Synology DS213J

neocon · 5 Dec 2014 at 11:54

I'm think of getting a Synology DS213J. I have two HDs that I'd like to put in it , but I can't see them on the compatibility list.

Toshiba DT01ACA200 2TB SATA 6Gb/s 7200rpm x2

I can see Toshiba DT01ACA300, which is the 3TB version of the same desktop drive. :confused:

Do you rekon those drives I have will work?

welshdragon · 5 Dec 2014 at 12:04

Get the DS215j - faster and cheaper unless you are buying second hand

neocon · 5 Dec 2014 at 12:14

welshdragon said:
Get the DS215j - faster and cheaper unless you are buying second hand

Ok, that's also compatible with
Toshiba DT01ACA300 3TB Desktop

But will me 2TB drives work with it?

welshdragon · 5 Dec 2014 at 14:38

Most likely. Just means they've not necessarily been tested by Synology to be 100% compatible. I'll put money on them being fine though.

Do you already have the drives? If not get some nas specific ones like the WD Reds

neocon · 5 Dec 2014 at 15:54

welshdragon said:
Most likely. Just means they've not necessarily been tested by Synology to be 100% compatible. I'll put money on them being fine though.

Do you already have the drives? If not get some nas specific ones like the WD Reds

Cheers. Yes, already have the drives. I suppose I can send the NAS back if they don't work as long as it's within 14 days.

TheVoice · 5 Dec 2014 at 20:13

You'd be better off getting drives that work with the NAS if that was the case, as opposed to finding a particular NAS that works with the drives.

welshdragon · 6 Dec 2014 at 14:43

To some extent I agree but as you already have the drives, I think they will be fine and I'd just give the enclosure a whirl. As you say it can always be returned.

Go for the 215j though I would

bcjames · 6 Dec 2014 at 19:21

I've been setting up my 215 today, fantastic bit of kit. The software is really easy to use.

neocon · 7 Dec 2014 at 09:27

Thanks for your advice.

bledd · 7 Dec 2014 at 09:32

Personally..

I'd buy WD Reds and put them in there. Keep your other two drives for backing up the data on the Synology.

Can't have too many backups.

neocon · 9 Dec 2014 at 09:03

Say I have 2 hard drives, one with data in my PC and one without. Can I insert the empty drive into the NAS, copy the files to the NAS from the PC and then put the PC drive into the NAS? Seems a little risky to me since I've never done this before.

bledd · 9 Dec 2014 at 09:05

Each drive you add to Synology will be wiped clean before it can use it.

ALL DATA WILL BE ERASED.

--

Personally, I'd make sure I had 2 copies of the data. A hard drive can fail at any time.

There's three ways of setting up the drives in the Synology.

Method 1 - SHR (Safest)
Set them to SHR mode (Synology Hybrid RAID)
-If you installed a 4TB drive, you would have 4TB of space.
-If you added a second 4TB drive, it would merge it and be a live RAID1 backup
=Total usable space of 4TB

Method 2 - RAID0
-If you put in 2x 4TB drives, you would have one volume of 8TB storage, but one drive failure and you'd lose all data
=Total usable space of 8TB

Method 3 - Single drives
-2x 4TB drives would be two volumes of 4TB storage.
-Single drive failure = losing only the data on that drive
=Total usable space of 8TB.

Method 1 is by far the best, but the most expensive per GB.

neocon · 9 Dec 2014 at 09:19

Thanks bledd, I'll make a backup before do anything

bledd · 9 Dec 2014 at 14:30

Be sure to check for System updates on the Synology, they update it fairly often