I hope you have your security set up correctly if you’re planning to use your NAS anywhere. It’s another rabbit hole that takes time to understand for newbies, but it’s essential. Thankfully, Synology’s recommendations are actually pretty OK as long as you follow the practices, port forward responsibly and minimize port openings on your network, but it’s even better if you can complement it with a Wireguard-based VPN.
Jimmy you bought a DS1821+, the 18 means you can have up to 18 drives. the unit holds 8 drives and you can get 2 more 5 bay addons that plug into your NAS by the eSata plugs in the back.
@@silentblackhole Caring strongly about minor pronounciation differences is more than a little bit ridiculous, ngl, especially when it's an acronym with no official pronunciation.
@@danielkaranja7978 depends on your use case and how you want to back your data up. It's possible to meet all the criteria for good backup practices and avoid online storage services altogether. The video also puts this forward as something private that you don't have to pay a service fee for.
Nah, with good hardware raid you're pretty secure. I've worked at Cisco, yahoo, Google, others managing servers for many decades. We *rarely* need to restore something. Only if you are wishing to keep more than one revision.
great choice. I'm using this since 10+ years 2 Bay & 5 Bay Synology also I've sold 200+ Synology NAS. Some tips 01. Please don't forget spare hard disk 02. UPS in the event blackout 03. Buy plus series model & extend 2 years Warranty (Total 5 Years Warranty) 04. Don't forget 2FA for security reason (Two Factor Authentication)
UPS is a must for a NAS, Just need one big enough to enable an auto shutdown if there is a power blackout, Don't need a really expensive one. Get one that gives you at least a few minutes worth so the HDD's can spin down and turn off the NAS, Otherwise you could lose all your data.
So this video was a wake up call. I'm starting up my own TH-cam channel fairly soon (3D modeling tutorials). I thought about what I might teach and my target audience. Not once did I think about storage! I already use up a lot of storage space as is. Not sure if I'd need a NAS quite yet, but it's definitely on my radar now. Thanks, Jim!
You can get a smaller Synology like a DS920+ (soon to be the Ds922+) I use one as a home user and a tinkerer. I filled mine with four 2TB drives for enough space vs cost.
You made the same blunder I did with first NAS, NEVER go cheap on HDD capacity, harder to upgrade later on. I went with 3x8TB and added another 2x8TB a year later to fill 5 bay NAS, Still filled them had the NAS 3 years now. I should have bit the bullet and gone with 3x 16TB to start with and added the rest later, I would still have a few years of storage rather than now being full.
This is why I generally prefer UnRAID. Way it works is just: -Have a parity disk as large as the biggest disk in your array (or two) -Have something quick to use as a big storage cache for the entire thing (an SSD). Otherwise, you can grab whatever hard drive you want and it'll just work. One parity disk, you can survive one drive failure. Two parity disks, you can survive two. Always back up everything important and keep a spare drive lying around in case one fails. End result is easily expandable storage and a server you can also use for other stuff through Docker images and VMs, potentially. Plus, the lack of proprietary Synology stuff means it's easy to replace other parts.
@@mikec2845 Some people store tons of movies n' shit, keep all their games on there so they can grab them more quickly than downloading them from Steam again, etc. But yeah, I still don't get how you'd manage to use up more than *16 TB* of space unless you're storing tons of raw video footage.
I have the DS918+. After using it for the past few years I can honestly say it is one of the best purchases that I have made. I use it mainly for streaming movies with plex throughout the house and of course backup for other media. I have it connected directly to the router. With the combination on Nvidia Shield boxes in each room and great gigabit speed there are few things that I can't do. At this time, I am ready for the available expansion bay as I am running out of room. Here is a tip. The NAS will use the smallest capacity hard drive as the largest available. So, if you start off with a 4 terabyte and add a 6 terabyte next the NAS will use the 4 as the maximum space available if you are using Synology default backup option. Now almost 5 years later I am finally replacing the smallest drive to a bigger one to get the space that has been there all these years. In short, I have all 4 bays filled three have the same size drive and one has a smaller one. After replacing the smallest, drive I will finally have the full capacity of the drives I have put in. One last tip. If you are streaming movies over your network, make sure your HDMI cables going from the media box such as Shield are current meaning they are able to stream at least 4K video. Doing this will help fix any problems with streaming and audio/ video voice synchronizations. I thought this was the internet speed for a long time even the TV being super old (plasma), but it was not. Check your cables. Don't go to cheap and you will enjoy your NAS a lot more. Synology has a great website check it out before making any purchases decisions.
As a lifetime geek and lover of all tech toys, I've wanted a NAS for years. Now at 71, with a few extra bucks from the sale of a family property, I took the leap and got a Synology DS1821+ this week. Still waiting on my 6 10Tb disks, but I set it up in test fashion with a pile of old castoff drives from my hoarding closet. Working as a field service engineer for 40 years, I had some networking experience, but retiring 10 years ago has faded a lot of that knowledge. Currently working my way thru some old Network+ manuals from 15 years back, and plowing thru stone age concepts like NetBEUI, IPX/SPX, etc. But the basics are coming back to me. Planning to use this NAS to store lifetimes of scanned and digital photos, family documents, my CNC and 3D printer files,and my wife's massive hoard of digital sewing, embroidery, and quilting files. Also reserving the two remaining NAS drive bays for Synology's Surveillance Station. Sad commentary on modern life that I plan to outfit my front yard like a video studio. Thanks for a great video. I may just show it to family members who keep asking, "whats that black box on the desk for?"
Only 10TB disks? There is one mistake I made when I started using NAS: buying too small disks. The 2 last disks I bought are 22TB disks. I always underestimated my ‘needs’.
Great video on the benefits of using a NAS. I have been using a NAS since the first consumer level devices were released in the early 2000s by Ximeta called the Net Disk. I currently use the Synology DS218 Play+, WD PR210 Pro, D-Link DNS 320L and D-Link DNS-340L. Furthermore, I use my NAS servers to store my engineering designs, music collection, movie collection along with photos from my drones and cameras.
I highly recommend using an old laptop or an unused/cheap one and install debian (or any other distro tbh) if you're starting out. It will teach you a lot, and it will make it obvious that servers are not "basically" computers, they are computers. You can do literally anything you want with it. NAS are great, don't get me wrong, but owning and managing your own little server is extremely rewarding and simpler that it looks like (you have to be open to learning new things though). It's a fun rabbit holw to fall into, as you can always make it more stable, more efficient, more deployable (if you care about that). Also, I highly recommend not installing any graphical environment and managing the server via ssh. But like any computer, you can do exactly what you want, and I find it a very enjoyable exerience
i myself have old celeron laptop that useless for years, i installed fedora on it and then install docker, smb, ftp, ssh, and many more stuff. hell, it so useful that i can host my own content, do downloads, makes it as bluetooth speakers and many more! and i use Nextcloud, Jellyfin for the frontend, and deploys it via docker
Best explained among all the other channels I've watched. Its like you specifially answered all my questions I had in mind. Earned a new subscriber here!
These are going to be essential for those travelling internationally. Border agents can take an image of any device you’re travelling with so it’s best to keep your data elsewhere and secure.
I'm a tinkerer so I built my own and went with Truenas but I have installed Synology/Qnap stuff for clients who don't mind paying extra for the ease of use. I'm a ZFS guy so that was important for me but for the 'average' user these are solid, just don't buy used unless you are willing to forgo warranty.
The one thing not mentioned ... a NAS is NOT a backup. Its a primary file storage and use system, parity is not an actual backup. If something ... anything goes wrong with the unit or the area the unit is sitting in ... you have no other version of your files, which is a complete fail as a definition of a backup. Many approach this in different ways; - The front USB (or rear) of most NAS devices are for plugging in an external storage device to back up mission critical files occasionally. It depends on the size of the backup for someone like Jimmys usage. Either a truly massive backup drive (20+Tb) in an external enclosure, so he can backup RAW files, or a smaller drive (4 or 8Tb) in that enclosure to just backup finished video projects. Synology's system has settings just for all this. Or instead of an auto backup function, you can set it up so all you do is plug in this external (once a week or whatever) into the front USB, and it auto copies over any changes to desired folders you want backed up. - As a further step, truly ultimate critical mission files (agreements, taxes, paperwork ... or even a full copy of that external drive) can further be backed up automatically to Google drive, dropbox or any cloud service from the NAS directly. NOW you have a true backup system: a NAS for file system parity protection, an external drive on site to protect the NAS in case of complete NAS system loss, and an offsite backup of that, in case of a Satellite crashing into your house or a fire. Just make sure you memorise your cloud server user and password. People really need to understand that a NAS is NOT a backup. No real backup can be in the same box all together, the inherent risk is too large. One small glitch and everything is gone, thats not a backup.
Completely agree Although I'm not sure I'd be too happy relying on just a USB drive plugged into the NAS - if the NAS can write to that drive, then it has the ability to trash it - it's part of the NAS (I'm thinking of malicious stuff like QLocker).
What if you have your NAS setup as SHR-2, for example, in cases of Synology? You have 4 drives but can only utilise 2 of them and the other 2 are a backup of the first 2. In that case would you consider a NAS a backup solution? In addition, if you have like 40TB of data, there's no feasible way to "backup" your data on your NAS, instead of buying like 20x 2TB T5 SSDs, or paying upwards of $500USD a month for Google Drive, which completely negates the need for a NAS in the first place (Most people get a NAS to save money on cloud storage), and the time required to backup 40TB to the cloud is just insane (it'll probably take weeks if not months with internet connections in some places). With RAID and SHR, I would consider a NAS a backup. Curious to hear what your thoughts on this are.
@@techforever1970 OK then, you set up as SHR-2. Then someone breaks in and steals your NAS, or you have a lightning strike that fries it, or a water leak that drowns it. Or a fire, or a fault that destroys the drives. Ideally you need more than one backup, including one that's off-site, in a secure location. So if your main building burns down, you still have the off-site backup. Of course you need to be sure that the off-site backup is up-to-date and intact, and that takes a lot of work. Backup isn't easy, especially with 40TB of wanted data!
I love Synology been using it for some years now, had a WD NAS and wasnt the best for my Plex needs. I only use Plex with my NAS and mostly all the movies/shows are ones I own but I do still setup a backup for them in case of failure. I do love Sylology's SHR and found it better then the other options.
Hey, a NAS is very valuable for more than just Dollar value. I manage a facility that has 2 NAS's and 54 cameras connected to it. Just amazing how capable the NAS is for storing 30 and 90 day backup of all those cameras. Not difficult to use but does require some Tech knowledge. There are many features that can be added that this facility isn't using. Crazy stuff. Now I'm thinking about getting a 6 bay unit for my house. Just need to cough up a couple grand for all the equipment, drives and UPS. .
I have an 80TB Unraid NAS mainly for Plex and local computer backup storage. Currently 67.2TB used with a 14TB parity drive and 1x 14TB, 3x 10TB, 3x 8TB, and 2x 6TB drives for the data array.
Third video I've seen of yours and all today. I'm loving the content! Thanks for this. I've been on the fence about getting a NAS, you sold me. Thanks again Jimmy.
I just got a buffalo 4 bay NAS off a sale site. Put in the 4 - 4tb iron wolf drives. Love it. One cool feature it has , not sure how others go about it, but buffalo's phone app allows my phone to back up to it, so all photos, videos, downloaded documents backup nightly to it. That's kinda big since they have been removing micro SD cards from phones.
Google Drive or other Cloud Storage Services are more for share files with other and fast up and download speeds. Your Nas is limited to your internet provider speeds for online connection over nextcloud, owncloud etc.
I have a bunch of drives in some QNAP boxes all connected directly to my computer through a USB hub. Good for storage and can even handle playback. The best part is Backblaze will back it up for $7/month or $70/year. I currently have 50 TB backed up. You can’t do that with NAS because its not directly attached storage (DAS). Backblaze would charge over $3k/year for the same amount of storage when using a NAS.
There is a thing called digital hoarders and they have a subreddit. People who go down this path and start backing up Wikipedia or movies that they will never watch again or are not even interested in need to step back and see if there is an underlying issue.
I had an older NAS and a ds918+. The old NAS died so I added a Synology expansion box. Now I have 2 volumes that are mirrors. Even if one unit dies I will still have all my data. I did have an issue with the power supply for the ds918+. Synology support replaced the whole device. They earned my trust.
I have an old DS213j. with 2x 2TB WD BLACK. A month or so ago I had my first drive give me a SMART failure. Since then I have been looking to replace the unit. I am waiting for the 2022/2023 models to come out. When they do I'll likely grab a DS222+ or a DS422. When I do this however I think I'd like to add a Switch to my network. I currently have just my ISP (Bell HH 3000) wireless router and Mesh network with TP Deco units feeding my home. 10Gbe would be Overkill in my home but if 2.5Gbe and 5Gbe prices don't come down closer to the 1Gbe prices soon, It just seems like getting the 10Gbe might be the way to go to future proof everything. only problem is Synology will not have 10GBe... if we're lucky they MIGHT have the 2.5Gbe or multiple 1Gbe ports so that I can double speed. That all being said knowing best practices for a switch, ISP router, NAS with more than one port and a MESH network is going to be a project and a half for me. What Switch do you use?
I've had a Synology DS920+ for about a year now with 4 16tb drives. Am hosting 5 PCs and 14 cellphones as backup. I also have a 16tb usb backup plus C2 storage that runs every day. Synology is one of the best companies for tech support also!! Only drawback is that this is my 3rd DS920 as the first two had hardware is!ues
@@rafraf23534 the first took about a month when i added a 3rd drive. the second was roughly 4 months.. it's just my luck not a flaw in synology. both turned out to be backplane issues.
I have 2 QNAP. one is for mainly "work" nas and another is for daily backups from it with version history. Raid is not backup. I think I need to do offsite backup for important data
BTW, you NEED to still have a CLOUD backup of your data, at least the important things.... 3-Point Backup is the Rule. Local Drives, External Drives, and Cloud. BTW, cloud can just be someone you know who has a computer (or NAS or Server) in another part of the country that you also backup to. It doesn't have to be a "paid" service like Google or otherwise. What I do is have my most important files on the Cloud with whatever Free service, Google, Onedrive, MEGA, etc. and then have everything on Internal Drives and Externals Drives (aka NAS). Of course, eventually I should put everything on the Cloud also, but too lazy and poor atm, future project lol.
Please make sure you bought the CMR WD RED drivers the SMR Drives are incompatible with Synology because it will fail the Raid rebuild check Synology compatible drive list please if you using the SMR replace them with the CMR Drives in Red WD sold red drives that where SMR not knowing that it would fail even though the WD Manger said in Keynote don't use SMR Drives or shingled magnetic Recording drives use CMR Convectional magnetic Recording
I have a Synology four bay.. and I use a Synology two bay as backup. Synology has really good software that I have running at night to replicate from my main NAS to my backup NAS.
If I have a NAS plugged into ethernet, and my pc is plugged into a separate ethernet outlet in the same house, do I then have direct connection to the NAS storage from my pc or do I need to connect them alternatively? I'm thinking about getting one, and was just wondering how that works :D
I recently bought one nas from qnap with 2 bays, I bought it because I have 2 cases that make me to do it. First the google drive they asking money for something that it was free before and I think that is not fare, and second because one colage recently his ssd faild at his work computer and it was dissaster. So I set it and the process it was very easy for someone that has some knolage. My use is to autobakcup my work pc and personal pc's plus my photos from my mobile and also my systers and recently I found out that I can use it for camera recording for close security system for you house.
Now I have a different situation. I've had a NAS for ages for backups, I don't have so much data or so many users I want to actually WORK off of one. But I'm increasingly wanting online access and collaboration, so that means...moving everything to Google Drive or OneDrive? Then paying for some sort of backup-of-cloud-services-backup that's also on the cloud? And the NAS is obsolete?
I really fucked up when I opted for the Synology DS215J instead of, at least, a 220+. I use it mostly to store and watch movies and TV off of, but if I opted for the 220+ I would have at least been able to mount Docker images. That being said, running Download Station, Filebot, and Plex give me a cute little white box that downloads, sorts, and plays everything for me.
Being a linux user with a single machine I just did a ZFS array on the same box, but for a dedicated machine on the DIY route I'd recommend TrueNAS as the operating system. Anything less than ZFS as the filesystem is silly nowadays, given how reliable it is.
I would never recommend your setup as is. If you want speed then you want to pair of M.2s in RAID 1 cache (1,250 MB/s) and then your mass storage. Also QNAP offers ZFS and their hardware isn't a just little better, it's significantly better. Also I'd consider dual 10 GbE.
5:45 Curious as to why you wouldn't have transferred that SSD to an external HDD once the project is done? That way you saved the raw data and you can clear off your ssd
Yes if you using Google or one drive as production it quite crazy and NAS is your answer. but in term of reliability, I will prefer Cloud storage, hopefully you wont experience 2 spare disk break in same time and the 3rd disk break when recovering the array so yep, your data gone(I'm using RAID 6 with 8 HDD). For Me NAS is good for ongoing production only, for achieving or long term storage, maybe you have to backup somewhere else(remote location or at least different NAS with RSYNC or If your data is very important, you can backup to cloud object storage like AWS S3/Glacier).
Having NAS is great for storage when a large amount of content renders video and recording and many more. The best part is it is one -time payment and all you have to pay is the electric bill for it. But... once you slowly need more storage eventually your going to need a bigger server.
Which is why it's important to bite the _boolet_ and buy the biggest reliable hdd's that you can find / afford, because it will get *soooo* much harder to upgrade and offload existing data later
Which is why I like to use UnRAID. So long as your parity disk is at least as big as your biggest HDD you can just chuck whatever in there and it'll be happy.
Honest question, if you install games / program in nas and use it as external hard drive, is it possible to run it? Not via ethernet but USB port that available on the nas itself
I have a couple of Synology DS1815+, both with 6 HDD in RAID6 with two hot spares. That way, I can have four fail before data loss. I didn't know that SHR used the larger disks for parity. AFAIR, traditional RAID over same-sized disks splits the parity across all disks.
Technically... I have 128GB NAS via USB stick with my router. With extra IDR 30.000 for public IP I have my own personal NAS that I can use to access from anywhere
Synology? Yes, its easy to set up in the software and all you need when away is the web address to your NAS, and your user name and password to access your stuff from any computer or device. I can even access it from my phone. QNAP and others? Not sure.
Here's the problem with a NAS... Say you needed to move it from your living room over to your desktop... AND YOU DROP IT! Every single drive will most likely be damaged and you'll lose everything. And there's so much data that its nearly impossible to back up without a bunch of drives. You may as well just use a few 20 TB drives and mirror them, keep one at your moms house too and back that one up monthly LOL.
Why would you need to move the NAS from the living room to your desktop, is that meant to be a regular thing? Of course you can always take out the drives if you need to move it and you don't trust yourself
@@rexsceleratorum1632 And hard drives can survive being dropped just fine, there used to be MP3 players with teeensy tiny hard drives, "What if I'm moving it and drop it" is a bizarre comment.
That's physical data or file storage, and admit it or not there are different currencies in use worldwide being realistic, why not create realtime per country currency exchange tabulation per product price changes of that storage product machine by being versatile with the dollar original product currency to Garner more buys and if moving forward with non physical data or file storage why create a central AI node for company members with secure line and sending codes to AI and AI send those important files or data to non physical secluded or concealed file or data storages as result of research and development of natural storage areas or science based non physical storages but be sure that payments are in on time if using central nodes because that's a business because there's ongoing tech improvements on both sides and as the Beatles song lyrics says, Tomorrow Never Knows. Clear.
Think long and hard before making your NAS reachable via the internet. And if you do go that route, make sure to do your homework. If you don't absolutely need to, don't do it. Yes, it's a cool feature but watch some of the experts here on YT like SpaceRex, WunderTech, and NasCompares before going any further. They are far more expert in doing this that Jimmy.
I hope you have your security set up correctly if you’re planning to use your NAS anywhere. It’s another rabbit hole that takes time to understand for newbies, but it’s essential. Thankfully, Synology’s recommendations are actually pretty OK as long as you follow the practices, port forward responsibly and minimize port openings on your network, but it’s even better if you can complement it with a Wireguard-based VPN.
Jimmy you bought a DS1821+, the 18 means you can have up to 18 drives. the unit holds 8 drives and you can get 2 more 5 bay addons that plug into your NAS by the eSata plugs in the back.
@InSomnia DrEvil that’s because he did not buy anything this is a product placement otherwise one should know what’s buying.
I'm impressed how fluidly you swap between NOZ and NAZ pronunciations of NAS. I normally hear it pronounced NAS as in (nasty).
That's the correct way. The way he's saying it is horrible
@@silentblackhole Caring strongly about minor pronounciation differences is more than a little bit ridiculous, ngl, especially when it's an acronym with no official pronunciation.
Don't forget...a NAS is not backup. It's storage. Remember to backup all your data.
Correct. In this video, it is presented as a replacement for Google drive while in fact, the two are more complementary.
@@danielkaranja7978 depends on your use case and how you want to back your data up. It's possible to meet all the criteria for good backup practices and avoid online storage services altogether.
The video also puts this forward as something private that you don't have to pay a service fee for.
Rule of 3
Nah, with good hardware raid you're pretty secure. I've worked at Cisco, yahoo, Google, others managing servers for many decades.
We *rarely* need to restore something. Only if you are wishing to keep more than one revision.
@@ernie548 it's not specifically for data failure. There are other reasons to keep a backup.
great choice. I'm using this since 10+ years
2 Bay & 5 Bay Synology
also I've sold 200+ Synology NAS.
Some tips
01. Please don't forget spare hard disk
02. UPS in the event blackout
03. Buy plus series model & extend 2 years Warranty (Total 5 Years Warranty)
04. Don't forget 2FA for security reason (Two Factor Authentication)
UPS is a must for a NAS, Just need one big enough to enable an auto shutdown if there is a power blackout, Don't need a really expensive one.
Get one that gives you at least a few minutes worth so the HDD's can spin down and turn off the NAS, Otherwise you could lose all your data.
So this video was a wake up call. I'm starting up my own TH-cam channel fairly soon (3D modeling tutorials). I thought about what I might teach and my target audience. Not once did I think about storage! I already use up a lot of storage space as is. Not sure if I'd need a NAS quite yet, but it's definitely on my radar now. Thanks, Jim!
You a max user or blender?
@@manavgala2361 Blender and Maya, but I prefer Blender.
You can get a smaller Synology like a DS920+ (soon to be the Ds922+) I use one as a home user and a tinkerer. I filled mine with four 2TB drives for enough space vs cost.
@@notreallyme425 my 920+ fuckin rocks
Can’t wait for the tutorials
You made the same blunder I did with first NAS, NEVER go cheap on HDD capacity, harder to upgrade later on.
I went with 3x8TB and added another 2x8TB a year later to fill 5 bay NAS, Still filled them had the NAS 3 years now.
I should have bit the bullet and gone with 3x 16TB to start with and added the rest later, I would still have a few years of storage rather than now being full.
if you don't mind me asking, what are you storing to fill that quickly?
@@mikec2845 That's kind of like asking what type of people you have hidden in your basement. A bit personal don't you think?
@@watema3381 I think I prefaced myself well. No one is forcing him to reveal his deepest secrets.
"I'm a professional photographer"...?
This is why I generally prefer UnRAID. Way it works is just:
-Have a parity disk as large as the biggest disk in your array (or two)
-Have something quick to use as a big storage cache for the entire thing (an SSD).
Otherwise, you can grab whatever hard drive you want and it'll just work. One parity disk, you can survive one drive failure. Two parity disks, you can survive two. Always back up everything important and keep a spare drive lying around in case one fails.
End result is easily expandable storage and a server you can also use for other stuff through Docker images and VMs, potentially. Plus, the lack of proprietary Synology stuff means it's easy to replace other parts.
@@mikec2845 Some people store tons of movies n' shit, keep all their games on there so they can grab them more quickly than downloading them from Steam again, etc.
But yeah, I still don't get how you'd manage to use up more than *16 TB* of space unless you're storing tons of raw video footage.
Exceeeeept... if your house burns down or floods or gets burglarized, and they take your NAS, so much for that. Always keep an offsite backup!
Or if he was to work from somewhere else
I have the DS918+. After using it for the past few years I can honestly say it is one of the best purchases that I have made. I use it mainly for streaming movies with plex throughout the house and of course backup for other media. I have it connected directly to the router. With the combination on Nvidia Shield boxes in each room and great gigabit speed there are few things that I can't do. At this time, I am ready for the available expansion bay as I am running out of room. Here is a tip. The NAS will use the smallest capacity hard drive as the largest available. So, if you start off with a 4 terabyte and add a 6 terabyte next the NAS will use the 4 as the maximum space available if you are using Synology default backup option. Now almost 5 years later I am finally replacing the smallest drive to a bigger one to get the space that has been there all these years. In short, I have all 4 bays filled three have the same size drive and one has a smaller one. After replacing the smallest, drive I will finally have the full capacity of the drives I have put in. One last tip. If you are streaming movies over your network, make sure your HDMI cables going from the media box such as Shield are current meaning they are able to stream at least 4K video. Doing this will help fix any problems with streaming and audio/ video voice synchronizations. I thought this was the internet speed for a long time even the TV being super old (plasma), but it was not. Check your cables. Don't go to cheap and you will enjoy your NAS a lot more. Synology has a great website check it out before making any purchases decisions.
As a lifetime geek and lover of all tech toys, I've wanted a NAS for years. Now at 71, with a few extra bucks from the sale of a family property, I took the leap and got a Synology DS1821+ this week. Still waiting on my 6 10Tb disks, but I set it up in test fashion with a pile of old castoff drives from my hoarding closet. Working as a field service engineer for 40 years, I had some networking experience, but retiring 10 years ago has faded a lot of that knowledge. Currently working my way thru some old Network+ manuals from 15 years back, and plowing thru stone age concepts like NetBEUI, IPX/SPX, etc. But the basics are coming back to me. Planning to use this NAS to store lifetimes of scanned and digital photos, family documents, my CNC and 3D printer files,and my wife's massive hoard of digital sewing, embroidery, and quilting files. Also reserving the two remaining NAS drive bays for Synology's Surveillance Station. Sad commentary on modern life that I plan to outfit my front yard like a video studio. Thanks for a great video. I may just show it to family members who keep asking, "whats that black box on the desk for?"
Only 10TB disks? There is one mistake I made when I started using NAS: buying too small disks. The 2 last disks I bought are 22TB disks. I always underestimated my ‘needs’.
Great video on the benefits of using a NAS. I have been using a NAS since the first consumer level devices were released in the early 2000s by Ximeta called the Net Disk. I currently use the Synology DS218 Play+, WD PR210 Pro, D-Link DNS 320L and D-Link DNS-340L. Furthermore, I use my NAS servers to store my engineering designs, music collection, movie collection along with photos from my drones and cameras.
I highly recommend using an old laptop or an unused/cheap one and install debian (or any other distro tbh) if you're starting out. It will teach you a lot, and it will make it obvious that servers are not "basically" computers, they are computers. You can do literally anything you want with it. NAS are great, don't get me wrong, but owning and managing your own little server is extremely rewarding and simpler that it looks like (you have to be open to learning new things though). It's a fun rabbit holw to fall into, as you can always make it more stable, more efficient, more deployable (if you care about that). Also, I highly recommend not installing any graphical environment and managing the server via ssh. But like any computer, you can do exactly what you want, and I find it a very enjoyable exerience
i myself have old celeron laptop that useless for years, i installed fedora on it and then install docker, smb, ftp, ssh, and many more stuff. hell, it so useful that i can host my own content, do downloads, makes it as bluetooth speakers and many more! and i use Nextcloud, Jellyfin for the frontend, and deploys it via docker
Best explained among all the other channels I've watched. Its like you specifially answered all my questions I had in mind. Earned a new subscriber here!
These are going to be essential for those travelling internationally. Border agents can take an image of any device you’re travelling with so it’s best to keep your data elsewhere and secure.
I'm a tinkerer so I built my own and went with Truenas but I have installed Synology/Qnap stuff for clients who don't mind paying extra for the ease of use. I'm a ZFS guy so that was important for me but for the 'average' user these are solid, just don't buy used unless you are willing to forgo warranty.
The one thing not mentioned ... a NAS is NOT a backup.
Its a primary file storage and use system, parity is not an actual backup. If something ... anything goes wrong with the unit or the area the unit is sitting in ... you have no other version of your files, which is a complete fail as a definition of a backup.
Many approach this in different ways;
- The front USB (or rear) of most NAS devices are for plugging in an external storage device to back up mission critical files occasionally. It depends on the size of the backup for someone like Jimmys usage. Either a truly massive backup drive (20+Tb) in an external enclosure, so he can backup RAW files, or a smaller drive (4 or 8Tb) in that enclosure to just backup finished video projects. Synology's system has settings just for all this. Or instead of an auto backup function, you can set it up so all you do is plug in this external (once a week or whatever) into the front USB, and it auto copies over any changes to desired folders you want backed up.
- As a further step, truly ultimate critical mission files (agreements, taxes, paperwork ... or even a full copy of that external drive) can further be backed up automatically to Google drive, dropbox or any cloud service from the NAS directly.
NOW you have a true backup system: a NAS for file system parity protection, an external drive on site to protect the NAS in case of complete NAS system loss, and an offsite backup of that, in case of a Satellite crashing into your house or a fire. Just make sure you memorise your cloud server user and password.
People really need to understand that a NAS is NOT a backup.
No real backup can be in the same box all together, the inherent risk is too large. One small glitch and everything is gone, thats not a backup.
Completely agree
Although I'm not sure I'd be too happy relying on just a USB drive plugged into the NAS - if the NAS can write to that drive, then it has the ability to trash it - it's part of the NAS (I'm thinking of malicious stuff like QLocker).
What if you have your NAS setup as SHR-2, for example, in cases of Synology? You have 4 drives but can only utilise 2 of them and the other 2 are a backup of the first 2. In that case would you consider a NAS a backup solution? In addition, if you have like 40TB of data, there's no feasible way to "backup" your data on your NAS, instead of buying like 20x 2TB T5 SSDs, or paying upwards of $500USD a month for Google Drive, which completely negates the need for a NAS in the first place (Most people get a NAS to save money on cloud storage), and the time required to backup 40TB to the cloud is just insane (it'll probably take weeks if not months with internet connections in some places). With RAID and SHR, I would consider a NAS a backup. Curious to hear what your thoughts on this are.
@@techforever1970 OK then, you set up as SHR-2. Then someone breaks in and steals your NAS, or you have a lightning strike that fries it, or a water leak that drowns it. Or a fire, or a fault that destroys the drives. Ideally you need more than one backup, including one that's off-site, in a secure location. So if your main building burns down, you still have the off-site backup.
Of course you need to be sure that the off-site backup is up-to-date and intact, and that takes a lot of work. Backup isn't easy, especially with 40TB of wanted data!
I love Synology been using it for some years now, had a WD NAS and wasnt the best for my Plex needs. I only use Plex with my NAS and mostly all the movies/shows are ones I own but I do still setup a backup for them in case of failure. I do love Sylology's SHR and found it better then the other options.
Hey, a NAS is very valuable for more than just Dollar value. I manage a facility that has 2 NAS's and 54 cameras connected to it. Just amazing how capable the NAS is for storing 30 and 90 day backup of all those cameras. Not difficult to use but does require some Tech knowledge. There are many features that can be added that this facility isn't using. Crazy stuff. Now I'm thinking about getting a 6 bay unit for my house. Just need to cough up a couple grand for all the equipment, drives and UPS. .
If this is a commercial to sell me something ... it's still good. Thanks. I needed this.
I counted 54 “NAS“ mentions (singular & plural) & once unabbreviated. So 55? 🤓
I have an 80TB Unraid NAS mainly for Plex and local computer backup storage. Currently 67.2TB used with a 14TB parity drive and 1x 14TB, 3x 10TB, 3x 8TB, and 2x 6TB drives for the data array.
Third video I've seen of yours and all today. I'm loving the content! Thanks for this. I've been on the fence about getting a NAS, you sold me.
Thanks again Jimmy.
I just got a buffalo 4 bay NAS off a sale site. Put in the 4 - 4tb iron wolf drives. Love it. One cool feature it has , not sure how others go about it, but buffalo's phone app allows my phone to back up to it, so all photos, videos, downloaded documents backup nightly to it. That's kinda big since they have been removing micro SD cards from phones.
Nice karma transition plug. Smooth n short
wait so the redundancy is stored only in the 6TB drive? What happened when it fails?
This is absolutely brilliant. I don't remember the last time I watched a video from beginning to end. You are the lecturer I wish I had. Hehehe!
Nice video.
What a great time this is that NAS and DropBox are available for people with all kinds of needs.
It would be nice if you could describe your Synology box in detail. It seems that you added a 10G card to it. I'd love to hear about it.
Google Drive or other Cloud Storage Services are more for share files with other and fast up and download speeds.
Your Nas is limited to your internet provider speeds for online connection over nextcloud, owncloud etc.
I have both a Nas for data that changes not so often and is not needed to be shared, like word sheets, prasentation files etc.
I have a bunch of drives in some QNAP boxes all connected directly to my computer through a USB hub. Good for storage and can even handle playback. The best part is Backblaze will back it up for $7/month or $70/year. I currently have 50 TB backed up. You can’t do that with NAS because its not directly attached storage (DAS). Backblaze would charge over $3k/year for the same amount of storage when using a NAS.
one question, what happens if you were transferring a file from another hard drive then suddenly lose power like a blackout, will it get corrupted? 😬
Always invest in a good UPS to ensure this scenario doesn’t occur.
I've got a QNAP 4-bay, I use that as my primary file storage and use Google Drive to backup some important files from the NAS.
There is a thing called digital hoarders and they have a subreddit. People who go down this path and start backing up Wikipedia or movies that they will never watch again or are not even interested in need to step back and see if there is an underlying issue.
I had an older NAS and a ds918+. The old NAS died so I added a Synology expansion box. Now I have 2 volumes that are mirrors. Even if one unit dies I will still have all my data. I did have an issue with the power supply for the ds918+. Synology support replaced the whole device. They earned my trust.
I have an old DS213j. with 2x 2TB WD BLACK. A month or so ago I had my first drive give me a SMART failure. Since then I have been looking to replace the unit. I am waiting for the 2022/2023 models to come out. When they do I'll likely grab a DS222+ or a DS422.
When I do this however I think I'd like to add a Switch to my network. I currently have just my ISP (Bell HH 3000) wireless router and Mesh network with TP Deco units feeding my home.
10Gbe would be Overkill in my home but if 2.5Gbe and 5Gbe prices don't come down closer to the 1Gbe prices soon, It just seems like getting the 10Gbe might be the way to go to future proof everything. only problem is Synology will not have 10GBe... if we're lucky they MIGHT have the 2.5Gbe or multiple 1Gbe ports so that I can double speed.
That all being said knowing best practices for a switch, ISP router, NAS with more than one port and a MESH network is going to be a project and a half for me.
What Switch do you use?
I've had a Synology DS920+ for about a year now with 4 16tb drives. Am hosting 5 PCs and 14 cellphones as backup. I also have a 16tb usb backup plus C2 storage that runs every day. Synology is one of the best companies for tech support also!! Only drawback is that this is my 3rd DS920 as the first two had hardware is!ues
How long did it take before your DS920+ had issues? I have had my DS920+ for about 3 months and going strong!
@@rafraf23534 the first took about a month when i added a 3rd drive. the second was roughly 4 months.. it's just my luck not a flaw in synology. both turned out to be backplane issues.
@@cyberwasp461 gotcha! Glad it all worked out!
I am an average person looking to learn and storage is definitely important. Thank you for the video.
will you have a step by step set up , got a DS200J and dont believe i did set up properly . thanks :)
I have 2 QNAP. one is for mainly "work" nas and another is for daily backups from it with version history. Raid is not backup. I think I need to do offsite backup for important data
BTW, you NEED to still have a CLOUD backup of your data, at least the important things.... 3-Point Backup is the Rule.
Local Drives, External Drives, and Cloud. BTW, cloud can just be someone you know who has a computer (or NAS or Server) in another part of the country that you also backup to. It doesn't have to be a "paid" service like Google or otherwise. What I do is have my most important files on the Cloud with whatever Free service, Google, Onedrive, MEGA, etc. and then have everything on Internal Drives and Externals Drives (aka NAS). Of course, eventually I should put everything on the Cloud also, but too lazy and poor atm, future project lol.
Please make sure you bought the CMR WD RED drivers the SMR Drives are incompatible with Synology because it will fail the Raid rebuild check Synology compatible drive list please if you using the SMR replace them with the CMR Drives in Red WD sold red drives that where SMR not knowing that it would fail even though the WD Manger said in Keynote don't use SMR Drives or shingled magnetic Recording drives use CMR Convectional magnetic Recording
I have a Synology four bay.. and I use a Synology two bay as backup. Synology has really good software that I have running at night to replicate from my main NAS to my backup NAS.
If I have a NAS plugged into ethernet, and my pc is plugged into a separate ethernet outlet in the same house, do I then have direct connection to the NAS storage from my pc or do I need to connect them alternatively?
I'm thinking about getting one, and was just wondering how that works :D
This is a great and detailed video. Well done. The NARZ (NAS) annoyed me but it’s a stupid issue ;-) plenty of awesome storage for you to hoard onto.
Yes as I own the DS1821+ for a year now, the same shown in the video, NARZ was super annoying. Sorry. It is NAS as in NASA, but without the last A.
I recently bought one nas from qnap with 2 bays, I bought it because I have 2 cases that make me to do it. First the google drive they asking money for something that it was free before and I think that is not fare, and second because one colage recently his ssd faild at his work computer and it was dissaster. So I set it and the process it was very easy for someone that has some knolage. My use is to autobakcup my work pc and personal pc's plus my photos from my mobile and also my systers and recently I found out that I can use it for camera recording for close security system for you house.
Now I have a different situation. I've had a NAS for ages for backups, I don't have so much data or so many users I want to actually WORK off of one. But I'm increasingly wanting online access and collaboration, so that means...moving everything to Google Drive or OneDrive? Then paying for some sort of backup-of-cloud-services-backup that's also on the cloud? And the NAS is obsolete?
I really fucked up when I opted for the Synology DS215J instead of, at least, a 220+. I use it mostly to store and watch movies and TV off of, but if I opted for the 220+ I would have at least been able to mount Docker images. That being said, running Download Station, Filebot, and Plex give me a cute little white box that downloads, sorts, and plays everything for me.
Being a linux user with a single machine I just did a ZFS array on the same box, but for a dedicated machine on the DIY route I'd recommend TrueNAS as the operating system. Anything less than ZFS as the filesystem is silly nowadays, given how reliable it is.
Nice to hear some good experiences with TrueNAS. I got an older PC laying around that could definitely use that kind treatment in the future!
HOW DO YOU PRONOUNCE "NAS"?
What about thieves breaking into your apartment?
thats a nice NOS right there boi
thank you jimmy im thinking of doing the same thing
I would never recommend your setup as is. If you want speed then you want to pair of M.2s in RAID 1 cache (1,250 MB/s) and then your mass storage. Also QNAP offers ZFS and their hardware isn't a just little better, it's significantly better. Also I'd consider dual 10 GbE.
Your profile picture reminds me of active insight ;)
So, instead of erasing that "junk data" as you mentioned, you prefer to spend money keeping it there collecting digital dust?
5:45 Curious as to why you wouldn't have transferred that SSD to an external HDD once the project is done? That way you saved the raw data and you can clear off your ssd
sir, what paint color is your room? I like it
what about JellyFish LumaForge?
Yes if you using Google or one drive as production it quite crazy and NAS is your answer.
but in term of reliability, I will prefer Cloud storage, hopefully you wont experience 2 spare disk break in same time and the 3rd disk break when recovering the array so yep, your data gone(I'm using RAID 6 with 8 HDD).
For Me NAS is good for ongoing production only, for achieving or long term storage, maybe you have to backup somewhere else(remote location or at least different NAS with RSYNC or If your data is very important, you can backup to cloud object storage like AWS S3/Glacier).
Would be good to see a cost comparison vs cloud storage, how many years to break even etc
The joy of tech tube showing me stuff I didn’t know I need.
Please I’m looking for tutorial how to install it with 10gb please
Install 2 (read/write) m2 nvme drives for caching, it will be very noticeable performance boost. You won't regret it.
I replaced my MS file server with Synology NAS. Use Amazon S3 for offsite backup.
Having NAS is great for storage when a large amount of content renders video and recording and many more. The best part is it is one -time payment and all you have to pay is the electric bill for it.
But... once you slowly need more storage eventually your going to need a bigger server.
Which is why it's important to bite the _boolet_ and buy the biggest reliable hdd's that you can find / afford, because it will get *soooo* much harder to upgrade and offload existing data later
Which is why I like to use UnRAID. So long as your parity disk is at least as big as your biggest HDD you can just chuck whatever in there and it'll be happy.
and here I am with 12TB of SSDs in my pc and spare hard drives in a closet... I don't really have a place to put it in my tiny apartment
Honest question, if you install games / program in nas and use it as external hard drive, is it possible to run it? Not via ethernet but USB port that available on the nas itself
Awesome review brother! Subbed!
When he asked how many times he said NAS in the video he should have specified whether he used a long "a" or short "a" lol.
What's a noz ?
Do you have an off-site backup strategy? Currently, I'm using Backblaze B2, but it's getting quite expensive as my data grows.
Have you looked at Wasabi?
A naaahhhzzz. Lmao
Great video thanks
If you need that many hard drives you should have probably of built ur own server, unraid or truenas is more flexable
Remember! Raid is NOT a backup!
Tip : Buy a UPS for your NAS will reduce stress when there is a power outage..... and believe me there will be some in the near future
I have a couple of Synology DS1815+, both with 6 HDD in RAID6 with two hot spares. That way, I can have four fail before data loss.
I didn't know that SHR used the larger disks for parity. AFAIR, traditional RAID over same-sized disks splits the parity across all disks.
4TB drives?
"Nas" only rhymes with "Oz" when you're talking about the rapper. Otherwise "NAS" rhymes with "ass"
Technically... I have 128GB NAS via USB stick with my router.
With extra IDR 30.000 for public IP I have my own personal NAS that I can use to access from anywhere
Yeah, but no backup or raid in case the USB-stick get corrupted
@@____-tx6nl well... doing what I can do with what I have
@@____-tx6nl
Just get an IDrive account. $4 for 10TB backup the first year.
If you're willing to do a little tinkering, you can get a much better DIY NAS for cheaper.
will someone wake me up when this video finishes
No one should trust “the cloud” because it is just someone else’s computer. Do you know that other person well enough to trust them with your data?
what's your nas' name?
Great video!
NAS, NAZ, NAP, NAM!!!!…. So many different ways to say NAS
I’m curious - is there a way to access a NAS when you’re elsewhere?
Synology? Yes, its easy to set up in the software and all you need when away is the web address to your NAS, and your user name and password to access your stuff from any computer or device. I can even access it from my phone. QNAP and others? Not sure.
We need new gen discs beyond bluray.
the lack of 2.5Gbe from synology Nas is disappointing
Here's the problem with a NAS... Say you needed to move it from your living room over to your desktop... AND YOU DROP IT! Every single drive will most likely be damaged and you'll lose everything. And there's so much data that its nearly impossible to back up without a bunch of drives. You may as well just use a few 20 TB drives and mirror them, keep one at your moms house too and back that one up monthly LOL.
Why would you need to move the NAS from the living room to your desktop, is that meant to be a regular thing? Of course you can always take out the drives if you need to move it and you don't trust yourself
@@rexsceleratorum1632 And hard drives can survive being dropped just fine, there used to be MP3 players with teeensy tiny hard drives, "What if I'm moving it and drop it" is a bizarre comment.
u ALREADY HAEV REDUNDANCY AS parity and keep one cold backup for imp stuffs
Fact that you showed lil nas instead of the real nas just broke my heart
i need more videos about synology
bro a thousand AND youz had to upgrade?????
No thanks, I prefer to stay with Google / Microsoft Cloud. But still a very good video !
That's physical data or file storage, and admit it or not there are different currencies in use worldwide being realistic, why not create realtime per country currency exchange tabulation per product price changes of that storage product machine by being versatile with the dollar original product currency to Garner more buys and if moving forward with non physical data or file storage why create a central AI node for company members with secure line and sending codes to AI and AI send those important files or data to non physical secluded or concealed file or data storages as result of research and development of natural storage areas or science based non physical storages but be sure that payments are in on time if using central nodes because that's a business because there's ongoing tech improvements on both sides and as the Beatles song lyrics says, Tomorrow Never Knows. Clear.
no doubt the ethernet cables running through your walls are limiting transfer speeds, especially if that's exclusively how you connect to the nas
Interesting video. I want a NAS. Not sure I NEED it though. Lol
I just use the free OneDrive 5 TB
Think long and hard before making your NAS reachable via the internet. And if you do go that route, make sure to do your homework. If you don't absolutely need to, don't do it. Yes, it's a cool feature but watch some of the experts here on YT like SpaceRex, WunderTech, and NasCompares before going any further. They are far more expert in doing this that Jimmy.