Last time it went out of stock at this price, so I assume this is a decent price for this decent NAS.
Seems to have plenty of stock. Computer Alliance is also one of few eBay sellers that does not jack their prices like madman.
i wish they have feature like qnap where we can just plug in monitor and keyboard to the unit and access it that way.
also, if i buy this and i have existing old working synology with 4 drives (1 as stand alone and 3 setup as syno raid SHR), can i just move those drives to this new NAS and everything will be ok?
See the link that Caped Baldy shared but look specifically at the HDD migration section. If your NAS is compatible you should be able to just move the drives from the old NAS to the new.
yup mine is 1511+ yeah old model 2011 i believe…. 10 years!!!
I would be going from a DS211+ and it seems you can just swap drives out/in. Looks like I would need to buy new HDDs to do the migration :(
I migrated 4 drives as per official guide. Easy, works well.
Good price, bought one of these for 800+ because I couldn't wait and it has been a great little addition to my home network
Can you share in which ways are you using it?
I have one of these and I run the majority stuff off docker, all with daily automated upgrades using docker-compose. The things I run are:
I also just use it for general storage
Any suggestions for a good guide to setting the basics, e.g. initial RAID config, plex, sonar, SABNzbd etc?
@timbo83: I used this to set up docker-compose https://www.reddit.com/r/synology/comments/h0ed3x/how_to_cre…
@manebeins
Best money spent honestly, similar to @snowl I use mine to:
- Plex Server
- Photo Backups using their Moments App (wifi only) - By the way that's how I convinced my wife to invest the money on the device and disks (lol), instead of paying iCloud for backups
- General File Storage
And still lots of things I want to create using this little fella, so It's not that cheap and adding the disks may double the price but it's well worth in my opinion.
Dan
Thank you for the reply! Is it too difficult to move from iCloud though? We relly on it for automatic photo backup
@nomekop: I know, it's not as good as iCloud backups (and will never be) but works fine with a bit adjustments and you can point your NAS to the internet if you want to make through the internet.
I just decided to run on my internal network only for personal preference.
It's a great little device.
I hope it helps on your decision in the future.
Is there much benefit to using of these over a cheap system as a server? Just curious because I imagine you can build a cheap system with 4+ hard drive bays for less than this
Was wondering the same thing. An old server off Gumtree etc. can cost anywhere ranging between a quarter to a half of this.
power draw and convenience usually - not a huge deal if you feel like tinkering around
Power draw difference at least with regard to electricity cost savings is not a good enough reason to buy a NAS, because you are not going to recover the additional cost of a NAS (over an old PC) in electricity savings.
To provide some numbers: I use an old HP G1 desktop as a NAS/home server that I bought for $130. I have measured the idle power use of this PC to be around 35W at the wall (with an SSD without any HDDs connected). In comparison a NAS like the one advertised here is rated to idle at around 10W (with no disk activity), if we use the same disks in both machines then we can assume a similar power use for disk activity. This means the difference comes down to the idling power use difference which in this example is 25W. If I run my computer/NAS 24x7 a difference of 25W translates to around $55 per year @ 25c/kWh. But the cost difference between the PC and NAS is $750-$130 = $620, which means it’ll take me over 11 years just to break even.
@opt: Not entirely disagreeing but does the G1 do 4-drive hardware RAID off the shelf?
Roll-your-own is definitely cheaper but the attractiveness of a Synology or QNAP is usually a combination of smaller form-factor, a purpose-built OS with a decent support model, and simplified administration.
Obviously not for everyone but great value for time-poor people.
@cafeman: No but software RAID IMHO is more than good enough for home use, at least it has served me well for years.. I'm actually running Windows 10 Pro with two HDDs in RAID1. It has 3 SATA ports, so you can't connect 4 disks. But there are PCIe HW RAID cards out there if you want to add more disks and hw support. BTW the SFF case can fit four 3.5" HDDs if you remove the optical drive bay. If you buy a tower model then you can fit plenty more.
But I agree, its not for everyone. The main reason why I use a PC is because it’s a lot more versatile than a NAS for what I want to do. I also use it as a home server to run VMs and docker containers.
Edited.
I have a home-brew nas, old dell server running unraid.
Not hard to setup if your comp savvy, synology has a great UI but lacks the ability to expand unless you buy a large system to start with.
Power usage, noise really and ease of use are the only real advantages and some of those aren’t always true.
Space as well. I've got a WD drive in a terramaster unit and it gets quite noisy :/
I was looking at getting server as it seemed far cheaper, but was put off by power consumption which seemed to be about 5 times a NAS. Does that sound right?
Depends what type of server and NAS you are comparing. But generally speaking yes, an old server will use much more power and be louder. That said, you could look into one of the sff thinkcentres ($150-200 on ebay) or an equivalent depending on your storage needs.
@snep: I have an HP Gen6 mircro server using E1263L and 16GB ram running Windows 10 pro. I am looking for options to upgrade to something which will handle 4K videos support hardware acceleration.
Off late I have been looking into sff desktops. However, I couldn't find anywhere how to put in multiple HDD. Best options are one SDD and one HDD. Do you know how to add multiple HDDs? I just run two HDDs + SDD for OS.
Thanks.
@spal: That seems like the main problem with off-the-shelf business PCs, storage expansion. AFAIK the only real option is to use external drives or an enclosure. I don't know how that would play with freenas/unraid/ZFS etc. (I suspect the freenas forums would not be impressed), although maybe it can be done.
I had similar requirements, and ended up building a custom system in a Node 304 with a J4105 embedded board, which turned out pretty well. 6 bays, passively cooled, 10w TDP quad core with QSV transcoding. Probably around $500 discless, but ended up being more of a hassle to setup than I reckoned with.
A Synology is almost certainly cheaper including labour, but it was kind of fun.
Best option depends what you're willing to compromise on, between: size, power use, noise, performance, storage, price and effort
@snep: Thank you for sharing. All of what said is very alien to me. But, at least that is a starting point. I know what you mean by Freenas/ZFS. It worked well for many years. It was fun being able to look things up on the forums and fix things. However, a windows update broke my connection to Freenas. So, I couldn't access the server from windows clients. Because it was ZFS pool the only way I could do anything was install Windows 10 and format the drives. Lost all data.
@spal: Ah that's a real shame. Depending on the setup and exact problem your data on pool may not have been lost, might have been able access the server directly by connecting keyboard and monitor, or by taking the drives out and using another machine to spin up the pool instead.
Also shows its a good idea to have more than one backup. The 3-2-1 rule is ideal but possibly overkill: data stored in 3 locations, 2 of which are on-site, 1 of which is off-site.
If you want something that 'just works' with little to no maintenance, an off the shelf system from synology like this one is probably your best bet. And they have customer support if something goes wrong, not just forums…
As someone who has one of each, a Synology / TrueNas / Unraid system. The plus of the Synology is that it's pretty idiot proof and has been by far the most reliable compared to custom built or old server hardware. Middle of the range for speed. Only had a few issues with it (max file name length on encrypted share is ~140 characters, not a huge issue but happens sometimes) and there was a bit of messing around to get a VPN connection out of a docker container, though that's been rock solid since.
Of the three I'm the least dissatisfied with the Synology, but still going to eventually replace it with TrueNas Scale. Would still recommend the Synology to people that aren't tech-savvy or don't have someone on call to fix their issues/set it up for them.
i like how this comment explains why the synology is good but also shows its a personal choice :)
ill add to it that its good if you are tech savvy but just don't desire following the DIY NAS route at home.. me lol
But the cool thing about the Syno is if you want to tinker, you can (to a point), since it's essentially linux under the hood.
Less "(profanity)" as it just works. I had a HP N36L with Windows Server on it before I got my QNAP, it was compact and low-power too, but I just couldn't be bothered managing a server when all it did was host files.
I just run synology OS on my n36l's
Best of both worlds
I may end up doing that for my N36L as a "backup" server for more critical data.
Is there much benefit to using of these over a cheap system as a server?
This has been asked literally a thousand times on past Synology NAS deals. You can do some searches to find plenty of worthwhile responses.
because I imagine you can build a cheap system with 4+ hard drive bays for less than this
Yeah plus several days of your life you'll never get back tinkering with it; to say nothing of the overwhelming majority of technologically-challenged users who'll never be able to install some HDDS in an old tower, spin up FreeNAS and configure it properly.
A purpose-built Synology NAS devices takes about 30 minutes to set up from unboxing to being available on a LAN and is as complicated to configure as an ISP-bundled modem for most users.
They will undoubtedly be more reliable for most users as well, along with the obvious advantages of extremely small physical footprints (meaning they can easily be hidden away), frugal power consumption, easy expandability, continuous support/updates/app packages, an incredibly slick/intuitive UI in Synology's DSM that sh*ts all over any freeware NAS OS as well as a huge online community who have done everything there is to do with these devices and documented it.
Synology is the Apple of the NAS market, with the difference being that they actually deliver on the "it just works" mantra.
You don’t have to use a bespoke NAS OS to convert an old PC into a basic NAS for file storage. Even Windows 10 (especially the Pro version, which you often get free with ex-business OEM PCs) has built-in support for most of the features you need to set up a basic NAS like RAID, DLNA, Remote access etc..
While setting everything up with a PC may not be as straightforward as buying an off the shelf NAS, plugin in a bunch of HDDs, and running through a fancy wizard, IMHO its not all that complicated either. Anyone capable of connecting a couple of HDDs into a PC and finding their way around windows should be able to do it fairly easily in an afternoon with a bit of googling.
From a hardware price-performance perspective alone, absolutely, but the advantage is the software and ease of use that are right there out of the box. Its more likely you'll use it for something because its so simple ie you'll spend less time building it and more time using it. Also the popularity means issues are well known or easy to find on the web
How is the new photo app on DSM 7 ?
Thinking of canceling my Icloud subscription.
Works for me. I have moved out from google photo to synology photo.
The facial recognition is a bit hit and miss. But overall as a private hosted nas it is pretty good.
How will you manage off site backups in case of NAS failure, theft etc?
I use backblaze for off site
May I ask if the processing power in one of these is good enough as a PLEX media server for 4K streaming via ethernet to my android TV and say 1080p to a remote TV (at my parents place)?
Check NASCompares which has heaps of comparisons and (from memory) a spreadsheet detailing the abilities of most NASs. I'd say yes off the top of my head.
I would believe so. Does 4k for me no issues for home. I am not so sure about 1080p remote personally never tried it. The factor could also be you home upload speed and your parents download speed.
Same. I use 4K at home, works great. Can't comment on remote.
according to the excell linked below, it looks like it transcodes the stream into 1080p are you sure you are streaming 4K resolution?
Have a check here
https://kb.synology.com/en-global/DSM/tutorial/Can_my_Synolo…
And details from Plex
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1MfYoJkiwSqCXg8cm5-Ac…
Was looking to get the DS218plus but the best price so far is at $325 at amazon. I was hoping to get it lesser through an ebay discounting deal. Checked with Computer Alliance and they do not have any in stock unfortunately :(
Any thoughts on which HDD to get for these? Sweet spot between Cost vs Performance vs Reliability? Thanks
Make sure to get CMR drive
Been waiting a while for this deal to come through so jumped on it and got started with 2x Ironwolf 8TB drives (a few dollars more buying everything from Computer Alliance but saves dealing multiple sellers).
Now to get reading on setup! Thanks Op for posting.
Great Price! my DS918+ with 4 x 8TB WD Red drives have been running great for around 2 years now. Cant see any reason to upgrade anytime soon :)
I'm sure this is an issue with any RAID6 setup but changing our failed HDDs takes forever to rebuild the volume especially if you have larger capacity HDDs. I dont know if there is a better way in recent times but to upgrade to larger capacity HDDs, you need to swap out 1 drive, rebuild volume, swap out the 2nd drive, rebuild volume etc which is very taxing on the drives.
That said, I've had synology NASs for over 10years and atm it's setup with Sonaar, Radaar, SAB, synology photo etc and works perfectly.
With DSM 7 you can duplicate an entire HDD before it falls if you catch it in time. Then you do not need to rebuild the array.
You need an empty drive slot so this NAS night not be the best for that feature unless you only use 3x HDDs.
Thanks for that. Ive got an 8 bay but not empty slots unfortunately!
4 drives RAID6?
That's what RAID 0+1 (or 10, functionally the same) is for.
For anyone still interested I bought one from Shopping Express eBay for $743.75 using the code
do you have the link?
thank you, pulled the trigger and 2x 8tb seaget ironwolf from futu online
any bigger, eg 12-16TB HDD's at a good price ?
can you run this as media storage without using a RAID?
yes you can put as many hdd as the unit takes, and setup as JBOD and 1 single big drive you will see for example as E: drive.
very handy so you dont need to think in which HDD did i put this file ? just search they will find it for you
Thats seems really handy but I would be hesitant to use it because when running a manual backup it's harder to know what files are on what drive if you get a drive failure?
tempted..
but my usages are only for plex and backup (files + photos).
not sure it is wise to upgrade my old 1511+ for this… (bought 10years ago second hand for $500 -without hdd of course)
damn i feel it was expensive that time.
and my tv is not 4k yet so weak processor is fine.
one thing i dont like about my old unit is the usb are 2.0 only… imagine copying large files in/out….. painful
Is there a more powerful model that this that I should consider if looking to do 4K plex?
I hope not as I bought this intended for 4K usage :)
As I understand it does depend on your endpoints and ability to direct play. In my case I'll have a mix of 4K and HD content primarily playing locally via WLAN, but also sharing for remote access to a limited number of users.
I read a forum that strongly advises against 4K plex, but as far as I can tell it seems alright for local playback.
I'm not experienced in Plex but it recommended a separate library you don't share to remote viewers with your 4K content.
May be worth looking into.
Do you know if Kodi media files are compatible with Plex without changes? I am considering switching over and learning about the remote viewing to set up.
Dang I missed this again :(
![[eBay Plus] Synology DiskStation DS920+ $747.15 Delivered @ Computer Alliance eBay](https://files.ozbargain.com.au/n/73/655273.jpg?h=93e0c762)
Tempting