I know this topic has been covered alot here but as the topics are dated <6months I just wanted a fresh perspective incase things have moved on / anything new on market.
Situation:
Finally about to buy a 4 Bay Synology NAS. (open to recommendations of where to buy)
Disks:
What disks are best, I see alot of topics about iron wolf but whats the different versions - what to avoid, what should buy etc?
I bought a 6 bay not too far back, and filled it with 4TB WD Red Plus drives. I sourced the NAS from Scorptec. Chose the Red Plus for no particular reason, though I did read somewhere that they're slightly quieter than the Iron Wolf drives (Iron Wolves?). I also wanted to steer clear of SMR, and there was some confusion for WD customers a while back on that (see https://blog.westerndigital.com/wd-red-nas-drives/).
Really loving the DS1621+ though. It just sits in my 'server cupboard', and does what it needs to do. I rarely hear the 6 WD drives it's spinning. I have it powered via a cheap UPS (CyberPower VP 700VA), and it all plays together nicely. According to the UPS, the NAS sucks around 70W when it's busy.
I sourced my drives from Amazon (when the price was good), and also Futu Online via eBay. Amazon was the best experience of the two, with the drives packed nicely in proper boxes (Futu simply wrapped the drives in bubble wrap and put them into a satchel)! $120 is around what I was happy to pay for the 4TB, but Amazon did do better at one point.
WD Red Plus and Red Pro are all CMR, the regular WD Reds are SMR.
IMO the WD Red Plus 6TB are the best compromise of value, cost, reliability, noise, size and future proofing
I've got a WD Red Pro 18TB and it's loud AF compared to my old 3TBs
Yeah…the 6's look good. I did eye them off, but went for the 4TB at the time as best $/GB (when on sale). I haven't touched the sides of the NAS capacity with those - but if/when I start doing more video that might change. Will grab some 6's for my backup NAS at some point in the future.
Funny that the pro is so loud. You'd think it would be quieter…noise is wear.
I have a DS1815+ and bought whatever was the cheapest drives, haven't had any issues. Used for Plex, Sonarr (Docker), Transmission (Docker) and File Shares.
Would love to transition to a DS1621+ at some stage in the future - 8 bays not really necessary with up to 16gb drives.
"8 bays not really necessary with up to 16gb drives"
yup those massive 16gb drives
ahh TB - When i started in IT I was fixing IBM PS/2's with 20mb hard drive.
And only the big companies could afford a 20mb HDD. I remember them days too.
bought whatever was the cheapest drives
If/when I get to data hoarder levels I think this is what I'll do too.
Yeah, you can get more reliable and performant drives, but you should really treat any drive you get as if it is about to die. And if do treat any drive you get as if it is about to die, is it that important that you got Western Digital Green or a Seagate Exos? Not really.
Yes, there are reasons for the premium; but if those reasons aren't important to you (which all essentially boil down to reliability), then why pay the premium?
Thanks for all the advice much appreciated all +1
Read the DataHoarder sub wiki for info: https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/wiki/hardware#wiki_hard…