ADVICE; Synology Raid 5....Need 6 TB free

[Jeannette]

No, I would probably get a Synology with Synology Hybrid RAID (SHR).

 

What kind is that? can you please point m to one you like.

Thanks

[Jeannette]

No, I would probably get a Synology with Synology Hybrid RAID (SHR).

 

Would you have 4TB free to use and another 4TB for protection?

Compare Products - Synology Inc. Network Attached Storage - NEW NAS Experience

[spdif-usb]

Would you have 4TB free to use and another 4TB for protection?

Compare Products - Synology Inc. Network Attached Storage - NEW NAS Experience

No, because my music collection is more than 5 TB and still growing. In other words, it would have to be a relatively expensive Synology (DiskStation DS413j) and I would still require a separate backup.

RAID Calculator - Synology Inc. Network Attached Storage - NEW NAS Experience

[Jeannette]

No, because my music collection is more than 5 TB and still growing. In other words, it would have to be a relatively expensive Synology (DiskStation DS413j) and I would still require a separate backup.

RAID Calculator - Synology Inc. Network Attached Storage - NEW NAS Experience

Since it's very hard to have a great conversation though comments because we don't know one another I would simply say several HIGHLY RESPECTFUL & Appreciative directly to you:

1) Thank you, thank you, thank you.

2) I know where you come from regarding collection and love for music.

3) Back in the late 80s, early 90s my collection consisted of over 15,000 LPs & CDs (in some cases same same in CD, several copies of the same LP), etc, etc.

4) I know have over the equivalent of 40,000 CDs and LPs.

5) I LEARN A LOT FROM YOU!!!!!

6) With LPs I d the same as you do and say what you say.

7) I know have stored over 4TB and need, at least 2-4 more to stay in the safe side.

8) I've been with external HD since 2001! 11 years and going.

9) The best ones hat I still have are Maxtor but through Ethernet, some have lasted over 8 years, never broke.

10) The Maxtor, Omega, Seagate, Netgear, etc (with or without "safe remove") connected though USB Ports have given me tremendous problems, such as having to replace them and start all over again.

11) USB Ports have many limitations regarding performance and Windows keeps losing them.

12) USB Ports have limitations UNLESS one does what you say is best: I huge desktop with many internal HDs, ideal solution.

13) This issue I brought is not a minor one, it's part of the ongoing research of Operations Research and Computers/Network Optimization. My PhD Thesis was in the crossover of OR & Computer Networking Optimization. I did work on this many years ago for the NSA (that was over 20 years ago, I now work in my own business)

 

I still need a simple solution, which would have External HD ready for Streaming and other as "Work in Progress." For this last case USB Drives are very good, I don't thing the same for ready and stable for Streaming.

I would get the drives you recommend (thanks again, and again) for the "Work in Progress"

I would still need to get some kind of NAS for streaming , being QNAP; Synology, or whatever.

I did the calculations for RAID Calculator - Synology Inc. Network Attached Storage - NEW NAS Experience but I don't know how to chose the one I need: That's what I ask kindly for your help, distributors are of no help.

In the calculator I don't fully comprehend (ie. Do not have first hand experience) in the steps to follow:

Step 1 : Pick a HDD and drag it to a HDD tray

Step 2 : Select the RAID type you wish to be compared, and the result will be available immediately

Step 3 : Select the recommended models and compare them

The biggest problem I have is with part 2. For Step 1 I can put 4TB or 6B in one of the cases but do not fully comprehend how to choose, or what it means choosing "RAID Type", especially the second option. The first is SHR (4TB or 6TB, etc) in one4 bay but, w3hat do I do with the SECOND "RAID Type": is it also SHR? or is it any other option?

Thanks again, and again for your great insights.

[Audio_ELF]

Jeanette... Can I ask what you would consider your level of computer knowledge? If you have some skills in this department one option that can work well is FreeNAS - but you need a little more computer skills than using a Synology (or similar) NAS.

 

Eloise

[spdif-usb]

An explanation about different RAID types will appear if you click the round "i" icon (next to "RAID Type"). The two boxes below it are both identical, so you can compare two different RAID types. Just click on the first dark box so that a list of RAID types appears. From this list, choose a RAID type that you want to compare. Next, click on the second dark box (but choose a different RAID type from the list this time). You can still change your choices later, any time you want. After you have dragged one or more harddrives to the picture of a Synology rack, you can still remove one or more harddrives from it by clicking on the green triangle on the harddrive that you want to remove. The two bars at the bottom will be automatically updated according to any changes you make (choice of two different RAID types to compare + choice of harddrives). Each of them will display a text message or a graph to indicate sizes; Available space (green), Used for protection (blue) and Unused space (white).

 

A known bug in Windows 7 with USB storage devices, which prevents the user from being able to "safely remove" the devices, is caused by the "caching of thumbnails in hidden thumbs.db files" option. A workaround is to follow the steps explained in this tutorial. How do I turn off thumbs.db in Windows 7?

 

I don't know what's been causing your USB external harddrives to fail. To this day, I haven't encountered any such problems myself. If Windows keeps losing them, even if they are different brands, this IMO could be due to a device driver problem or a faulty motherboard.

 

I agree USB 2.0 is fairly slow, which is why I opted for eSATA until USB 3.0 came around. For music playback, however, it is still more than sufficient. With USB 3.0, the transfer speed should be pretty much on par with the harddrive's rated specs.

[Jeannette]

Jeanette... Can I ask what you would consider your level of computer knowledge? If you have some skills in this department one option that can work well is FreeNAS - but you need a little more computer skills than using a Synology (or similar) NAS.

 

Eloise

I was part of the original team that founded the ARPANET/Internet (Four Fathers and many hired by them: Leonard Kleinrock, Larry Roberts, Robert Khan, and Vincent Cerf)

Nowadays, some of this tweaking is kind of hard but learn quickly.

Thanks for asking

[Jeannette]

An explanation about different RAID types will appear if you click the round "i" icon (next to "RAID Type"). The two boxes below it are both identical, so you can compare two different RAID types. Just click on the first dark box so that a list of RAID types appears. From this list, choose a RAID type that you want to compare. Next, click on the second dark box (but choose a different RAID type from the list this time). You can still change your choices later, any time you want. After you have dragged one or more harddrives to the picture of a Synology rack, you can still remove one or more harddrives from it by clicking on the green triangle on the harddrive that you want to remove. The two bars at the bottom will be automatically updated according to any changes you make (choice of two different RAID types to compare + choice of harddrives). Each of them will display a text message or a graph to indicate sizes; Available space (green), Used for protection (blue) and Unused space (white).

 

A known bug in Windows 7 with USB storage devices, which prevents the user from being able to "safely remove" the devices, is caused by the "caching of thumbnails in hidden thumbs.db files" option. A workaround is to follow the steps explained in this tutorial. How do I turn off thumbs.db in Windows 7?

 

I don't know what's been causing your USB external harddrives to fail. To this day, I haven't encountered any such problems myself. If Windows keeps losing them, even if they are different brands, this IMO could be due to a device driver problem or a faulty motherboard.

 

I agree USB 2.0 is fairly slow, which is why I opted for eSATA until USB 3.0 came around. For music playback, however, it is still more than sufficient. With USB 3.0, the transfer speed should be pretty much on par with the harddrive's rated specs.

 

This is, once again, of much knowledge and wisdom. I heard, for the very first time, the cause of the USB. Thanks and thanks:-)

I'll get the one you suggested for work in progress but I'm still thinking of a NAS.

[Jeannette]

An explanation about different RAID types will appear if you click the round "i" icon (next to "RAID Type"). The two boxes below it are both identical, so you can compare two different RAID types. Just click on the first dark box so that a list of RAID types appears. From this list, choose a RAID type that you want to compare. Next, click on the second dark box (but choose a different RAID type from the list this time). You can still change your choices later, any time you want. After you have dragged one or more harddrives to the picture of a Synology rack, you can still remove one or more harddrives from it by clicking on the green triangle on the harddrive that you want to remove. The two bars at the bottom will be automatically updated according to any changes you make (choice of two different RAID types to compare + choice of harddrives). Each of them will display a text message or a graph to indicate sizes; Available space (green), Used for protection (blue) and Unused space (white).

 

A known bug in Windows 7 with USB storage devices, which prevents the user from being able to "safely remove" the devices, is caused by the "caching of thumbnails in hidden thumbs.db files" option. A workaround is to follow the steps explained in this tutorial. How do I turn off thumbs.db in Windows 7?

 

I don't know what's been causing your USB external harddrives to fail. To this day, I haven't encountered any such problems myself. If Windows keeps losing them, even if they are different brands, this IMO could be due to a device driver problem or a faulty motherboard.

 

I agree USB 2.0 is fairly slow, which is why I opted for eSATA until USB 3.0 came around. For music playback, however, it is still more than sufficient. With USB 3.0, the transfer speed should be pretty much on par with the harddrive's rated specs.

 

spdif-usb: In the comparison it seems that SHR (Synology Hybrid RAID)=RAID 1 + RAID 5, which seems good for drives of different sizes versus RAID 5, which offers 1 HDD redundancy.

RAID Calculator - Synology Inc. Network Attached Storage - NEW NAS Experience Clicking the "?" in "RAID Type"

So, hard to decide but taking your word for it maybe getting drives of different sizes and SHR might seem a great choice.

Is QNAP better than Synology?

Thanks again to all.

[ringenesherre]

Hi Jeanette,

 

when selecting a storage solution, a good rule of thumb is to go double the bays you need right now. In this way you can buy a new set of (possibly larger) disks, make a second raid, copy over the data and finally retire the old drives.

 

I would recommen something like the. QNAP 879 pro, the Synology DS1812, or a Dell apowervault 400. They all do the job and come with 8 bays.

 

Personally, I would go with the QNAP.

 

That said, I think a simple 8-bay SAN with iSCSI could work, too, if there is only one computer to use the storage from.

 

If price is a concern, very little money buys an 8-bay 4U enclosure + mainboard for a FreeNAS :-)

 

Cheers,

Peter

[Bob Stern]

I was part of the original team that founded the ARPANET/Internet (Four Fathers and many hired by them: Leonard Kleinrock, Larry Roberts, Robert Khan, and Vincent Cerf)

 

Then you probably know Tony Lauck. He's quite active on Audio Asylum.

[Jeannette]

Hi Jeanette,

 

when selecting a storage solution, a good rule of thumb is to go double the bays you need right now. In this way you can buy a new set of (possibly larger) disks, make a second raid, copy over the data and finally retire the old drives.

 

I would recommen something like the. QNAP 879 pro, the Synology DS1812, or a Dell apowervault 400. They all do the job and come with 8 bays.

 

Personally, I would go with the QNAP.

 

That said, I think a simple 8-bay SAN with iSCSI could work, too, if there is only one computer to use the storage from.

 

If price is a concern, very little money buys an 8-bay 4U enclosure + mainboard for a FreeNAS :-)

 

Cheers,

Peter

 

What is FreeNAS?

[Jeannette]

Then you probably know Tony Lauck. He's quite active on Audio Asylum.

 

Not quite, there is so much to learn:-)

[Audio_ELF]

FreeNAS 8 | Storage For Open Source

[ringenesherre]

What is FreeNAS?

 

See e.g. here: FreeNAS - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

The idea is to use a normal PC / server with internal harddisks as a NAS using this operating system. In this way, you can build a decent NAS for $500 plus harddisks. The hard part is finding a good case with lots of drive bays (cheap 4U server cases with 4, 6, or 8 bays can be had).

 

Cheers,

Peter

[spdif-usb]

So, hard to decide but taking your word for it maybe getting drives of different sizes and SHR might seem a great choice.

Well, you said "if you were forced", so... Personally, I, wouldn't buy a NAS at all.

Is QNAP better than Synology?

I am willing to bet that ringenesherre is spot on the money with his comment about the QNAP 879 pro.

[spdif-usb]

The hard part is finding a good case with lots of drive bays

So, how about this one?

Define XL USB 3.0 Black Pearl - Fractal Design

[Jeannette]

Picture.

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]2284[/ATTACH]

 

P.S. - Well, that's the 1 TB version actually, but mine are 2 TB, model number P83790 (MD 90148). The enclosure is identical to the one above.

 

Sold out everywhere in Europe, in Aldi and in Medion anywhere

[spdif-usb]

Sold out everywhere in Europe, in Aldi and in Medion anywhere

Where I live, Aldi only sells them maybe 3 or 4 times per year. Last time they did, their local supermarket was already sold out within the first day, in the early evening and coincidentally right after I had just bought their last batch of 4 pieces. (no wonder IMO, because being able to grab 8 TB of good external storage for only 500 € almost feels like getting a free meal )

[Jeannette]

Where I live, Aldi only sells them maybe 3 or 4 times per year. Last time they did, their local supermarket was already sold out within the first day, in the early evening and coincidentally right after I had just bought their last batch of 4 pieces. (no wonder IMO, because being able to grab 8 TB of good external storage for only 500 € almost feels like getting a free meal )

 

It's a free meal:-)

[Jeannette]

perform additional background tasks, such as loudness scanning (ReplayGain scanner, R128GAIN,...) or Dynamic Range analysis (DR Meter), or even Condusiv Technologies Diskeeper 12

Currently, I own a total of 17 TB external harddrive storage space (1 x 1 TB + 4 x 1.5 TB + 5 x 2 TB, my fifth 2 TB drive is actually a Seagate ST2000DL003). Some of it can use either eSATA or USB, some of it requires USB. All of it is accessible on my netbook PC over UTP (100 Mbps ethernet, cat 5e cables). The read speed of a single one of my Seagate ST2000DM001 harddrives, over USB 3.0, is about 160 Mbps. In other words, it's fast enough to run two radio stations.

Manageability is not a problem, you can install multiple instances of foobar2000 with different settings on a single PC (for example, one instance using Faces and another using CUI). You can even use foobar2000 as a player only, i.e. use a different software package for library management, tagging, etcetera, even though IMO it isn't always necessary.

perform additional background tasks, such as loudness scanning (ReplayGain scanner, R128GAIN,...) or Dynamic Range analysis (DR Meter), or even Condusiv Technologies Diskeeper 12,

How do you do all these? I like Foobar but I use MediaMonkey for Library Management, which, BTW, I still don't know how this last compares to J.R River. The biggest problem is the 265 character maximum length to name a file. I used to use MusicMatch and loved it but Yahoo bought it years ago and don't know what happened with it.

Kind regards

[spdif-usb]

How do you do all these? I like Foobar but I use MediaMonkey for Library Management, which, BTW, I still don't know how this last compares to J.R River. The biggest problem is the 265 character maximum length to name a file. I used to use MusicMatch and loved it but Yahoo bought it years ago and don't know what happened with it.

Well, personally I use foobar2000 with CUI mostly as a player only. It runs on my netbook PC, which has a slow Intel Atom CPU and which plays my music files, over my LAN connection, on my USB DAC. Whenever I want to, for example, create a Dynamic Range report in TT Dynamic Range Meter, I use my dual core laptop because it has more processing power so it's faster (and, because my external harddrives are directly attached to it, it also saves LAN bandwidth). Same thing with loudness scanning in R128GAIN, format conversions in dBpoweramp, library management in foobar2000 with Faces, etcetera. What I like most about foobar2000 is its endless customization and scripting capabilities, like for example using WSH Panel Mod.

[Jeannette]

Sold out everywhere in Europe, in Aldi and in Medion anywhere

 

That model is no longer available. In Nierle.de there's another German Brand (Intenso) and with 3TB and USB 3.0 cost the same as the Medion of 2TB BUT I don't know which one is better, Do you?

Thanks.

[iago]

In Nierle.de there's another German Brand (Intenso) and with 3TB and USB 3.0 cost the same as the Medion of 2TB BUT I don't know which one is better, Do you?

 

Both get their parts from the international market or have them produced in China and assemble somewhere in Germany, so I don't think there is much difference between both. The Intenso solution currently is the cheapest way to obtain 3 TB of storage, the cost is even lower than buying disks separately. The only downside is that the disk inside the Intenso enclosure is slow (5,400 1/s), but that might also lower power consumption.

 

I don't know Nierle, but there are other shops also selling this enclosure. You can get it in a plastic enclosure (memory center) or an aluminium housing (memory box). Check out hoh.de, they have similar rates for delivery inside Europe.

[Jeannette]

Thanks for the post and link. Medion doesn't carry the 7200 Model any longer.