NAS hdd solution

quiwa · November 5, 2013

Greetings, this is my first post, so forgive me for any errors.

To start this off, I'd like everyone to know that i currently have a ds213j with a single 3tb barracuda drive. As of right now 3tb is not enough for my needs and would like to upgrade. I could just put in another 3tb but I'd get no redundancy .

So I plan on upgrading to the ds413j. As of the drives, i'd like to hear other's opinion and what my options are. so far my current options are:

- buy 3 more 3tb seagate barracuda drives for raid 5 to achieve 9tb of usable storage. this will roughly cost me around 400$

- buy 4 3tb reds ( this will cost me around 670$ )

- buy 3 4tb red for raid ( 8tb of usable storage costs me 680$) ***

I'd like to hear other's opinion, but I do want to go for a more cheaper route. Also I know making a diy server will be a better option, but i simply do not have the space for one. or the time to really configure one.

And I also like synology's features and its mostly just plug and play.

*** I believe synology nas has a feature which allows me to add a drive to an array. could I do that with raid 5? or do i have to set it to SHR?

Anthony_95 · November 5, 2013

I would go with first option as long you don't write so much, because the write speed in Raid 5 is terrible...

If you need more storage in the future, buy a new drive. The ds413j is good enough.

BYOGamingPC · November 5, 2013

I agree, go with three more Seagate Barracuda 3 TB ST3000DM001 drives. Those are the ones that I use for my NAS/Server setup. They are not the ideal server HDD's but for a NAS they work great. Just make sure your setup has plenty of cooling as they run warmer than the WD Red drives that were made for server storage.