NAS for photo/video backup

[mlaidman]

I've moved from a desktop tower to a laptop and am looking to keep all my hard drives and RAID setup.
I have a couple 2TB drives in RAID 1 as well as two other 1TB drives with general media installed in the desktop. I'd like to get rid of the tower and stick the drives into a NAS.

I'm not looking to stream, although that would be a bonus. (I'd have to be able to output directly to HDMI or Displayport, and I don't think any of them do that anyway).

I'd like to migrate the two 2TB drives to a RAID 5 setup, and stick the other 1TB drives in as well.

I've been looking at the Synology DS416j and the QNAP TS-431, both of which can be had over here (in South Korea) for about $354 USD online. (Huge markups versus in North America, I know).

The RAID 1 setup in the desktop tower is just a software RAID. Will I be able to migrate to a RAID 5 setup with these units? Do they accept mixed drives? I think I remember someone mentioning that Synology was generally better at using mixed drives.

This NAS will be used as redundant storage for photo/video/document backup, as well as a large external drive for general files that won't fit on the laptop.

Anything I'm missing here? Any real differences between the two since the prices are the same here?

Thanks~

 

[VirtualLarry]

Chances are high that you WILL NOT be able to simply install your existing drives into a purpose-built NAS, and KEEP the data.

You need somewhere to dump the data (4/5TB USB3.0 external desktop HDD?), while you install the internal drives into the NAS and initialize / wipe / format them.

 

[mlaidman]

Thanks VirtualLarry

That makes sense. I tried to connect just one of the drives via an external SATA connector to my laptop, and it wouldn't recognise it. It seems the drives both have to be installed in my tower for any of the mirrored to be recognised.

I'll be sure to make a copy before migrating the drives over.

 

[CA19100]

As he said, you'll need to move the data elsewhere and start fresh when you put the drives into the NAS.

I have a Synology (a 216j), and couldn't be happier with it. Does more than I need, is whisper-quiet, and backs up the important data offsite to Amazon Glacier for a few bucks a month. While it supports various RAID levels, I use its default Synology Hybrid Raid, which is very flexible when adding/replacing drives. Here's some info on the system you may find useful:

https://www.synology.com/en-us/knowledgebase/DSM/tutorial/Storage/What_is_Synology_Hybrid_RAID_SHR

 

[mlaidman]

Excellent. That helps a lot. It looks like that Hybrid RAID system is the way to go. And it looks like it accepts drives of varying size, as well.

CA19100, do you have any experience with using drives from different manufacturers? My two 2TB drives are the same model, but the other two 1TB are from WD and Samsung, I think.

 

[Keljian]

Have you considered building your own NAS?

 

[CA19100]

CA19100, do you have any experience with using drives from different manufacturers? My two 2TB drives are the same model, but the other two 1TB are from WD and Samsung, I think.

No specific experience with it, but I don't see why it would be any problem at all.There isn't any requirement in the documentation to suggest that the drives must of the same brand; only that they're SATA drives. They do have a drive compatibility page here that I'd use when purchasing new drives, and that guide will steer you to NAS-labeled hard drives.

Your existing drives should work fine in the short term, but I'd eventually migrate to NAS-labeled drives, which have some subtle differences in their error recovery that make them better suited to a NAS. I'm using the Western Digital Red in mine, for example, but I had planned to buy new drives for it when I bought it anyway, and they weren't much more money than regular desktop drives.

But for now, everything you have should work fine, and the varying sizes of your drives will definitely be a good case for the Hybrid Raid system. Good luck!

 

[addverma]

Do you plan to reuse your existing Desktop for NAS? If yes what is the OS that you plan to use?

 

[mlaidman]

Keljian - No, I haven't really considered it. I'd just like to get rid of the tower I have and keep thing simple. Getting parts for good prices here in South Korea can be a little tough, and I've really like something that's fairly compact that I can just plug in and forget about.

CA19100 - I've read a bit about the WD Red series in the past. Likely as time passes and drives fail or else I upgrade I'll move to something along those lines.

addverma - I won't be using the desktop NAS any longer. I'll remove the drives and see what money I can get from the other components from a local computer shop.