Hit the go button on Plex and just ordered a Synology DS418Play as the Plex NAS server. Yet to order and HDD’s appreciate any feedback on what drives folks could recommend.
Looking at WD Red and Seagate Ironwolf but open to other suggestions. Also any good, bad or indifferent experience with drives I just mentioned.
Probably going to run either 4TB or 6TB.
Any feedback would be appreciated.
Look up drive shucking on Google. Basically you can get Red (or equivalent) using the WD external hard drives from Best Buy for a faction of the cost. Shucking is the process of removing the drive without tearing up the cases to get to the internal drive. That is how I populated my 918+ for about 1/2 the price with 4 x 8 tb drives.
Thanks was definitely going to use NAS drives, just looking to sort the wheat from the charff.
Don’t believe their data rates is all that dissimilar. Performance similar then so it gets down to reliable, noise and back up support.
As I said I have a DS418Play and will be using Plex…am thinking of now buying 4 x Seagate 4TB drives and populating 3 and run Synology SGH RAID configuration and have the 4 sitting on the shelf for when one dies.
I have 16 WD Red Pro (8x 6TB and 8x 8TB) drives actively spinning in two NAS boxes + 8 more on the shelf (the old 4TB drives)
Thanks folks…just order 4 x Seagate Ironwolf 4TB drives…
Note that if you’re dealing with that much storage RAID6 or RAID10 is a better choice… RAID5 is scary due to rebuilds taking so much longer as you increase storage size and if it borks during that process you’re SOL…
Respectfully disagree with RAID10 applicability.
RAID 5 provides 1-disk failure parity to regenerate the missing data, at the cost of 1 disk.
RAID 6 provides 2-disk failure parity to regenerate the missing data, at the cost of 2 disks
Raid 10 costs you 50% of your total disk space (you are making a mirror).
RAID 10: 4 x 4TB = 16 TB, (4 / 2) x 4TB => 8 TB usable
RAID 5: 4 x 4TB = (4-1) * 5TB = 12 TB
These numbers are before formatting (of course)
Monthly scrubbing of RAID 5 EXT4 (not BTRFS) is ample to check and repair any inconsistencies.
While XFS is the ultimate choice, EXT4 is more than adequate for up to 100TB volumes.
At our consumer volume sizes (~50TB) it’s fine.
RAID 5 can always be increased to RAID 6 by addition of another disk.
This is usually the best long term configuration if you’re not using the best quality drives or aren’t the best at maintaining the system.
RAID 5 can become RAID 50 (mirrored set of 5 if you really want that…)
RAID 6 can become RAID 60 (mirrored set of 6 if you really want that…)
RAID is not backup. If you’re doing a RAID rebuild there’s a potential for it to get “borked” during rebuild no matter what. RAID5 should be sufficient for home users, assuming they actually do periodic backups of their valuable data…
Thanks for the healthy discussion folks.
Does the SHR Synology raid system offer much in the way of benefits over standard raid 5?
My current thinking is to run Synology SRH 3 drives raid 5 variant and have the 4th sitting on the shelf in the event one drive dies. Or is it better to use all 4 in a traditional raid 5?
For a novice like me who is trying to wrap my head around all the raid configurations getting input and advice for you folks is invaluable. Thanks again for all your input and helping the fog become clearer.
If all drives are the same size, then SHR should function the same as RAID 5.
I would use all four drives in RAID 5, and then make sure to have my data periodically backed up somewhere else (external HDDs, cloud backup service, etc.). In fact, that’s actually what I do today with my 4-bay NAS.
Thanks…so if I run all 4 drives as you recommend should I then have a 5th 4TB drive as a spare in the event of an issue? Is one all that is required?
I originally was thinking SHR 3 x 4TB giving me approx 8TB then buying a 10Tb external for doing the back up? Not sure what the cloud cost backing up that amount of data, would have thought quite expensive.
Probably an option I should explore as we just recently and finally after 20 years got a decent internet connection so backing up to the cloud is an option. Also nice to have that back up off site.
Didn’t say it was… but most people can’t afford to have mirror’d copies locally or on the cloud when you’re talking TBs of data. What I am saying is I’d never trust RAID5 for large pools of data and doing a cost/value call would go with RAID6 or RAID10 if really worried but trying to save money (cut corners).
@ChuckPa
Agreed… 10 is a bit much but if you’re not doing the backups and can afford it but not afford offsite copies it’s the best option for the paranoid.
6 is the good middle ground and what I tell people to use when crossing over a certain threshold of size
Simply put people don’t have tons of money to toss at this and tend to do things like shucking drives, relying on raid as backup, not doing proper maintenance tasks, etc… I see posts like this all the time saying just have a few spare drives or multiple backups… offline storage… most people don’t have that and can’t validate spending that so I try to stick to reasonable suggestions with caveats.
I will wholeheartedly agree that if shucking disks out of “specials”, RAID 6 all the way. Do not screw with it because you’ll get burned sooner or later.
Folks think RAID is backup and/or Bullet proof. It’s neither. But, if over time, you’ve managed to cobble together some drives, and, key point keep them spinning to save on the head load-cycle count limit (where the drive will die) then they will likely last a lot longer and you’ll be fine.
I spin up my syno drives only for backup. Otherwise, the logic board is already on and the metal is operational temp. This is another important point. Spinning up a cold drive is harder on it than spinning up a warm one. (like your car in the dead of winter and driving it before the oil gets around properly)
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