Synology DS414, usage

peige · 23 Sep 2014 at 21:45

Got to the end of my tether trying to share usb drives to samba with windows 8.1 (IRPStackSize seems like it should be the problem but no value makes a difference)

So thinking about a shake up and moving to a DS414 with a couple of 4tb reds in it. This way I can get rid of all my elements drives and move to a better approach.

How does the drive appear on the network? will it literally seem like a massive single drive? I use a popcorn hour and it really is happiest browsing just a single drive that is full of folders.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Synology Diskstation DS414 4 Bay Gigabit Ethernet Network Attached Storage Enclosure £349.99
2 x Western Digital Caviar Red 4TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache WD40EFRX - OEM HDD £129.95 (£259.90)
Total : £619.49 (includes shipping : £8.00).

venger7779 · 23 Sep 2014 at 22:25

Hi,

Only two drives in a 4 bay enclosure? You could save some £££ and just get a 2 bay enclosure?

Simple answer to your question is yes.

bledd · 23 Sep 2014 at 23:32

I have this exact device. For ages I shunned Synology thinking it would be a waste of time. After using them in work, I decided to get one for myself to replace my home server.

The old home server now is only switched on to take backups of what I keep on the Synology (can never have too many backups)

At the moment, I've got a single 6tb drive in mine. Planning to expand to 3x more 6tbs when funds allow it.

Basically you can have each drive showing as a share, or if you had multiple drives you can raid them together using Synology's software. RAID Calculator

It handles NFS and samba shares wonderfully.

Any questions, fire away..

This gives you a feel for how you set it up. https://www.synology.com/en-global/dsm/live_demo

peige · 24 Sep 2014 at 07:28

I've got a 4 bay in mind because the two 4tbs will be completely filled by what I have now, an extra drive will be needed in a month or so but I wanted to spread the cost slightly. The price jump for the 5tb red seems too much to justify.

Thats exactly what I wanted to hear. I've been fighting with the current solution for a month now and its gone past a curiosity and onto a major ball ache. The Synology will sit in the same cuboard as my elements drives do right now and do the job better!

bledd · 24 Sep 2014 at 08:35

Just so you know. To add a drive to a Synology, it must wipe it first. It gets formatted as ext4.

If you work out the cost per Tb. The 6tb is only around £5 more per tb than the 4tb

venger7779 · 24 Sep 2014 at 14:53

peige said:
I've got a 4 bay in mind because the two 4tbs will be completely filled by what I have now, an extra drive will be needed in a month or so but I wanted to spread the cost slightly. The price jump for the 5tb red seems too much to justify.

Thats exactly what I wanted to hear. I've been fighting with the current solution for a month now and its gone past a curiosity and onto a major ball ache. The Synology will sit in the same cuboard as my elements drives do right now and do the job better!

I'm no expert but you need to be careful about adding another disk later. I'm assuming you'll setup the two disks as either RAID 0 or 1. If you go for 0 then I don't know if you can easily extend the stripping without rebuilding the whole array, ie. all data on the disks would be lost in the process. There's not a lot of point adding 1 disks as you won't be able to use RAID 1 and you might as well get two extra so you can move to RAID 5.

Hopefully someone more in the know than I can comment to confirm!

I know it's painful from a cost point of view but I recommend you buy it all at the same time so you only have to configure it once!

peige · 24 Sep 2014 at 15:15

Ah! Ok, well ocuk did well out of me today then, further storage ordered

bledd · 24 Sep 2014 at 17:12

With Synology Hybrid Raid (SHR), you can start with one drive. Then add more.

IE,
1x 6tb drive = 6tb (non backed up)

Then if you add a second 6tb drive
2x 6tb drives = 6tb (mirrored)

Adding a third would be..
3x 6tb drives = 12tb (one drive as parity)

Adding a fourth would be..
4x 6tb drives = 18tb (one drive as parity)

Of course, you do have the option to add them as single drives. Or you could have 2 as a raid 0, then the other two as a raid 1.

The menus are pretty self explanitory.

Current prices
6tb = £210. Works out as £35 per TB
4tb = £130. Works out as £32.50 per TB.

No brainer to go with the 6tb

peige · 24 Sep 2014 at 19:04

Yea, I read about SHR last thing today, after I'd ordered the extra drives.... No real harm done though, it just pushed me to do what I would be needing to do next month.

The price break thing is a tricky one for me,
4 x 4tb = £520 Giving 12tb of storage under SHR
3 x 6tb = £630 Giving 12tb of storage under SHR

Granted that I've used all four slots straight away but the way SHR works I could change one drive at a time to 6tb when prices drop a little and flog off the old 4tb's so i'm happy with my choice.

bledd · 24 Sep 2014 at 19:16

Once it arrives. Add all 4 drives, set up any accounts it makes you do. Then wait for it to add all drives, will take an age to check them all. Then update it.

Then start using it.

peige · 24 Sep 2014 at 19:30

Sounds good, its arriving at work so I will be able to plug it all in and let it do its thing all day before taking it home

bledd · 24 Sep 2014 at 22:55

I don't know how long it takes to check disks off the top of my head, I just let mine run overnight. It takes a fair while though.

peige · 26 Sep 2014 at 14:48

All up and running, i'm pleased.

Brought a UPS too, APC550 (following a different thread) but confused. Should I plug it into the pc and run the powerchute software or into the NAS? Its in the PC right now but there doesn't seem to be a way to get the NAS to see it across the network so from what I can see its not going to shut it down gracefully...