Hi! I am looking to buy 3 drives for RAID 5 setup. I am close to ironwolf series besides WD red NAS cause I've concerns about SMR WD drives. As far as I know Ironwolf series is CMR drives. I have an old PC and windows 2019 Server installed on. What HDD do you suggest for the setup?

Server setup Intel 4970K, 32GB RAM, 512GB Samsung 560 pro SSD .
Do you think is better a separate RAID controller than motherboard's ? Asrock H97 M killer fatal1ity

Thank YOu

I have brought a Qnap TS-251D and i was wondering what the maximum amount of RAM that you would install into it. I know that officially 8 is the maximum but i have read on your blog that people and yourselves have tried 16 and 32 but i was just wondering what you would reccommend. I use it for media servers and for plex streaming and transcoding and very soon there shall be four users using it.

Hello,

I currently have the 4-bay QNAP TS453mini (the original one I believe) w/ 8GB of RAM which I bought back in July 2016. At the time I also had bought 4x 4TB WD Red Pro HDD drives (64MB cache). My current configuration is in RAID 5. I mainly use this NAS as a media hub to watch TV shows and Movies.

About a year and half ago, one of my drives failed and was replaced. I had tried back in 2016 to buy from different shops to mix up the batches, just in case. 2 days ago, another one of my drives failed..or at least showed a few block errors, and therefore my NAS is in currently in a downgraded situation.

I've been going through a few of your articles/reviews over the past few days and reading up on the recent use of SRM affecting WD 2-6TB HDD. It got me thinking, and it's making me reconsider whether I should buy new 4TB HDD's of the Red Pro, the Gold version (256 MB cache) or even try out the Seagate Ironwolf Pro version (128 MB cache). I've also been reading blogs and for the time being there seems to be less evidence that the lower capacity Seagate HDD's are using SRM...So, i'm in a bit of bind.

Pricewise all three 4TB HDD versions are nearly the same (160-170 USD). I did look at doubling up and buying 8TB HDD's (to move away from the use of SRM..if that's actually the case with the WD drives), but that's not the same budget. SSD's would be a sweet deal as well, but that's even more expensive, maybe in a few years!

Here are a few questions for you, if you have time to spare:

- What would you recommend? haha. I know the WD Gold are recommended for NAS's above 4 bays...but they're the same price as the Red pro's right now! They also seem more robust based on reviews.
- What's your take on using different brands in the same NAS? 2x WD + 2x Seagates? Or even 2x Red Pro + 2x WD Gold? Using different sized HDD's isn't efficient, but if drives have difference cache sizes, would that have an impact?
- Do you know if the newer WD Gold versions are affected by the use of SRM?
- When my 1st drive failed, I had shutdown my NAS to avoid any further damage. I haven't done so this time around. What do you suggest? I originally found out one of my disks was failing when I rebooted prior to installing the latest firmware...let's just say, it took a while before I had access again after the reboot.
- Should I consider other brands (Hitachi...which is ultimately WD)?
- Concerning the use of SSD's, I read somewhere that the RAM of your NAS could limit the size of each individual SSD I could use. Is that true?

Sorry for bombarding you with all these questions. I'd greatly appreciate your feedback if you've got a bit of time.

Cheers,

Jon

Hi,

I am looking between TS 231k and TS 230.

So, could you provide me your suggestion.

I am regular Home user with little bit heavy usage with file station.

Currently I am having Qnap TS 119P II (2012 ) model.

Please suggest.

Regards,
Utpal

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Wondering if I should pull the trigger on a top of the line Synology 4-5 bay unit now, or if I should wait for whatever they have coming around the corner assuming I wont have to wait more than a few months. Just don't want to get something now then a nicer model comes out to replace it right away. Thanks for the advice, and keep the content coming

Hi,
I have a couple of questions about transcoding, plex and nas, sorry if im bothering.

1. How does the plex pass transcoding works? If I want my nas to be able to transcode on the go with my tv. Since I watch I lot of shows with subtitles i pretty much always have to do transcoding. Do i need this feature or does software transcoding works as well? (Example with ds218 or ds218+)

2. I just got the ds218 and I think I made the wrong choice. I don’t have the plex pass so I don’t know if it’s why its not working, but the server can’t even handle 720p transcoding on the go. Its always buffering and lagging on my tv. My question is : do I need a intel cpu to do any of transcoding on the go (regardless of plex pass)?
If yes would the ds218+ be a better choice and do you think that upgrading ram will make a difference. (Im also planning on running surveillance cameras, ftp, torrent station and for sure plex server) not necessarily at the same time

Thanks a lot

Antoine

Hi there, I'm wondering why there isn't an All Flash NAS by Synology with form factor only 2,5" SSD and RAID F1 in Desktop-Version, like the DS620slim+, but with better performance (quad core etc.). Now, that Synology wants to bring their own SSD on market. I need such a system for my mail server and for secure SSD storage. My Syonology stands in the living room and shouldn't make any noise there... And why comes not every new Synology with FS 1 RAID?
Thanks a lot for any reply and kind regards,
Robert

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