Want Nas Drive for upgrade

[examiga1990]

Hi, at the moment Im using a 4TB WDMCLOUD Nas unit (one bay) had it for a few years. Its still working fine and gives good service. Its only to use on my home network in my house watching films and music via smart TV, Internet streaming radios and watching via Firesticks via Kodi and or VLC. It all workg great and have no propblems.

I know its limited because of the one drive and it would be a shame for it to crash and burn before I take the plunge and get a new NAS machine so any recomendations. I dont really want/use it via streaming over the cloud from another house/location but I suppose its a good plus. Its just domestic stuff Films/music/photos. I guess a good 2 bay unit would fit the bill and a step up from what I have. I would more than likely want more than 4TB drive (on each HD) maybe 2x8TB drives min`. I know my WDMCLOUD is not state of the art but for what I need/use its been really good and cannot fault and a good first step into the NAS world

 

[mickevh]

What makes you think having a single drive is "limited"...? As you say, it seems to be working OK. Perhaps you could elaborate a little.

The only thing you're really missing out on is redundancy if you went for something like a RAID1 (mirrored) configuration. Of course, if you are not backing up any critical/irreplaceable stored on the incumbent (or anywhere else) then you are "at risk" that when the drive fails (all mechanical HDD's die eventually) you loose all the data. RAID1 would save you from that unless you were really unfortunate and both discs die at the same time. But even RAID won't save you from other risks such as accident deletion, malware, crypto locking and so on. Only "proper" backups (making a copy somewhere else) do that.

 

[examiga1990]

What makes you think having a single drive is "limited"...? As you say, it seems to be working OK. Perhaps you could elaborate a little.

The only thing you're really missing out on is redundancy if you went for something like a RAID1 (mirrored) configuration. Of course, if you are not backing up any critical/irreplaceable stored on the incumbent (or anywhere else) then you are "at risk" that when the drive fails (all mechanical HDD's die eventually) you loose all the data. RAID1 would save you from that unless you were really unfortunate and both discs die at the same time. But even RAID won't save you from other risks such as accident deletion, malware, crypto locking and so on. Only "proper" backups (making a copy somewhere else) do that.

yes its working fine I was just looking ahead if it failed. I`ve tried to backup via a 4tb usb HD but its murder so slowwwww. and I thought the best thing would be maybe move over to a RAID device (mirrored device as you say) so a safety net for my system. Like I said not major stuff just basic films/music/photos (photos are all backed up and are all OK) the films and music are not backed up so would be headache I guess. I use proper backups for my laptop (use True Image) but the NAS nothing set in weekly.

 

[mickevh]

USB was never really designed for bulk data shoveling, so it tends to be slow - especially the earlier V1 & V2. We really need to be V3 or V4 for higher performance.

It is important to understand that RAID is not in any sense "backup" - RAID is about availing continued access to your data in the event of an HDD failure. Many RAID variants (called "levels" in RAID speak) do not even do that. As disused, there are many risks and failure modes that RAID will not save you from. Even with RAID, we still need to make proper backups of any important or irreplaceable data.

Since disk mirroring (with two discs) has a large overhead (you only get 50% of the capacity usable) there are those who argue that for a home media tank, where you have access to all the original media on their shiny silver discs and where lose of access to the media whilst you replace a failed HDD and re-rip the original is hardly a catastrophe - it really only "costs" the time to re-rip - they say it is better to not use RAID and avail more usable storage (for your money) instead. There's no really write" and "wrong" way to this, it's a value judgement.

 

[examiga1990]

Just mainly downloaded stuff (films/music) so pain to get back and do again. Photos my own but have backups. Its was just to stop problems if my only one HD in the NAS failed. Yes I know to get mirror 4TB storage I would need 2 x 4tb drives. Thats ok in fact my mate had a Synology DS1515+ with extra 8GB ram added and spare 3TB red drive so I took the plunge and bought it off him. It might be a bit over over kill for what I need but I thought what the hell and got it. So just got it today so will have a play with it and get some more Hard Drives (maybe 2 x 8TB drives) and move all my stuff over from my WDMYCLOUD the next few days. For the time being till I`m used to the new DS1515+ I will keep them both in my system. So problem solved now for me I guess, many thanks

 

[mickevh]

Sounds like a good deal. There's plenty of people (other than me) here that know that platform if you have any issues.

You could always keep the WD and use that as a target for backups - space permitting of course - over the (wired) ethernet network. I'd prefer to do it that way rather than using USB (or Wi-Fi. Powerline, etc.) The first one may take a while, but if you set up for incremental backups that only write away the changes, the subsequent runs will be much quicker. Possible even keeping a few generations. It would be even more useful if you could set up the WD to power up/down as required automatically so it's not burning up the electricity all time it's not actually doing anything useful. It'd be worth having a look to see if it offers such functionality.

There may be capabilities in the software to automate pushing the data from one to the other which is always preferable to "manually" making backups. Backing up data is a thankless dull task and the road ls littered with the corpses of those who had all intention of making regular backups and quickly got fed up with it and stopped doing in. Even "checking the logs" quickly gets tedious.

 

[examiga1990]

Sounds like a good deal. There's plenty of people (other than me) here that know that platform if you have any issues.

You could always keep the WD and use that as a target for backups - space permitting of course - over the (wired) ethernet network. I'd prefer to do it that way rather than using USB (or Wi-Fi. Powerline, etc.) The first one may take a while, but if you set up for incremental backups that only write away the changes, the subsequent runs will be much quicker. Possible even keeping a few generations. It would be even more useful if you could set up the WD to power up/down as required automatically so it's not burning up the electricity all time it's not actually doing anything useful. It'd be worth having a look to see if it offers such functionality.

There may be capabilities in the software to automate pushing the data from one to the other which is always preferable to "manually" making backups. Backing up data is a thankless dull task and the road ls littered with the corpses of those who had all intention of making regular backups and quickly got fed up with it and stopped doing in. Even "checking the logs" quickly gets tedious.

yes good idea using the WDNas as say a backup I can put the timer on True Image and do it that way (at moment using plug in USB drive) so at least can use in auto` as you say. But the new Synology will give me more options as well as using it for films/music etc.

I will look into all my options over the coming days at least I`ve sorted safer backups for my film/music collection.