Hi guys,
First time posting so let me know if there's anything I need to change.
I've been watching this NAS for some time so I can sell my current set up and get something that is better for longevity.
Not the cheapest this year, but definitely a good bargain compared to some that are currently on.
Hope this helps!
I see it has slots for two SSD's which is handy
Those are not for storage, but for cache.
Took this off reddit: "The SSD cache doesn't make anything noticeably faster, the reason you get it is to limit the number of reads/writes being done to the disks, increasing the drive's lifespan."
Ahaahahhahaha
Don't get tech support from random reddit threads.
1) That's not how cache works
2) That's not how mechanical hard drive longevity works
3) That's definitely not how SSD lifespan works
4) That's now how ANY of this works.
Read this article from synology about what an ssd cache actually does
https://blog.synology.com/xmas-wishlist-optimizing-your-nas-…
@Twilight: @Twighlight but @hypie is largely correct in that the SSD cache drives typically don’t make things faster unless you’re really working DSM with a lot of apps. The gigabit Ethernet is typically the bottleneck on these. I really wish they came with 10GbE or that QNAP appps would catch up.
@roller: No he's not. You've misunderstood the purpose of cache or just not read the article. It's for faster response time not more throughput.
From the article:
You can mount an SSD cache to a single storage volume or block-level iSCSI LUN to create a read/write buffer, enhancing random access performance. Note that since large sequential read/write operations such as HD video streaming lack re-reading patterns, such workload patterns cannot benefit much from SSD caching.
Also, these are home units and 10gb is not common at home. If you want 10GB on synology - you can have it. Just look at the models that are compatible with an add in pcie card
https://www.synology.com/en-au/compatibility?search_by=categ… - just twiddle the options depending on if you want SFP+ or (urgh) rj45
Ahh, shows what I know. Thank you!
Depends what your priorities are, and really your entire workflow to be honest. Your current system sounds fairly solid from a data safety standpoint, but if you used this to store the first backup of every project you could probably save yourself a lot of time and money.
Don't think that some RAID protocol that allows you to lose a hard drive makes you safe though, keep up the redundancy and stick this on a UPS.
As for "56TB (126TB expansion)" it's really not cost effective to get that much space out of a 4 drive NAS. You're probably not going to want to buy drives much bigger than 10TB, and so you're looking at more like 30TB of usable space.
If you need more space than that I'd get a bigger NAS, or consider more of a traditional server setup.
Really appreciate this, thank you!
Highly recommend this unit. I got the last generation one (916) and it's still great, this is only better.
What you want to do is set up a SHR-2 or Raid 6 with this so you can swap drives in for a rebuild if 1 crashes. You already do the smart thing with offsite backups and so on so just keep doing that in addition to this.
You would want to look at an extension unit like DX-513 or whatever is the latest. That way you can have a ton more storage.
I'd say any NAS drive is fine, WD Reds/Seagate Ironwolves or Toshibas. If you're a business then maybe you want the extra reliability with WD Gold/Seagate Ironwolf Pro/HGST etc but I find that any drive can fail regardless, you are better off diversifying your batch of drives so that they don't all fail together. For example, buy different brands at different times.
Thank you Fishball, this is a massive help and great to hear you have been happy with yours!
Just thought I would give my 2 cents since getting my 918+. This thing is awesome. My only complaint is transferring from my seagate nas (crap) to this nas is incredibly slow at the moment. It's taking me around 12 hours to transfer 500gb. 13mb/s max.
Plex: works perfectly for me now. It's responsive, it has loaded all the thumbnails correctly it had no issues scanning for my media files. so far so good.
I've tried the torrent download feature, and it's pretty handy to be able to download direct to the nas while i'm away from home. However while at home i think magnet links and utorrent may be easier (unless someone has tips).
I can't see why anyone would not be happy with this purchase.
*Currently running one single shucked 10tb seagate white labelled red drive.
Have a look into running Jackett, Sonarr, Radarr and Deluge/Transmission on docker… Set and forget TV show downloads, as well as media management.
When integrated with Plex it's even better!!
Thanks will check that out
Best set up ever. I've got this running on a pi to an ext HDD. Too poor to afford a NAS :(
Awesome thanks mate!
Get a VPN with a killswitch or switch to usenet
Thanks for the info, I take it people are running this through a VPN?
I use this for torrenting, it kills transmission when the VPN drops so nothing gets leaked (using with PIA, near maxes my 50mbit NBN): https://github.com/haugene/docker-transmission-openvpn
10tb seagate white labelled red
Do you mean WD?
Whoops!
There's a Chrome extension for Download Station to make it easy to send magnet links to your NAS if that's what you're looking for :)
Thanks didnt know that.
Though most I open instantly via my phone lately.
I thought that stopped working years ago?
The phone app or the Chrome extension?
How's it been handling 1440p or 4k content if you've thrown it at it?
2x 4k content simultaneously transcoding streams at once.. Not a problem
Sounds like a slow external HDD or the use of the USB 2.0 protocol.
My 918+ reads and writes at peak gigabit speeds between 3.0 USB devices and its HDDs.
Seagate “nas”.
I've another model Synology and transferring it is extremely slow, it seems to be a common problem with them.
I've got about 6tb and it will take a long time to copy over, just a FYI to those that it will take a long time maybe to copy data if you have.
This is also after confirming it is connected at 1Gbps on the network interface.
@hypie " My only complaint is transferring from my Seagate NAS (crap) to this NAS is incredibly slow at the moment. It's taking me around 12 hours to transfer 500gb. 13mb/s max."
I had the same issue moving data across from an old WD NAS to a newer WD PR4100 Pro NAS. I separated my audio and pictures from my videos and put the video on a newer faster, higher capacity NAS. I did this about 3-4 years ago so I am not absolute on the details. All I remember is that I got the transfer rate up to around 100+ Mbps to get 3TB data moved across.
Look though your NAS device documentation for this topic. Basically, you set up the NASes with their own internal static IP addresses and move data across via FTP between devices. There are a few YouTube videos around that can show you how to do this, although they tend to specific to the brand of NAS they were using. Also ask for help from your device manufacturer's community forums.
Cheers
I use this for torrenting, it kills transmission when the VPN drops so nothing gets leaked (using with PIA, near maxes my 50mbit NBN): https://github.com/haugene/docker-transmission-openvpn
Add your vpn to network config and you have a private sandbox download station
The Synology VPN is probably one of the best.
Their VPN Plus uses SSTP which Windows natively supports so there is no need to install any extra software like Open VPN.
What are people's thoughts of adding the Expansion Unit DX517 to a 918+ with 4 Red 8tb Disks, 2 SSDs, without any RAID configuration, just using a 32tb single volume with WD external drives disconnected as backup.
I presume populating it with more 8tb Reds… Would a RAID setup be an option WITHOUT wiping it all?
99% of my usage is Plex.
Doesn't that expansion cost like $700?
Yes, I know it's not great cost, just curious on if anyone's used it.
That's seriously overpriced. You may as well buy a DS918+ at that price point.
Freenas Anyone?
All the cool kids run Open Media Vault these days. BTRFS FTW.
Yep, Freenas, unraid or linux for home solution.
nah xpenology all the way on 4 of my NAS boxes.
I switched from FreeNAS after the FreeNAS 10 debacle and I’ve never looked back. Synology is far easier to use and you’d be hard pressed to build your own NAS to do hardware 4K transcoding, let alone virtualisation for a similar price.
Once you have a NAS you would highly rely on that.
Have had this a few months now and highly recommend! Slap in either another 8GB memory (or swap out the included one and go up to 16GB).
Follow this recent Reddit guide and you're all ready to go with your media goodness.
Get Plex (there will probably be another Xmas lifetime sale soonish I'd say) and add in your Tidal 5 month trial to polish things even further…
HINT: You MAY even be able to find a way to download Tidal files for storage so that you're not always streaming them… ;)
Adding memory isn't going to help with anything.
All evidence says you're wrong :) allows more Plex clients, allows more Docker images etc etc etc
Thanks for the Reddit guide.
If you connect Tidal to Plex while on the trial don't you lose the Tidal trial access?
Not in my experience, you just don't activate the Tidal trial through Plex - do it in your usual web browser and then in the Plex server settings add your Tidal account
Would it be a bad idea to use shucked Seagate 4TB drives with a NAS? Or do I really need to get NAS specific drives?
In theory you could throw any compatible drive at it and it'll work its magic. I have read about noise from mixing different brands however, and how Seagate IronWolf gives more info.
I just wait for specials on the IronWolf.
Oh man my ironwolf 8tb is hells noisy
Checkout YouTube for examples..
Haven’t tried the 8TB, only have the 6TB.
The difference between NAS drives and non-NAS drives is how long the drive will "retry" an operation before deciding to report a failure.
This is particularly short in NAS drives as RAID arrays (with specific filesystems) tend to aggressively attribute long timeouts with a disk problem, and will adapt appropriately.
It's best to use NAS drives with older filesystems, but it doesn't really matter for new ones.
all gone :(
Looks like they have more available in another listing.
Deal link has been updated to an in-stock listing. Try again to avoid :(
I currently have an 'old' gaming PC set up as my media server that runs windows 10.
Its pretty beefy for what it is, I have plex and sonar/radar set up on it already.
Is there any real benefit from changing from that to an actual NAS?
I would probably see a reduction in power consumption im sure. I feel as it is a bit overkil for just plex streaming but also dont know if i should/need to spend money.
Intel Core i7 4790K
16gb RAM
GTX 970
There's two advantages;
The advantages you get using your gaming PC;
Regarding the GPU, be sure to do increase the transcode limit if you're using a Nvidia GPU.
https://www.reddit.com/r/PleX/comments/ahf0l1/tutorial_on_se…
potential energy saving (even over many years) will most likely not come close to the expense of scraping your existing machine + buying this one. If you have room for it and are not missing a specific function then your current setup is Gold imho.
Current listing is out of stock, but another listing is available.
https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Synology-4-Bay-NAS-DS918-Intel-Q…
Thank you for finding the new listing. Deal link updated.
Don't forget to remove the Expiry OOS!
The new listing is now also OOS, hence the expiry.
2 units available in this listing: https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Synology-4-Bay-NAS-DS918-Intel-Q…
@alvian: Wow that was quick. I thought it was in stock when I clicked.. guess these NAS boxes make the perfect Christmas gift!
Thanks for the post went to buy The Synology but purchased the Qnap Equivalent for $584 with same code peachy20. I know its brand and software preference but I like the HDMI and the 4 cctv camera license at Futu online Ebay. Happy shopping.
QNAP TS-453BE-4G 4 Bay NAS Diskless Quad 1.6GHz 0TB 4GB USB HDMI Network Storage
I bought this NAS last time it was on sale.
For those interested I purchased this 16gb kit from Amazon. Setup the nas first, then I installed this kit. Conducted a memory test afterwards through the s/w, synology assistant and worked fine.
Crucial 16GB Kit (8GBx2) DDR3/DDR3L 1866 MT/s (PC3-14900) SODIMM 204-Pin Memory - CT2K102464BF186D https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B00JCRZ6XS/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i…
Did you find the performance benefit over stock to be substantial?
I received the NAS about 5 days ago.. Just finished the 16th copying over the network and setup plex.
I'll be setting up docker soon for all my apps/containers and a few vms (Win10 maybe), pihole and if I can, pfsense.
I'll let you know, but just needed the extra ram for the VMs.. If I was just using it for plex, the 16gb would be wasted.
I'd be keen to hear your thoughts/views on it as I've never used my NAS for VMs (my current NAS is underpowered for that) but I thought even with a Celeron processor, they're still not going to run any VMs too well?
@jace88: I've watched countless YouTube Vids and reddit r/synology threads, sounds like it would run fine.
Planning to setting up in the next week so I'll keep you posted. Pretty excited stuff, I'm such a nerd lol
@BanannaMan: Interested in any info you have about running pfsense over it. Currently in the process of learning Docker, and planning on spending the Christmas break setting up deluge/sonarr/radarr/sonar Plex etc.
DS918+ has been a great unit so far and keen to see what it can do.
I like Synology Drive as a Dropbox replacement. Anyone can point me to set it up so user folders and files could be encrypted so while the files could be backed up, physical access to the drive won’t be able to see the content?
Not sure. I have the Drive part syncing well, but haven't worked out the privacy side of things. Does it offer some form of encryption? It seems Admin can pretty much see everything, including contents of folders.
For privacy, just setup multiple users and you're away.
If you need all users to access 1 join share then:
1) create a share that both users have read/write access to.
2) in cloud station > sharing tab tick "enable" on the share.
Encryption - https://www.synology.com/en-global/knowledgebase/DSM/tutoria…
@BanannaMan: Just keep in mind that unless you want to set the NAS to automatically mount/decrypt (defeats the point really) then you will need to manually mount it anytime the NAS turns off/on. I forgot to do this once and couldn't figure out why Cloud Sync kept failing!
@jace88: I had a look at a YouTube video and it seems at least with the version mentioned, it doesn't seem to offer what I wanted. The encryption is to protect against someone who tried to access a secured folder after a power cycle. Completely useless if already mounted and running.
What I'd like to do is have files only the folder owner could see, and they could do so simply by logging into their account from a desktop, web browser or mobile app. No one else could see their files.
Doesn't seem Synology Drive offers this. Not sure if Synology Drive 2.0 does.
Synology Drive 2.0 Beta Release
https://community.synology.com/enu/forum/7/post/125912
@quarrymaster: The functionality you are describing is the native user access controls which are already built in. Basically you assign ownership/access rights ("permissions") per network share ("shared folders") with the user accounts, and when they sign in whether it be into DSM or through their phone or Windows Explorer, they'll only see the folders which they're entitled to see. Refer to https://www.synology.com/en-global/knowledgebase/DSM/help/DS…
When people talk about encryption in this context, it's usually around the data being encrypted "at rest" - i.e. if someone physically stole the hard drive or the NAS (i.e. power becomes disconnected) then can they read the data on the drive. This protects against things like recovery services and is where you're focus is on physical theft.
(note the quotation marks above are to use terminology consistent with Synology and help you when you're googling)
@jace88: So a user’s content can still be “seen” with direct access to the NAS? Is it possible to ensure no one, even with admin privileges can access “personal” data?
@quarrymaster: I believe it's possible to set administrator to No access for a shared folder so that even if it's mounted, they can't access it. I think you'd also need to encrypt it too. I haven't tried this myself though.
When you create a new shared folder, if the access permissions for admin (or a user belonging to the administrators group) are set to No access, then admin (or the user belonging to the administrators group) will only be able to see the folder by going to Control Panel > Shared Folder.
Source: https://www.synology.com/en-global/knowledgebase/DSM/tutoria…
Looks good, I am a small business who creates media for other businesses. Would this be a recommended NAS system? I currently have the 3, 2, 1 system (3 x copies, 2 x different types, 1 off-site). However, I'm currently buying hard drive after hard drive and storing them away. I see it has slots for two SSD's which is handy, 4 standard slots, 56 TB (126 TB expansion). Are there any downsides to this unit?
What storage is recommended to go into these?
Thank you in advance!