I have a 216+2 and a 216J (both from you). Both coming upto 3 years old. the +2 runs 24/7 and the 216J runs once a day backing up from the +2. the +2 is in a rack in the house and the j on the wall in the garage in a locked box. All have 3TB WD reds. The J still has its original drives. The +2 is now on its 3rd complete set, all fail with sector errors. WD always replace them but now the guarantee is out, who makes reliable drives these days. I’ve seen you video comparing the different drives, but longevity seems an issue these days.

I retired as the Senior Technical Team Leader for a fortune 10. I’m used to multi-petabyte SANs. I’m looking to set up small NAS system in my home mostly for (automated) backup but some file storage. I occasionally have need to provide large files to outside entities. Looking at the Synology 5 bay but could be talked into other vendors.
Question: You mention in your videos the two 10GBe ports can be aggregated. Can they be split to assign different IPs and ultimately assign specific volumes to IPs? I’d like to have an outward facing FTP but would want that on one IP that would reside in a DMZ on my pfSense box. The other NIC would then be used for in-house volume access.
2nd Question: New to SHR/SHR2. Any pros/cons on using SHR2 vs Raid 5 with a hot spare? (since ZFS doesn’t appear to be an option)

I’ve decided to go with TS-251B (2GB) till today when, checking their website, surprise, there’s a new model out: TS-251D. The latter has better specs, etc but there is something missing: the audio output jack!
Since the QNAP integration with Alexa/Google Assistant for playback is missing or limited (via IFTTT) I was relying on the audio jack to connect my Qnap to a sound system and play control the music playback from the phone.
My questions are:
1. Can i hope Alexa/Google assistant integration playback for music to be improved?
2. Could there be any workaround for music playback if the audio jack is missing
3. Are TS-251D advantages really worth(price-wise are somewhat similar)? Leaving aside the HW specs I take importantly the fact that it’s newer and it will receive updates and support for much longer time…

I work as a freelance composer in the UK, primarily out of my home studio – but the storage needs upgrading.

I’m looking to upgrade from my cluttered array of many external drives to a DAS unit, as I don’t need anything with NAS capabilities – as I’ll only be accessing and using the unit from one location (the studio itself).

Am looking for something I can essentially use as one big single usb capable drive (raid) that I can run everything off (projects, sampler instruments, other multimedia etc). Looking for around 30-40TB worth of storage too and was thinking of going for WD red drives.
Can be a rackmount or standing unit.

Am a little clueless, and it’s very confusing trying to narrow down on good options as I don’t know enough.
Would you be able to fire over some advice?

Subject: Macos (Catalina) backing up to Synology over internet

I’ve been looking online in many places for the best way to get an iMac using Time Machine or another backup app to backup over the internet to my Synology DS412+.
Both ends have a moderate speed of ADSL broadband connection.

I have achieved this using another iMac inside the LAN before and Time Machine and have read that it may be possible to use a VPN (IPSEC) to achieve connection.

Do you have any ideas on the best low cost route please?

TVS-672N RAM upgrade and compatible M.2 SSD cache

I would like to get your opinion before I set it up. I am mainly planning to use this as a Plex media server. I would only have a maximum of 2 users accessing my Plex media via the network at a time, One possibly needing transcoding. I bought the 4 GB model. I was thinking about adding more RAM and/or m.2 SSDs.

Do you think this is necessary or overkill? If you think it’s a good idea, what brand and capacity would you recommend for the memory and the SSDs?

Can add more disks on my Qnap. Migrating from a single disk to RAID1 (mirror) and from RAID1 to RAID5?

TVS-473e / TVS-673e / TVS-873e Ram Upgrade

I can’t find the correct memory upgrade on Qnap compatibility web site for my TVS-473e. I would like to upgrade with 2x 8Gb RAM, above the already placed 2x 2GB APACER..
Do you know where i can find the correct RAM DDR4 260Pin part number, or which compatible one i can buy?

Sync old QNAP with Google Shared Drives

What is the best app to sync QNAP with Google Shared Drives. My IT guy said that it is not possible that you can only sync QNAP with Google My Drive. Is this true? If not, what app do we use on QNAP to do it?

Video Editing NAS 8K Requirements

What we do is video edit, primarily RED 8K footage our projects tend to be 1-2TB in size and real-time editing is a must. We currently have several TB2 and TB3 G-Tech Studio XL’s that we use and edit straight from there. I’ve looked at the DS3617xs and Qnap – TS-1677X and TS-1685-D1521 (although I am not sure what the difference really is other than processor type) I need at least 12 available slots for storage with the ability to upgrade in the future so the TB3 Qnap is out. There are 2-3 editors working on a project at any given time and speed is a big concern of mine as it works well with TB 2&3 connected drives and I don’t want to have things slow down. We are all on 6K iMac’s released last year and would also need to factor in a TB3 to 10Gbe connection and any possible slowdowns with that. Hopefully, that explains my situation and any advice would be great! Keep up the great work!