what storage format recommended? Single disk, JBOD, RAID1 or RAID5

[Monty007]

Hi All,

 

I have a QNAP TS420.  I love the little unit and provides 4 bays up to a total of 16GB.  It does everything I want and more.  Last night I had a total loss of my data (over 4TB) due to a firmware update and failure.  I have posted on the QNAP forum and created a ticket but lots of others have had the same problem and data loss was inevitable. 

 

Now that I'm starting all over again (which really, REALLY sucks) I want to get some advice on how to setup the disk structure.  I had previously used 2 x 3TB WD Red drives (awesome drives) as one linear drive in JBOD.  With the failure of the controlling software, data was destroyed.  Even if I had it in RAID1 for redundancy, because of the type of failure I had, I assume that I would have lost the data anyway.

 

So, should I setup the new structure as JBOD again (redundancy isn't critical for me) or consider single disks, or some other format?  I'm reluctant/fearful of this happening again and want to get access to my data in case of another disaster.  I always keep backups but as you know, it still takes time to build the array again and migrate the data back to the server.

 

Thanks in advance for your suggestions!

[Luc401]

 

[Monty007]

thanks for the videos.  I have seen them and used them to decide the first time I got my NAS.  I'm hoping to hear some advice from others who use NAS/Servers and have gone through data loss or controller failure and some advice on setting it up.

 

Looking at the LTT 10TB++ thread there are a lot of people with very large arrays using JBOD.  Dangerous1 has over 89TB using JBOD.  

[Vitalius]

Hi All,

 

I have a QNAP TS420.  I love the little unit and provides 4 bays up to a total of 16GB.  It does everything I want and more.  Last night I had a total loss of my data (over 4TB) due to a firmware update and failure.  I have posted on the QNAP forum and created a ticket but lots of others have had the same problem and data loss was inevitable. 

 

Now that I'm starting all over again (which really, REALLY sucks) I want to get some advice on how to setup the disk structure.  I had previously used 2 x 3TB WD Red drives (awesome drives) as one linear drive in JBOD.  With the failure of the controlling software, data was destroyed.  Even if I had it in RAID1 for redundancy, because of the type of failure I had, I assume that I would have lost the data anyway.

 

So, should I setup the new structure as JBOD again (redundancy isn't critical for me) or consider single disks, or some other format?  I'm reluctant/fearful of this happening again and want to get access to my data in case of another disaster.  I always keep backups but as you know, it still takes time to build the array again and migrate the data back to the server.

 

Thanks in advance for your suggestions!

I'm pretty sure you meant 16TB. That's so sad. D:

Yep. Pretty much. That's a worst case scenario failure. 

Can you install other stuff on the QNAP NAS? Or is it stuck with whatever is on it now? If you can install stuff on it, I recommend doing that and moving to something else that doesn't rely so heavily on the OS. Like, maybe a Linux distro (Ubuntu Server?), or Amahi/FreeNAS?

I don't know much about pre-built NAS' but since the particular failure you had can't be saved by a different drive configuration, I personally use and prefer RAID 10. For you though, I would just do JBOD or use something equivalent to Storage Spaces in Windows.

[Monty007]

I'm pretty sure you meant 16TB. That's so sad. D:

Yep. Pretty much. That's a worst case scenario failure. 

Can you install other stuff on the QNAP NAS? Or is it stuck with whatever is on it now? If you can install stuff on it, I recommend doing that and moving to something else that doesn't rely so heavily on the OS. Like, maybe a Linux distro (Ubuntu Server?), or Amahi/FreeNAS?

I don't know much about pre-built NAS' but since the particular failure you had can't be saved by a different drive configuration, I personally use and prefer RAID 10. For you though, I would just do JBOD or use something equivalent to Storage Spaces in Windows.

 

Thanks for the advice.  The QNAP worked awesome for what I needed.  Full integration with my iPhone and iPad, iTunes Time Machine (a bit buggy) and all the features of some higher end machines.  I can even upgrade the network card on the back to a fiber card if I wanted.  I don't think I can change the software on it.  Before the firmware update, it worked perfectly!  I was able to install a lot of other third-party programs like transmission, Couch Potato 2, Happy Get, etc.  They all worked without a hitch.  

 

If I set it up as single disks and had the same type of failure again, would the data be more accessible?  Would I be able to take those disks and stick it in my main rig and access the data stored?  I tried some recovery software and was not able to recover anything.

[Vitalius]

Thanks for the advice.  The QNAP worked awesome for what I needed.  Full integration with my iPhone and iPad, iTunes Time Machine (a bit buggy) and all the features of some higher end machines.  I can even upgrade the network card on the back to a fiber card if I wanted.  I don't think I can change the software on it.  Before the firmware update, it worked perfectly!  I was able to install a lot of other third-party programs like transmission, Couch Potato 2, Happy Get, etc.  They all worked without a hitch.  

 

If I set it up as single disks and had the same type of failure again, would the data be more accessible?  Would I be able to take those disks and stick it in my main rig and access the data stored?  I tried some recovery software and was not able to recover anything.

I've only ever used EaseUS Partition Recovery to recover data. It worked. It gives you a free trial for the first use IIRC.

Maybe. It entirely depends on what kind of format the QNAP puts on the HDD. If it's NTFS or FAT32, then any Windows machine should be able to read data off it. If it's ext2, ext3, or ext4, then Ubuntu should be able to read it fine along with any other Linux based OS. 

If it's some weird/unique format, then probably not.