Synology NAS setup

[AverageGamer]

I'll be setting up a Synology DS213j this weekend with two 3TB drives. I don't really have the need for RAID1.

What I'd LIKE to do is have both drives be set up as separate entities and manually implement some selective redundancy between the two, as not everything that I'll be storing on them will be extremely vital. This way I'll maximize my storage space, while duplicating important files (which will also be backed up to multiple external locations).

Is this strategy viable? Possible? I'm wondering if I'm forced into formatting the disks into either a form of RAID or JBOD (which I don't really want either), or if I can set up one volume per disk and have them both be treated separately.

Thoughts?

 

[Doomer]

Just create 2 separate volumes. Personally, I use JBOD and backup to another device. I don't consider RAID a backup and have no critical need for uptime. In the event of a disk failure I just restore from the backup.

 

[gizbug]

Here's what I elected to do with my DS212 (2 drives).
Setup each drive as a separate volume and don't use RAID (including RAID-0) in a small 2 drive NAS.

Setup NAS to backup some or all folders on volume 1 to volume 2, every 24 hours or some such, automatic.
Setup NAS to backup all or some folders to a USB3 drive, manually when you bring that drive out of hiding and plug it in - like once a week.
Setup DSM's Time Backup so vol2 has a 90 day (or so) history of all file versions in VIP folders (in case you delete by mistake, or honk up a file).

These strategies protect from burglary, corrupt file system (RAID won't prevent that), drive failure, NAS electronics failure, and human error.

All files on Volume 1. Shared folders the LAN are from volume 1.
Volume 2 has two things: a destination for backup of key/VIP folders on volume 1; and also the destination for the Time Backup of selected folders so I can revert. Also on Volume 1 is a folder of drive image backups from PCs on my LAN - done by Acronis running on PCs.
And USB3 - manually run backup once a week or so, of all of Vol 1.
And the SD card - auto backup of VIP folders - 32GB card.

Other folks would have other strategies.
I feel that RAID will fail and be non-recoverable, eventually- as happened to me from a commercial data center. They lost it all. I had backups.

 

[ronbo613]

My DS212j is set up as two separate volumes(2 x 2 TB). Folders are shared with the Win 7 OS, and used for backup with SyncBack. Easy.

 

[AverageGamer]

This is what I ended up doing. I'll have more total space to work with for non-important things than if I went RAID1, and can implement actual backups rather than just vulnerable redundancy.

Thanks for the input!