The uninterruptable power supply wasn't an "upgrade" to me - it was a first-day-must-have item. I'm a home user with experience supporting a network on a terrible power system.
@@danielmcgowan9534 +1 : totally agree ! I have 2 Synology NAS, so 2 UPS, plus a third UPS for the network stuff (Switch, Box, etc...). A UPS is a must have in my opinion, because I will never take the risk to lose data because of a P.S. problem...
I wouldn't follow this at all. bad advise unless you have a very, very specific use case. Not that I can think of what that is. Depending on your use case... things might change, but raw storage, just get drives and put them IN the devices! I also use ssds. Who would have thought that was needed to be said! Then if you are running VMs you need to pick between ram and nvme. Your vm requirements will dictate that. You MUST have 2 x nvme if you are doing video editing and they are AMAZING speed boosts for VM with high read write. LASTLY 10Gb... if you need more HD get the synology extension! Why o why buy a bad external HD NEVER and I mean NEVER use them for anything bare data transfer when you have a NAS! An external HD is called a poor man's NAS for a reason!
@chrisschneider7609 you completely missed the point that the external drive was for backup, not additional storage for primary data. If you have a second NAS to backup the main one, and/or use cloud backup, then effectively you would have something similiar. But if you just add a storage expansion unit to your main NAS, no, that's not a proper backup even if you use a separate volume. You say "LASTLY 10Gb" and then talk about storage again. Looks like you either didn't watch the video or didn't pay any attention. It's 10 GbE, not 10 Gb, because it's about upgrading the network connection, starting with the ethernet port on the NAS. That's something that can be very useful in your video editing example.
@aranelchan the point of a nas is to be reliable storage. It is the backup. Raid is the backup. And external HD is just dumb. Far more likely to fail, far more likely to corrupt. And far less capacity! 10gbE is like atm machine... the e is not required when you are already talking about ethernet. It is highly highly unlikely you are consuming gbps as a single user. Even with a few raw video files in your scrubber! It is also extremely unlikely that you have 10gbps on your pc if you're listening to this review. 10gbps is not even close to something normal. The better option it bonding the 4 ethernet port already on the device. 4Gbps will give you FAR more likelihood of consumption... but then we need to talk about switches... which you would once you start talking about 10gbps... bonding is far cheaper.
@chrisschneider7609 No, RAID is redundancy for fault tolerance. RAID is not backup, even though what it provides overlaps with what a proper backup provides. Is an external hard drive the best backup solution? Probably not. But driving home the point that there should be a backup is a top "upgrade" tip, and an external hard drive that can be kept separate from the NAS is a low hanging fruit in that regard. As for a NAS being the backup, that depends on how it is used. If a video editor edits videos locally, and only syncs to the NAS as backup, then indeed the NAS is backup. I would still recommend a backup for the NAS itself, but one that is stored remotely. However, if the video editor is editing videos via network share, then the NAS is not backup, and it is in such cases that a > 1 Gbps network connection becomes important. Spacerex did say that the 10 GbE upgrade was use-case specific, so I find no fault in his upgrade suggestion. Bonding multiple ports is also use-case specific: unless you're using stuff like multichannel SMB, link aggregation would still limit any one client to the max of a link, so unless there are multiple clients it may be of little value.
I would get the UPS first. For business we got a second Synology for backup off site instead of a big USB drive. I have installed 2 1TB SSD caches in raid 1. It is overkill. I have never seen more than 256K of cache being used so 2x256K is the maximum one should get. The weak spot of the Synology is that it doesn't have redundant power supplies and CPUs. That is why a second storage is required because if the local Synology fails, the big 16 TB USB drive can keep you going in the short term. We, the company, have a NetApp. I personally use an old Drobo 5N, at home, which is slow and crude compared to the Synology but it has been extremely reliable. My personal Synology is off site and the company and I access it through a company VPN. It is less hassle than a OneDrive.
As an enthusiast photographer, I’ve been using a Drobo DAS for over six years (actually, it’s still connected) and, thankfully, it has worked flawlessly throughout. I’ve been considering a NAS conversion for almost as long and…finally, I have just acquired a Synology DS1522+ in the last month, in no small part because of Drobo’s business problems and unknown future support. It does feel like there’s a lot to learn (which is a good thing too) but I have to thank you, Will, for all your videos as you’ve contributed heavily to my limited NAS understanding so far. As I have a Mac Studio, two 10GbE ports on my switch and CAT 6 cable running, that 10GbE upgrade will be next. Best of luck in your new business.
I have had a Drobo for about 5 years and it is failing. Bottom drive bay no longer works. Don't trust it anymore. Bought a Synology 1621+. Will have 6 - 12TB drives when I am done setting it all up. Got all my critical data and 62GB of photos loaded now. Have had smart UPS for about 3 years now on all my systems.
important note is, when using larger capacity SSD cache, it does reserve a notable amount of RAM, so for ex. I'm running one 1TB NVME SSD as read cache, but also upgraded RAM from 4 to 8GB because that 1TB of SSD cache itself uses about 400MB of RAM, and it works great as a combination :)
No kidding - SpaceRex is probably my #1 RU-vid channel. I try to buy with your affiliate links whenever I can just so you take over the world. Thank you for all that you do! The installation of my Synology NAS and corresponding workflow is priceless for my business. Much appreciated!
Just got the Synology 1522+. This video was perfect for answering my upgrade questions for Synology in general, and especially for this unit. Nice to know that I dont have to go crazy on RAM! Thanks for the video!
Thanks for this great video. I took your advice and connected over a wire. Transfer speeds went from an average of 300mbps to 900mbps. Such a significant improvement! 👍🏻
Setting the SSD to be a second volume and running docker containers directly off of it was a far better use case than a cache. The amount of command line inputs to get it working was minimal
I'm surprised the UPS is at the end not "Number 0, get a UPS when you get a NAS, do not pass Go." That's my philosophy after having a RAID/NAS get corrupted from a power outage. My take is that every RAID/NAS must have a smart UPS from the start. Even as a "home" user, I'd rather have a UPS than have to try to recover everything from a backup.
So from all of my consulting, I have only had a couple of times that users NAS have had issues from unexpected power loss. And in all of the cases the volume only went into a 'read only' mode where we could still copy everything off of it. What was the NAS & file system you were using that got corrupted? BTRFS seems to be pretty solid at at least keeping the data alive enough to be pulled off the unit.
I have friends living in NZ and they often have power outages. If they have to rebuild a volume every time, they will get mad. Hence, the UPS is also on top of the list. I hope someday that Synology can build 'portable' nases, with power battery included.
I totally agree with Rex as a photography / videographer backup is the number 1 thing to invest in, if fact I take it one step further and have 2 backups, and I keep one in a safety deposit box and the other one backing up constantly and rotate them out once a week from my bank. I do have a UPS and I have lost power maybe once in 16 years so it is definitely good to have one but not mission critical as a backup drive. If you lose power in your area a lot then a UPS might be number 1 in your book.
The UPS also evens out power fluctuations, which device power supplies will appreciate. Being overseas I further protect the UPS with a transformer/AVR.
A couple points to add: DSM 7.2 has a SSD Advisor in Storage Manager that you can use to decide wihether an SSD each is useful. It runs for a week to analyze your usage. I recommend using this before running out to buy a SSD cache. Great points about wifi versus wired. The problem with wifi its is stability and reliability. Wifi is subject to signal (other devices, APs) and physical (walls) interference, particularly in crowded places like apartments or office buildings. This is the biggest argument for a wired connection. A NAS needs to be always available. With ethernet it ALWAYS works and at a predictable speed. If you are using your NAS as a media server, this is particularly important.
Excellent video as usual, but it is still unclear how to use the NVMes, particularly with the VMM, and/or by creating a volume on the NVMe. My DS1821 is still on 7.1 (7.2 is not yet official); and I believe that you should dedicate a video to the NVMes ! Thank you
I just bought an 18TB external to do my back ups. Such piece of mind to have this on hand. I'm also adding a 10GbE to my NAS right now too. I just upgraded from a DS418Play to a DS923+ with three 16TB Seagate Ironwolf drives. Mainly for the 10GbE access since I do a lot of video storage and editing.
I have a DS1522+ and actually went with the 10 gigabit upgrade and a RAM upgrade (Kingston RAM I could get quite cheaply so I went for it, no way I'm buying Synology RAM which is ridiculously expensive). Of course, I also have a UPS although power outages in the Netherlands are extremely rare. There's one thing I'm still thinking about, NVMe SSD caching. I don't think it would benefit me. I'm using my NAS for media storage and playback (no transcoding needed over here), the NAS is running SABnzbd, Radarr and Sonarr as docker images. As I'm the only user NVMe caching would be useless, am I right? The Synology SSD Advisor recommends a small cache SSD but as I said, I doubt if I'd really see any true benefits.
Hoi Brian. Ik heb net een 1522 besteld met twee Exos 18 Tb disks. Krijg het morgen binnen. Zou ik je eventueel kunnen benaderen mocht ik voor het eerste opzetten een vraag hebben ? Zodat ik eventueel niet totaal fout begin met later alle gevolgen van dien. Eigenlijk weet ik niet eens welke raid ik moet kiezen.😂 En om eerlijk te zijn klinkt wat je van Usenet vertelde wel erg cool. Wist niet dat dit mogelijk is.
Dude your content is so clear and concise. Incredibly helpful! If I, or anyone I know, ever needs a consultant, you'll be the first call! Thank for this great info!
There are so many variables to Wifi. Spatial streams, SNR, base noise, building material etc. But making blanket statements that wifi is bad is not true. An 6E environment with actual coverage will do amazing speeds if the target device has enough streams to support the throughput. Your phone, your laptop, etc are usually the limiting factors, not the wireless environment itself...
Nice to hear you do this full time now. You helped us Build a 1821+ back in the Days with a 10gbe hardwire connection for Videoproduction. Greetings from Germany! :)
An external HDD to "backup" a NAS? I must be confused WTF a NAS is exactly. I mean, if I do a 6-bay NAS and do three pairs of RAID setup.....isn't that exactly what backing up data is?
When changing hardware (drives, ram, configuration, etc) it makes sense to have a "cold" storage copy of your array. I have 18 TB plex library, sourced over 10 years all Bluray or better quality, from sources online that haven't existed in years plus all family photos, financial documents etc. I have it copied twice to different not in use drives one off site, one in a firesafe. That's what he is saying. Your NAS is what you draw from and use everyday. Every once in a while I refresh a back up of the array or before I do a major change. Its just extra security again data loss, fire etc. You could possibly damage the array during changes or if it has been running non stop without a restart for years, chances are the drives won't turn back on after turning off (I have had raid 10 arrays with 5 hot spares die after applying updates requiring reboots after running 24/7 for years before it can rebuild itself) it just depends on what your personal risk tolerance is.
@@m6071 I'm new to this NAS game, still researching all the terms and options and such. Doesn't RAID1 mirror? I mean, a pair of 16TB drives setup in RAID1 is basically a backup, no? I must be missing something. They mirror each other. Otherwise this sounds like you need a NAS for your NAS. Where does it end?
@@SpaceRexWill Similar I've got the critical life is over side gig shuts down stuff on backblaze and some of those items are on Microsoft and others' clouds too Item 2 hard-wired is a life changer for work and play except when roaming about the house, but I'd even put a patch cable near the couch if you can work there. Item 3 10 gig makes it so you can work directly from the NAS even if video editing at a few 4k streams of HVEC
Item 4 I've got a pair of 1TB read-write but this tip would have saved me money especially the way my family and I use the main NAS, I didn't even put any in the backup NAS, the 718+ is all-flash though since it's docker containers and VMs
UPS critical for a NAS and very good for any desktop, saved me a few times. Item 6, I upgraded everything since all my units shipped with low RAM and they all run at least one container, the main is Maxed, the 718 is maxed too, but the backup just got the module left over from the main
I have a weird issue with the smb share on my ds1821+. I have my video edit folder organised by newest created up top. When I am saving video edits to the folder it will just randomly drop out a year of edits and show the newest file as a year ago or whatever it is. Seems to drop out to the same point each time. If I open up an afp connection it always shows the correct order and it seems to force the smb connection into line also. Any ideas how to fix this issue? I think it started doing it since DSM 7 upgrade..
I’m still learning so I have many questions. I’m not sure if I have understood the 10Gbe upgrade to the DS 923+ comspletely. My Mac Studio is fitted with a 10Gbe connection if I upgrade my DS 923+ with the 10Gbe upgrade, can I connect with my Mac studio with a cable to have 10 Gbe between my Mac Studio my DS 923+?
Thanks - this was a good sanity check or me since I just purchased a Synology 4-Bay DiskStation DS923+. Went with the 10GBe card which is now down to $110, and your recommended NVME drive. Good advice on the read only. I got the external drive on my wish list. Your video gave me confidence to not upgrade memory since it comes with 4Gb. What I found useful is the size information of the cache partition you recommended which makes total sense now. In the past I would max it out thinking more is better. Lastly I have a smart UPS to plug it into. Thanks for also suggesting the USB into it also. Great video, clear and concise.
@spacerexwill what is your opinion on getting an expansion unit for my DS1621xs+? The expansion unit port is eSATA unlike the RS models where they’ve a proprietary high speed connector. I use VMs and Surv Station with 4 x 4K cams atm with maybe 2 more being added so it might have a mix of HDD and SSD.
The way all these companies are going it's not only cheaper to build your own NAS is arguably easier and you will definitely have better results. You can even use synology software if you so choose.
I have about 60 tb of music I've collected over the years. Astonishingly, I've never had a hard drive ever fail on me, so I'd never really thought about backing everything up until recently. I saw a video of a video editor backing his work up to a NAS, which I had never even heard of. After a ton of research, and some saving, I just got a Synology 923+ and 4 x 15 tb Western Digitals. It took me all night to figure out how to start syncing files from all my externals, but Ive got the hang of it now. Glad to hear I probably won't need to upgrade my ram. I think the 923+ is sufficient for my needs. Instead, I think I'll start saving to buy a whole other backup until cloud storage doesn't cost as much as a car.
Hi Will. How important would you say a UPS is for a first time home user? I have very limited budget at the moment, and have just purchased a DS923+. No back up solution yet. Some people recommend I get a UPS, but I've only had one power cut in 9 years living in this house. How likely is data loss/corruption from a power cut? Many thanks.
The first two I have done and would recommend. The third 10Gbit, less convinced, however I did buy a cheap unmanaged 2.5Gbit switch and a 2.5Gbit card to my computer, this makes a big difference in copy times. The 4th, I did this within my NAS and while I think it helps performance, I am not sure how much the cache actually helps with performance, hard to measure. The 5th, is well worth the money as memory is cheap (at least for my Asustor NAS it is, not sure about Synology). UPS, I am certainly thinking about it since I have had a couple of power cuts that have caused an ungraceful shutdown,
I agree with backing up to another drive and UPS basically being required for data security. WIFI6 and newer standards can certainly break gig speeds if they have a fast enough connection to the source material, but do suffer from increased latency. Wired connections are definitely better, but it mainly impacts latency and stability more than actual speed now. There are many newer routers that support faster speed over Wi-Fi than wired as not all support multi-gig switching for wired connections. My WIFI 6 router only supports up to 2.5Gb wired but much more over Wi-Fi (AX11000 standard) it has exceeded 2.5Gb when downloading from multiple sources (LAN and internet) using WIFI. It's also uncommon for consumer routers to support ports over 2.5Gb. Even though we only have 1Gb internet, I still upgraded my home with a 2x10Gbe and 8x 2.5Gbe switch because the NAS running Plex can see more than 2.5Gb on LAN usage, but no other single device would currently benefit from more speed for me. In short, I still agree with recommending wired connections due to the lower latency as that is what most people will "feel" and the latency advantage of wired connections can be very noticeable with internet usage. It's just not the same as absolute speed.
I recently bought a Synology DS223 with just one 4TB Ironwolf HDD. I did not bought a 4-bay, first because it’s a bit out of my budget, but also because I don’t have that much data (I currently “only” have 400GB of photos. The thing is I’m not saving my data with redundancy. So, I probably should buy a second HDD. My question is: as one of the disks storage will basically be lost, is it possible to add for example an 8TB (with the exact same characteristics except the capacity), or should I buy a second 4TB model to be the exact same as the first one? Note that that it is for home use only, and the only thing I might share would be photos with family. Thanks for your help.
I am still learning about my ds1019+. I've had it for several years now. Security and features is not very intuitive. Even for someone who enjoys this stuff as a hobby. As a truck driver I'm always looking for more ways to use it while on the road.
Planning on doing one! I added a write up last night going over how to setup backups for a database here: www.spacerex.co/how-to-automatically-backup-a-mysql-or-mariadb-server-with-mysqldump/
2.5 Gbe is more than enough. also the cheaper Step. Just buy a USB 2.5Gbe Adapter for ethernet, install a little app, then you have much more speed. 10Gbe is not worth it. Harddisk is to slow.
Why external hdd is needed? I was under impression that if I buy 2bay NAS ( DS223J) stick 2x 4tb hard drives one will be used for all my data other one is for 100% copy of that data (back up) why do you need external back up ? Or em I missing something?
So, if your computer is connected to your NAS via Ethernet, does that mean you’ll be restricted to using WiFi to connect to your router? I think my motherboard only has a single 2.5 gbps port.
External harddrive as a backup solution has its limits: If your house burns down - your important data on your external harddrive are gone as well. In my opinion your backup data should be physically apart from your primary NAS. Better choose the cloud or a second NAS on a different location than the primary NAS (I have chosen the latter). Thanks for your great videos anyway!
Do dedicated gaming servers require upgraded ram if they are ran in a dockers? I would like to have multiple dedicated servers up for my friends to join at any time. I was thinking to upgrade the ram.
Spare RAM also acts as a read-only cache that is even faster than NVMe. Synology diskstations run Linux and that is the way the Linux buffer cache works. Bonus: RAM doesn’t fail after N writes like NVMe and SSD drives do. An NVMe drive that gets written to a lot could die an early death.
First of all, congratulations on your channel, it's fantastic and although I'm a computer guy (Z servers), it has allowed me to quickly learn how to use all the features of my synology NAS server, thanks a lot @SpaceRexWill A silly question, for a similar price and terabytes, would you choose a 2.5 or 3.5 external HDD?
Great and very important important video for newbies like me!!! Thanks a lot You recommend a lot for virtual machines. What about huge Lightroom libraries wir over 100k pictures with 100mb RAW files? What upgrade of the last three make most sense and what does not/ or does not have that big impact to the performance
Im new and I am going to set up the synology 923+. Ive been watching videos and have not seen any info about the NVMe. I don't know what it is or where it goes. could you direct me to the basics for that?
I took the advice of a NAS consultant and used 2x32gb sticks in my Synology 1821+. Have you heard of any issues with a setup like (besides Synology not approving it)?
Yeah I mostly agree. It’s more so that if you lose or damage your nas you still have one last chance. Protects against natural disaster too. He suggests getting a hard drive big enough for all your data. Just spend some time and pick out what your most important data is and figure out a way to back that up off site.
Yes get a backup external drive, but check what kind of drive it is. I bought a cheap 8TB drive in an enclosure from WD and was trying to do backups but it was taking FOREVER! I unplugged it and perfomred some testing and found that it was barely able to write continuously at over 33MB/s. Turns out it was an SMR drive...what a piece of garbage, exactly what you don't want when backing up. SO BUYER BEWARE!
Summary: 1. Large external USB HD for cheap and local backup 2. Wired clients 3. 10 GbE upgrade 4. SSD for read cache 5. RAM 6. UPS I fully agree with #1. Easy peace of mind. Similarly, I’d bump #6 to the second slot, depending on the reliability of your power utility. #2 also makes a ton of sense. I’m not sure I agree with #3 unless you have the simplest of network setups or you’re setting things up on a single desk. What I mean by that is a small 10 GbE switch on your desk with the Synology directly connected to it and your computer with 10 GbE connected as well and uplinking to your modem or other switches in your house. My Synology is in my networking closet and I’d need to do a reasonable amount of upgrades to really benefit from it. Then again, I’m a Ubiquiti person and 10 GbE choices aren’t great right now.
Very helpful! I've got a 1522+ on order, my first Synology NAS. I'm upgrading from an old tower running UnRAID Server. Two questions: 1) Do any m.2 NVME SSDs work other than Synology's own? They're the only ones listed on the HCL. 2) What's the best way to transfer files from my old UnRAID server to the NAS? Map a drive to the server in DSM? I want to keep my laptop out of the transfer process, as it's on wifi.
I'm looking into 100TB sinology but for next generation sequencing data, I assume for backup I would need a second 100TB sinology drive? Can you have the backup within the same unit, for example if I had a 12 bay model?
Each to their own but zero marks on the first two... jeepers! No! And No! Then 10Gb first, yep, you don't know what you are talking about. Also, you state about different use cases but then never highlight the reality of why different things are in order dependant on your use case. Worse review of a nas ever.
Thank you for this. I'm a home user and just looking for the fastest photo experience possible on the 1522+ (upgrading from an old DSplay - which can buffer as it only has 1 gig of ram). Would the addition of the M2 Nve read cache help with that or is the 8 gig of ram enough. Most of the use is photo/video across 5-10 family users (basically their cell phone backup and other content). Thanks!
I wish I had known about the compatibility list on the M.2 NvME SSDs. I bought a pair of drives - good Samsung ones - and DSM refuses to recognize them for anything. Ok, it identifies them, and says they're not compatible (and I'm running DSM 7.2-64570 Update 3 on my 1522+)
Your first upgrade should be to return/sell your SynologyNAS and upgrade to a QNAP that has a decent specs and doesn't lock you into overpriced propriety gear. Get an Intel processor and 2.5GBe from the onset use that extra money to take the wife out
I want to build a 100TB SSD or NVMe NAS and I want to clone/ sync/ and merge them across multiple different time zones to protect again fire hazards, please reach out
Why would you buy an external hard drive to backup your NAS when you can configure it as RAID 1 and have redundancy within your NAS? The whole reason to buy a NAS is to get rid of a bunch of external hard drives. I'm not following your logic at all.
The problem is RAID is not a backup, it only protects you against hardware failure, not software. If the system volume crashes RAID1 will not help you, but a backup will. The backup is a separate file system with its own schedule and way of storing files so it should not fail just because the other one does
As SpaceRex already said, RAID is not a backup. Outside of outright RAID array failures, if you just accidentally delete a file on your NAS, it's just gone because it will be deleted from the entire RAID array. That's why my important stuff gets mirrored over to my NAS every night, which in turn then mirrors to a cloud backup service. I'm also setting up an off-site backup at my mother's place, there's a small Synology NAS there too.
Hey, I’m thinking of getting a NAS to back up our iPhones and computers. Question, can my son remotely backup his MacBook Pro while at College to a NAS at our home? Also, can he backup his iPhone as well? Thanks and love the videos!
Hi Neal, could you share details about compatible 3rd party RAM and m.2 NVME disk for read / write caching. Synology parts are way too expensive. I'm have a DS923+ Synology nas.
The "UPS lying" is because you have a bad battery. You really need to change your battery every 5 years or so depending on the type of battery in your UPS. I would recommend especially for business to give 5-10min on the NAS shutdown if they know they have a generator. That goes for home users also with a generator. I have my power redundancy built out (thats just me bringing my work home) now i am watching your video's to get my data redundancy built out.
Im going to take my Synology down to try my intel duel port 10gb nics since finding the Synology branded one thst uses RJ45 ports are near impossible. Sadly i need more then 24tb for my Media side.
I was struggling for years - my photos app was slow, my docker instance was slow, and had no idea why. 2GB in my machine, and the resources app showed I still had 40% free memory. But when I upgraded by installing an 8gb RAM module.... wow! things were snappy and very fast! RAM upgrade is a must, and a NUMBER ONE first thing to do. Don't wait, just install the most RAM you can.
Thanks for sharing your experience. Even though he put RAM pretty low, it seems pretty dependent on where you're starting. If you only have 2 GB or less of memory, it will make a significant difference.
