Recommend me a NAS (Synology)

[pimpin-tl]

That can handle Blu-Ray stuff, file sharing, backups to my crash plan account, and so on. I saw some people say the 1513+ didn't handle blu-ray well and wanted to know if the 1515+ would?

I also would need the Hybrid Raid, so QNAP is out and that Asustor brand doesn't seem to support it either.

Thoughts and opinions welcome!

5+ drives supported.

 

[XavierMace]

Why do you NEED the hybrid RAID? Looks like standard Linux software RAID with a proprietary name.

 

[pimpin-tl]

Keeps the thinking out of it and lets the unit decide what fits best for the drives it has. That's why. It's highly recommended to go that way today.

 

[rchunter]

SHR and SHR-2 will let you upgrade your drives, in other words "grow" your array and let you swap in larger capacity drives. You have to do it a disk at a time though.

I used SHR-2 on my 1513+. I've got all 4tb wd reds in there. Haven't tried to upgrade to larger disks yet. As my disks start dying i'll probably just start swapping in 8tb drives instead.

I wouldn't expect to be able to transcode blurays with a synology 1515+. It just doesn't have enough cpu to do that.

 

[beginner99]

Running "hybrid raid" or any other from or variant of what is essentially RAID-5 isn't recommended with large hdds. RAID is for availability/up-time not backup. Is this relevant for home-use? Probably not. Much better to just set it up as individual drives (if that is possible at all?) and have a proper backup solution in place (like to external hdd once a week and store that HDD in your work office, eg. off-site)

 

[Viper GTS]

Running "hybrid raid" or any other from or variant of what is essentially RAID-5 isn't recommended with large hdds. RAID is for availability/up-time not backup. Is this relevant for home-use? Probably not. Much better to just set it up as individual drives (if that is possible at all?) and have a proper backup solution in place (like to external hdd once a week and store that HDD in your work office, eg. off-site)

I agree that RAID 5 (any single parity scheme really) shouldn't be run any more but suggesting that people abandon any form of RAID (and perhaps more importantly the single namespace convenience that most home users are going to want) is just absurd.

RAID also provides a level of protection for the ground between deletion and backup. I have stuff that I care enough about to backup, and I have far more stuff that I would prefer not to lose but the hassle/expense of backing it up exceeds its value to me. Additionally RAID provides a middle ground between a healthy array and a full restore. If you are having to touch backups every time a disk fails you are doing it wrong.

The hybrid RAID modes provided by synology are great for home users and a huge step up from most people's storage habits. Suggesting that people not use them is irresponsible if not downright malicious.

Viper GTS

 

[pimpin-tl]

I agree that RAID 5 (any single parity scheme really) shouldn't be run any more but suggesting that people abandon any form of RAID (and perhaps more importantly the single namespace convenience that most home users are going to want) is just absurd.

RAID also provides a level of protection for the ground between deletion and backup. I have stuff that I care enough about to backup, and I have far more stuff that I would prefer not to lose but the hassle/expense of backing it up exceeds its value to me. Additionally RAID provides a middle ground between a healthy array and a full restore. If you are having to touch backups every time a disk fails you are doing it wrong.

The hybrid RAID modes provided by synology are great for home users and a huge step up from most people's storage habits. Suggesting that people not use them is irresponsible if not downright malicious.

Viper GTS

Agreed. Anyone who suggest to not use a RAID doesn't have a clue what they are talking about. There is a reason why SERVERS use RAIDs and why Enterprise storage's use RAID. Because they are redundancy. It may not be for backups which is true, because corruption does happy, if one HD or two die, you definitely are protected by RAID. I also like SHR because you can mix drive sizes and still get the most space.

With that, I ordered a Synology 1515+ yesterday with two WD RED 3TB HDs. I also have a replacement coming in from Seagate (4TB) HD for the one that went out after a fight I had with them about sending me the same model as a replacement which was crazy. 3 failures, and a law suit on that model, I refuse to trust that again. All these drives will be put into the new NAS in SHR mode. I also saw on the Synology forums people have no issues running Blu-Ray streams from this model. It has the power to do it fine.

 

[XavierMace]

Let me clarify my comment. I wasn't suggesting he not run RAID. I was simply stating why did it NEED to be Synology's "Hybrid" RAID.

 

[rchunter]

I also saw on the Synology forums people have no issues running Blu-Ray streams from this model. It has the power to do it fine.

Depends on the bitrate.... I have a feeling you're going to be disappointed with full on bluray rips. I think it will probably work fine with most of the handbraked/pre-transcoded/pirated bluray rips that are downloaded off the internet.

 

[pimpin-tl]

I'm using lossless on my blurays that I own. I don't download ones off the internet. Will try it but like I said, saw many on the synology forums that said it works fine. Using makemkv.


Sent from my iPhone 6s Plus

 

[rchunter]

I'm using lossless on my blurays that I own. I don't download ones off the internet. Will try it but like I said, saw many on the synology forums that said it works fine. Using makemkv.


Sent from my iPhone 6s Plus

Yeah, make sure the synology is actually doing the transcoding and you're not just using direct play, you should see it peg the cpu up close to 100% and keep it there for awhile. I hope it works good for you.

 

[pimpin-tl]

I'll let you know!


Sent from my iPhone 6s Plus

 

[rchunter]

I'll let you know!


Sent from my iPhone 6s Plus

Just to be clear i'm talking about on the fly transcoding using plex.. If you're just talking about streaming bluray rips via SMB/CIFS then yeah that Synology should be able to handle streaming just fine.

 

[beginner99]

I agree that RAID 5 (any single parity scheme really) shouldn't be run any more but suggesting that people abandon any form of RAID (and perhaps more importantly the single namespace convenience that most home users are going to want) is just absurd.

I would go RAID1 if I would go RAID at all. But then for home use it's cost-prohibitive. I rather use that second HDD as real backup.

Single namespace? Does that even matter? Name your drives accordingly like "Movies" and "Pics & Docs" or something like that and they are essential like folders.

The hybrid RAID modes provided by synology are great for home users and a huge step up from most people's storage habits. Suggesting that people not use them is irresponsible if not downright malicious.

I see it the exact opposite way. Suggesting that RAID is in any way a back-up solution, that is malicious. RAID is for up-time mostly in server environments (and speed in case of RAID-0) but not for back-up. The only sort-of backup would be RAID1.

 

[thecoolnessrune]

Single namespace? Does that even matter? Name your drives accordingly like "Movies" and "Pics & Docs" or something like that and they are essential like folders.

Logical Namespaces are incredibly important to people. That is why LVM exists. That is why RAID exists. That is why Storage Pools, Aggregates, and a host of other fancy names for multiple drives pinned together as a single volume exists. There are many reasons why people would want to buy multiple, similar drives. Limiting your storage space to a singular drive simply due to naming convention is incredibly inefficient.

I see it the exact opposite way. Suggesting that RAID is in any way a back-up solution, that is malicious. RAID is for up-time mostly in server environments (and speed in case of RAID-0) but not for back-up. The only sort-of backup would be RAID1.

I do not see anyone in this thread saying that RAID is a backup. Of all the threads on these forums where people talk about trying to set up RAID for backups, this doesn't appear to be one. The OP wants to have additional, shared, storage, and on top of that has invested in Off-Site Backups via CrashPlan. For an AT Memory and Storage thread, this is great. We may all have opinion on SHR, vs. Traditional RAID, vs. other Soft-RAIDs, but that's relatively minor vs simply having a good Storage + Backup strategy, which the OP appears to be setting up just fine.