When you have four hard drives all the same size, would you recommend using Synology Hybrid Raid (SHR) or RAID 5? Thanks.
1515537
I'm using the NAS as a media server to hold all my content of movies/TV shows that I share through XBMC and Plex. I chose to use the SHR because it makes it easier to choose the content as sources within those programs mentioned. I'm using Western Digital Red, 4x4 TB. Hopefully this helps.
1515538
SHR is more flexible, if you want to upgrade to larger drives later. No downside -- you're locked into the technology once you but the DiskStation, so you may was well leverage the proprietary RAID
1515539
SHR, for sure. It provides all the benefits of traditional RAID 5 but with more flexibility. Once we looked into SHR we didn't even consider using RAID 5.
1515540
SHR will automatically go to a RAID 5 type config when you add 3 or more drives.
1515541
I believe SHR will allow you to change the overall size of the drive later without reformatting.
1327927
I've had problems with Greens on servers/RAID before (not on this machine, though), so I was wary of them and bought a bunch of 4TB Reds that work great so far (about 4 months in). Combined storage spaces over 6TB are no problem - my RAID 5 is just under 12TB total, and you could go much higher with larger drives and a different configuration.
399561
I run mine with the bays partially full. 3 is certainly the magic number for RAID5 and Synology's proprietary striping method.
606996
Yes, this can be done with Synology Hybrid RAID (SHR). And yes, the process is not difficult, i.e. it is "smooth" (if you meant something else by smooth, please let me know). But upgrading the drives on this unit is one of the benefits of it. If you use traditional RAID options, then no you will not be able to upgrade one drive at a time to increase capacity. From my discussions with Synology, 12 bay units are generally recommended with traditional RAID, but they did indicate that many people use SHR with no problems. Personally, I would try to minimize use of the unit during the upgrade since it may help speed up the expansion.
1632889
I answered yes by accident... You CANNOT use smaller drives for 2 reasons. The first is that you can't add smaller volumes to a RAID array on the device and second, you can't expand an existing volume to the new device, you have to make a new volume.
1372202
use the Synology setup software and let it configure your raid (in this case it will likely use RAID5) ... if you are in need of extra redundancy due to high data security, switch to the manual setup and use RAID6 ... this configuration will use 2 spare drives and will reduce the amount of disk available significantly (the price to pay for very high data availability)DLLD
1905077
You can add drives as you need them. The drives can be of mixed sizes too for the hybrid raid configuation; however, I recommend you try to keep to one drive size so select your initial drives with the thought of expanding later.
679038
You can set it up as JBOD (Just a Bunch Of Disks) which Synology calls 'Basic' which can be different sizes or as RAID 0 since all your drives are the same size. After formatting them you can then divide your disk pool of 16TB into one or more volumes. Either way I believe you lose all data if one disk is lost.
1381306
In my opinion, it is best to buy two identical drives at the same time when setting up either Raid 0 or 1. Dell replaced 1 failed raptor in Raid 0 with two new raptors. Speed differences between the two drives can really hamper performance.
673587
Absolutely, I would always recommend RAID 1 or 10 if you can afford the extra drives. Though I've not yet done it, SSD's should be able restore a RAID array faster in the event of a failure.
1668783
Any Western Digital RE drive is good for any raid type as thats what they're designed for I personally have mine setup as part of a 12 drive raid 5 array.
1048775
Hi, I already have the NAS with 2 x WD Red 4TB with out any problem. I think that for using all the space like just one partition, you need to go to the manual or Synology web page. They have a good step by step tutorial to setup the storage in different ways. I'm using Synology hibryd raid, that is like mirroring.
561562
Absolutely. However I would recommend populating with WD Red hard drives which are preferred for NAS RAID use and using the 4TB size hard drives since you are limited to only 4 bays. In a pinch however, you can use any four SATA hard drives of any capacity and /or manufacture and it will work just fine.
104429
Yeah, most likely. I've used a variety of drives since I've owned it, some listed as "supported" and others not. All have worked fine. The only thing I'd recommend doing is checking the Synology Raid Calc to make sure you get it set up with the specific RAID you want to maximize space: https://www.synology.com/en-us/support/RAID_calculator
1787153
I agree with David, you can set it to Raid 0 for full storage space use. I prefer using Raid 1 for protection even though you drop the usable space in half. I like having my data replicated in case of failure.
348899
I use Raid 1, but I think they have raid 0 as well. By default they use an automatic mode called Synology Hybrid Raid that handles raid levels for you, that what I have and I have configured and so far I have seen no problems. Written in Panama City, Panama, on May 26 2013.
1570067
You can configure it as JBOD (just a bunch of drives) and consolidate your various drives. If you configure as RAID, you'll need to replace bad drives with exactly the same size and possibly type of drive