time, or just lost data) of backing up, versus the inconvenience if you lose it. Some data would be nearly impossible to recreate (scans of documents where the originals no longer exist) BUT, while losing them would irritate me it wouldn't actually be a disaster. But re-ripping a couple of thousand DVDs would be a major pain in the wotsit, to the point where much of it wouldn't get redone. So .... copy to archive-optical media. It's about, as I said, type-appropriate backup strategy, and media, depending on data type.

[jimborae]

Just to get back to the original thread question, I've had yet another WD Red drive fail on me today. This time it was the other one of the 5TB pair that I had originally, warranty expired 2019. Thankfully there was nothing important on this drive and it was backed up.

I'm done with WD Reds from now on, they are becoming the modern day equivalent of Hitachi DeathStars. In my NAS's I'll just use cheap shucked whitelabe drives that are raided and in my main PC for rusty dick storage requirements I'll try & find something more reliable and not SMR.

[[GSV]Trig]

If you keep losing drives, why chose RAID?
What OS/System you running?