A few misc Q's.........

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A few misc Q's.........

687
226
NAS
DS918+
Operating system
  1. macOS
Mobile operating system
  1. iOS
Okay guys I've been a happy NAS owner for nearly 3 weeks and I've a few thoughts that keep coming to mind that I want to try and clear up:

Oh I own a DS918+ with 4 x 3Tb Seagate IronWolf drives.......

1) NAS backups.
1a) At the moment I have attached to the NAS via USB3 a Seagate Backup Plus Hub 8 TB that is used to backup all shared folders & packages. This includes backing up TimeMachine folders Shadow files (Win PC) etc. Backup scheduling is every 2 hours from midnight each day. (1.35Tb. backed up)
1b) I'm also trialing the Synology C2 (Plan II) online backup system and using that I'm backing up critical 'user' folders only. I'm backing up every 4 hours from 00:30 until 20:30 daily. (98Gb backed up)

Questions are:
  • Should I increase the backup frequency scheduling for either / both?
  • Is the C2 system overkill or worthwhile?
2) Onedrive
I'm using CloudSync to sync the OneDrive data to my NAS for backup purposes. When I initially set this up I set it as uni-directional from cloud to NAS only. I'm now considering making that bi-directional. If I make the change can I just switch it to bidirectional without risking any loss of data? Or is it better to delete the task, delete the data and then remake the task?

3) Media playback.......
Media playback is only used at home and for playing to the Apple TV 4K. Previously I had Plex set up on my Mac Mini as a media server, now I have the NAS I've set up both Plex (and trialing a Plex Pass) and Emby and have been comparing the two. Now from what I can see 99% of the usage I need I can get out of Plex and also Emby as both seen free to use with the Apple TV.
Emby seems better supported (forum etc), but the current server incarnation has memory issues. These will supposedly be resolved but at the moment the system is eating a lot of memory. Plex is as useful as ever but the 'film info' shown within the system is not as rich as that on Emby. Emby also seems to have issues finding TV shows that are not placed within a folder named for the show. Plex does not seem to have that issue.
So I'm wondering do I carry on testing Emby or move fully to Plex? I'm thinking the Plex Pass is not worthwhile or useful for me.
Oh I have tried Infuse 6 for playing back media but that has issues with some films with 7.1 sound and looks to throw the stream into VLC for playback.

4) UPS
I have a spare APC UPS that I was gifted from the office when it closed down. It looks like I can get a USB-A to USB-A cable and connect that to the NAS so it can manage it. Is this correct or is a special cable needed?

5) Switch
At the moment the NAS is plugged straight into the HomeHub 6 that BT provide that hub supports the home network and the Mac Mini is also plugged directly into it. I do have an 8 port Netgear ProSafe Gigabit switch (GS108), I'm wondering whether there would be any benefit of plugging the NAS and Mac into that and the switch in turn being plugged into the Hub.

Any thoughts on the above would be appreciated....... :)
 
1. NAS backup
no one except you can evaluate the value of your data. I’m little bit paranoid regarding the data RPO and RTO perfection, but your backup level is near the perfect of home users. In my 3-2-1 scheme I have DS1811+ for rsync of critical data, include Drive ShareSync (what is rsync also). But it’s just about your needs and data value.
 
2. One drive
In my job I have many sync from many sources, but One Drive is like coaster roller.
But this case (change of single to bidirectional sync) I have tested in many times. It’s safe.
 
1. NAS Backup: In the absence of C2 or some other cloud service, it looks like your NAS, the machines backing up to the NAS, and the USB backup drive are all in the same physical location. If there's a fire, you could lose everything. I think it's wise to have at least one offsite/cloud backup.
3. Plexpass might be useful for you if you want to take advantage of hardware transcoding, which, on Plex, is enabled only with Plex Pass. It might be useful if you were to start allowing your friends to access your Plex library over the net, for example, as their playback equipment might require transcoding from whatever format you have your media stored in.
4. Before going to a lot of trouble trying to manage a UPS with the Synology, make sure the UPS is on Synology's compatibility list, found on their site.
5. Homehub: Only advantage I can think of to plugging devices into the switch, which itself is in turn plugged into the homehub, is that if you have an ongoing file transfer or media playing between the devices connected to the switch, and you have to reboot the hub for some reason, the transfer will continue unaffected, because the switch would not be relying on the hub to continue the transfer (it'd be using MAC addresses). But if the devices are connected directly to the hub, and you have to reboot or unplug the hub, everything will stop dead.
 
Okay guys thanks for the replies. Decisions have been made:

1) NAS & Backup
- I'll change the backup schedule for backing up to the 8Tb external drive - hourly
- I'll change the backup schedule for backing up to the C2 cloud - every 2 hours
- Primary storage of my really critical files will remain on iCloud. Non-critical but important files will also be on Onedrive. These are mirrored to a share on the NAS, Dropbox and OneDrive (if not there already) using Sync Folders Pro (on the Mac).
- On the Mac I'm using Synology drive to backup iCloud Documents, Dropbox & Onedrive to the NAS. Also using a share (and 1Tb external drive) for Time Machine backups.
- On the workstations I'm using Synology drive to backup My Documents an also a share for Shadow Files.

2) OneDrive
I've stopped using Cloud Station to mirror OneDrive to the NAS. It has been pointed out that OneDrive should be an enterprise class storage system so data is unlikely to go missing.

3) Media
I've decided to go stick with Plex, it may be slightly less featured than Emby but it seems to work better. I've stopped the Emby service running on the NAS (but not yet uninstalled it - just in case). Not decided whether to stay with the Plex Pass yet....

4) UPS's
The UPS's I have are APC Smart-UPS 1500 and 750 and either of these look to be compatible with the DS918+ so I'll check out noise levels, and if acceptable buy the cable and give it a go :)

5) Switch v Hub
I'll put the switch in place ASAP. It is old and not managed but should be fine for the home environment. It will possibly give increased throughput of data and will allow the Home Hub to be rebooted when needed.

So I think I'm good with the above. Any further thoughts guys?
 
re switch:
I have still in usage two Netgear ProSafe Plus GS105E - great choice for extension of single port for 100Mbps devices (TV, BluRay player, Xbox).
your GS108 has: 16gbps switching speed = 8 Full Duplex Gigabit ports = 8 ports x 2 Gbps per port in full load
include support of Jumbo frames - check it by direct connection to the switch (IP+browser)
Cons:
You can't use the switch for VLAN or other managed features

As I wrote, good old boy.
 
re switch:
I have still in usage two Netgear ProSafe Plus GS105E - great choice for extension of single port for 100Mbps devices (TV, BluRay player, Xbox).
your GS108 has: 16gbps switching speed = 8 Full Duplex Gigabit ports = 8 ports x 2 Gbps per port in full load
include support of Jumbo frames - check it by direct connection to the switch (IP+browser)
Cons:
You can't use the switch for VLAN or other managed features

As I wrote, good old boy.
Hmm jumbo frames, is it worth looking to set those to be used? Never quite understood how they work to be honest. I've just plugged the switch in and used it :) Networking is the one weak area of my self-IT training :)
 
for balanced speed of your network, you need setup each your appliances in right way.

MTU or Maximum transmission unit - is frequently specified in terms of bytes for largest PDU (protocol data unit) that the Ethernet layer can pass onward. More you can read here.
Simple - when you don't tune right your MTU value in NAS or in Switch or in your computer, you can't get maximum from your network topology (or from the network appliances, include NAS and computer).
Then identical configuration of the MTU must be achieved there.

Jumbo frames are Ethernet frames with more than 1500 bytes of payload. For the NAS is Jumbo frames is MTU value = 9000.

From my perspective is necessary test all possible scenarios E2E (NAS - computer) to get best performance on each sides.
To be sure - there is no 100% guarantee, that Jumbo frames will provide best performance (lot of other inputs = disk geometry, disk group, raid, ...). But it counts.
 
Right, understood......

However it looks like the GS108 is not managed at all (it is not assigned an IP address) and therefor does not have a web console that can be accessed. It has sped up file transfer between the Mac and the NAS though :)
 
You could consider "breaking" the backup task to smaller ones and have different backup frequency for each one.

I also use usb HDDs for backups of my NAS (that I keep them offsite).

I use 3 HyperBackup tasks for this. So I can have different backup schedules for data of different significance or data that change less frequently.
It saves me a little time when doing the backups and much more time when doing the verification of the backups.
 
Last edited:
You probably know it already,
you can have multiple backup tasks (each one with it's own schedule) on the same usb HDD.
 

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