Making the jump to Synology

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Making the jump to Synology

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Hello everyone, I am going to get a NAS for Christmas (my wife is a lovely person) and I am here asking for advice on NAS. My situation is that I use an iMac for my everyday use and I have iPads and iPhones. I would like to use Time Machine backup to the NAS I choose because I like the way you can restore a iMac back to the way it was before lets say a malfunction, hard drive change, upgrade or whatever else that may happen. Right now I have a 4TB passport and a 1TB My book for backup. I backup all of my other apple devices to the iMac. I plan on using the 4TB Passport for backup of the NAS keeping that backup off site. I have approximately 18,000 photos, 11,000 music files and 3TB of movies and tv shows that I don't want to lose. The movies and tv shows are on a 4TB drive that currently is not backed up at all. This is part of the reason I was wanting to get a NAS, for backup and access from my Fire TV over my LAN. I have a 16 port gigabit switch plugged into the LAN port of a Google Wifi mesh system. I was planning on utilizing this switch for the NAS. I also have 1 Amcrest IP camera. I hear that adding camera's to the system is costly.
My thoughts are getting a DS720+ with 2 8TB Ironwolf hard drives. This should give me lots of room for expansion and redundancy. What I need from you is info and advice on what you think I need for my situation. Thanks.
Note: I posted this on the Synology community and I got no responses. A member of the Hubitat community told me to post here.
I would like to add that I need advice on what media server or player is best suited to play my media. All my videos are in MKV format.
 
Hi, welcome to this forum.

I also have 1 Amcrest IP camera. I hear that adding camera's to the system is costly.

You get 1 free license using Synology Surveillance indeed. And indeed, purchasing additional licenses aren't one of the cheapest in my opinion. You have to check the resellers available to you.

My thoughts are getting a DS720+ with 2 8TB Ironwolf hard drives. This should give me lots of room for expansion and redundancy.
That baby will do absolutely fine. But when you mention expansion, you're making me think of purchasing a DX517 expansion unit in the future. If so, I wonder if it isn't better and cheaper in the long run to than just go straight for a DS420+ or DS920+ instead.
 
Hi, welcome to this forum.



You get 1 free license using Synology Surveillance indeed. And indeed, purchasing additional licenses aren't one of the cheapest in my opinion. You have to check the resellers available to you.


That baby will do absolutely fine. But when you mention expansion, you're making me think of purchasing a DX517 expansion unit in the future. If so, I wonder if it isn't better and cheaper in the long run to than just go straight for a DS420+ or DS920+ instead.
By expansion I mean more data in the future. I don't see getting even close to 8TB.
 
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Welcome,
We all like to have a wife like that! Fortunately I am in the same situation :)
I think the DS720+ will do a great Job and will cover all the above mentioned requirements.
If your wife is very, very lovely and you prefer to keep future storage increase options open, I would recommend a 4 bay nas where you can drop in another 8TB later and double your capacity while still having the redundant disk. A DS920+ would then be the obvious step.
See also Synology DS920+ vs DS420+ vs DS720+ vs DS220+ NAS Comparison

2 camera licences are always included, a third one will cost money indeed. {edited}
success
 
Welcome,
We all like to have a wife like that! Fortunately I am in the same situation :)
I think the DS720+ will do a great Job and will cover all the above mentioned requirements.
If your wife is very, very lovely and you prefer to keep future storage increase options open, I would recommend a 4 bay nas where you can drop in another 8TB later and double your capacity while still having the redundant disk. A DS920+ would then be the obvious step.
See also Synology DS920+ vs DS420+ vs DS720+ vs DS220+ NAS Comparison

1 camera licence is always included, a second one will cost money indeed.
success
I currently have 6 camera's on a older Night Owl self contained system. But someday I will have to upgrade to IP POE cameras. I was just wondering if it would be more cost effective to buy a dedicated NVR unit or use Synology. I don't know how user friendly the Surveillance is on the Synology. For the time being, having the one IP camera that I have now used with Synology would be a good thing. I have seen the compare video you linked to and have watched most of the mydoodads setup videos. I like to do a lot of research.
-- post merged: --

In that case you should be fine. Of course there is also the option to gracefully replace the disk for larger ones should you even run into the 8TB limit.
What do you mean by "gracefully". Sounds kinda ominous.
 
I just checked, not that I really use it, but Surveillance Station on my DS218+ says it comes with two camera licences. So does my DS1520+.

I've then looked at the data sheets for the DS218+ and that says two licences. And so does the datasheet for DS220+.
yep, I you are absolutely right, its 2
 
The movies and tv shows are on a 4TB drive that currently is not backed up at all.
I guess you've been lucky and not had a power spike or similar event that starts the ball rolling on getting backups of everything. I wish I'd been that lucky :)

As for which NAS:

You've seen the recommendation from current owners for which NAS: this response has been the same for a long time ... to for the 4-bay. I saw this too when getting the DS218+ but didn't think I could swing the 'business case'. You can follow my path of 2-bay j-series, 2-bay plus series, 5-bay plus series. Or the path I should've taken when I wanted a more powerful NAS and that should've been to get the 4-bay as people were recommending in forums. Yes these aren't cheap but when your storage needs increase, or you want to start moving things about, then extra bays in the NAS is the cheapest way to expand. Looking at UK prices today:

NASInc. RAMPrice (UK inc vat)Price per bay
DS720+2GB£435£217.50
DS920+4GB£550£137.50
DS1520+8GB£699£140.00

Add disks, obvs! These are more or less the same device (same CPU) just vary in # of bays, RAM, eSata expansion ports, 1GbE interfaces.

They all can have extra bays added using the 'dumb' DX517 expansion unit (£470). So to make a DS720+ have 4 bays will cost you £900. And it's advisable not to span the RAID volume across disks in both the NAS and DX517, so you would have to add four new disks to get a four disk array.

Should you want to increase the NAS's storage from 8TB (2xTB) to, say, 16TB then the DS720+ will require 2x16TB (and put the 2x8TB on a shelf) but the DS920+ just needs 1x8TB adding to the current 2x8TB.

Too preachy? Sorry. I've been here :)
 
I guess you've been lucky and not had a power spike or similar event that starts the ball rolling on getting backups of everything. I wish I'd been that lucky :)

As for which NAS:

You've seen the recommendation from current owners for which NAS: this response has been the same for a long time ... to for the 4-bay. I saw this too when getting the DS218+ but didn't think I could swing the 'business case'. You can follow my path of 2-bay j-series, 2-bay plus series, 5-bay plus series. Or the path I should've taken when I wanted a more powerful NAS and that should've been to get the 4-bay as people were recommending in forums. Yes these aren't cheap but when your storage needs increase, or you want to start moving things about, then extra bays in the NAS is the cheapest way to expand. Looking at UK prices today:

NASInc. RAMPrice (UK inc vat)Price per bay
DS720+2GB£435£217.50
DS920+4GB£550£137.50
DS1520+8GB£699£140.00

Add disks, obvs! These are more or less the same device (same CPU) just vary in # of bays, RAM, eSata expansion ports, 1GbE interfaces.

They all can have extra bays added using the 'dumb' DX517 expansion unit (£470). So to make a DS720+ have 4 bays will cost you £900. And it's advisable not to span the RAID volume across disks in both the NAS and DX517, so you would have to add four new disks to get a four disk array.

Should you want to increase the NAS's storage from 8TB (2xTB) to, say, 16TB then the DS720+ will require 2x16TB (and put the 2x8TB on a shelf) but the DS920+ just needs 1x8TB adding to the current 2x8TB.

Too preachy? Sorry. I've been here :)
Thanks for all the info. It will help make a choice.
 
I'm just wondering if you made your choice yet - and what it was.
I went with the DS1520+. Yes, it's pricey but I could not see leaving expansion on the table and having to pay for it later. Also, the 1520+ has a great processor and can run Plex, etc with no issues.
 
You can start small and see what your actual needs are and than in 2 years time upgrade if needed. You can start with DS220+ model and put 8GB RAM on it. Synology NAS retain the value pretty well, especially if in warranty period.
What I want to say, I understand you want to buy something future-proof, but than again I guess you want to avoid initial over-investment, so to speak...

I too have Mac and I used TimeMachine. You have to know that TimeMachine backups every few hours and uses a ton of very small files which for mechanical disks, over time, can lead to unnecessary premature wear out. Instead, I use Synology Drive, and all my important files are synced, using BitWarden Docker for my password, and also have some MacOS bootable USB in case of Mac drive failure... it is not the same as TimeMachine, but still good enough for me...
If you insist on TimeMachine, maybe 4/5-bay models are better for your as you can, beside 2x8TB, put some SSDs for another Volume...
 
The OP hasn't replied for over 9 months. Any advice is likely to go unheard. If there's a new question then a new thread would be best.
If this was directed at me, I was just wondering which one they got. If that's not a good thing to do then i'll delete it. Sorry.
 
If this was directed at me, I was just wondering which one they got. If that's not a good thing to do then i'll delete it. Sorry.
No. It was more that new advice was getting added which, while well meaning, won't get seen by the OP.

I agree that the DS920+ or DS1520+ are both good devices but £££ are different for different people.
 
Hoping to clarify, not to be condescending... "OP" refers to "Original Poster"... that is, the poster who initiated the thread. In this case, "trirocketman".
Not taking it as condescending. I wasn't thinking OP was me. I was thinking my question to the OP was the issue - and I thought he wanted me to post my Q to trirocketman in a new thread. 😉
 

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