Bay 1 has a SSD running the DSM and PMS
Bay 2-4 each has a 6TB WD Red drive in it.
I didn’t learn my lesson before and thought that this would be plenty of space, but I’m running out. Not imminently but it will be in a few months, so I’m beginning to think about my next options.
Now I guess, I could change all the 6TB to 8TB drives, but that will only gain me another 6TB and quite expensive to replace each drive and then end up with 3 redundant 6TB drives.
I could swap out the 256GB SSD and put another 6TB drive in there (I have one spare), but again it will only give me an additional 6TB and I prefer the main PMS being on a SSD as that is going to get used the most.
I think I could buy another NAS and then set the drives to map on the old NAS to the new NAS… would I need to open up the firewall to the IP address of the 2nd NAS as well?
buy a new 8 bay synology NAS which is very expensive (no idea if PMS runs on the DS1815+).
Any other options
I’m thinking the best option is ‘3’ and map the drives as that will give me the ability to add over double the storage which should be pretty future proof and at the cheapest rate.
Does anyone have any experience of this or can add options 5/6/7/8…
unRAID. If you are comfortable building a rig, you would be looking at about $200-$400 to get you going (not including hard drives), but can expand and use your existing. I have 22 in mine currently, with the ability to add 6 more drives in the enclosure, and could also swap out older 2TB drives as I grow. Best NAS decision I ever made for the money.
I’m running the DS1815+ and it suits my needs perfectly. I had physical space constraints for where I wanted it located. So an out-of-the-box solution was ideal since it’s a very compact package for 8 drives. There’s very little content in my libraries that need transcoding unless I’m accessing remotely, which is already rare. Performance is fine if it’s a direct downsample (e.g. source is AVC/h264). I’ve tested 1080p at up to 15 mb/s and it scales on-the-fly without any hiccups. If it has to convert something like WMV, stuttering starts around 6 or 7 mb/s for 1080p.
I went the unRAID route, but found it to be a bit unstable for Plex. Do not get me wrong unRAID is an awesome product but unless you have a lot of resources to through at it Plex is not going to be happy. Now this was my experience, other my have had better luck.
Anyways I decided to drop and buy a Synology DS3615xs and populated it with 4tb WD Red NAS drives. Now I have just over 500 mkv movies files using “pass-through” so no compression, and I still have plenty of space, but I am looking at the 12 bay expansion in the near future just because Iam thinking ahead for when that time comes. The DS3615xs has been stellar in every way. I only have 4Gb of memory in the unit (comes standard) and I have yet to see it go over 20% at any one given time during play back.
The unit has a 4 port Gb NIC and can be upgraded to a 10Ge fiber for another $200, but of course you would need a switch that has SPF ports. I have 9 devices that can play a 1080p movie at the same time without any delays. Now I do own a 24 port PoE UniFi switch that can aggregate the bonded 4 ports on the NAS, so that helps. Not sure if a single port would be able to handle it. So if you decide to buy an new unit looking into larger bays and multiple Gb ports
Yes it is a pricey option but you will end up paying more by upgrading smaller units over time.
I’m in a similar boat with my DS412+. I’m down to about 3TB remaining. I’ve been eyeballing the 1815+ really hard. I use my 412+ for a few other puposes (DNS/Glacier backup/Photostation/etc), so I’ll probably stick with Synology. It just works. I also appreciate the recent security-centric updates they’ve made after the Miner-hijacking and ransomware fiascos a couple of years ago.
I’m trying to convince myself that it’d be worth my effort to buy a 1815+ for media/server duties and repurpose the 412+ as a dedicated surveillance station. That’s my longterm vision.
unRAID isn’t really a good “RAID” solution and gives a false sense of security. I have to wonder how many of its proponents have really lived through drive failures. And then considering all the things unRAID doesn’t protect you against that other, better solutions do… unRAID users are probably experiencing subtle data corruption they aren’t even aware of yet.
Does your old NAS have any USB ports for hooking up external drives to it? That’s about the cheapest method to add more storage without remaking the system or buying a new NAS. You can add almost as many drives as you want to within the USB specs…
I have 3xUSB 3.0 and 2xUSB 2.0 on my NAS, and have a 5-bay external Raid 5 enclosure hung on one of the USB 3.0 ports… Almost 30TB of disk space between the internal drives and the external enclosure.
I agree with Jabre as I too tried FreeNAS and then moved to unRIAD, then I got smart and bought a real NAS.
My old setup with burning far more electricity (not the deciding factor), but mostly because there is but maintenance on software based NAS. So my time and electric bill is what I saved by going with a real NAS.
The Linux kernel that is used by most true NAS solutions is extremely stable and optimized for the task of being a NAS. Plus the hardware that goes into making a true NAS is optimized as well.
I have a Synology DS3615xs that has been more solid than anything that I have ever used. It even beats the two Dell T320 servers that I have which take up far more to deal with than my DS3615xs.
Do your self the justice and buy a real NAS. You will save your self the sanity.
@NVader2000 said:
Do your self the justice and buy a real NAS. You will save your self the sanity.
In case you hadn’t noticed in the OP’s original question he stated he has a DS415Play (4 bay) NAS which is classified as a NAS device, not software only… It’s a hardware designed NAS…
I already suggested going with USB, and since the data transfers through a USB 3.0 are going to likely exceed the demand you could supply, even locally, this should more than easily keep up with any streaming you need to have happening. Although the NAS itself might have issues with transcoding, so you may have to convert everything or use the Optimize Media feature to support any remote streaming you might do.
Thanks for all the comments. I’d love a new synology, either the 1815+ or that 3615xs… the price of the latter is WOW!!!
Transcoding wise isn’t an issue. I have the raw mkv copy for local hard wired viewing on my mac-mini, then for each mkv I use handbrake to create a 4Mbps version for wifi/external and viewing on rokus that can’t play the native mkv (esp VC1 codec).
MikeG6.5, though this is an option USB 3.0 roughly can only handle 70-100Mb sustain read and if you are think of pull a 4K uncompressed video, good luck.
The USB 3.0 spec are a theoretical maximum (5.0Gb/s) of the interface. There are many factors to consider when using any tech technology and in this case with USB 3.0 you have, Internal SATA HD – SATA cable – SATA controller – CPU – Windows’ USB stack - USB3 host controller – USB3 cable – USB3 controller – USB3 to SATA bridge – SATA HD.
So as you can see there are many things to consider in regards to performance and to many points of failure. Extending you NAS via USB is great for files that are infrequently used, not for stream video. Now do not get me wrong I am not say that USB 3.0 cannot stream video, you just not going to be able to do it at higher resolutions and to multiple devices at the same time.
The DS1815+ populated with 8 x 4Tb WD Reds with RAID5 would give you 28Tb of storage. Avg: $900 (less drives). Can be expanded via eSATA
The DS2415+ populated with 12 x 4Tb WD Reds with RAID5 would give you 44Tb of storage. Avg: $1400 (less drives) Can be expanded via Expansion Port.
I did my math when I bought the DS3615xs. I wanted to be to support all of my devices, at the same time, and I wanted expandability without compromising performance. The DS3615xs has a 2,214.77 MB/s throughput where the DS2415+ only has a 451 MB/s throughput. This is a preference not a requirement. If you only care about a few device then either the DS1815+ or DS2415+ would be your better option over the DS3516xs.
But if you are looking to grow in the future beyond the current capacity of the DS1815+ then the eSATA port is going to be no better then expanding via USB. The Expansion Port is a direct extension of the DS2415+ and the DS3615xs and does not hinder performance.
The cost of upgrading hard drive, lets say 8x8Tb, is going to cost you $2800 just in drives alone, where 12 x 4Tb will cost you $1800 for the same capacity, $3200 for the DS2415+ with 12x4Tb drives or $3700 for the DS1815+ with 8x8Tb.
@sremick said:
unRAID isn’t really a good “RAID” solution and gives a false sense of security. I have to wonder how many of its proponents have really lived through drive failures. And then considering all the things unRAID doesn’t protect you against that other, better solutions do… unRAID users are probably experiencing subtle data corruption they aren’t even aware of yet.
