The uninterruptable power supply wasn't an "upgrade" to me - it was a first-day-must-have item. I'm a home user with experience supporting a network on a terrible power system.
@@danielmcgowan9534 +1 : totally agree ! I have 2 Synology NAS, so 2 UPS, plus a third UPS for the network stuff (Switch, Box, etc...). A UPS is a must have in my opinion, because I will never take the risk to lose data because of a P.S. problem...
No kidding - SpaceRex is probably my #1 UA-cam channel. I try to buy with your affiliate links whenever I can just so you take over the world. Thank you for all that you do! The installation of my Synology NAS and corresponding workflow is priceless for my business. Much appreciated!
As an enthusiast photographer, I’ve been using a Drobo DAS for over six years (actually, it’s still connected) and, thankfully, it has worked flawlessly throughout. I’ve been considering a NAS conversion for almost as long and…finally, I have just acquired a Synology DS1522+ in the last month, in no small part because of Drobo’s business problems and unknown future support. It does feel like there’s a lot to learn (which is a good thing too) but I have to thank you, Will, for all your videos as you’ve contributed heavily to my limited NAS understanding so far. As I have a Mac Studio, two 10GbE ports on my switch and CAT 6 cable running, that 10GbE upgrade will be next. Best of luck in your new business.
I have had a Drobo for about 5 years and it is failing. Bottom drive bay no longer works. Don't trust it anymore. Bought a Synology 1621+. Will have 6 - 12TB drives when I am done setting it all up. Got all my critical data and 62GB of photos loaded now. Have had smart UPS for about 3 years now on all my systems.
I wouldn't follow this at all. bad advise unless you have a very, very specific use case. Not that I can think of what that is. Depending on your use case... things might change, but raw storage, just get drives and put them IN the devices! I also use ssds. Who would have thought that was needed to be said! Then if you are running VMs you need to pick between ram and nvme. Your vm requirements will dictate that. You MUST have 2 x nvme if you are doing video editing and they are AMAZING speed boosts for VM with high read write. LASTLY 10Gb... if you need more HD get the synology extension! Why o why buy a bad external HD NEVER and I mean NEVER use them for anything bare data transfer when you have a NAS! An external HD is called a poor man's NAS for a reason!
@chrisschneider7609 you completely missed the point that the external drive was for backup, not additional storage for primary data. If you have a second NAS to backup the main one, and/or use cloud backup, then effectively you would have something similiar. But if you just add a storage expansion unit to your main NAS, no, that's not a proper backup even if you use a separate volume. You say "LASTLY 10Gb" and then talk about storage again. Looks like you either didn't watch the video or didn't pay any attention. It's 10 GbE, not 10 Gb, because it's about upgrading the network connection, starting with the ethernet port on the NAS. That's something that can be very useful in your video editing example.
@aranelchan the point of a nas is to be reliable storage. It is the backup. Raid is the backup. And external HD is just dumb. Far more likely to fail, far more likely to corrupt. And far less capacity! 10gbE is like atm machine... the e is not required when you are already talking about ethernet. It is highly highly unlikely you are consuming gbps as a single user. Even with a few raw video files in your scrubber! It is also extremely unlikely that you have 10gbps on your pc if you're listening to this review. 10gbps is not even close to something normal. The better option it bonding the 4 ethernet port already on the device. 4Gbps will give you FAR more likelihood of consumption... but then we need to talk about switches... which you would once you start talking about 10gbps... bonding is far cheaper.
@chrisschneider7609 No, RAID is redundancy for fault tolerance. RAID is not backup, even though what it provides overlaps with what a proper backup provides. Is an external hard drive the best backup solution? Probably not. But driving home the point that there should be a backup is a top "upgrade" tip, and an external hard drive that can be kept separate from the NAS is a low hanging fruit in that regard. As for a NAS being the backup, that depends on how it is used. If a video editor edits videos locally, and only syncs to the NAS as backup, then indeed the NAS is backup. I would still recommend a backup for the NAS itself, but one that is stored remotely. However, if the video editor is editing videos via network share, then the NAS is not backup, and it is in such cases that a > 1 Gbps network connection becomes important. Spacerex did say that the 10 GbE upgrade was use-case specific, so I find no fault in his upgrade suggestion. Bonding multiple ports is also use-case specific: unless you're using stuff like multichannel SMB, link aggregation would still limit any one client to the max of a link, so unless there are multiple clients it may be of little value.
important note is, when using larger capacity SSD cache, it does reserve a notable amount of RAM, so for ex. I'm running one 1TB NVME SSD as read cache, but also upgraded RAM from 4 to 8GB because that 1TB of SSD cache itself uses about 400MB of RAM, and it works great as a combination :)
Just got the Synology 1522+. This video was perfect for answering my upgrade questions for Synology in general, and especially for this unit. Nice to know that I dont have to go crazy on RAM! Thanks for the video!
Thanks for this great video. I took your advice and connected over a wire. Transfer speeds went from an average of 300mbps to 900mbps. Such a significant improvement! 👍🏻
I would get the UPS first. For business we got a second Synology for backup off site instead of a big USB drive. I have installed 2 1TB SSD caches in raid 1. It is overkill. I have never seen more than 256K of cache being used so 2x256K is the maximum one should get. The weak spot of the Synology is that it doesn't have redundant power supplies and CPUs. That is why a second storage is required because if the local Synology fails, the big 16 TB USB drive can keep you going in the short term. We, the company, have a NetApp. I personally use an old Drobo 5N, at home, which is slow and crude compared to the Synology but it has been extremely reliable. My personal Synology is off site and the company and I access it through a company VPN. It is less hassle than a OneDrive.
A couple points to add: DSM 7.2 has a SSD Advisor in Storage Manager that you can use to decide wihether an SSD each is useful. It runs for a week to analyze your usage. I recommend using this before running out to buy a SSD cache. Great points about wifi versus wired. The problem with wifi its is stability and reliability. Wifi is subject to signal (other devices, APs) and physical (walls) interference, particularly in crowded places like apartments or office buildings. This is the biggest argument for a wired connection. A NAS needs to be always available. With ethernet it ALWAYS works and at a predictable speed. If you are using your NAS as a media server, this is particularly important.
Dude your content is so clear and concise. Incredibly helpful! If I, or anyone I know, ever needs a consultant, you'll be the first call! Thank for this great info!
Nice to hear you do this full time now. You helped us Build a 1821+ back in the Days with a 10gbe hardwire connection for Videoproduction. Greetings from Germany! :)
Setting the SSD to be a second volume and running docker containers directly off of it was a far better use case than a cache. The amount of command line inputs to get it working was minimal
Thanks - this was a good sanity check or me since I just purchased a Synology 4-Bay DiskStation DS923+. Went with the 10GBe card which is now down to $110, and your recommended NVME drive. Good advice on the read only. I got the external drive on my wish list. Your video gave me confidence to not upgrade memory since it comes with 4Gb. What I found useful is the size information of the cache partition you recommended which makes total sense now. In the past I would max it out thinking more is better. Lastly I have a smart UPS to plug it into. Thanks for also suggesting the USB into it also. Great video, clear and concise.
I just bought an 18TB external to do my back ups. Such piece of mind to have this on hand. I'm also adding a 10GbE to my NAS right now too. I just upgraded from a DS418Play to a DS923+ with three 16TB Seagate Ironwolf drives. Mainly for the 10GbE access since I do a lot of video storage and editing.
I have about 60 tb of music I've collected over the years. Astonishingly, I've never had a hard drive ever fail on me, so I'd never really thought about backing everything up until recently. I saw a video of a video editor backing his work up to a NAS, which I had never even heard of. After a ton of research, and some saving, I just got a Synology 923+ and 4 x 15 tb Western Digitals. It took me all night to figure out how to start syncing files from all my externals, but Ive got the hang of it now. Glad to hear I probably won't need to upgrade my ram. I think the 923+ is sufficient for my needs. Instead, I think I'll start saving to buy a whole other backup until cloud storage doesn't cost as much as a car.
Perfekt! Es mir diesmal große Freude gemacht das Video anzuschauen- nicht nur weil es sehr ausführlich und gut war. Weil du diesmal und hoffentlich auch in Zukunft Zeit beim sprechen genommen hast ! 👍👍👍👍👍
I'm surprised the UPS is at the end not "Number 0, get a UPS when you get a NAS, do not pass Go." That's my philosophy after having a RAID/NAS get corrupted from a power outage. My take is that every RAID/NAS must have a smart UPS from the start. Even as a "home" user, I'd rather have a UPS than have to try to recover everything from a backup.
So from all of my consulting, I have only had a couple of times that users NAS have had issues from unexpected power loss. And in all of the cases the volume only went into a 'read only' mode where we could still copy everything off of it. What was the NAS & file system you were using that got corrupted? BTRFS seems to be pretty solid at at least keeping the data alive enough to be pulled off the unit.
I have friends living in NZ and they often have power outages. If they have to rebuild a volume every time, they will get mad. Hence, the UPS is also on top of the list. I hope someday that Synology can build 'portable' nases, with power battery included.
I totally agree with Rex as a photography / videographer backup is the number 1 thing to invest in, if fact I take it one step further and have 2 backups, and I keep one in a safety deposit box and the other one backing up constantly and rotate them out once a week from my bank. I do have a UPS and I have lost power maybe once in 16 years so it is definitely good to have one but not mission critical as a backup drive. If you lose power in your area a lot then a UPS might be number 1 in your book.
The UPS also evens out power fluctuations, which device power supplies will appreciate. Being overseas I further protect the UPS with a transformer/AVR.
Thank you very much for all the awesome content. Easy to understand stuff - lots of NAS instructional / tutorials are cumbersome, too long and not suited for beginners. I'm a photographer and have a s-lod of old SATAs with images and I need to pull the trigger on a NAS as soon as possible to avert possible disaster and also to get organized. I appreciate you, mate!
I agree with backing up to another drive and UPS basically being required for data security. WIFI6 and newer standards can certainly break gig speeds if they have a fast enough connection to the source material, but do suffer from increased latency. Wired connections are definitely better, but it mainly impacts latency and stability more than actual speed now. There are many newer routers that support faster speed over Wi-Fi than wired as not all support multi-gig switching for wired connections. My WIFI 6 router only supports up to 2.5Gb wired but much more over Wi-Fi (AX11000 standard) it has exceeded 2.5Gb when downloading from multiple sources (LAN and internet) using WIFI. It's also uncommon for consumer routers to support ports over 2.5Gb. Even though we only have 1Gb internet, I still upgraded my home with a 2x10Gbe and 8x 2.5Gbe switch because the NAS running Plex can see more than 2.5Gb on LAN usage, but no other single device would currently benefit from more speed for me. In short, I still agree with recommending wired connections due to the lower latency as that is what most people will "feel" and the latency advantage of wired connections can be very noticeable with internet usage. It's just not the same as absolute speed.
External harddrive as a backup solution has its limits: If your house burns down - your important data on your external harddrive are gone as well. In my opinion your backup data should be physically apart from your primary NAS. Better choose the cloud or a second NAS on a different location than the primary NAS (I have chosen the latter). Thanks for your great videos anyway!
Thank you for emphasizing the importance of "wired" against wifi. Not only wifi is not as fast as advertised by it is much more vulnerable to interference.
Wiring it directly to the router would always be my first choice just because it removes another potential point of failure. But in terms of performance it might be superior if (A) multiple devices access the router at once or (B) the devices accessing the NAS are also wired. WIFI is faster than most people's internet speeds. So an average user streaming videos or moving small files will not notice any difference whatsoever. The problem with suggesting upgrades is that you first need to know the goal of the upgrade and second whether the suggested upgrade meets the goal. In some cases, a user might be better served by upgrading their wireless network as opposed to upgrading their server.
I was struggling for years - my photos app was slow, my docker instance was slow, and had no idea why. 2GB in my machine, and the resources app showed I still had 40% free memory. But when I upgraded by installing an 8gb RAM module.... wow! things were snappy and very fast! RAM upgrade is a must, and a NUMBER ONE first thing to do. Don't wait, just install the most RAM you can.
Thanks for sharing your experience. Even though he put RAM pretty low, it seems pretty dependent on where you're starting. If you only have 2 GB or less of memory, it will make a significant difference.
Summary: 1. Large external USB HD for cheap and local backup 2. Wired clients 3. 10 GbE upgrade 4. SSD for read cache 5. RAM 6. UPS I fully agree with #1. Easy peace of mind. Similarly, I’d bump #6 to the second slot, depending on the reliability of your power utility. #2 also makes a ton of sense. I’m not sure I agree with #3 unless you have the simplest of network setups or you’re setting things up on a single desk. What I mean by that is a small 10 GbE switch on your desk with the Synology directly connected to it and your computer with 10 GbE connected as well and uplinking to your modem or other switches in your house. My Synology is in my networking closet and I’d need to do a reasonable amount of upgrades to really benefit from it. Then again, I’m a Ubiquiti person and 10 GbE choices aren’t great right now.
The way all these companies are going it's not only cheaper to build your own NAS is arguably easier and you will definitely have better results. You can even use synology software if you so choose.
An alternate to running a wire down from your balcony: Use a Powerline Adapter. A powerline adaptor connects your computer to the internet by using your home's electrical wiring. I have been using it for years without issues.
There are so many variables to Wifi. Spatial streams, SNR, base noise, building material etc. But making blanket statements that wifi is bad is not true. An 6E environment with actual coverage will do amazing speeds if the target device has enough streams to support the throughput. Your phone, your laptop, etc are usually the limiting factors, not the wireless environment itself...
Spare RAM also acts as a read-only cache that is even faster than NVMe. Synology diskstations run Linux and that is the way the Linux buffer cache works. Bonus: RAM doesn’t fail after N writes like NVMe and SSD drives do. An NVMe drive that gets written to a lot could die an early death.
The first two I have done and would recommend. The third 10Gbit, less convinced, however I did buy a cheap unmanaged 2.5Gbit switch and a 2.5Gbit card to my computer, this makes a big difference in copy times. The 4th, I did this within my NAS and while I think it helps performance, I am not sure how much the cache actually helps with performance, hard to measure. The 5th, is well worth the money as memory is cheap (at least for my Asustor NAS it is, not sure about Synology). UPS, I am certainly thinking about it since I have had a couple of power cuts that have caused an ungraceful shutdown,
- EXTERNAL DRIVE - CHECK (that I have before buy the Nas, I used on my old server .always have two external that I change every week) -RUN WIRED ETHERNET -CHECK -I HAVE THE DS1522 TOO WITH 8G SÓ MEMORY UPGRADE - CHECK -SMART UPS - CHECK I don't plan to upgrade the other stuff for now at least.
I am still learning about my ds1019+. I've had it for several years now. Security and features is not very intuitive. Even for someone who enjoys this stuff as a hobby. As a truck driver I'm always looking for more ways to use it while on the road.
Besides your good tip on using a UPS when enabling read/write caching, note that Synology's requirement for read/write fault tolerance is to use 2 NVMe drives. Here's their message: "A read-write cache requires at least two SSDs for fault tolerance. In this mode, data are written to the SSDs first to accelerate the data access speed and improve the random read/write performance."
Excellent video as usual, but it is still unclear how to use the NVMes, particularly with the VMM, and/or by creating a volume on the NVMe. My DS1821 is still on 7.1 (7.2 is not yet official); and I believe that you should dedicate a video to the NVMes ! Thank you
@@SpaceRexWill Similar I've got the critical life is over side gig shuts down stuff on backblaze and some of those items are on Microsoft and others' clouds too Item 2 hard-wired is a life changer for work and play except when roaming about the house, but I'd even put a patch cable near the couch if you can work there. Item 3 10 gig makes it so you can work directly from the NAS even if video editing at a few 4k streams of HVEC
Item 4 I've got a pair of 1TB read-write but this tip would have saved me money especially the way my family and I use the main NAS, I didn't even put any in the backup NAS, the 718+ is all-flash though since it's docker containers and VMs
UPS critical for a NAS and very good for any desktop, saved me a few times. Item 6, I upgraded everything since all my units shipped with low RAM and they all run at least one container, the main is Maxed, the 718 is maxed too, but the backup just got the module left over from the main
I have a weird issue with the smb share on my ds1821+. I have my video edit folder organised by newest created up top. When I am saving video edits to the folder it will just randomly drop out a year of edits and show the newest file as a year ago or whatever it is. Seems to drop out to the same point each time. If I open up an afp connection it always shows the correct order and it seems to force the smb connection into line also. Any ideas how to fix this issue? I think it started doing it since DSM 7 upgrade..
Great and very important important video for newbies like me!!! Thanks a lot You recommend a lot for virtual machines. What about huge Lightroom libraries wir over 100k pictures with 100mb RAW files? What upgrade of the last three make most sense and what does not/ or does not have that big impact to the performance
So even if I am using a 1522+ as a remote offsite backup, for my 1821+ (at home), its best to have a single disk usb attached for more redundancy? Appreciate all of your networking videos and Synology videos. Keep up the great work. Congrats on quitting your job and becoming a consultant!!
The cache does make a difference when you move large files and like you said you do not need a large nvme, you just need something that will have the thruput to keep up with the flow of the data that does not depend on the cpu or ram of the unit. Even then, the difference is not night and day but these days ssds are dirt cheap so, why not. RAM will be usefull if you run docker containers or VMs or Surveillance cameras, if you don't do that, 4 gigs is more than enough.
Very helpful! I've got a 1522+ on order, my first Synology NAS. I'm upgrading from an old tower running UnRAID Server. Two questions: 1) Do any m.2 NVME SSDs work other than Synology's own? They're the only ones listed on the HCL. 2) What's the best way to transfer files from my old UnRAID server to the NAS? Map a drive to the server in DSM? I want to keep my laptop out of the transfer process, as it's on wifi.
Hi Will. How important would you say a UPS is for a first time home user? I have very limited budget at the moment, and have just purchased a DS923+. No back up solution yet. Some people recommend I get a UPS, but I've only had one power cut in 9 years living in this house. How likely is data loss/corruption from a power cut? Many thanks.
Thanks for your very easy to understand videos. Since I got a Synology NAS (actually even before I got it) your channel is my go to before making any decision about the topic.
@spacerexwill what is your opinion on getting an expansion unit for my DS1621xs+? The expansion unit port is eSATA unlike the RS models where they’ve a proprietary high speed connector. I use VMs and Surv Station with 4 x 4K cams atm with maybe 2 more being added so it might have a mix of HDD and SSD.
I’m still learning so I have many questions. I’m not sure if I have understood the 10Gbe upgrade to the DS 923+ comspletely. My Mac Studio is fitted with a 10Gbe connection if I upgrade my DS 923+ with the 10Gbe upgrade, can I connect with my Mac studio with a cable to have 10 Gbe between my Mac Studio my DS 923+?
I have a DS1522+ and actually went with the 10 gigabit upgrade and a RAM upgrade (Kingston RAM I could get quite cheaply so I went for it, no way I'm buying Synology RAM which is ridiculously expensive). Of course, I also have a UPS although power outages in the Netherlands are extremely rare. There's one thing I'm still thinking about, NVMe SSD caching. I don't think it would benefit me. I'm using my NAS for media storage and playback (no transcoding needed over here), the NAS is running SABnzbd, Radarr and Sonarr as docker images. As I'm the only user NVMe caching would be useless, am I right? The Synology SSD Advisor recommends a small cache SSD but as I said, I doubt if I'd really see any true benefits.
Hoi Brian. Ik heb net een 1522 besteld met twee Exos 18 Tb disks. Krijg het morgen binnen. Zou ik je eventueel kunnen benaderen mocht ik voor het eerste opzetten een vraag hebben ? Zodat ik eventueel niet totaal fout begin met later alle gevolgen van dien. Eigenlijk weet ik niet eens welke raid ik moet kiezen.😂 En om eerlijk te zijn klinkt wat je van Usenet vertelde wel erg cool. Wist niet dat dit mogelijk is.
Why external hdd is needed? I was under impression that if I buy 2bay NAS ( DS223J) stick 2x 4tb hard drives one will be used for all my data other one is for 100% copy of that data (back up) why do you need external back up ? Or em I missing something?
Thanks for sharing all those tips. Your channel is really great. Looking at your videos there is one answer I can’t find. In buying a NAS what is the benefit of having 10 or 8 drives or 6 over a 4 bays NAS?
I love your videos! They are helping me understand and research a NAS before buying. I do video editing for my son's hockey team. My son wants to start also editing video's also. Would putting the files on a NAS be the correct course of action? We would not be accessing the files at the same time. Thanks
Planning on doing one! I added a write up last night going over how to setup backups for a database here: www.spacerex.co/how-to-automatically-backup-a-mysql-or-mariadb-server-with-mysqldump/
I recently bought a Synology DS223 with just one 4TB Ironwolf HDD. I did not bought a 4-bay, first because it’s a bit out of my budget, but also because I don’t have that much data (I currently “only” have 400GB of photos. The thing is I’m not saving my data with redundancy. So, I probably should buy a second HDD. My question is: as one of the disks storage will basically be lost, is it possible to add for example an 8TB (with the exact same characteristics except the capacity), or should I buy a second 4TB model to be the exact same as the first one? Note that that it is for home use only, and the only thing I might share would be photos with family. Thanks for your help.
So, if your computer is connected to your NAS via Ethernet, does that mean you’ll be restricted to using WiFi to connect to your router? I think my motherboard only has a single 2.5 gbps port.
An external HDD to "backup" a NAS? I must be confused WTF a NAS is exactly. I mean, if I do a 6-bay NAS and do three pairs of RAID setup.....isn't that exactly what backing up data is?
When changing hardware (drives, ram, configuration, etc) it makes sense to have a "cold" storage copy of your array. I have 18 TB plex library, sourced over 10 years all Bluray or better quality, from sources online that haven't existed in years plus all family photos, financial documents etc. I have it copied twice to different not in use drives one off site, one in a firesafe. That's what he is saying. Your NAS is what you draw from and use everyday. Every once in a while I refresh a back up of the array or before I do a major change. Its just extra security again data loss, fire etc. You could possibly damage the array during changes or if it has been running non stop without a restart for years, chances are the drives won't turn back on after turning off (I have had raid 10 arrays with 5 hot spares die after applying updates requiring reboots after running 24/7 for years before it can rebuild itself) it just depends on what your personal risk tolerance is.
@@m6071 I'm new to this NAS game, still researching all the terms and options and such. Doesn't RAID1 mirror? I mean, a pair of 16TB drives setup in RAID1 is basically a backup, no? I must be missing something. They mirror each other. Otherwise this sounds like you need a NAS for your NAS. Where does it end?
Do dedicated gaming servers require upgraded ram if they are ran in a dockers? I would like to have multiple dedicated servers up for my friends to join at any time. I was thinking to upgrade the ram.
First of all, congratulations on your channel, it's fantastic and although I'm a computer guy (Z servers), it has allowed me to quickly learn how to use all the features of my synology NAS server, thanks a lot @SpaceRexWill A silly question, for a similar price and terabytes, would you choose a 2.5 or 3.5 external HDD?
Hey, So I'm running a DS220+ with 2 4TB drives mirroring for redundancy and I realized I'm running out of storage. Would you recommend swapping the drives for bigger drives? Or switch the raid so I have 8TB, and buy the external hard drive to back up? Appreciate all you do man, love your channel since I got my NAS.
Good videos @spacerex , keep’em coming! Any good video on explaining how to upgrade storage in future..? Eg, I get a ds923+ for example, stock 4x 8GB for example.. when I am close to reach the 8GB storage limit how does it work to get bigger drives (as they would be cheaper in future one hopes), I could then upgrade to say.. 16TB’s. Thanks in advance!
I would instead buy 2x 16 TB drives today. Then as you need space put in more drives! Much easier and more cost effective as you don’t throw out the old drives!
@@SpaceRexWill brilliant. I meant to ask that as part of the question so good to hear that’s a perfectly viable option. Have a good day, thanks for the reply.
Hey, I’m thinking of getting a NAS to back up our iPhones and computers. Question, can my son remotely backup his MacBook Pro while at College to a NAS at our home? Also, can he backup his iPhone as well? Thanks and love the videos!
I upgraded the RAM in my 920+ to 8GB. I run a few docker containers, the biggest being Vaultwarden. I run Drive server, HyperBackup, Photos, and ABB. My memory usage never goes over 30%. Probably wasted my money on extra RAM.
@@SpaceRexWill I see the new DSM resource monitor shows the ram cache now. I don’t remember seeing that before. Now all but 3% of my ram is being used, good to see!
I had the 412+. It had 1GB. This was sufficient until OS updates bogged it down and I added users. I upgraded to 4GB and that was amazing. So, when I bought the 923+, I immediately upgraded to 32GB. I figured for the low cost of ram and the on-sale price of the NAS, totally worth it to future prevent OS updates and increasing users.
What is your go to upgrade? Post on the forums: forums.spacerex.co/t/the-top-6-updates-for-a-synology-nas-video/383?u=will
The uninterruptable power supply wasn't an "upgrade" to me - it was a first-day-must-have item. I'm a home user with experience supporting a network on a terrible power system.
@@danielmcgowan9534 +1 : totally agree ! I have 2 Synology NAS, so 2 UPS, plus a third UPS for the network stuff (Switch, Box, etc...).
A UPS is a must have in my opinion, because I will never take the risk to lose data because of a P.S. problem...
UPS
I ordered a UPS with my NAS.
Which of them should I buy DS418 for $325 or DS423+ for $610
No kidding - SpaceRex is probably my #1 UA-cam channel. I try to buy with your affiliate links whenever I can just so you take over the world. Thank you for all that you do! The installation of my Synology NAS and corresponding workflow is priceless for my business. Much appreciated!
As an enthusiast photographer, I’ve been using a Drobo DAS for over six years (actually, it’s still connected) and, thankfully, it has worked flawlessly throughout. I’ve been considering a NAS conversion for almost as long and…finally, I have just acquired a Synology DS1522+ in the last month, in no small part because of Drobo’s business problems and unknown future support. It does feel like there’s a lot to learn (which is a good thing too) but I have to thank you, Will, for all your videos as you’ve contributed heavily to my limited NAS understanding so far. As I have a Mac Studio, two 10GbE ports on my switch and CAT 6 cable running, that 10GbE upgrade will be next. Best of luck in your new business.
I'm a photographer too and I just got a 923+ and I spent all of September going step by step with Will's guides
I have had a Drobo for about 5 years and it is failing. Bottom drive bay no longer works. Don't trust it anymore. Bought a Synology 1621+. Will have 6 - 12TB drives when I am done setting it all up. Got all my critical data and 62GB of photos loaded now. Have had smart UPS for about 3 years now on all my systems.
Glad you’re full time into this! Good stuff man you’ve helped my work and I a lot
Thanks man! Just went full time and its been a blast! Kinda crazy having all of these hours in the day again!
I wouldn't follow this at all. bad advise unless you have a very, very specific use case. Not that I can think of what that is.
Depending on your use case... things might change, but raw storage, just get drives and put them IN the devices! I also use ssds. Who would have thought that was needed to be said! Then if you are running VMs you need to pick between ram and nvme. Your vm requirements will dictate that. You MUST have 2 x nvme if you are doing video editing and they are AMAZING speed boosts for VM with high read write. LASTLY 10Gb... if you need more HD get the synology extension! Why o why buy a bad external HD NEVER and I mean NEVER use them for anything bare data transfer when you have a NAS!
An external HD is called a poor man's NAS for a reason!
@chrisschneider7609 you completely missed the point that the external drive was for backup, not additional storage for primary data. If you have a second NAS to backup the main one, and/or use cloud backup, then effectively you would have something similiar. But if you just add a storage expansion unit to your main NAS, no, that's not a proper backup even if you use a separate volume.
You say "LASTLY 10Gb" and then talk about storage again. Looks like you either didn't watch the video or didn't pay any attention. It's 10 GbE, not 10 Gb, because it's about upgrading the network connection, starting with the ethernet port on the NAS. That's something that can be very useful in your video editing example.
@aranelchan the point of a nas is to be reliable storage. It is the backup. Raid is the backup. And external HD is just dumb. Far more likely to fail, far more likely to corrupt. And far less capacity!
10gbE is like atm machine... the e is not required when you are already talking about ethernet. It is highly highly unlikely you are consuming gbps as a single user. Even with a few raw video files in your scrubber! It is also extremely unlikely that you have 10gbps on your pc if you're listening to this review. 10gbps is not even close to something normal.
The better option it bonding the 4 ethernet port already on the device. 4Gbps will give you FAR more likelihood of consumption... but then we need to talk about switches... which you would once you start talking about 10gbps... bonding is far cheaper.
@chrisschneider7609 No, RAID is redundancy for fault tolerance. RAID is not backup, even though what it provides overlaps with what a proper backup provides.
Is an external hard drive the best backup solution? Probably not. But driving home the point that there should be a backup is a top "upgrade" tip, and an external hard drive that can be kept separate from the NAS is a low hanging fruit in that regard.
As for a NAS being the backup, that depends on how it is used. If a video editor edits videos locally, and only syncs to the NAS as backup, then indeed the NAS is backup. I would still recommend a backup for the NAS itself, but one that is stored remotely.
However, if the video editor is editing videos via network share, then the NAS is not backup, and it is in such cases that a > 1 Gbps network connection becomes important. Spacerex did say that the 10 GbE upgrade was use-case specific, so I find no fault in his upgrade suggestion.
Bonding multiple ports is also use-case specific: unless you're using stuff like multichannel SMB, link aggregation would still limit any one client to the max of a link, so unless there are multiple clients it may be of little value.
important note is, when using larger capacity SSD cache, it does reserve a notable amount of RAM, so for ex. I'm running one 1TB NVME SSD as read cache, but also upgraded RAM from 4 to 8GB because that 1TB of SSD cache itself uses about 400MB of RAM, and it works great as a combination :)
Just got the Synology 1522+. This video was perfect for answering my upgrade questions for Synology in general, and especially for this unit. Nice to know that I dont have to go crazy on RAM! Thanks for the video!
Thanks for this great video. I took your advice and connected over a wire. Transfer speeds went from an average of 300mbps to 900mbps. Such a significant improvement! 👍🏻
I would get the UPS first. For business we got a second Synology for backup off site instead of a big USB drive. I have installed 2 1TB SSD caches in raid 1. It is overkill. I have never seen more than 256K of cache being used so 2x256K is the maximum one should get. The weak spot of the Synology is that it doesn't have redundant power supplies and CPUs. That is why a second storage is required because if the local Synology fails, the big 16 TB USB drive can keep you going in the short term. We, the company, have a NetApp. I personally use an old Drobo 5N, at home, which is slow and crude compared to the Synology but it has been extremely reliable. My personal Synology is off site and the company and I access it through a company VPN. It is less hassle than a OneDrive.
Bruh, it’s hard to take you seriously when you don’t even have any LED lights behind you💁🏼
A couple points to add: DSM 7.2 has a SSD Advisor in Storage Manager that you can use to decide wihether an SSD each is useful. It runs for a week to analyze your usage. I recommend using this before running out to buy a SSD cache.
Great points about wifi versus wired. The problem with wifi its is stability and reliability. Wifi is subject to signal (other devices, APs) and physical (walls) interference, particularly in crowded places like apartments or office buildings. This is the biggest argument for a wired connection. A NAS needs to be always available. With ethernet it ALWAYS works and at a predictable speed. If you are using your NAS as a media server, this is particularly important.
Dude your content is so clear and concise. Incredibly helpful! If I, or anyone I know, ever needs a consultant, you'll be the first call! Thank for this great info!
Nice to hear you do this full time now.
You helped us Build a 1821+ back in the Days with a 10gbe hardwire connection for Videoproduction. Greetings from Germany! :)
Thanks man! Glad things are going well!
Congrats on this channel helping you to a sweet full time consulting gig. Appreciate all the great information you have shared over the years.
Thanks man!
alright how's it goin, neal?
Alright, how's it going @xblackrainbow
Best UA-cam intro
Lmao I was just thinking that
Ive been looking for this comment!😅 Ive been watching his content and this his iconic intro!
Setting the SSD to be a second volume and running docker containers directly off of it was a far better use case than a cache. The amount of command line inputs to get it working was minimal
Thanks - this was a good sanity check or me since I just purchased a Synology 4-Bay DiskStation DS923+. Went with the 10GBe card which is now down to $110, and your recommended NVME drive. Good advice on the read only. I got the external drive on my wish list. Your video gave me confidence to not upgrade memory since it comes with 4Gb. What I found useful is the size information of the cache partition you recommended which makes total sense now. In the past I would max it out thinking more is better. Lastly I have a smart UPS to plug it into. Thanks for also suggesting the USB into it also. Great video, clear and concise.
I just bought an 18TB external to do my back ups. Such piece of mind to have this on hand. I'm also adding a 10GbE to my NAS right now too. I just upgraded from a DS418Play to a DS923+ with three 16TB Seagate Ironwolf drives. Mainly for the 10GbE access since I do a lot of video storage and editing.
Are you running a RAID setup? If yes, which kind? Thanks
@@theportman Synology Hybrid RAID (SHR) with data protection for 1-drive fault tolerance.
@@JimKilgo thanks a lot!
Excellent video as always. I'd love to see a tutorial about setting up the auto-shutdown from a UPS. Thanks.
Right here: ua-cam.com/video/tugxPSGUqGw/v-deo.html
I have about 60 tb of music I've collected over the years. Astonishingly, I've never had a hard drive ever fail on me, so I'd never really thought about backing everything up until recently.
I saw a video of a video editor backing his work up to a NAS, which I had never even heard of.
After a ton of research, and some saving, I just got a Synology 923+ and 4 x 15 tb Western Digitals. It took me all night to figure out how to start syncing files from all my externals, but Ive got the hang of it now.
Glad to hear I probably won't need to upgrade my ram. I think the 923+ is sufficient for my needs. Instead, I think I'll start saving to buy a whole other backup until cloud storage doesn't cost as much as a car.
Glad to see I had already covered your #1 upgrade and use Hyperbackup :)
Hello from Sydney, Australia. Just wanted to tell you that your videos have saved my bacon. Very professional and useful. A little mesmerizing too!
Great to hear!
Great video, clear, simple, honest. You killed it. Thank you for taking the time to educate us.
Perfekt! Es mir diesmal große Freude gemacht das Video anzuschauen- nicht nur weil es sehr ausführlich und gut war. Weil du diesmal und hoffentlich auch in Zukunft Zeit beim sprechen genommen hast !
👍👍👍👍👍
I'm surprised the UPS is at the end not "Number 0, get a UPS when you get a NAS, do not pass Go." That's my philosophy after having a RAID/NAS get corrupted from a power outage. My take is that every RAID/NAS must have a smart UPS from the start. Even as a "home" user, I'd rather have a UPS than have to try to recover everything from a backup.
So from all of my consulting, I have only had a couple of times that users NAS have had issues from unexpected power loss. And in all of the cases the volume only went into a 'read only' mode where we could still copy everything off of it.
What was the NAS & file system you were using that got corrupted? BTRFS seems to be pretty solid at at least keeping the data alive enough to be pulled off the unit.
I don’t consider a UPS to be an upgrade but necessary equipment.
I have friends living in NZ and they often have power outages. If they have to rebuild a volume every time, they will get mad. Hence, the UPS is also on top of the list. I hope someday that Synology can build 'portable' nases, with power battery included.
I totally agree with Rex as a photography / videographer backup is the number 1 thing to invest in, if fact I take it one step further and have 2 backups, and I keep one in a safety deposit box and the other one backing up constantly and rotate them out once a week from my bank. I do have a UPS and I have lost power maybe once in 16 years so it is definitely good to have one but not mission critical as a backup drive. If you lose power in your area a lot then a UPS might be number 1 in your book.
The UPS also evens out power fluctuations, which device power supplies will appreciate. Being overseas I further protect the UPS with a transformer/AVR.
My 1st upgrade always is a UPS that also powers the modem, router and switch
Thank you very much for all the awesome content. Easy to understand stuff - lots of NAS instructional / tutorials are cumbersome, too long and not suited for beginners. I'm a photographer and have a s-lod of old SATAs with images and I need to pull the trigger on a NAS as soon as possible to avert possible disaster and also to get organized. I appreciate you, mate!
I agree with backing up to another drive and UPS basically being required for data security.
WIFI6 and newer standards can certainly break gig speeds if they have a fast enough connection to the source material, but do suffer from increased latency. Wired connections are definitely better, but it mainly impacts latency and stability more than actual speed now. There are many newer routers that support faster speed over Wi-Fi than wired as not all support multi-gig switching for wired connections.
My WIFI 6 router only supports up to 2.5Gb wired but much more over Wi-Fi (AX11000 standard) it has exceeded 2.5Gb when downloading from multiple sources (LAN and internet) using WIFI. It's also uncommon for consumer routers to support ports over 2.5Gb. Even though we only have 1Gb internet, I still upgraded my home with a 2x10Gbe and 8x 2.5Gbe switch because the NAS running Plex can see more than 2.5Gb on LAN usage, but no other single device would currently benefit from more speed for me.
In short, I still agree with recommending wired connections due to the lower latency as that is what most people will "feel" and the latency advantage of wired connections can be very noticeable with internet usage. It's just not the same as absolute speed.
Great video and guidance, much appreciated
The important point about UPSs is not to hesitate to change the battery. The life time of a battery ranges from 3 to 5 years.
The first thing I did when I got my 920 was to add an external backup drive! Glad that was on the top of your list as well. As always, great content!!
Why just get c2 storage and backup to cloud alot safer
@@michaelpearson9 oh I have that as well :) 3:2:1 rule is in effect.
Answered all my noob questions. Thanks.
Again, a great, clear analysis. Keep it up, SpaceRex!
External harddrive as a backup solution has its limits: If your house burns down - your important data on your external harddrive are gone as well. In my opinion your backup data should be physically apart from your primary NAS. Better choose the cloud or a second NAS on a different location than the primary NAS (I have chosen the latter). Thanks for your great videos anyway!
Yep. I chose second NAS at different location
Thank you for emphasizing the importance of "wired" against wifi. Not only wifi is not as fast as advertised by it is much more vulnerable to interference.
Wiring it directly to the router would always be my first choice just because it removes another potential point of failure. But in terms of performance it might be superior if (A) multiple devices access the router at once or (B) the devices accessing the NAS are also wired.
WIFI is faster than most people's internet speeds. So an average user streaming videos or moving small files will not notice any difference whatsoever. The problem with suggesting upgrades is that you first need to know the goal of the upgrade and second whether the suggested upgrade meets the goal. In some cases, a user might be better served by upgrading their wireless network as opposed to upgrading their server.
Nice to see Rex. Agree to with the priorities here. Wired 100%
I was struggling for years - my photos app was slow, my docker instance was slow, and had no idea why. 2GB in my machine, and the resources app showed I still had 40% free memory. But when I upgraded by installing an 8gb RAM module.... wow! things were snappy and very fast! RAM upgrade is a must, and a NUMBER ONE first thing to do. Don't wait, just install the most RAM you can.
Thanks for sharing your experience. Even though he put RAM pretty low, it seems pretty dependent on where you're starting. If you only have 2 GB or less of memory, it will make a significant difference.
Thanks for this. What about upgrading from HDD to SSD?
Or is it sufficient to to have SSD cache.
Video editing workflow, not direct to NAS.
Summary:
1. Large external USB HD for cheap and local backup
2. Wired clients
3. 10 GbE upgrade
4. SSD for read cache
5. RAM
6. UPS
I fully agree with #1. Easy peace of mind. Similarly, I’d bump #6 to the second slot, depending on the reliability of your power utility. #2 also makes a ton of sense. I’m not sure I agree with #3 unless you have the simplest of network setups or you’re setting things up on a single desk. What I mean by that is a small 10 GbE switch on your desk with the Synology directly connected to it and your computer with 10 GbE connected as well and uplinking to your modem or other switches in your house. My Synology is in my networking closet and I’d need to do a reasonable amount of upgrades to really benefit from it. Then again, I’m a Ubiquiti person and 10 GbE choices aren’t great right now.
Your first suggestion is perfect. I bought a USB 3.0 tool less enclosure and put an extra 16tb NAS hard drive in it.
Great investment!
The way all these companies are going it's not only cheaper to build your own NAS is arguably easier and you will definitely have better results. You can even use synology software if you so choose.
An alternate to running a wire down from your balcony: Use a Powerline Adapter. A powerline adaptor connects your computer to the internet by using your home's electrical wiring. I have been using it for years without issues.
My problem is my workflow needs at least 2.5 GbE, and dropped frames from interference sucks!
A little late but instead of using powerline, research moca adapters. They run the traffic over the coaxial cable. Much faster
There are so many variables to Wifi. Spatial streams, SNR, base noise, building material etc. But making blanket statements that wifi is bad is not true. An 6E environment with actual coverage will do amazing speeds if the target device has enough streams to support the throughput. Your phone, your laptop, etc are usually the limiting factors, not the wireless environment itself...
The first thing to buy after getting a Synolog NAS is atleast one 3.5" hard drive. Without that your NAS only functions as a paper weight.
Smart UPS should be first!!!
Spare RAM also acts as a read-only cache that is even faster than NVMe. Synology diskstations run Linux and that is the way the Linux buffer cache works. Bonus: RAM doesn’t fail after N writes like NVMe and SSD drives do. An NVMe drive that gets written to a lot could die an early death.
I had a question about this. Was wondering why i never see my ram use shoot up if it's getting used in this way?
The first two I have done and would recommend. The third 10Gbit, less convinced, however I did buy a cheap unmanaged 2.5Gbit switch and a 2.5Gbit card to my computer, this makes a big difference in copy times. The 4th, I did this within my NAS and while I think it helps performance, I am not sure how much the cache actually helps with performance, hard to measure. The 5th, is well worth the money as memory is cheap (at least for my Asustor NAS it is, not sure about Synology). UPS, I am certainly thinking about it since I have had a couple of power cuts that have caused an ungraceful shutdown,
- EXTERNAL DRIVE - CHECK (that I have before buy the Nas, I used on my old server .always have two external that I change every week)
-RUN WIRED ETHERNET -CHECK
-I HAVE THE DS1522 TOO WITH 8G SÓ MEMORY UPGRADE - CHECK
-SMART UPS - CHECK
I don't plan to upgrade the other stuff for now at least.
I am still learning about my ds1019+. I've had it for several years now. Security and features is not very intuitive. Even for someone who enjoys this stuff as a hobby. As a truck driver I'm always looking for more ways to use it while on the road.
Besides your good tip on using a UPS when enabling read/write caching, note that Synology's requirement for read/write fault tolerance is to use 2 NVMe drives.
Here's their message:
"A read-write cache requires at least two SSDs for fault tolerance. In this mode, data are written to the SSDs first to accelerate the data access speed and improve the random read/write performance."
"For most people, RAM is not super Crucial"
I see what you did there 😂
Excellent video as usual, but it is still unclear how to use the NVMes, particularly with the VMM, and/or by creating a volume on the NVMe.
My DS1821 is still on 7.1 (7.2 is not yet official); and I believe that you should dedicate a video to the NVMes !
Thank you
Item one, I did that for years but now I backup to another NAS because there are no external drives big enough
Its absolutely the place to start! I still have one for my really important stuff, even though its backed up to my ZFS build
@@SpaceRexWill Similar I've got the critical life is over side gig shuts down stuff on backblaze and some of those items are on Microsoft and others' clouds too
Item 2 hard-wired is a life changer for work and play except when roaming about the house, but I'd even put a patch cable near the couch if you can work there.
Item 3 10 gig makes it so you can work directly from the NAS even if video editing at a few 4k streams of HVEC
Item 4 I've got a pair of 1TB read-write but this tip would have saved me money especially the way my family and I use the main NAS, I didn't even put any in the backup NAS, the 718+ is all-flash though since it's docker containers and VMs
UPS critical for a NAS and very good for any desktop, saved me a few times.
Item 6, I upgraded everything since all my units shipped with low RAM and they all run at least one container, the main is Maxed, the 718 is maxed too, but the backup just got the module left over from the main
I have a weird issue with the smb share on my ds1821+. I have my video edit folder organised by newest created up top. When I am saving video edits to the folder it will just randomly drop out a year of edits and show the newest file as a year ago or whatever it is. Seems to drop out to the same point each time. If I open up an afp connection it always shows the correct order and it seems to force the smb connection into line also. Any ideas how to fix this issue? I think it started doing it since DSM 7 upgrade..
UPS is the first thing anyone should buy before any NAS upgrades!
Totally agree first buy a backup!
Great and very important important video for newbies like me!!! Thanks a lot
You recommend a lot for virtual machines.
What about huge Lightroom libraries wir over 100k pictures with 100mb RAW files?
What upgrade of the last three make most sense and what does not/ or does not have that big impact to the performance
Will not do much!
LR reads sequentially, so SSD cache does not help much
I just bought a Lenovo thinkserver rd640 and slapped in 4tb drives in all 6 sleds and two cache ssd in the first two. Man this is fun lol
So even if I am using a 1522+ as a remote offsite backup, for my 1821+ (at home), its best to have a single disk usb attached for more redundancy? Appreciate all of your networking videos and Synology videos. Keep up the great work. Congrats on quitting your job and becoming a consultant!!
As a renovation contractor I have yet to see a home with CAT 6 already installed. $8/ 10 million home, built after 2017 has CAT 5e.
I love that t-rex mate 😂👍🏼
Thanks! A coworker gave it to me my last day at my old job
The cache does make a difference when you move large files and like you said you do not need a large nvme, you just need something that will have the thruput to keep up with the flow of the data that does not depend on the cpu or ram of the unit. Even then, the difference is not night and day but these days ssds are dirt cheap so, why not. RAM will be usefull if you run docker containers or VMs or Surveillance cameras, if you don't do that, 4 gigs is more than enough.
Great tips and I agree with you! Thanks.
for ethernet in an old home invest in a moCa adapter. Coax to ethernet adapter.
Very helpful! I've got a 1522+ on order, my first Synology NAS. I'm upgrading from an old tower running UnRAID Server. Two questions: 1) Do any m.2 NVME SSDs work other than Synology's own? They're the only ones listed on the HCL. 2) What's the best way to transfer files from my old UnRAID server to the NAS? Map a drive to the server in DSM? I want to keep my laptop out of the transfer process, as it's on wifi.
1:00 Could I use an external SSD instead of an Hard Drive? What would be the differences?
Hi Will. How important would you say a UPS is for a first time home user? I have very limited budget at the moment, and have just purchased a DS923+. No back up solution yet. Some people recommend I get a UPS, but I've only had one power cut in 9 years living in this house. How likely is data loss/corruption from a power cut? Many thanks.
Sad that they dont have an SFP+ option for 10G
They do, just not for their smaller units. I really wish they would have one for the 4/5 bay units, instead of just the rJ45 version
Why do I keep thinking of Dirk Diggler, er, Mark Walberg when I watch your videos? :D. No offense, you make good content anyway :)
Thanks for your very easy to understand videos. Since I got a Synology NAS (actually even before I got it) your channel is my go to before making any decision about the topic.
@spacerexwill what is your opinion on getting an expansion unit for my DS1621xs+? The expansion unit port is eSATA unlike the RS models where they’ve a proprietary high speed connector. I use VMs and Surv Station with 4 x 4K cams atm with maybe 2 more being added so it might have a mix of HDD and SSD.
With respect to your first upgrade. Wouldnt an encrypted cloud service be better than external hard drive.
why would you ever store data in the cloud
What upgrade would you recommend for a 2015 Synology DS1815+ apart from the drives?
I’m still learning so I have many questions. I’m not sure if I have understood the 10Gbe upgrade to the DS 923+ comspletely. My Mac Studio is fitted with a 10Gbe connection if I upgrade my DS 923+ with the 10Gbe upgrade, can I connect with my Mac studio with a cable to have 10 Gbe between my Mac Studio my DS 923+?
I have a DS1522+ and actually went with the 10 gigabit upgrade and a RAM upgrade (Kingston RAM I could get quite cheaply so I went for it, no way I'm buying Synology RAM which is ridiculously expensive). Of course, I also have a UPS although power outages in the Netherlands are extremely rare.
There's one thing I'm still thinking about, NVMe SSD caching. I don't think it would benefit me. I'm using my NAS for media storage and playback (no transcoding needed over here), the NAS is running SABnzbd, Radarr and Sonarr as docker images. As I'm the only user NVMe caching would be useless, am I right?
The Synology SSD Advisor recommends a small cache SSD but as I said, I doubt if I'd really see any true benefits.
Hoi Brian. Ik heb net een 1522 besteld met twee Exos 18 Tb disks.
Krijg het morgen binnen. Zou ik je eventueel kunnen benaderen mocht ik voor het eerste opzetten een vraag hebben ? Zodat ik eventueel niet totaal fout begin met later alle gevolgen van dien.
Eigenlijk weet ik niet eens welke raid ik moet kiezen.😂
En om eerlijk te zijn klinkt wat je van Usenet vertelde wel erg cool. Wist niet dat dit mogelijk is.
How do you set up auto shutdown of a Synology NAS from a UPS? Is there an app to install? I have a DS218+ and a APC UPS 1350VA BR1350MS.
Why external hdd is needed? I was under impression that if I buy 2bay NAS ( DS223J) stick 2x 4tb hard drives one will be used for all my data other one is for 100% copy of that data (back up) why do you need external back up ? Or em I missing something?
Thanks for sharing all those tips. Your channel is really great. Looking at your videos there is one answer I can’t find. In buying a NAS what is the benefit of having 10 or 8 drives or 6 over a 4 bays NAS?
Really the benifit comes down to two things:
1) more drives more space
2) more drives (esp hdd) means more sequential speed!
@@SpaceRexWill Great. You rock! So fast. I had this in mind but nice to have the confirmation. Many thanks 🙏
I love your videos! They are helping me understand and research a NAS before buying. I do video editing for my son's hockey team. My son wants to start also editing video's also. Would putting the files on a NAS be the correct course of action? We would not be accessing the files at the same time. Thanks
Any chances we can see how you setup and implement MariaDB in your homelab??
Planning on doing one! I added a write up last night going over how to setup backups for a database here: www.spacerex.co/how-to-automatically-backup-a-mysql-or-mariadb-server-with-mysqldump/
@@SpaceRexWill Awesome! Thanks for the info.
I recently bought a Synology DS223 with just one 4TB Ironwolf HDD. I did not bought a 4-bay, first because it’s a bit out of my budget, but also because I don’t have that much data (I currently “only” have 400GB of photos.
The thing is I’m not saving my data with redundancy. So, I probably should buy a second HDD. My question is: as one of the disks storage will basically be lost, is it possible to add for example an 8TB (with the exact same characteristics except the capacity), or should I buy a second 4TB model to be the exact same as the first one? Note that that it is for home use only, and the only thing I might share would be photos with family. Thanks for your help.
So, if your computer is connected to your NAS via Ethernet, does that mean you’ll be restricted to using WiFi to connect to your router?
I think my motherboard only has a single 2.5 gbps port.
I tend to agree with you on the wifi for most users but if you have a proper network setup those issues go away.
Have or could you do a similar video for qnap users... Please and thanks
This should be still applicable!
An external HDD to "backup" a NAS? I must be confused WTF a NAS is exactly.
I mean, if I do a 6-bay NAS and do three pairs of RAID setup.....isn't that exactly what backing up data is?
When changing hardware (drives, ram, configuration, etc) it makes sense to have a "cold" storage copy of your array. I have 18 TB plex library, sourced over 10 years all Bluray or better quality, from sources online that haven't existed in years plus all family photos, financial documents etc. I have it copied twice to different not in use drives one off site, one in a firesafe. That's what he is saying. Your NAS is what you draw from and use everyday. Every once in a while I refresh a back up of the array or before I do a major change. Its just extra security again data loss, fire etc. You could possibly damage the array during changes or if it has been running non stop without a restart for years, chances are the drives won't turn back on after turning off (I have had raid 10 arrays with 5 hot spares die after applying updates requiring reboots after running 24/7 for years before it can rebuild itself) it just depends on what your personal risk tolerance is.
@@m6071 I'm new to this NAS game, still researching all the terms and options and such. Doesn't RAID1 mirror? I mean, a pair of 16TB drives setup in RAID1 is basically a backup, no? I must be missing something. They mirror each other. Otherwise this sounds like you need a NAS for your NAS. Where does it end?
First, UPS
Second, Stand-alone backup
Third, 10 Gb or Multiple 1 Gb aggregated
Fourth, Memory
Just my opinion…
Having a NAS without UPS is madness 😱
Do dedicated gaming servers require upgraded ram if they are ran in a dockers? I would like to have multiple dedicated servers up for my friends to join at any time. I was thinking to upgrade the ram.
First of all, congratulations on your channel, it's fantastic and although I'm a computer guy (Z servers), it has allowed me to quickly learn how to use all the features of my synology NAS server, thanks a lot @SpaceRexWill
A silly question, for a similar price and terabytes, would you choose a 2.5 or 3.5 external HDD?
Hey,
So I'm running a DS220+ with 2 4TB drives mirroring for redundancy and I realized I'm running out of storage.
Would you recommend swapping the drives for bigger drives? Or switch the raid so I have 8TB, and buy the external hard drive to back up?
Appreciate all you do man, love your channel since I got my NAS.
Thank you for the video
great videos
hi from Brazil
Hi, Are there 3rd party nvme and ram that you recommend rather than synology brand?
Can I upgrade my Synology DS 923+ med M2 Samsung 980 pro ssd’s with and without heat sinks to use for caching?
Good videos @spacerex , keep’em coming! Any good video on explaining how to upgrade storage in future..? Eg, I get a ds923+ for example, stock 4x 8GB for example.. when I am close to reach the 8GB storage limit how does it work to get bigger drives (as they would be cheaper in future one hopes), I could then upgrade to say.. 16TB’s. Thanks in advance!
I would instead buy 2x 16 TB drives today. Then as you need space put in more drives! Much easier and more cost effective as you don’t throw out the old drives!
@@SpaceRexWill brilliant. I meant to ask that as part of the question so good to hear that’s a perfectly viable option. Have a good day, thanks for the reply.
Please run your monitor cables through the mounting stand or at least velcro to the back so they are hidden. Signed, your OCD fans
They are too short unfortunately to run the entire way!
Thx for the video
How will the NVMe SSD upgrade affect Synology Photos? Will it help with that in any way?
Hey, I’m thinking of getting a NAS to back up our iPhones and computers. Question, can my son remotely backup his MacBook Pro while at College to a NAS at our home? Also, can he backup his iPhone as well? Thanks and love the videos!
I upgraded the RAM in my 920+ to 8GB. I run a few docker containers, the biggest being Vaultwarden. I run Drive server, HyperBackup, Photos, and ABB. My memory usage never goes over 30%. Probably wasted my money on extra RAM.
So even if ram usage is that low, you still have the NAS being speed up by having the ram cache
@@SpaceRexWill I see the new DSM resource monitor shows the ram cache now. I don’t remember seeing that before. Now all but 3% of my ram is being used, good to see!
I had the 412+. It had 1GB. This was sufficient until OS updates bogged it down and I added users. I upgraded to 4GB and that was amazing.
So, when I bought the 923+, I immediately upgraded to 32GB. I figured for the low cost of ram and the on-sale price of the NAS, totally worth it to future prevent OS updates and increasing users.