I'm not seeing anything saying that you can't use third-party drives. Am I missing a blog post from Synology somewhere?
https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/nas/synology-requ...
Thank you!
The Synology End Game
101–110 of 360 posts
Re: The Synology End Game
#102But self-building a NAS is still a problem, and I'm also talking about this [1] article from the same blog: There are NO low power NAS boards. I'm talking about something with an ARM CPU, no video, no audio, lots of memory (or SODIMM slot) and 10+ SATA ports. Sure, anyone can buy a self-powered USB3 hub and add 7 external HDDs to a raspbery, but that level of performance is really really low, not to mention the USB r…
SATA? In 2025? NVMe all the way.
Not for a NAS. Speed is NVMe's benefit, but your network isn't fast enough to take advantage of it, which means you're paying through the nose for very low capacity. 24TB SATA drives are a way better deal for a NAS.
Re: The Synology End Game
#103But self-building a NAS is still a problem, and I'm also talking about this [1] article from the same blog: There are NO low power NAS boards. I'm talking about something with an ARM CPU, no video, no audio, lots of memory (or SODIMM slot) and 10+ SATA ports. Sure, anyone can buy a self-powered USB3 hub and add 7 external HDDs to a raspbery, but that level of performance is really really low, not to mention the USB r…
Low power and reliability is why I want to just use my Mac Mini M4 + DAS as storage solution among 15 people. I am not sold on it because Mac Mini has lots of life in it to be solely devoted to this use case.
I recently got one as a home server. It’s ludicrously power efficient and so powerful. But it’s a battle getting it to behave, with OS fights at every stage.
It took me a week of fighting to get it to reliably power up, connect to network shares and then start some containers.
How could this be hard?
Re: The Synology End Game
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think we have different definitions of what "low power" means.
What do you want? The N100 is 6W in theory not sure if you can downclock it or how good the power control is. Problem below that is that is mostly mobile phone type CPUs and they dont have much IO. Drives in a NAS are going to consume a bit of power too so its not really clear how low you can go.
I want less power and more storage.
I want less than 10W idle for the whole system, maybe except HDDs, but even those will be in sleep much of the time. x86 boards are mostly ATX-powered and I don't think any ATX power source can go that low and still be efficient (not draw 20W while powering a 10W system).
And yes, mobile phone CPUs are good enough. I'm using a Turris Omnia now and Marvell 385 is OK, except I have to use an external DAS for hard drives which eats 10 times more than the Omnia with all drives sleeping.
If only the chinese didn't try to make good-for-everything-best-at-nothing ARM boards with lots of video outs, audio, discrete NIC and soldered wifi...
Re: The Synology End Game
#105I'm currently on the market for a NAS. Main use would be simple RAID storage for personal stuff: photos, etc. Also local backup. I'd been considering the Synology SS425+. I was aware of the restrictions on disk support. Comments in this thread are making me think twice. So what's good? Ugreen? I'd appreciate recommendations.
I'm in a similar situation. Any thoughts, recommendations, warnings about QNAP or Asustor?
Re: The Synology End Game
#106A big part of the appeal of Synology was that you could just forget about it . I have a little one in the corner that's just been sitting there serving files out over SMB for years now. It doesn't need to do anything more and I don't need to think about it. A lot of the alternatives being proposed are not so easy to maintain. A full general purpose OS install doesn't really take care of itself. And I don't have (and…
This.
I came to Synology after years of managing regular Linux (Debian) servers, then Unraid, and then Synology.
Synology was the most expensive thing I’ve used but I also _never_ think about it. The same could not be said for previous setups.
I want a stupid-easy NAS, plug-and-play, hotswapable bays. I’m not interested in having to shut down a tower and open it up to swap/add drives.
I have 2x12-bay Synology’s and I haven’t found an equivalent product yet (open to options).
Re: The Synology End Game
#107I ran my own NAS for over two decades in some old 4U I got for cheap, using whatever discarded consumer HW I got for free and I never got the point of Synology. Colleague who has one said it's compact. Well, this year I bought one of those gaming cube cases (with space for 10 drives, what do people do with them in gaming pcs? OK, only 8 spaces are actually drawers with grommets but physically you can fit 10) and retired my 4U.
Seriously, takes an hour to setup your own NAS and you can mix any drives, setup any encryption you want, seedbox etc. I totally understand convenience but this is not a email server you're setting up here, it's just a NAS.
Re: The Synology End Game
#108But self-building a NAS is still a problem, and I'm also talking about this [1] article from the same blog: There are NO low power NAS boards. I'm talking about something with an ARM CPU, no video, no audio, lots of memory (or SODIMM slot) and 10+ SATA ports. Sure, anyone can buy a self-powered USB3 hub and add 7 external HDDs to a raspbery, but that level of performance is really really low, not to mention the USB r…
There are some new NAS boxes hitting the market (UGreen being one of the brands that are cheaper, but also Minisforum) which have solid hardware but aren't locked down at all. They're just x86 boxes with bog-standard hardware so you can just run whatever OS you want, and they support that use case.
Like I said, I'm still waiting for 10+ SATA bays...
Re: The Synology End Game
#109It's a real shame too, I had purchased a DS723+ before the announcement and its a great little machine. The I can see why the Synology experience was such a draw for so long in the consumer space. The recent HDD drama is death for Synology's consumer appeal, but I imagine they'll shape-out a mid-market/small-business segment for themselves.
They're probably "pulling a Rolex" i.e. Go big or go home move. The thing is, the place they're moving a little dangerous. SOHO and SMB using 4-12 HDDs to serve a couple dozen people is a very small niche. Plus you can add professional photographers and videographers on top. Then what? The upmarket is very, very crowded. Will they OEM their wares to big players as entry level devices?
They are going to get absolutely smoked upmarket. There's so much competition that has basically no downside comparitively.
And probably in that niche too, once people realize how cheap used hardware really is.
Re: The Synology End Game
#110On that very topic, do HNers have any case and/or motherboard recommendations for a homebrew NAS? I have my NAS on a shelf in a mini-ITX case, but it only fits two 3.5" HDDs internally (as well as an SSD, but full-size HDDs are what matter for bulk data storage, the more the better) Also, it takes a normal full-size ATX PSU because I was fed up a previous case that only had room for its own custom PSU, which kept fai…
its not the smallest, but the Fractal Node 304 is nice IMHO.
I'm using that case with with a 200mm fan front-panel mod[1]. Despite its size, it gets pretty cramped. It's just hard to keep it organized without a dedicated SATA backplane.
[1]: https://www.printables.com/model/866109-200mm-fan-front-for-...