Equip NAS with SSDs?

[XWAUForceflow]

Hi guys,

 

just currently thinking about upgrading my Synology DS412+. It is currently setup with 4xWD Red 4TB HDDs. The 12TB of usable space I get with that is okay, but it is beginning to get somewhat tight. I mostly use the NAS as storage for my media server and it's really annoying that it always takes quite a while until the disks are spun up. (Especially since in rare cases it can actually trigger Kodis timeout values.) I just recently got an 8TB SSD for my PC and was wondering if it would make any sense to upgrade the NAS with SSDs instead of HDDs.

 

Now I know that from a pure read/write performance outside of the NAS I wont really get a lot of additional performance. While the NAS is connected with 2x1GB/s LAN it's mostly read from my main PC which has a single connection and I regularly get 100MB/s when writing stuff to the NAS. However since there's no spinning up it should react much faster once upgraded plus power usage, noise and heat should go down. Noise is a bit of a factor since the NAS is just above my head to the left. Though granted it is already pretty damn quiet most of the time. Spin-up is a tad annoying but since it's mostly inactive it's not a huge factor.

Now, here are the choices:

4x WD Red Plus 8TB disks: €835

4x WD Red Pro 8TB disks: €1,233
4x Samsung 870 QVO: €1,404

The upgrade in cost from Pro to SSD isn't that much, though I don't know if I would go Pro and Plus to SSD is obviously much higher difference.

 

Thing I am wondering is if I am missing something else? Are there any other factors that would go against using SSDs or is it really just down to whether or not I am willing to shell out the extra cash?

[leadeater]

1 minute ago, XWAUForceflow said:

I just recently got an 8TB SSD for my PC and was wondering if it would make any sense to upgrade the NAS with SSDs instead of HDDs.

No, almost never makes much sense.

 

4 minutes ago, XWAUForceflow said:

I mostly use the NAS as storage for my media server and it's really annoying that it always takes quite a while until the disks are spun up. (Especially since in rare cases it can actually trigger Kodis timeout values.)

Just disable disk spin down?

 

https://kb.synology.com/en-me/DSM/help/DSM/AdminCenter/system_hardware_hibernation?version=7

[XWAUForceflow]

Not really a fan of wasting the power there. The NAS is inactive for long periods of time so that does add up. (And it's mostly me not wanting to waste the power, less about the cost of the power)

[tkitch]

SSDs are (generally) a terrible idea for a NAS, due to cost/GB.

 

If you *need* 1GB/s data transfer on the reg, then it *might* make sense.  This is why LTT has a SSD based NAS, so a dozen (or more) editors can access 4K video live off the NAS at once.

 

Just use a SSD for the boot drive on the NAS, and then use HDDs for bulk storage.  You don't need that much transfer speed.  For realz.

[leadeater]

3 minutes ago, XWAUForceflow said:

Not really a fan of wasting the power there. The NAS is inactive for long periods of time so that does add up. (And it's mostly me not wanting to waste the power, less about the cost of the power)

Yea true, idle isn't too bad but sleep state is more than 3x less than idle

 

[XWAUForceflow]

2 minutes ago, tkitch said:

SSDs are (generally) a terrible idea for a NAS, due to cost/GB.

 

If you *need* 1GB/s data transfer on the reg, then it *might* make sense.  This is why LTT has a SSD based NAS, so a dozen (or more) editors can access 4K video live off the NAS at once.

 

Just use a SSD for the boot drive on the NAS, and then use HDDs for bulk storage.  You don't need that much transfer speed.  For realz.

As I said, I don't care about the transfer speed but the spin-up times of the disks. Plus I already have a NAS so I cannot use an SSD for the boot drive since it doesn't have one. It's about the inconvenience about the NAS taking at least 30 seconds each time I start Kodi. Is it a big thing? No. Can I afford the SSDs for the immediate reaction? Yes. Does it make sense? Well, that's up for discussion.

 

Taking price/performance into consideration then again the WD Red Pros do not actually cost that much less than the SSDs. That's less than 15% difference, however if I go with the Plus version it's more like 70%, that absolutely hurts the case more. A bit unsure if Pros make any sense over the Plus though...

[tkitch]

well, is sounds like you've convinced yourself that you need SSDs in your NAS, facts be damned.

 

So enjoy the super-expensive, and pointless Solid State NAS!

 

 

[leadeater]

9 minutes ago, XWAUForceflow said:

It's about the inconvenience about the NAS taking at least 30 seconds each time I start Kodi. Is it a big thing? No. Can I afford the SSDs for the immediate reaction? Yes. Does it make sense? Well, that's up for discussion.

Damn, I was hoping you model had M.2 slots so you could setup caching but it doesn't. What about replacing the disks with 1x SDD and 3x HDD or 2x SSD and 2x HDD?

 

Can't remember if Synology SSD cache requires RAID 1 and is volatile cache or not.

[XWAUForceflow]

1 minute ago, tkitch said:

well, is sounds like you've convinced yourself that you need SSDs in your NAS, facts be damned.

 

So enjoy the super-expensive, and pointless Solid State NAS!

 

 

What facts? That they are faster, make less noise, use less power and are instantly on without the need to spin up?

There are absolutely upsides to using SSDs in a NAS. Does one need them? Certainly not, and I am asking for things I am missing that might make SSDs a bad idea in a NAS besides the price.

 

Geez, why do people always need to get offended when one doesn't fully agree with them?

 

It's a discussion forum for discussing topics...

[XWAUForceflow]

1 minute ago, leadeater said:

Damn, I was hoping you model had M.2 slots so you could setup caching but it doesn't. What about replacing the disks with 1x SDD and 3x HDD or 2x SSD and 2x HDD?

 

Can't remember if Synology SSD cache requires RAID 1 and is volatile cache or not.

I have to look that up, though I am not sure how that would work with RAID. I don't want to loose the RAID protection, but I don't know if I can split the filesystem to have a cache just on the SSD without loosing too much capacity.

But that's an interesting idea, absolutely have to look into the capabilities here.

[ToboRobot]

22 minutes ago, XWAUForceflow said:

What facts? That they are faster, make less noise, use less power and are instantly on without the need to spin up?

There are absolutely upsides to using SSDs in a NAS. Does one need them? Certainly not, and I am asking for things I am missing that might make SSDs a bad idea in a NAS besides the price.

 

Geez, why do people always need to get offended when one doesn't fully agree with them?

 

It's a discussion forum for discussing topics...

Failure and recoverability of data.  When it happens it's less predictable and harder to recover.

So backups and testing them become more important.

[XWAUForceflow]

3 minutes ago, ToboRobot said:

Failure and recoverability of data.  When it happens it's less predictable and harder to recover.

So backups and testing them become more important.

Interesting, now overall recoverability in a NAS is most likely not really an option for a single failed drive. I don't think there is a chance to recover a RAID drive reasonably anyways.

But the fact that the SSD might fail pretty much instantly where the HDD might be more predictable is a factor. As I will be running it in RAID and the valuable data is being backed up to a secondary NAS it's not a massive issue but certainly something I have to add into my consideration, thanks!