(04-17-2025, 03:50 PM)Z1R Wrote: I have been investigating an updated replacement for an EOL NetGear RN422 initially acquired back in 2019 !

With basic specs of Intel® Atom C3338 Dual Core Processor, 2GB DDR4, Drive Bays 2

No further explanation warranted lol !

 

The two units I put to scrutiny are the Asustor 5404T and the QNAP TS-464 after much scrutiny I decided upon the QNAP TS-464 based on my use case and what appears to be a vastly larger amount of peer based user community resources – albeit understanding the configuration terminology etc. may be a steeper hill to climb !

I am posting this plethora of questions for one simple reason I rest firmly in the school of “Fail to Plan …Plan to Fail” !

 

The hardware configuration I plan on assembling consist of the following and I plan to use the NAS as both a media server for locally stored media files hopefully via Jelly Fin and for serving files for primarily PDF’s MS Office .docx, .pptx, .xlsx etc.

Ø  QNAP TS-464 4-Bay vendor states pre-configured with 8GB of RAM and QTS 5.0.1 Operating System pre-installed , Intel Celeron N5095

Ø  Crucial RAM 16GB Kit (2x8GB)

Ø  Seagate IronWolf Pro 10Tb NAS Internal Hard Drive HDD x 2

Ø  Western Digital 2TB WD Red SN700 NVMe M.2 SSD x 2

 

HERE ARE MY QUESTIONS STATED AS SUCCINCTLY AS POSSIBLE

I have studied to the point of information overload on what might be the best way to configure the drives. In regard to storage pools, volumes thick, thin, static etc. Note I have little to no desire to use caching as I see very little benefit from it due to its primary focus on serving up small files quicker etc.

I am looking for suggestions/advice on QNAP ecosystem configuration/provisioning  based on my stated use?

 

Since the retailer of the QNAP TS-464 is an unpopulated enclosure and the vendor proclaims the OS QTS 5.0.1 is pre-installed this begs to question were exactly is it installed? When I upgrade the memory to 16 GB and install the new drives will I have to reinstall the OS ? or is the OS installed on the 4GB Flash Memory simply requiring me boot it up and add the drives once the OS has loaded ? If the latter is the case is there a wy I can force th OS to load to the NVME’s to use them for the smoother /faster operational speed they might bring to the table ?

 

Is the hardware I have chosen the best use of $$$ seeing my minimalist understanding of what the two NVME’s will bring to the table in terms of daily use would I be better off expanding the HDD capacity to 4 x Seagate IronWolf Pro 10Tb NAS Internal Hard Drives configured in a RAID 5 configuration were I could gain the additional storage/file hosting of 30Tb and utilizing one 10Tb to store parity information while dropping the NVME’s ? Thereby creating and environment with good balance between data protection, increased practical useable capacity, and speed ? I have had very good luck with the Seagate IronWolf PRO’s to date !

 

Thanks in advance for reading my unbelievably lengthy post !

• Use Jellyfin as a local media server.
  
• Host and serve documents (PDF, DOCX, XLSX, PPTX)—general file sharing.
  
• No need for caching or heavy VM/Container use.
  

Quote:So when you add your drives and power up for the first time, QNAP will boot into QTS and guide you through setting up volumes and storage pools.

• No need to reinstall anything manually.
  
• When you upgrade RAM and add disks, QTS will still boot normally from the internal flash.
  

• You can use NVMe drives for:
  • Read/Write Cache (not your priority)
    
  • Storage Pool (this could make sense if you want a super-fast space for things like Jellyfin metadata, small files, or temp files)
    
  • System volume (apps and containers) – optional.
    

Quote:If you're not going to run multiple containers, databases, or VMs, using NVMe for a dedicated pool is probably overkill for your use case.

• Option A:
  • 2x 10TB IronWolf Pro (RAID 1)
    
  • 2x 2TB NVMe
    
• Option B:
  • 4x 10TB IronWolf Pro in RAID 5
    

• RAID 5 with 4x10TB = ~30TB usable and protection from 1-drive failure.
  
• Better overall value for a media server and general file serving.
  
• No wasted NVMe slots if you’re not using them for caching or intense app workloads.
  

• Create one Storage Pool using your RAID group.
  
• Create a Thick Volume for flexibility: allows snapshotting, space quotas, but doesn't suffer the overhead of thin volumes.
  
• Enable shared folders for your media and documents.
  

Quote:⚠️ Avoid “Static Volumes” unless you want to skip snapshots entirely and are going for maximum performance (usually not needed here).

• Make sure to update QTS to the latest version after initial setup.
  
• RAM upgrade to 16GB is great – Jellyfin benefits from caching in RAM, and future-proofing is always good.
  
• Use the multimedia console to control indexing/scanning – disable things you don’t need.
  
• Consider external backup (USB drive, or cloud) for critical documents.