10-17-2022, 05:54 PM
(10-17-2022, 11:48 AM)TribalHound Wrote: I think your tight $700 budget might be a little too tight for 2 new synology's to achieve everything your aiming at in addition to extra HDDs.
Also, watch those HDDs you currently have - if they're only desktop / laptop spec then they won't be supported for 24/7 NAS use. Plus you'll need to wipe them to format inside the NAS.
WD Reds or Seagate BaraCuda's are what you really need.
There is always the second hand market, which might get you closer to your end goal on your budget, but the downside is you don't know the history of the device and if it's second hand it'll be an older model so might not have any warranty left or be supported for so long.
The simplest solution would be to get one good quality new NAS the DS218Play (min spec I'd recommend), DS220+ (ideal mid term) or DS720+ (best).
You can make it accessible to both sites (until budget allows for a 2nd NAS) - then keep the 'best' at your main site and ship the lowest spec to your secondary site.
In the interim time, those old HDDs could be used for your backups. For added safety you could keep a copy at your secondary site.
As for JBOD, there's typically no circumstance when this is ever used in NAS without first having a principal RAID array in place.
You can of course use your 2TB + 3TB red in a RAID 1 - only you'll be limited to 2TB of storage until you can replace one / both discs. That'll fill up quite quickly with your 2 MAC backups and cloud storage - but make sure you reserve 10% for snapshots.
NAS snapshots aren't quite as I think you're seeing them. They record the current data / state of the drive - post snapshot they log just the changes, so revert to snapshot is like an 'undo' button that removes all the changes made to your data since it was taken.
Here's a link that explains a little more about Synology Snapshot management:
https://www.synology.com/en-uk/dsm/featu...eplication
Hope this helps.
I think I had Synology’s snapshots conflated with WD’s MyClouds snapshots. I’m meaning local backups. So no just a journal but a method of recovery in case a drive fails (but not a mirror like RAID 1).
The (loose) plan now is to have a DS220j (purchased to lock in a sale price of $150 but plan to return if my research finds it unsuitable) for the backup site with 2 - 10TB WD Reds (sale price of $160 each). 1 of these 10TB drives was going to serve as the remote backup, and one to serve as a local backup for itself, in case of drive (or backup) failure. Was going with a 2 bay for the option of a RAID1 array in the future as initial investment costs are ‘paid-off’, in a manner of speaking. (Perhaps raid for backup location is over-kill… uptime is still not a major priority)
Question: Can a local backup be on an internal drive in a Synology unit?
I understand forgoing Raid is untraditional, but also Raid is not a backup. While the up-time would be welcome, I’m more concerned with retaining the data (home videos). Not for business use, so it being down for a few days for a drive failure is not the end of the world in my book.
I understand this may be a performance issue for the main site (read speed). Not sure by how much though. Definitely thinking of a DS 220+ for the main lately. Thank you for the DS218play suggestion. I might see what those run nowadays and what performance to expect.
The drives (loosely) planned for the mains are indeed WD Red’s (2TB and 3TB). They have a bit of age, but they have spent much of that time sleeping. Given that they are NAS hard drives with a lot of sleep time, I figure they should last a few more years, perhaps longer depending on usage (I understand that’s certainly not guaranteed). Both of those single bay MyClouds had local backups on 2.5 inch drives. Was planning to use them for the same purpose. Also have slept most of their lives. They are not as old as the NAS drives. Figured if one of those dies, I could replace it before the NAS drive dies. Worst case scenario, I’ll have to use the offsite backup to restore if the a 2.5 inch and it’s corresponding NAS drive both die. Could drive it for a local restore depending on the time of year, or pay Comcast overages and wait on a remote restore. Still planning on a JBOD setup for the 2 NAS drives with corresponding local backups on 2.5 inch drives at this point. I plan to potentially make a RAID1 array one day when I replace these old drives, but was going to stick with JBOD and prioritize local and offsite(w/ it’s own local) backups until then.
Questions:
Thoughts on this plan? Will there be significant performance issues with the main unit without a RAID1 array?
I’m sure I still have several knowledge gaps here, so please let me know if it looks like I’m missing some key details. Not super experienced with NAS setups yet (only used a WD myCloud for several years), but I’m otherwise fairly savvy I think (IT degree). Seeking council before I lock a plan in place.
Context for the budget:
Also $700 is a goal, not necessarily a hard cap. I’m comfortable going a little over, but I want to stay as close as I can. The goal is to save money over other services (while also factoring energy costs and future Synology device replacements, assuming 8-10 year lifespans of security support). If it doesn’t ‘pay for itself’ in under 7-8 years, I might as well just go with cloud services and put my potential maintenance time to better use if that makes sense. Just letting you know some of the logic behind these plans. Thank you for the reply!