Hi storage experts

From a Synology NAS I am retiring two IronWolf HDDs (not IronWolf Pro) and I would like to use one or both drives in an enclosure as local USB storage for my Mac. (Ideally I'd use both HDDs a RAID 1 set in that USB enclosure.)

I don't want a NAS going over the network, just plain direkt USB storage. Can you recommend an enclosure for this?

Many thanks,
Walter

Hello!
Silent version of the QNAP NAS TVS-h874-i5. In your review https://nascompares.com/2022/12/16/qnap-tvs-h874-nas-review-ultimate-desktop-nas/ you wrote “Noise during operation when fully equipped”.
Tries to make it better:As a first decision toward this goal, I chose the 8-bay case instead of the 6-bay case, even though I don't plan on using more than 6-bay cases (except in case of failure). The larger case has more air and larger fans and maybe I can replace these fans with quieter ones. QNAP's specs are very poor, so I don't know if they use 4 or 3 pins and PWM or other connectors.
Next approach: Replace the 250W power supply with the 350 power supply or even a Seasonic SS-400H1U 400 Watt, but again I don't know the specs of the PSUs check which fits and has the same connectors.
Do you think modifying these components can be successful and do you have the missing specifications?

Im planning to buy my first NAS mostly for photography. I work exclusively on an Apple environment, and even having a Mac I mostly use an iPad Pro.
Photos storage I a part for my own ones as an enthusiast photographer, and the other part to share the family photos collection.
I was planning to get the DS224+ or the TS-262, but cancelled my order as it’s a bit pricier than my budget.
Your advice would be very welcome.

I've been following your YT channel for a few years and always enjoy the insightful and useful reviews and information you provide. So I thought you'd be the perfect person to answer my question.

I have a huge archive of RAW photos, around 40-50TB, it grows year-on-year. I store them on a Synology 8-Bay NAS but I think this might be overkill as I only access images shot in the last year or so on any regular basis. My archive of images & videos pre-2022 remain untouched. It seems a waste of resources to run 8 drives 24/7 to have these files accessible when I might only need to access them once or twice a year.

I have considered getting a smaller, SSD based, NAS to host my more recently shot images from the last year or two and have the rest archived off-line. What would you suggest would be the best way to go with this? I was thinking a Synology extension unit for the old archive which can be switched on and off when needed. But what would you pair this up with?

Hi,

I want to ask IF it's possible to upgrade RAM in Synology DS216j and which model you recommend. The current capacity is 512MB.

OR, maybe it's time to upgrade to the newer Synology (2-bay) device. Do you have any suggestions?

I really appreciate any help you can provide.
Petr

I use my DS1019+ for photo backup, 4 cameras via SS, and using it as my DVR for HDHomeRun. I recently got into running several diff apps using Docker. Lastly, I just tried to do my full backup to my DS218j but the backup of my DS1019 (around 9tb of data) is taking me 10 days!
So my intent is to:
1. Install some 10gb switches to upgrade the newwork.
2. Add a USB dongle to the 1019 to push it to 2.5gbe which is NOT 10 but faster than the 1gb its running at now.
3. Get rid of my DS218j since I'm pretty sure its the bottleneck for these backups.
4. Once I have the new NAS backuped I'll take it off site for incremental backups.

The main issue is that the DS1019 does't have a 10gbe option, with the current list of apps running in containers, I've running at 80% CPU and hitting 100% frequently especially during backup.
I really don't need a super high end system but I would like to invest in something that'll last me a few years.

I have been watching your videos regarding the best NAS for Plex. Right now, I am using my personal desktop PC with an AMD Ryzen 7, 32GB mem, six HDD with media (Movies and TV Shows). I have a few family members and friends that access Plex outside of my home. With the recent increase in cost for Streaming services, more family members would like to access my Plex server. Which NAS do you recommend? Keep in mind... I do not plan to do anything else, but run Plex on the NAS.

Does adding SSD cache for writing received files from backups benefit input performance?

Hello,
I want to make a File Server for a small business for around 5-10 users.
Should i go with
Synology DS223 with 2 IronWolf 1TB 5400 rpm HDD in RAID 1
or
QNAP TS-264 with 2 CRUCIAL MX500 1TB RAID 1?

I currently have a 12 year old Netgear Readynas Ultra 6, I upgraded the firmware to the last version of the software which got me a lot more milage out of it, but the intel Atom cpu is too slow to run plex, and at this point it's capacity is maxed out, it takes a week to do a parity rebuild and volume expansion.

Currently it is running 4 20 tb drives and 2 22 tb drives for a total raid 5 (X:raid) volume of ~93tb once it finishes it's current re-sync and expansion.

I hesitate to even try putting 24 or 30 tb drives in it a i don't think it will like HAMR or SAS, no idea if when sata versions with CMR will be available and it's pretty dang full, only about 8TB free, so needless to say I think it's time for a new NAS.

I've never built a PC before despite being technical, I could probably manage but picking compatible parts always has me a little nervous, I like UNRAID and think I've seen enough videos I could manage that well enough, so building a NAS is possible, but I have somewhat specific requirements from the builds I've seen.

On the other hand, the main nas I am considering is the ds2422+ from synology. 

Pros: 
- 12 bays, double what I have now, plus expansion chassis
- SHR tech so I can add and replace mixed capacity drives as I go as I've been used to for the last 12 years on the netgear
- right form factor, low (relatively) power
- versatile software, more than I will ever use
- ready to go out of the gate

Cons:
- Price
- Features I don't need or are likely to use
- 108 tb single volume limit?  Unless that's been updates with later version of DSM
- not going to use their drives, EXOS is just too price compelling and higher capacity
- would want to instantly upgrade to 10gbe and nvme slots with the card

for a diy nas, I would need unraid, so I can continue my JBOD array of mixed capacity disks, even with the performance hit I take vs traditional raid

Pros:
- flexible hardware
- nearly unlimited single volume size? (28+2 drive limit not withstanding)
- Likely way cheaper to build, but how much exactly? half?

Cons:
- finding it hard to find a case in a form factor I like
- can't run multiple volumes if I wanted to, but shouldn't need to
- not experienced with pc building
- limited software ecosystem 

My requirements/wants:

- desktop form factor 
- low power ish
- low noise ish
(if not for those 3 factors I'd go 45 drives or a refurb supermicro server case) 
- at least 10+ bays, really 12 seems good
- really prefer hot swap cages
- 2.5-10gbe 2+ ports
- ability to have mixed drives used efficiently
- ideally 1 single volume (mapped network drive)

so Basically it comes down to the ds2422+ (or some future refresh that still supports SHR and maybe a larger single volume) 
or something like a fractal define 7 and give up the hot swap cages and have to source enough drive trays for it
or something else I don't know about, that's where you guys come in hopefully?

I can find 8 bay small cases for a build with hot swap, didn't find any non server, desktop ones that did more?

Oh, use case, basically I just want a large, network accessible single array for a media library that is always on and independent of my desktop pc running.

not worried about Upnp or dlna though that would be nice to have, I'd like to run plex again without the cpu getting choked out with background tasks, not even really worried about transcode.  Not that worried about other things like synced backups, and such like that.

I just want a big network available drive volume.  

Do I have my options pretty well figured out, or is there a diy solution I'm missing?