Hi Robert,

big fan and love your youtube series on all things NAS!

I am currently rocking a Synology DS218 with one(!) 4TB Ironwolf. Main usage of the unit is the storage of my movies collection (by far most impact space wise), home videos and photographs. To watch the movies I actually use my Nvidia Shield as Plex server, so the performance of my Synology was never an issue (however before I got the Shield I had sometimes troubles with the playback of some formats on my DS218).

After one year of use my 4TB are almost full and I am thinking about upgrading.
I had several ideas but can't quite decide what would be the best one as I lack experience due to this being my first NAS.

Option A: buy another 4TB Ironwolf and run JBOD. Cheapest but no security (SHR would mean no gains in storage space) and in a year or so I will run out of space again.

Option B: buy two off 8TB and either use JBOD or SHR. If I decide to go for SHR I would have the security but "lose" 8TB and will have a similar situation as in Option A storage space wise (plus, what do I do with the old 4TB which is still perfectly fine?)

Option C: buy a DS920+/DS420j and 3x 4TB. A bit more expensive but I will have security and the cap will be 12TB storage, 4TB security and overall cost 600EUR for 420j and 800EUR for DS920+.

Option D: buy a DS920+/DS420j and 3x 8TB. Most expensive but I will have 20TB of space, 8TB security. I could replace the 4TB drive some time later and get to 24TB space/8TB security.

So in my eyes the only viable ones are Option C and Option D. The dilemma is as follows:

- does it make sence to get a new NAS and slowly transfer to 8TB drives on a new NAS? Or would buying additional 4TB instead of 8TB drives make more sense?
- Is there a strong reason to go for DS920+ instead of DS420j: pay 200 more quid and have more flexibility, performance and features (and have a possible replacement for if Shield starts acting up)?

I hope you can help, thanks!

Kind Regards
Max

Hello how are you doing, I watched lot of your videos on nas and I like your content, I am ready to buy a nas but I am confused in a brand new 220+ vs used 718+ The difference in price is $110 (718 being cheaper around 2 years old) I will be mainly using to backup pictures and videos from my Mac to it and backing up 3 iPhones and MacBook and iMac to it, might be running an email server for me but that’s not decided yet. If you can please let me know i would really appreciate that.

Thanks
Parry

Discuss: 4 Bay NAS - Before You Buy <br><iframe width='560' height='315' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/HZkngCmj15Y' frameborder='0' allow='accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture' allowfullscreen></iframe>

I have purchased the DS920+ and two Seagate Exos X16 16TB SAS 6Gb/s 3.5&quot; 7200 RPM Enterprise HDD (ST16000NM002G) drives. I cannot get the unit to recognize the drives. Any advice?

Hi, I recently replaced my 3 WD60EFRX with 3 WD80EFAX-68KNBN0 - firm. 81.00A81. As is well known these discs are actually 7200 rpm, and I find them noisy even if they don't read or write.
Are there any drives in the 8-12TB range that are quieter than these WD80EFAX-68KNBN0?
Thank you so much for your reply and for your wonderful site !!

Bought myself a Qnap 872xt, and am searching for a dock, owc new tb4 looks very promising.

But reading your article again, i just thought, hey it has a HDMI port 10gbe and numerous USB ports and has the USB sharing app.

Would it also be possible to 'power' my UHD screen with 60hz so i can get rid of unplugging all the USB and HDMI cables, and just use the TB3 (alas 20...) port of my Asus UX651ud.

I know it's a strange question, but the only stupid question is the one you don't ask, no?

Hope i got you interested in this out of the nasbox thinking ?

Sincere greatings
Ernst Anepool
from the Netherlands

P. S. Keep up the good work, it was your review who made me decide for the Qnap.

Hi Robbie,
I have been watching your YT videos and I would like to ask you for your advice on data management.
I am a photographer and have 15TB of photos on multiple external drives. With the files getting bigger I add almost 5TB of photos to the collection each year. You can probably imagine that my Lightroom catalogue is a huge mess with all these drives.
So I was thinking of buying a NAS so that I can reorganise my LR catalogue and have all my photos organised on one device and keeping the external drives as a backup. I would like to process my photos in LR on the NAS (keeping the LR catalogue on my laptop)
I have always been working on a Windows desktop, but I have recently bought the Macbook Pro 13inch M1 laptop. My old computer is of no use to me anymore as it is not powerful enough to run the latest version of LR on it. So after having bought a new camera I can't proces my photos because I need the latest LR version for that. So I am a bit stuck at the moment.
My photos are on external drives NTFS format so my laptop wouldn't be able to work with them in LR.
Besides which NAS would be the right one for me I have questions like:
Is a NAS the best option for me?
Can I setup a NAS myself (I very much doubt it)
How to get my photos on the NAS and make them work for Windows and Apple? (in case I might switch back to Windows)
Will it be possible to process the photos in LR from a NAS?
Is a NAS easy to move...because I will probably move house a few times the next couple of years?
I have absolutely no computer programming skills and even the Macbook Pro is new to me and the first time that I work with Apple.
I hope you can help me.
Thanks in advance
Linda

My 6 bay Netgear Readynas Ultra 6 has failed. I believe the drives are okay. The NAS box is unreachable.

I'd like to move those 6 drives of mixed capacities (2TB, 3TB, 4TB, etc.) to a new enclosure.

I do not have a backup.

Although I like the QNAP capabilities I don't believe QNAP supports a mixed capacity scenario.

My thinking is moving to a Synology DS1621+.

Can you please confirm that I should be able to migrate this enclosure without data loss.

Also are there other alternatives that would support my scenario.

Thank you for your kind advice.
-Steve

Hi there,

Thanks for sharing your experience on Youtube and here. I have used the information extensively.
I've had to reset my DS220+ as my passwords expired... Will have to look at the setting for that.
I reset it with a long push of the reset button and had the beep and let go. I was able to log in and change passwords for all user accounts including the admin and administrator.
Now however my NAS is not connecting. I suspect that the IP address has changed. My Unifi DM is seeing 2 NAS devices and both have different IP addresses that are not what they used to be. I've tried to connect via Web Assistant and Synology Assistant and off and on they are visible but cannot connect.
I've since moved the NAS to the PC and tried to plug it in via ethernet but don't see it on the system anywhere.
I'm at a bit of a loss and was hoping that you might be able to steer me in the right direction.
I've read your article on connecting to PC, but am not quite sure how to make the IP addressed able to work. I've had to unplug my ethernet LAN cable and switch to wifi since I only have the one LAN port and the NAS is plugged in there now.
I certainly would appreciate any help you may be able to provide.
Thank you.
Todd

Discuss: Western Digital UltraStar HDD Noise Level Test <br><iframe width='560' height='315' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/THYPA5FMiD4' frameborder='0' allow='accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture' allowfullscreen></iframe>