NAS purchase and help

Capitano

Capitano

Capitano

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I have never owned a NAS but I feel like the time is coming where I need one more and more as my storage needs are increasing as of late!
At this current moment I am using 2x 14TB Exos drives (28TB in total) from Seagate that were both shucked from external drives a few years back, both of which are just in my PC as 2 individual drives. Both are still at 100% health and running with no issues but I am getting to the point where there is only about 2TB of storage left between the pair.

I'm thinking of getting my media onto the NAS that I can access from anywhere (like using Plex for example) and be able to store any photo backups, PC backups etc all on there too. Im not sure what the best way to proceed is, ideally I want to be able move these drives into the new NAS without losing any data (or spend extra unnecessary money) but I suspect once you start building a new RAID it wipes the current drives which I cannot do sadly.

To put it plainly, I need some help with the following:

1) What brand NAS is generally recommended? I hear Ugreen is new in the space and doing good things but may lack some functionality? Synology is also supposed to be a standard, but not sure if they will accept my current drives after their recent changes?
2) How many bays would work best for me? I have almost 28TB of data across 2 drives at the moment of just media, so im not sure 4 bays would be enough? 6 bays or maybe even 8 bays might be the solution but I need some help on what RAID to have it setup in?
3) If I setup 4 drives in a RAID 10 in a 6 bay NAS, can I think add my 2 extra drives in there (given they are same size capacity) and they can slot in with no issues afterwards?I ask this so I dont need to spend extra money on new drives when I can essentially re-purpose my current ones and get them moved into a NAS box
4) I have some 4K video files I intend to put on there, so will transcoding be an issue? If so how will I be able to that, would I need a NAS with a powerful CPU?

Extra info:
I have gigabit ethernet connection and within the next year will be upgrading to 2.5gb fibre line, so internet speed not really an issue.

Any help would be appreciated!
 
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I'm not sure if UGREEN do a hybrid raid like Synology, but you could buy a 4 bay Synology NAS, set up SHR with a single drive, copy data over, the add a second, then third etc. And it will grow the volume without losing data. It will take some time to grow the volume after adding a new drive.
 
ChrisD. said:
I'm not sure if UGREEN do a hybrid raid like Synology, but you could buy a 4 bay Synology NAS, set up SHR with a single drive, copy data over, the add a second, then third etc. And it will grow the volume without losing data. It will take some time to grow the volume after adding a new drive.
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Looks like I have a lot to learn, I dont even know what a hybrid RAID is?

Issue with synology seems to be that I likely wont be able to use my current drives and can only use "their" ones
 
Capitano said:
Looks like I have a lot to learn, I dont even know what a hybrid RAID is?

Issue with synology seems to be that I likely wont be able to use my current drives and can only use "their" ones
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They have relaxed their drive policy with the recent updates. Be sure to check though. If they aren't proper NAS drives, you may want to find some though as RAID/rarity calculation and 24/7 running is more brutal on drives compared to running them as a singular drive in a PC.
 
ChrisD. said:
They have relaxed their drive policy with the recent updates. Be sure to check though. If they aren't proper NAS drives, you may want to find some though as RAID/rarity calculation and 24/7 running is more brutal on drives compared to running them as a singular drive in a PC.
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Okay I will give that a check! Well my drives are 14TB Exos drives which are the server grade ones, a step up from the Ironwolf so I assume they are fine to be run 24/7 as thats what they are intended to do.

So - going with a Synology 6 bay NAS, I can initially start with 4 drives (4x8TB), get it setup with SHR-2 (Raid 6 equivalent) - move over my current data onto there. Then wipe my current 2x14TB drives and add them into the NAS as well for the extra storage without causing any issues? Ideally i think that would work the best for me
 
Mixing and matching is weird... Can work well if that's what you want, but storage doesn't scale like you may expect.

Have a play with the calculator and see

www.synology.com

RAID Calculator | Synology Inc.

Use this interactive tool to estimate the storage space of your Synology NAS when paired with different size hard drives and RAID levels.
www.synology.com www.synology.com
 
AyeAyeAhoy! said:
Mixing and matching is weird... Can work well if that's what you want, but storage doesn't scale like you may expect.

Have a play with the calculator and see

www.synology.com

RAID Calculator | Synology Inc.

Use this interactive tool to estimate the storage space of your Synology NAS when paired with different size hard drives and RAID levels.
www.synology.com www.synology.com
Click to expand...

Thanks! Judging by this, ill be better off buying completely separate drives all the same size and then selling my current ones then to at least recoup some money.

In which case would it be better to go for 4x14tb or maybe 6x8tb drives for the redundancy? I suppose if its a 6 bay one I wont need to worry as much for space even with the redundancy and I can run a RAID 10? Though the fear is that if 2 of the drives in a pair fail, then I am screwed. I currently have around 23/24tb of data which makes it a bit tricky on how to go forward
 
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Another option would be to buy new drives and keep the 14tb's as backups. RAID isn't a backup, and all that. Send them off site if you like.

Or yet another option would be to buy a 6 bay, put 4 new drives in for your main array, then add the 2 x 14tb in the final slots and make them their own pair. So 2 arrays.
 
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AyeAyeAhoy! said:
Another option would be to buy new drives and keep the 14tb's as backups. RAID isn't a backup, and all that. Send them off site if you like.

Or yet another option would be to buy a 6 bay, put 4 new drives in for your main array, then add the 2 x 14tb in the final slots and make them their own pair. So 2 arrays.
Click to expand...
this seems like a decent idea, can I set up 2 different arrays in a single NAS and treat them as if they are different? So I can essentially have a backup within the same NAS
 
Capitano said:
this seems like a decent idea, can I set up 2 different arrays in a single NAS and treat them as if they are different? So I can essentially have a backup within the same NAS
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You can, but it would be pointless. That’s not really a backup. At a minimum you need the backup copy elsewhere in the house, but ideally offsite or in the cloud.
 
ChrisD. said:
You can, but it would be pointless. That’s not really a backup. At a minimum you need the backup copy elsewhere in the house, but ideally offsite or in the cloud.
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Yep, certainly. You'll lose at least 1 drive per array to redundancy, but yes.

Personally in that case (so just 14tb usable storage on the 14tb pair) I'd consider using 1 x 14tb in the NAS unprotected, and the other in an enclosure off site.
 
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Terramaster is worth considering. TOS6 is still a bit rough round the edges but the still-in-beta TOS7 looks a lot better. The F6-424 Max might be a contender. The user forum has active staff participation which is a bonus, especially compared with Asustor which has zero staff involvement.

However, as you mentioned transcoding, the advice (from @ChrisD.) in a recent thread in Storage Drives was to run the application on a separate mini=PC and just let the NAS look after the storage. This means you don't need as chunky a PC in the NAS which can make it much cheaper.
 
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My 10 year old Qnap is still going strong so earlier this year I bought a second higher specified one. I use them to store music for streaming to my audio system, photos, documents and backup my PCs. I also one as an NVR for two IP cameras.
 
spile said:
My 10 year old Qnap is still going strong so earlier this year I bought a second higher specified one. I use them to store music for streaming to my audio system, photos, documents and backup my PCs. I also one as an NVR for two IP cameras.
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I hope you’re keeping it up to date, they have been absolutely riddled with security issues due to mainly lazy devs.
 
ChrisD. said:
You can, but it would be pointless. That’s not really a backup. At a minimum you need the backup copy elsewhere in the house, but ideally offsite or in the cloud.
Click to expand...
Backup in terms of it being on different drives. I already have my most important stuff in the cloud so im good with that. This is mostly just for movies/media content
 
AyeAyeAhoy! said:
Yep, certainly. You'll lose at least 1 drive per array to redundancy, but yes.

Personally in that case (so just 14tb usable storage on the 14tb pair) I'd consider using 1 x 14tb in the NAS unprotected, and the other in an enclosure off site.
Click to expand...

The issue is I have almost 22/23tb of data in total so a singular 14 offsite isnt going to help as much! I suppose I can still get most the data there but not all.

Definitely a bit of a sticky one for me unless I fork out huge money!
 
Stick the 14tb's in a dual enclosure then, backup to that and send it off. I've done exactly this with a Lacie 2 Big and a pair of 14tbs. (The enclosure plugs directly into my Qnap via Thunderbolt 3, the Qnap can then mount it itself and backup to it.)

G-Tech G-Raid would also work, or perhaps an ORICO 2 Bay (though I've never tried one of those).
 
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