Quote:
Originally Posted by Hom3r
Looking at this one ATM. intrigued by the 2 Ethernet ports
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good choice and as it is a 2 bay system you have got the option for raid 0 for redundancy. I went with a 4 bay solution because I needed more space plus redundancy. If you go for anything with 3 drives or more you can use raid 5 or the Synology equivalent (which is fantastic).
The 220+ you have chosen looks perfect with the ironwolfs but I would think twice as to whether you would really notice and benefit from the increased performance. Have you had a look at the 218? It is £234 and you can get the Ironwolfs for £96 each for a total cost if £426 saving yourself a lot of dosh.
https://smile.amazon.co.uk/Synology-...rs&sr=1-1&th=1
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Seagate-Iro...34&sr=8-3&th=1
Below are the links for the Synology datasheets so you can compare them:
218
https://global.download.synology.com..._Sheet_enu.pdf
220+
https://global.download.synology.com..._Sheet_enu.pdf
Looking at all the specs I think my 418 is literally the 4 bay version of the 218 so I can highly recommend it. It serves 3 media players in the house as well as the pcs and laptops and backups etc and it doesn't break a sweat. There is a widget on the desktop which displays cpu usage, ram and bandwidth utilisation and it handles everything no problemo.
I am going to throw you a massive curveball now. You were prepared to spend around £500 so why don't you consider the 4 bay solution (which is what I have got) and you can still only put 2 drives in it for now but leave yourself plenty of scope for expansion in the future:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/203177581...MAAOSwq85frKm-
If you get that plus the two 4 TB Ironwolfs you are looking at the price you was originally willing to pay. You can use the drives as standalone drives if you want to for now or use raid 1 and as you add more drives in the future you can choose whether to add them to an existing array, create a new one or use them as a single drive. The Synology NAS' are fully customisable and flexible. The 418 can go up to something like 48TB storage and I have got 4 x 4TB in there atm in the Synology raid system. If I want more capacity and for example wanted to replace the drives with 8TB drives I wouldn't have break the system and start from scratch. I can add (replace) new drives one by one and they would be integrated into the array and the available storage space would scale up.
It really is a fantastic system and if I were you with the benefit of having experience with it, that is what I would go for. It is great future proofing no matter which way you look at it.
A few of us have mentioned Synology's raid system (Synology Hybrid RAID) and you might be asking yourself what it is and why would you use it when RAID has been around for donkeys and everyone knows what it is. SHR like everything else Synology does is amazing and if you want to be a nerd and get excited about using it prior to your purchase you can read about it here. My NAS is using SHR opposed to RAID 5 and I couldn't be happier about it. It is a very easy to read article and clearly explains and builds on what nomad said above and you come away appreciating why it is so awesome.
https://kb.synology.com/en-my/DSM/tu...ybrid_RAID_SHR