looking for a new nas

[Enquiries]

Looking for a little help finding a new NAS (maybe a lot of help)


I currently have a home made system using open zfs in a 4u rack case with 12x 8gb drives.
It works fine but I am not strong with linux and it can be confusing for me. Mainly when I want to change things I have to re-learn everything because I already forgot it.


I have had a couple of Drobo's in the past and like them but the seem to be not popular/bad support/maybe the company is close to going out of business. I don't know just don't seem well supported.


I would like at least a 12 drive unit since that is what I already have. I have all my dvd's and blu-rays backed up on to HD's along with decades of home movies and 3 generations worth of photos oh yes and my cd music collection.


I have a bunch of old computers with system a drive and data drive(s) I am thinking going forward I will just build computers with 1 system drive and use the nas for all data not just media storage. (de-duping might help here)


I guess I would prefer a rack mounted system but I don't have a problem with putting a shelf in my rack and a desktop model on it.


I have a 10g switch and want 10g either onboard or with a NIC.
If NIC I think 2 pcie slots would be desirable, because I'm thinking of adding m.2


I am currently looking at Synology and Qnap but I am open to others if suggested. I am currently in data overload and getting confused.


Not sure which is better btrfs or zfs (Quts hero) ???
If a 12gb drive with 6gb of data goes down how low will it take to rebuild under each system ? Estimate.


Qnap need a system space so I either loose 2 of the 12 hard drives or need a unit with additional 2.5” ssd slots or the m.2 add in card. (but I see on the Qnap web site that it has 5gb dual boot os protection flash memory) **What is this for**. Where as Synology keeps it system spread over all drives.


I am not sure if I would benefit from ssd or m.2 cache ???


I like SHR-2 (because of Drobo) but it seems to be being phased out or not available on ½ of their machines.


I like raid-6 because I've read some horror stories about rebuilding a raid-5 after loosing one drive the system failing because of the heavy usage the rebuilding puts on the remaining 4 drives.


I was thinking about starting with 4x 12Tb drives and increasing with additional 12Tb drives as time goes on.


<<< Check my thinking here >>>

From what I understand or think I understand Synology and btrfs would allow me to increase my raid 1 drive at a time by expanding the storage pool capacity.
I think this cannot be done with QTS Hero / zfs ?????????? Am I right that with zfs I can only increase capacity is by starting over with 5 drives then starting over with 6 drives and so on or add a second vdev the smallest being a 2 disk raid1.
This makes me confused and I can't figure out which is better.


Do I need cache ??? How much under each system ???


Plex: I haven't used plex I just go to my movies folder find the one I want and then cast to device (tv).
Watching your videos you seem to prefer Qnap for plex.


Photos: Watching your videos I like Synology for the information available on each photo and the facial recognition seem like it might be better. Does Synology have a world map where photos were taken ????? like Qmaggie.


I don't like the Synology units that can only use propriety Synology drives only (even if they are the best I don't like to be forced to use them) But all the new models use them and my guess is that this will continue in the future. Do I want an older model that will be discontinued sooner ??????????


some models I have looked at.

10g

rackstation rs3618xs 2 pcie Xeon 4 core 8 to 64 $2600 / 8gb

rackstation rs3617rpxs 2 pcie Xeon 4 core 8 to 64 $3350 / 8gb

rackstation rs3621rpxs 2 pcie synology drives only Xeon 6 core 8 to 64 $3400 / 8gb

rackstation rs3617xs+ built in and 2 pcie Xeon 6 core 8 to 64 $4600 / 8gb

rackstation rs3621xs+ built in and 2 pcie synology drives only Xeon 6 core 8 to 64 $4600 / 8gb

rackstation rs2418+ 1 pcie shr Atom 4 core 8 to 64 $1700 / 4gb

diskstation ds3617xs 1 pcie Xeon 4 core 16 to 48 $2500 / 16gb

diskstation ds2419+ 1 pcie shr Atom 4 core 4 to 32 $1500 / 4gb

1886xu built in and 3 pcie Xeon 4 core 32 to 128 $3000 / 32gb

1688x build in and 2 pcie and 2 m.2 Xeon 6 core 32 to 128 $2900 / 32gb

1283xu build in and 3 pcie Xeon 6 core 32 to 128 $4500 / 32gb

1277xu build in and 3 pcie Ryzen 8 core 32 to 128 $4000 / 32gb





I like the synology rs2418+

pros:
rackmount,
shr,
inexpensive.

Cons:
already 3 year old model
may be under powered with Atom and 4g but does synology need more power?



I like the qnap 1886xu

pros:
price not too bad for a rack mount
3 open pcie
xeon and 32g
6 ssd for system and cache

cons:
almost double the price of synology





Any guidance you provide will be greatly appreciated.


Steve...

[ed]

DS1621xs+ would be a perfect choice. It features NVMe cache slots as well as 10GbE. Its Xeon CPU can cope with anything you would throw at it. Unlike ZFS you can actually add drives and expand RAID, this is a very useful feature. Having a cache helps with repetitious data. A copy will automatically exist on SSD media. Also, all written data will first go to SSD before it lands on HDD array. This speeds things up.RS3621RPxs / xs+ would be rackmount versions supporting M.2 SSD &amp; 10GbE Combo Adapter Card: E10M20-T1.The software side of things. Synology DS Photo supports MAP, mode, but Moments/Photos only show textual GEO data.When considering Plex, the hardware is very important. And 4K transcoding would require Xeon or similar spec model. But if all TVs are compatible and no transcoding is required then mentioned rs2418+ would do the job.I hope this helps.