This is wordy SYNOLOGY NAS Questions

[G+_Hagos Rush]

This is wordy. SYNOLOGY NAS Questions

Please keep in mind that I will be doing my own research but want your opinions if you have used their products. Also great if you have another brand you have used.

 

So I want to purchase a new NAS. One that can multi-task and mainly run Plex (while running as a storage device). I am currently using a Mac Mini as a server and all of my data is stored on my 12TB Lacie NAS.

 

I am looking at Snynology. Their products are on every list of "best NAS" along with being able to install and run apps such as the flex server? I use a question mark because I have not found software on Plex.tv’s website and only found rando websites which I am not inclined to actually believe.

 

I am looking at the DS1515

 

So here is what I want to do:

 

1. Expandability (I don't have to purchase a 12 bay setup) but would like a NAS that is flexible enough for hot swap and of course adding additional storage. I currently have 5 bays running Raid 5. Only have 4 drives in 3+1 spare. I don’t mind getting a five bay and scaling such as the DS1515 allows.

 

2. Plex - I understand that your NAS can actually act as a plex server? If this works then I shut down the mini and use it for other things…

 

3. Hardware encryption - I think that the DS1515 has this

 

4. Link Aggregation - I mean duh why would you not want this?

 

5. What is that SSD cache thing I have heard about? Is it compatible with the DS1515

 

6. Backups

 

7. Forever wanted a cloud solution - I believe that the cloud station may be such a system. What are you thoughts and experiences? Do I “need” to have on elf their routers to set up the cloud service remotely?

 

7-1 - I have the Asus RT-AC88U running custom firmware from AsusWRT-Merlin (so badasses) that kicks the pant of the Synology router in my opinion - I am biased as I have never actually used the Synology haha but still

 

8. Heard about their apps which seems pretty legit - thoughts?

[G+_Rud Dog]

Just make sure the software you are looking to use is supported, I purchased single bay WDMycloud it did not support HD HOme run software.

[G+_Benjamin Webb]

Freenas can handle all that. Built up a raidz2 with 6 3TB drives. I run plex.

 

It supports link aggregation (I never use it).

 

No hardware encryption but could just encrypt important stuff is veracrypt. Hardware encryption sounds great until the backplane dies and you can no longer read all of your drives.

 

Supports l2arc with ssd for cache but no point unless running a database on it as most of ZFS is in ram.

 

Supports incremental images at the filesystem level

 

Can attach to a cloud backup service.

 

Rolled my own for $1200 haswell Pentium on server motherboard with 16 GB ECC ram

 

Cons

 

can get pretty nerdy and manual doing things although most can be done without resorting to command line.

 

Need to know what you are doing picking hardware. Mine idles at 40W and is just powerful enough to do anything I need. Some people make it suck too much power and sound loud by picking wrong processor and cooler.

 

 

Closing

Synology is a great solution although I prefer mine due to it being more future proof. I can upgrade/replace any component in it and keep running. I imagine they will abandon old models as all vendors eventually do as well.

 

As for your router my dual core Apu2 wireless router I built myself will destroy anything sold in retail under a grand but that was a way crazier project than a freenas.

 

Technically it is an AC 2900 (two 2.4/5 ghz radios selectable at 1300 mbps max and one N 2.4/5 ghz radio at 300 mbps max). Only 2 sets 3×3 mu mimo instead of one 4x4 though. I don't know the meaning of overkill.

[G+_Ben Reese]

I like the DIY approach of XPenology or FreeNAS, but if I was to purchase than Synology would almost certainly be it. If Plex is what you're after, Synology has a selection of NAS boxes that will support hardware transcoding.

 

For hot swappable drives... Synology is, Qnap should be, XPenology and FreeNAS probably are (YMMV on DIY).

-Just my 2¢

[G+_Benjamin Webb]

Software transcoding produces better results but any Linux based hardware past haswell support Intel quicksync acceleration but freenas BSD so not so much.

 

I transcode from 1080P full bitrate blu ray to 720P over internet no problem with my Haswell Pentium.

 

Would be interesting to see an atom try to quicksync 4K h.264 to 720P.

 

I know my Haswell has basically no chance at that in software.

[G+_Hagos Rush]

Benjamin Webb HAH It is clear that overkill is not part of your vocabulary. You built your own router?? That, my friend takes skill and know how - no pun intended.

 

I have toyed with the idea of building my own NAS much for the reason that you have mentioned upgradability, ability to run your own apps. I have built my own computers in the past and I assume that building your own NAS is similar?

 

Any particular build you used or recommend?

 

What if any is the maintenance like?

Do you use peripherals such as cameras that can record to your NAS?

 

As for the DIY router that I will leave to the professionals like yourself. I would open pandora's box and get lost :)

 

Also, thanks for your response.

[G+_Hagos Rush]

Ben Reese Thank you

[G+_Benjamin Webb]

Pretty much the same as building a computer with goal being keep the power low and have room for lots of hard drives.

 

I could give you my old part list but just about everything is obsolete by now.

 

Have not tried any camera stuff. Imagine if you find a camera that writes to a Windows file share and your good.

 

No real maintenance. Keep dust out of it. It runs a scrub by itself. Checks the checksum of each file against its copy and repairs once a month. It will email me if a drive goes bad or it is on UPS.

 

UPS set up to shut computer down at 20% power then shut itself off.

 

Get an annoying security email once a week that is blank that I have yet to chase down. Only complaint so far. Can run mythTV as well but had to compile that myself do in a jail (do not suggest).

[G+_Benjamin Webb]

As for router do not blame you on that one. There were even power tools involved to mount antennas. Uses 10 watts and the funny part is that it is a smaller form factor than the new Synology on the last show although mine is much uglier and only 3 ports although could make two wan if I wanted to.

[G+_Benjamin Webb]

Here is a recent Freenas build

 

forums.freenas.org - All your X11SSH-F questions answered here!

 

I'm cheap so would probably cut the ram down to 2X8 and get a cheap skylake pentium that supports ECC or maybe i3. Was not clear if Kaby is supported yet by Freenas but is supported with bios update on this MB. And USB boot was fixed in 9.10 which is current stable.

 

Use whatever you want for hard drives as freenas does not descrimate but suggest they all be the same drive. Also suggest even number for raidz2 (basically raid6) and odd for raidz (basically raid 5). Need to increase size of all drives to make pool bigger.

[G+_Hagos Rush]

Benjamin Webb Thanks, Ill check it out. What do your read/write speeds look like w/o link aggregation? And may I ask why no aggregation? Personal choice or other reason?

 

I am going to set up a Mac Pro (redundant backup), Mac Mini, x2 13" MBP,x 1 15" MBP to back up via time machine over the network and as such think that Aggregation would be a benefit. +1 for FreeNAS supporting time machine backup :)

[G+_Benjamin Webb]

My primary use is streaming video and encoding so I never max out gigabit speed and the WD red I used are not particularly fast. Figure maybe 150 MB/s read and 75 MB/s write so not worth it for me.

 

Granted if the file is cached in ram it is super fast so would get a boost over first 5 GB transfered or so if picked recently used file or writing to the drive.

 

My netgear switch does support it but currently have only two wired client computers. One media center pc and one gaming rig. Honestly use my fire tv stick most of the time now so really only one that wouldn't be restricted in speed.

[G+_Rich Fowler]

Newegg just had a sale on the Lenovo TS140 yesterday. I picked one up for a Freenas build after thinking about it for a while. It runs a Xeon E3 1225, which is a nice little CPU for doing Freenas, plus it runs ECC RAM. Parting out my own would have been more fun, but this will do for now.

[G+_Peter Hanse]

Been using a Synology 713+ for 2+ years now. Works well had a few issues mostly after updates. Cloud sync failed after update to version 6 and took 1-2 months to get fixed for us. We run security station with 8 camera, file station for business file storage, DS cloud, hyper backup to backup full to Amazon drive encrypted $60 a year unlimited storage, mail server 5 users, video and audio station.

 

So it does a lot for a little unit really want a second one to act as backup for first.

 

For the money I can't complain to much as they have upgraded software and keep it fairly open to how you want to use it. Even have docker so you can run what ever you want.

[G+_Hagos Rush]

Peter Hanse holy wow. That's awesome. It's good to know these things are workhorses

[G+_Peter Hanse]

Hagos Rush when I selected it was upgrading from OS X server since Apple stoped developing. Looked and Synology, Qnap, and open source to run on pc box but was sick of having to try to make shit work so went with Synology.

[G+_Benjamin Webb]

Peter Hanse As a guy who makes shit work for a living I understand the feeling. Many times it is built in features that work vs cheaper but more flexible.

 

The question is if the flexibility is worth the pain. I for one embrace the pain fully but realise Synology is a good product.

[G+_Peter Hanse]

Benjamin Webb I think Synology is good balance of just works and flexibility. Since you can run docker and their is other sources for apps you are not restricted just to what Synology official supports. But I still keep my eye open for other solutions especially in open source areas. With this topic been looking at what Synology currently offers and happy to see faster and better units. Like 716+II which would be good for this topic for video transcoding and can use expanding unit to add more HD past the 2 available. Only item I wish Synology would

Add to video station is TV runner in USA market since it still does not support.

[G+_Hagos Rush]

Peter Hanse I didn't even know here was a third party application source for Synology. Am I to assume that it is not on their website and somewhere else?

[G+_Peter Hanse]

Hagos Rush Yep a few sources I have found.

Adminer, CouchPotato, Disk Utils, Feng Office, ffmpeg, Git, Git Server, GNU PG, OwnCloud,

synocommunity.com - SynoCommunity

 

Java, OpenRemote, Mincraft, Craft Bucket, CrashPlan, SANE backends, BLISS,

http://packages.pcloadletter.co.uk/

 

HD Home Run, TVHeadend

http://syno.dierkse.nl/

 

But from what I am seeing you may be better using Docker for these to keep isolation of packages and ease of start and stop of them.

[G+_Peter Hanse]

forgot the synocommunity.com - SynoCommunity shows a how to add other sources to your package center. It is very simple of just adding to your sources list.

[G+_Benjamin Webb]

Synology is mostly open source linux. They are even required to release most of it under GPL which they begrudgingly do with no instructions lol. Since Freenas is BSD more software will be compatible with Synology if you don't mind compiling.

 

Never thought of running docker on it. That is way better then even the freenas jails although looks like a little effort to get it going.

[G+_Hagos Rush]

Peter Hanse awwwww sugar. This is very very exciting. I am getting a piece of hardware that will do exactly what I need it to do. And the apps to deal with the extras

[G+_Peter Hanse]

I would not say Synology is the only one I would look at Qnap looks very interesting and both are Tawain companies. So I trust a bit more then China company and Taiwan does not typical get in bed with China.

 

Benjamin Webb At least it is released source so it can be inspected better then other companies of our past IE Microsoft, Novel, Sun, apple, ect that source would be very hard to get.

[G+_Hagos Rush]

Peter Hanse symbology is not the only one I am looking as yet. There is also a NetGear ReadyNAS and QNAP TS-431 that are being reviewed. Best bang for buck and expandability are key.

 

I am looking for simplicity and flexibility.