Purchasing Plan - Questions + Looking for Feedback / Advice for Remote Access File Server, Backups, and Basic Video Streaming use case
To preface, I'm new to Synology. I’ve owned a NAS device before, but it was an extremely basic single drive Western Digital MyCloud. I also have an IT background, just lacking relevant work experience in this particular realm.
# Use Cases:
* Remote Access File Serving ("cloud" storage) * TimeMachine or equilent image backup for 2 MacBooks (\~1TB total storage required for this) * Home Video Backups * Basic Remote Access Video Streaming (Prioritizing smooth playback, image quality is of least concern) * Photo Backups/Organization (in-case Amazon Prime ditches unlimited backups some day) * Off-site backup for disaster recovery (uptime is of least concern, just don't lose anything)
The plan was to set up a couple of NAS’s that could **somewhat mimic** a couple of cloud services, **One Drive Family** and **iDrive Backups**, ***for less money*** in the medium (5-6 years) and long term (8+ years) future.
I'm choosing Synology for it's security, simplicity of management, and robust software suite.
After factoring in costs of power consumption, initial investment and even future unit upgrades (for continued security updates), I’m shooting for an aggressive budget of around \~$700\~ so that it would be equivalent in cost to subscriptions to the services mentioned above, within the first 5 years or so of ownership. I understand how aggressive this is, but I also have some cost cutting measures already planned out.
I'd like to have at least 4TB minimum of available storage to start with and have an easy route to later expansion.
# The initial plan (for context) was:
# Primary site NAS
* 2 bay unit * either DS220J, DS220+ or a DS218 model perhaps (retail or eBay) * 2 Drives * 2 (already owned) NAS HDDs - 2TB and 3TB (from MyCloud devices) * in JBOD configuration for 5TB of available storage * 2 (already owned) External HDDs - 2TB and 3TB - as local hyperbackups
# Secondary site NAS
* 2 bay unit * Purchased a DS220J on sale $150, it's unopened and ready to return - just in case * 2 Drives * Purchased 2 - 10TB WD Red Drives on sale for a total of $320 * 1 Drive either as a form of replication or a hyperbackup of Primary NAS, assuming it **can** be done with a Single drive * 1 Drive as local hyperbackup of the 1st drive, in-case of drive failure or other backup mishaps.
10TB size was chosen for Secondary NAS with future expansion of the Primary NAS in mind. I was prioritizing backups over RAID or SHR as retaining data is a much larger priority. Maximum uptime is a nice to have, not a need, in this use case, at least imo.
# Reasons I scrapped this plan:
It was pointed out to me that changing from JBOD to RAID or SHR, while technically doable, was going to be a huge hassle and may not be necessary to achieve my goal of cost effective DIY “cloud” storage. Also, I’m at the secondary site, so if a Primary site drive fails, it might just be easier for everyone involved if it was a RAID or SHR configuration.
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# The current plan is:
# Primary site NAS
* 4 bay unit (preferably) - *Might* swap to a 2-bay years down the road, but getting a 4 bay now will save us some upfront drive costs while trying to achieve the desired starting point of 4TB of available storage. * either DS420J, DS420+ or a DS418 model perhaps (retail or eBay) * preferably the DS420J (as, for $300 at B&H, it would put be at only $70 over budget) or perhaps a DS418 used off eBay, for better performance and support for BTRFS. * 4 Drives * 2 (already owned) NAS HDDs - 2TB and 3TB (from MyCloud devices) * 2 (already owned) Desktop hard drives that I have lying around 1TB each. * in SHR-1 configuration for 4TB of available storage (again 4TB is the bare minimum I'd like to start with) * 2 (already owned) External HDDs - 2TB and 3TB - as local hyperbackups
# Secondary site NAS - no changes
* 2 bay unit * Purchased a DS220J on sale $150, it's unopened and ready to return - just in case * 2 Drives * Purchased 2 - 10TB WD Red Drives on sale for a total of $320 * 1 Drive either as a form of replication or a hyperbackup of Primary NAS, assuming it **can** be done with a Single drive * 1 Drive as local hyperbackup of the 1st drive, in-case of drive failure or other backup mishaps.
# A few questions I have:
1. The 420j does not support BTRFS. I'm assuming I can still schedule some type of checksum tasks nightly to ensure data integrity. How would the lack of BTRFS affect my setup? Can't Hyperbackup provide some sort of snapshot-like version control, albeit only as granular as the backup schedule? 2. If I want to take advantage of Synology Photos facial recognition and do some streaming of home videos remotely using Video Station or PLEX (probably pre-transcoded versions to take the load off the CPU), would a DS420j have sufficient performance? 1. I’ve heard some stories about the 220j’s performance while running facial recognition (mainly due to low RAM I think?), which is why I only bought 1 to use strictly as a backup. 2. Not sure if the 420J suffers similar performance issues. Not necessarily a deal breaker if I can't stream videos and run facial recognition at the same time of course, but I'd like it to still be somewhat useable while performing some of those tasks. And again, very basic video streaming. Smooth playback > image quality. 3. Is it difficult to switch from SHR-1 with 4 drives to SHR-1 with 3 drives? 1. I'm considering buying 1 new NAS drive when either of the 1TB desktop drives decide to fail, and thus, remove all desktop class drives from then on. Not sure it's that's doable or not. If not, I may start with a 3 drive SHR-1 setup instead.
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Though I have some experience, I'm still pretty new to all this, especially when it comes to anything Synology specific.
Any other questions, comments, or concerns? Please let me know.
Edit: clarifications