Ds920+ ran out of room again, considering DS1821+ or DS1825+

[datacat]

Hey all,
Been a minute since I first got my DS920+ and it's been great for my needs which include PLEX, GIT archiving, and Synology Photos and general file storage. I started out with two 4TB drives and that shortly changed to two 4TB drives then two 12TB drives, then all four bays using 12TB drives. In the four years or so I have owned this unit since November 2021 I've tried to stay ahead of needing additional bays by swapping drives. I don't think it's a good idea now to swap drives again for 16, 18 or 20TB drives and I'm leaning towards a ds1821+ or DS1825+ though I've seen they are the same spec wise but the 1825 has more of Synology's lockin for the SSD cache ( which I don't use on my DS920+ either ).

The ds920+ is at 80% capacity now after I have cleaned some files to remove the warning in DSM, but I know I'd need to pick up two additional drives larger than the four 12's I have currently to expand in either the 1821 or 1825.

I'm torn between the two models I can get the 1821 for a few hundred less direct from synology compared to the newer 1825 but before I get one I just wanted to hear from some other seasoned folks on the upgrade path. I had considered an expansion unit but ultimately did not want to split the storage pool between two units.

All my drives are Ironwolf Pro drives as well. And I do know I will loose transcoding but believe I would be ok with that since I run a nvidia shield on my main display so it could handle that on it's own.

The network I run this on is currently setup on the DS920+ to run both ethernet ports, and the network is a RX6600ax and a few rt2600's and is all on cat5e for 1Gbps speeds. I don't have anything on the 2.5Gbps port and don't currently have any plans to do so or to run 10Gbps on cat 6a currently.

Thanks for your time and for reading.

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[Rusty]

The reasons I would personally choose the 1825 over the 21 edition would be a) warranty and futureproof, and b) double the RAM to begin with. The added 2.5G over 1G LAN is just a bonus while comparing these two, no matter how late Syno is to this multi-gig party.

If you have no interest in pushing for speeds over 2.5G, then save some money and go for the 21 edition. Do keep in mind that you will be getting an older model, so DSM support will be shorter and EOL closer.

 

[datacat]

The reasons I would personally choose the 1825 over the 21 edition would be a) warranty and futureproof, and b) double the RAM to begin with. The added 2.5G over 1G LAN is just a bonus while comparing these two, no matter how late Syno is to this multi-gig party.

If you have no interest in pushing for speeds over 2.5G, then save some money and go for the 21 edition. Do keep in mind that you will be getting an older model, so DSM support will be shorter and EOL closer.

Yeah I had some pro's and con's between those two and the older model vs newer DSM support came out to be roughlyl -+ 2 years for the 1821+ compared to the 1825. The older model vs newer model debate still gives me pause only cause of the potential for Synology locking you in with their drives again on the 1825 where as the 1821 was allowed to use the current brand of drives I have from the start, and there was no proprietary SSD cache lockin like the 1825 has.

I guess after I add everything up the difference between the new 1825+ at $1149 compared to the refurbished model is $229, so with that, the possible 2 additional years of DSM updates, the additional networking upgrade and memory possibly is worth the extra $229, and most likely 3 years of warranty compared to the 1 I believe with the refurb.

I jumped the gun as well and looked at drive availability and surprise surprise there's not much available currently due to shortages apparently on ironwolf drives and hdd's in general.

 

[Coop777]

Another possible benefit with purchasing the 1825+ is the option to extend warranty from 3 to 5 years.....

 

[Telos]

the option to extend warranty

Warranty extensions and service contracts serve the issuer. Just say no.

 

[datacat]

Warranty extensions and service contracts serve the issuer. Just say no.

Yeah I waffled on this for a bit, weighing the pro's, cons, swapping for two more drives rather than biting the bullet, or going the expansion unit route, ultimately I came down to just going for the 1825+. Kind of surreal to me that I started out with a DS920+ as my very first real NAS ( coming from a very old HP Mediasmart server from yesteryear ) and thought I would be fine with it and the storage space, only to find out that things quickly got out of hand in a few short years

 

[Rusty]

I started out with a DS920+ as my very first real NAS

It happens more often than you think . Personally I started with a "j" model, and now I'm running with multiple 12 bay models on top of several other smaller ones... No shame in expanding with more boxes.

Getting the expansion version is not worth it imho, as you are paying 98% of the price of a full service NAS, and still getting an expansion dependent on the main device.

Enjoy your new NAS!

 

[datacat]

Came back to say that the upgrade process from the DS920+ to the DS1825+ was by far the most straight forward. I did see Synology's little note in the Storage Manager whre they added a note: This storage pool contains drives not on the compatibility list for your Synology Nas. Despite the drives being all IronWolf PRO models, 4 12TB and 2 20 TB's, seems like they couldn't just re-word that to be a bit less misleading, especially about the optimal performance and stability bit. I can look the other way since the pool is healthy and all drives are working as they should. Decent unit so far, just looking the other way on their HDD "note" lol