I'm looking to get a NAS as an alternitive to cloud storage, i've never had a NAS before

[harvo_m]

Hey, I'm very new to NAS's and I've been looking at a NAS to store all my videos (main focus, they aren't films, just a place to hold videos as a mirror sync to my pc), pictures and pc files on the cloud and as a backup. 

I've been looking at Synology DS918+, it would be really useful if it was attached to the internet with smart ai recognition for photos and videos to store all the photos in the cloud. I also plan to put 4x 4TB HDD (Seagate IronWolf 4TB NAS Hard Drive probably) 

 

 

 

• Synology DS918+ does this seem to fit my use case? or does it really suck?
• is it really necessary to get NAS specfifc hard drives?
• is what I'm doing really dumb because I have no clue, if so is there a better way?
• do you think a UPS is necessary for this NAS?
• is SHR or SHR2 a good choice when compared to raid?

[LapsedMemory]

• Synology DS918+ does this seem to fit my use case? or does it really suck?  Synology makes one of the best Consumer level NAS' on the market.  Their hardware is quality, and their software is extremely hard to beat, especially for less advanced users.  It's perfect for when you would rather have an appliance than a project and it comes with it's own plugin/app library to add all sorts of more advanced features

 

• is it really necessary to get NAS specfifc hard drives? NAS drives are typically recommended, but certainly not necessary.  There's some firmware shenanigans that give them a few more features than normal drives, and you may get a better warranty, but normal drives will work admirably.  

 

• is what I'm doing really dumb because I have no clue, if so is there a better way?  I would argue that you shouldn't mirror sync to the NAS.  Use the NAS as an additional backup.  Mirror syncs are not a reliable backup method because if you screw up something on the original, the mirror sync is just going to copy it.  Regularly scheduled backup snapshots to the NAS will be a lot more reliable as a backup solution.  Luckily, Synology has an app for that.  

 

• do you think a UPS is necessary for this NAS?  Similar to the hard drive question.  Not necessary, but in this case highly recommended.  The Synology actually has drivers for some of the more popular UPS units, so you can plug it into the USB drive and it will allow the Synology to power down cleanly in the event the UPS battery is getting low.  You may need to look up a list of which models are supported.  

 

• is SHR or SHR2 a good choice when compared to raid?  SHR is roughly equivalent to RAID5, SHR2 is roughly RAID6.  If you're planning on using all identical size drives, then the difference between the setups is minimal.  If you have drives of mixed sizes, SHR and SHR2 will generally give you higher utilization of the space.  During the setup, Synology has a calculator to let you see what your setup will be able to use with each RAID type. https://www.wundertech.net/synology-raid-calculator-shr-vs-raid.  For a 4-drive NAS, SHR is probably sufficient.  

[harvo_m]

Thanks 

[Needfuldoer]

2 hours ago, LapsedMemory said:

is it really necessary to get NAS specfifc hard drives? NAS drives are typically recommended, but certainly not necessary.  There's some firmware shenanigans that give them a few more features than normal drives, and you may get a better warranty, but normal drives will work admirably.  

To build on this, make sure you don't get SMR, or Shingled Magnetic Recording, drives. They'll become incredibly slow over time.

[m9x3mos]

23 hours ago, Needfuldoer said:

To build on this, make sure you don't get SMR, or Shingled Magnetic Recording, drives. They'll become incredibly slow over time.

I second this. If you are flexible on size, your can usually pickup Seagate nas drives in sale for a decent price. There is also cmr hgst drives that are new old stock you can find for good prices on eBay. Those are what I started with and served me well for over 3 years (I had 3tb models) and still use today. They aren't as fast and have smaller cache in them but was able to run 10 vms off them at the same time and worked pretty good.