Hmm, I'll definitely would take a look into SnapRaid. So in essence, if I have 4 drives all together, 3 of them being use in the data pool while 1 is their for parity. Should one of the data pool drives fail, the parity disk would contain a snapshot of that that drive and should be able recreate that drive to the new disk that is going to replace it. Is this correct?
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It's the NAS (Network Attached Storage) Thread, yo.
- Thread starter Jill Sandwich
- Start date
Yep. Or if the parity drive fails, just replace it and re-create parity data. Parity drive should always be the largest if you have mixed size HDDs.
A couple things to pay attention to when used with Drivepool: 1) turn off automatic real-time rebalancing in Drivepool. If you want to use the rebalancing feature, maybe set it to once a day. This is just to reduce the amount of work SnapRaid has to do each time. 2) SnapRaid should point to the folder created by Drivepool on each drive instead of the root of the drive.
What if all the drives are the same size in my case?
Then any drive is fine. The parity data can grow to as big as the largest drive in the "raid" that's why it needs to be the largest one.
Replacing drives on NAS question:
I have an old NAS where the hard drive uses these old crappy Seagate BarraCude drives:
https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B005T3GRLY/
But they've released a new model of the drive, which is identical in specs as far as I can see:
https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B01IEKG4NE/
I've read that you shouldn't mix and match drives on a NAS, but do you think in this case it'd be okay? Thanks for any advice.
EDIT - before anyone says anything, yes I know these aren't the right kind of hard drives for a RAID, the Synology tech support made that very clear (while not answering the actual question I asked)
I have an old NAS where the hard drive uses these old crappy Seagate BarraCude drives:
https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B005T3GRLY/
But they've released a new model of the drive, which is identical in specs as far as I can see:
https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B01IEKG4NE/
I've read that you shouldn't mix and match drives on a NAS, but do you think in this case it'd be okay? Thanks for any advice.
EDIT - before anyone says anything, yes I know these aren't the right kind of hard drives for a RAID, the Synology tech support made that very clear (while not answering the actual question I asked)
Melhisedek
Member
Guys I have a asus rt-ac68u router,
and it has two USB 3.0 ports. Can I use it and have a large external HD connected to it for storage? Is it good idea (stability and preservation of data)
and it has two USB 3.0 ports. Can I use it and have a large external HD connected to it for storage? Is it good idea (stability and preservation of data)
That is way more common than you'd think.The worst thing happened.Two of my drives in my NAS died at the same time. Thankfully important things are backed up elsewhere, but it's annoying to lose everything else that I was consolidating there (historical backups, old discs, etc).
Marty Chinn
Member
The worst thing happened.
Just for clarification, you only had set it up for a single drive redundancy?
The drives aren't from the same era or even manufacturer
But we've had lots of power outages, whomp whomp.Yeah, made that mistake when I setup FreeNAS. I only had 4 x 1tb drives, fixing that has been on the todo list, but haven't had the cash to get larger drives and redoing the ZFS.
BUT! Good news everyone. I replugged everything and got one fo the drives to boot long enough to copy over the few things that wouldn't be recoverable from other sources and verify that I have other backups of everything else. So, nothing lost. Can't trust that drive now, or even the server maybe. Really got to get on top of Crashplan or something like that too.
It works. Just download the ASUS app but it can be spotty.
It's no Plex though
I'm not sure if anyone else has one of the new Synology units with a PCIE slot (ie 1817+), but I'm doing some tinkering with 10G network cards.
The only RJ45 based card that's on Synology's compatibility list is the X540-T2, which is either $500 or a bootleg. I'm going to be testing the X550-T2 and the Asus XG-C100C. Both are a lot less expensive, so hopefully I can get one of them going.
This rabbit hole is deep.
The only RJ45 based card that's on Synology's compatibility list is the X540-T2, which is either $500 or a bootleg. I'm going to be testing the X550-T2 and the Asus XG-C100C. Both are a lot less expensive, so hopefully I can get one of them going.
This rabbit hole is deep.
BeardyChan
Member
Intel is the only supported 10G PCIE cards. The newer and cheaper Aquantia cards are not supported out of the box.
My initial goal was to tinker with the NAS, and (try to) add the Aquatia Linux drivers to do some testing. I will hopefully still do that at some point, but .. not now. Unfortunately some work stuff popped up that will take me down a rabbit hole for a bit, so I probably won't have any time until October.
For now I've popped the Aquantia card into my workstation, and an Intel X550-T2 into the NAS. Though this particular Intel card isn't officially on the Synology HCL, it seems to work fine out of the box, as you say. So far it's impressive but timing is bad and the NAS is doing a RAID scrub, so I can't really see where performance is just yet.
I'll definitely want to look around a bit for tweaks, such as tinkering with jumbo frames. I'm not sure what flexibility I have on the NAS side, but will look into it.
Edit: Just wanted to make one thing clear that doesn't concern me, but might concern others. The X550-T2 is a 4 lane PCIE 3.0 card. The 1817+ has an 8 lane PCIE 2.0 slot. If you do the bandwidth math, there's enough for about 1.5 10G ports when using the card in this device. I'm only using 1 port, so the extra port and PCIE3.0 bits are just gravy for when the card gets re-purposed later on. Someday this will probably find its way into one of my PCs and I don't want it eating 8 PCIE lanes. Plus, I seriously doubt that I can saturate 1 10GbE link with my usage, let alone 2 of them at 75%.
Anyways, if this bothers you, there's a single port X550-T1 for about $50 less ($300).. and of course the 8 lane PCIE 2.0 X540-T2 using older silicon, with less features, and negligibly more power. They cost $500 new and legit, or as little as $100 to roll the dice on a knockoff gray market card. Hopefully choices will improve, and future Synology products will move to PCIE 3.0
I initially didn't notice that the current model is using the older standard because the NIC compatibility list contains a bunch of PCIE 3.0 parts. However, they are 8 lane cards so bandwidth is ok. Naturally a glance at the NAS specifications list reveals this plain as day.
BeardyChan
Member
Report back when you do mess with it. I tried and no matter what I did with my Nas box I wasn't able to use the Asus 10g card even though it was supported in Linux with additional drivers. I'm curious to see if you can get it up and running.
LT Snoshado
Member
Just set up a Synology RS816 NAS with three 2TB Western Digital Reds the other day and have absolutely zero complaints this far. It's got a great web interface and seems to be built really well too. Plus, Synology's RAID technology is awesome because it lets you use different sized drives without wasting any space like in a normal RAID setup.
Installing it in a new rack this weekend... can't wait to see how it performs in the real world!
Installing it in a new rack this weekend... can't wait to see how it performs in the real world!
Splash Wave
Member
I'm getting a new router, and I think I want to offer up one of my USB hard drives for NAS storage (streaming video to my PS4, ideally). Am I going to see a big difference in performance if that drive is connected to the router via USB 2.0?
Basically, I'm wondering if I'll be able to effectively stream HD video to other devices using this thing:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BUSDVBQ/?tag=neogaf0e-20
If not, I *may* consider something with USB 3.0 support.
Basically, I'm wondering if I'll be able to effectively stream HD video to other devices using this thing:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BUSDVBQ/?tag=neogaf0e-20
If not, I *may* consider something with USB 3.0 support.
USB 2.0? Yes, pretty sure you will. Depends on the bitrate and resolution of course.
I'll tell you, I'm actually looking at this thread right now because I'm in this boat and will be getting off sooner or later. I've got a Western Digital USB 3.0 drive connected to an Archer C9 with USB 3.0, but it only writes at like 18MB/s over the network. It will also randomly decide to stop broadcasting and need to be rebooted when I write over the network, which never happens under other use cases.
That said, once the files are actually written to the drive, it works well enough to stream HD video with Plex on my network. It's just a bit of a pain to get it there.
There are routers that have better USB write performance than TP-LINK. I would check out SmallNetBuilder. Writing to a drive connected to the C7 will be a pain in the ass going by their testing:
Splash Wave
Member
I'll tell you, I'm actually looking at this thread right now because I'm in this boat and will be getting off sooner or later. I've got a Western Digital USB 3.0 drive connected to an Archer C9 with USB 3.0, but it only writes at like 18MB/s over the network. It will also randomly decide to stop broadcasting and need to be rebooted when I write over the network, which never happens under other use cases.
That said, once the files are actually written to the drive, it works well enough to stream HD video with Plex on my network. It's just a bit of a pain to get it there.
There are routers that have better USB write performance than TP-LINK. I would check out SmallNetBuilder. Writing to a drive connected to the C7 will be a pain in the ass going by their testing:
So, essentially, you're saying that transferring files to the router-connected hard drive is slow, but that streaming performance is fine?
I could just as easily buy this, but the Wirecutter tests say that it doesn't perform as well at long ranges and with walls:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00Z0V2NQ8/?tag=neogaf0e-20
Granted, my girlfriend and I live in a one-bedroom apartment, but what prompted this purchase is the inability for us to maintain a connection to our bedroom using an old Apple airport. I might be overthinking this, as I'm sure the Netgear would completely destroy our current setup in terms of performance.
I've never tried using a hard drive over a network, but it sounds magical!
edit: Now I'm looking at more Netgear reviews, and it sounds like it might be kind of unreliable? We just need something with strong signal strength and (I think) USB 3.0 for no more than $120.
edit2: I should probably say that I doubt I'd be writing to the drive all that often.
I can ask, just in case...
I've bought a second Qnap NAS. It seems to work perfectly well, and I'm quite happy with it.
But I must say I'm not fond of the new interface. Instead of the basic, quick and snappy HTML interface of the older one, they went for fancy and try to emulate a full OS with windows and the like... it's a hassle for the browser for basically nothing.
Is there a way I missed to have a basic interface ?
I've bought a second Qnap NAS. It seems to work perfectly well, and I'm quite happy with it.
But I must say I'm not fond of the new interface. Instead of the basic, quick and snappy HTML interface of the older one, they went for fancy and try to emulate a full OS with windows and the like... it's a hassle for the browser for basically nothing.
Is there a way I missed to have a basic interface ?
Yes, once the files are on the drive, the streaming performance is fine for the content I'm streaming. Not instant start-up and file seeking or anything, but fine. Archer C9 USB 3.0 read / write performance:
I would look at the overall bitrate of the files you're looking to stream and see if the NTFS Read performance of the router is good enough to keep up with your content (with some overhead).
Even with that said, while it's a great router IMO, I would not recommend the C9 for this use case. It just does not play well with writing files over the network in my experience. It will often stop writing half way through a file and need to be rebooted and have the file rewritten. It's exactly why I'm in this thread looking at a NAS solution.
If you're set on using a USB drive connected to a router, I'd go to SmallNetBuilder and look for a router in your price range with better read/write performance. I took a look at some point, and a good amount can pretty well read and write at what the USB drive is rated for.
Agent Icebeezy
Welcome beautful toddler, Madison Elizabeth, to the horde!
Where is the cheapest place to get 16tb of NAS storage?
The vast majority of the cost will the the 16tb in HDDs however you get it.
Marty Chinn
Member
Get two of these:
https://www.bestbuy.com/site/wd-eas...-3-0-hard-drive-black/5792401.p?skuId=5792401
and put them in any NAS you like. That's the cheapest you'll get 16TB of storage. Actually, those have gone on sale for less so they can be cheaper.
Agent Icebeezy
Welcome beautful toddler, Madison Elizabeth, to the horde!
Thanks for everyone with help. I've run into another complication, my router is upstairs by my wife's PC and I'd prefer to have the storage downstairs because that is where I leave my computer and other computer stuff. So, I'm looking at it from this perspective. Is it possible to find a nas that can also function by way of USB connection or is there another way to connect the nas to my router, however, to do so wireless lying like through an ethernet to wifi adapter. It's important that I have a raid 1 configuration for mirroring data so that explains my insistence on a nas. Thanks in advance.
I dont follow what youre trying to do. How is your network currently setup? Is everything downstairs wireless?
I wouldnt go this route but if you really just want a big external HDD with Raid 1, WD sells them. Eg the MyBook Duo
Agent Icebeezy
Welcome beautful toddler, Madison Elizabeth, to the horde!
My router is connected to my wife's PC upstairs, all of my stuff is downstairs. The mybook duo is sounding like this is what is applicable for me now. Thank you for turning me towards this direction.
Agent Icebeezy
Welcome beautful toddler, Madison Elizabeth, to the horde!
Guys. GUYS.
I'm fairly new to this. I'm just trying to set up a NAS system with a Raspberry Pi and an old 500GB drive that's still kicking.
I managed to install OpenMediaVault on the RPi, and gets to manage the files, appear on a Shared Network, etc... but it's SO SLOW. A 500mb file took 8 minutes to copy over a wireless LAN!
Disk was formatted to FAT for the most accesible Read/Write access.
So, any ideas on how to improve the transfer speed? I have been reading on changing to Ext3 but I use a Mac and I'm not sure it would work properly...
Thanks in any case! '^_^
I'm fairly new to this. I'm just trying to set up a NAS system with a Raspberry Pi and an old 500GB drive that's still kicking.
I managed to install OpenMediaVault on the RPi, and gets to manage the files, appear on a Shared Network, etc... but it's SO SLOW. A 500mb file took 8 minutes to copy over a wireless LAN!
Disk was formatted to FAT for the most accesible Read/Write access.
So, any ideas on how to improve the transfer speed? I have been reading on changing to Ext3 but I use a Mac and I'm not sure it would work properly...
Thanks in any case! '^_^