My primary Plex server is on a Shield TV and my primary media storage is on a PC that is also capable of acting as a Plex server. The drives on my PC are pooled using StableBit’s DrivePool into one large drive. All that is working great and I even have duplication turned on in DrivePool so that I have a fair level of protection.
But, being a “belt and suspenders” sort of guy I also have a PC with a bunch of drives attached that I use to backup most of my media because, even though it is possible to recreate it, a failure that also corrupted my data would be horrendous to recover from.
That backup PC is failing and the system used on it for pooling produces a “raid” like system that is encrypted and tied to the PC and the company that produced it is way out of business.
The drives on it are mostly quite old and I would not really trust them in any new setup.
So, what I am looking to do is replace that backup system with a new one. It does not need to support Plex and really speed of access is not too important.
It needs to have about 20tb of expandable storage that is fully accessible over the network but beyond that I am quite open to any ideas. I am not even adverse to building my own BUT it has been a VERY long time (as mentioned in another thread) since I built a PC and I might need some detailed directions/hand holding to accomplish that.
It would also be good if the solution and all the drives in a single chassis but that need is not set in stone.
There are other things that will/might have an impact on my final decision but I need ideas as I am sure there are directions I could go that I have not thought of/
Using the cloud is out because of extremely slow upload speeds and I prefer to keep everything local.
Again the system does NOT need to be able to run Plex at all as I have two devices that do that well. I “just” need to replace my very old failing backup system with something better for the long term.
Thanks for any ideas no matter how weird.
@spikemixture said:
And your budget will be?
Sorry, I thought about my budget the whole time I was typing that first post but I did not remember to include it. Another manifestation of “Old brain syndrome.”
I would like to keep it as low as possible but I would be willing, for a REALLY good solution, to go as high as $2,000.00 or so. Clearly that is an upper limit as I could just about get a good near top end NAS with storage for that.
A NAS is obviously the KISS option .
Have a look at Drobo. What I do like (I have the 5N) is you can put a mixture of drive sizes.
So you could use your “old” drives until they break!!
@spikemixture said:
A NAS is obviously the KISS option .
Have a look at Drobo. What I do like (I have the 5N) is you can put a mixture of drive sizes.
So you could use your “old” drives until they break!!
I am quite found of KISS, both the music and the principal.
I have looked at Drobo as well as QNap, Synology and others and if I go with a pre-built system it will probably, at this point, be Synology. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06Y4N5PCX/ref=ox_sc_sfl_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER in particular.
It also allows for different sized drives if you use what they call “SHR” as a Raid type. There are some limitations but what I already have will work if I get a couple of 8tb disks to start with. (One of those disks becomes the “parity” disk and all the others then only have to be 6tb or smaller.) I might even start with two 6tb drives as nothing I have is larger than a 5tb (most are 4tb or less) but I kind of hate to limit my top end that much. If I fill that NAS with 6tb drives the total space available would be a bit less than 42tb but if I use 8tb drives the total goes to nearly 56tb.
Of course I “could” just go wild and use 10tb drives throughout and eventually get to 70tb space. I would never run out of space then. 
I remember when I upgraded my first IBM computer from dual 5 1/4 in. floppies to a 10mb (that right kids 10 megabytes) hard disk and I thought that was all the space I would ever possibly need. >:) o:)
At that time I did not understand what the saying “Data grows to fill available space” really meant.
Now I am almost pathologically afraid of running out of space and/or loosing data because I don’t have enough. Whoever said “Size does not matter” did not deal with computers much. 
B)
But I am still deciding and I am hoping for some more ideas. I would like to get off cheaper if possible! After all it really is for a backup of an already redundant system.
I have the 1817+ as my main storage/media server and my “old” 1815+ as back up.
1817+ has 4,4,4,4,4,4,10,10 = 44tb but capacity = 29.66 (all seagate -the 10TB ironwolf)
1815+ 4,4,4,4,6,6,8,8 = 44tb but capacity = 31.41 (all WD red)
So be aware the amount we loose from false naming manufacturers and the raid setup!
It is becoming a joke with the 10TB Seagate Ironwolf giving us 9.1 tb of actual space!!
Just name it 9TB !!
+1 for a NAS. The only other option I can think of is if you can source your own RAID cabinet (which can be done) and use something like freeNAS (I’ve never used but I am sure this and other options exist) it would be good. I used to run a Linux server and had RAID in that. It ran really well, but when something went wrong it was harder to fix than a NAS is. When you apply that to 20TB data, the idea of typing something wrong into your linux box is not a happy thought.
Whatever your NAS provider, make sure they have good support. QNAP will help you restore your data seemingly at no cost if it goes wrong, not sure what the others do, but that’s quite a proposition.
I’ve not used Synology, what is their primary drawcard that made you choose them?
Thanks.
