Large storage recommendations

[Gavster]

Over the last couple of years I've collected a small stack of portable Lacie drives and it's reached the point where I should sort a long-temr storage solution that will cover the next few years, rather than simply buying another 3TB lacie drive each time the previous one fills up.

That will enable me to dump the contents of my Lacie drives onto one unit, rather than having to guess which orange drive the files I need are on.

As a complete and utter non-tech person, what's a suitable expandable storage solution which can start at 10TB and has space to be expanded to at least 20TB+++. It doesn't need to be network attached as I will only need to use it on one computer.

I remember talk of a Synology NAS however they seem to cost about £1k+ with some drives included which is a stretch. Are there cheaper expandable storage solutions?

[Gavster]

Hmmm, something like this seems wayyy better value

https://www.amazon.co.uk/TerraMaster-D5 ... 31c1f06c86

[Jobbo]

I agree with your view of the Synology kit - nice and works well, but starts to become pricey quickly when you add a large amount of storage to it.

The thing is, that's the price of storage rather than the Synology kit. And when you want stuff backed up you need to double the storage which doubles the cost. So I'd be really interested in whether there's a cheaper solution. Cloud based is probably it.

[scotta]

Dropbox do 9tb for £16 a month. Expandable as and when you need future growth.

My issue with home NAS is what do you do when the NAS dies. Ive got a shitload of photos on a synology with redundant mirrorred drives. The NAS itself has packed in however so i cant access any of the data.

[duncs500]

Dropbox do 9tb for £16 a month. Expandable as and when you need future growth.

My issue with home NAS is what do you do when the NAS dies. Ive got a shitload of photos on a synology with redundant mirrorred drives. The NAS itself has packed in however so i cant access any of the data.

Surely you can remove the drives and put them in something else? That's the risk with it though, I guess NAS and the cloud is the safest way!

The thing I hate about the modern way of paying subscriptions is that you're always at the mercy of them increasing their prices and once you rely on it there's not a lot you can do.

The one that I always think of is Spotify premium. I dunno how much it is nowadays, but it always struck me that if you just budgeted to spend that monthly cost buying music you like, within a few years you'd own 95% of everything you wanted and be insulated against price rises. One could spend a fraction of that a month on new stuff if you're so inclined.

[Beany]

Hmmm, something like this seems wayyy better value

https://www.amazon.co.uk/TerraMaster-D5 ... 31c1f06c86

It's because they're shit and aimed at tinkerers, rather than people who just want reliable storage.

You pay more for the Synology because they actually work, have proper qualified vendor lists, actual support, regular updates for security and performance, comprehensive backup/recovery tools, etc.

Qnap is closer to Synology in terms of "You don't need to know how to manage a software RAID system to be able to trust it" but their OS/interface is nowhere near as polished.

I'd consider a Terramaster for myself (and I'd install FreeNAS/TrueNAS on it, etc) but I'd never, ever recommend one to someone not familiar with storage stuff in general.

At the end of the day though, I bought another Synology recently because although I could build a faster NAS, cheaper than Synology can sell it, I don't want to be messing around with that shit in my off hours. The extra couple of hundred quid is worth every penny.

Edit: That's a DAS rather than NAS, which is less shitty from Terramaster, but I still wouldn't trust it as far a I can throw it, heard too many stories of backplane failures and power supply issues, and then terramaster support fucking people around when it comes to fixing them...

[Beany]

Dropbox do 9tb for £16 a month. Expandable as and when you need future growth.

My issue with home NAS is what do you do when the NAS dies. Ive got a shitload of photos on a synology with redundant mirrorred drives. The NAS itself has packed in however so i cant access any of the data.

Define 'packed in'? If it's the power supply that's popped, they're available on the internet. If it's doing something like, say, the blue light is constantly flashing and it's not powering up, that can be fixed with a fairly simple solder job, depending on the model:
https://community.synology.com/enu/forum/1/post/130359

Intel fucked up the C2000 SOC, not Synology, but Synology handily left debug board vias available to solder to, that can fix it....

Another reason why Synology is a decent choice is that enough of them are around that community support is pretty solid too - I've done the above fix on an RS815RP+ and it worked a treat.

If it's totally fucked - got dropped out a window, cat pissed on it, whatever, then you can show this to any competent techy with a bit of linux experience and they can get the data off.

https://kb.synology.com/en-id/DSM/tutor ... using_a_PC

Again, having proper documentation is another reason why Synology are a popular choice....Terramaster have no formal documentation about doing this.

[Mito Man]

This sounds complicated, can't you just buy a 20tb ssd and job ...jobbed?

[Matty]

Dropbox do 9tb for £16 a month. Expandable as and when you need future growth.

If you want the most flexible - but simplest, easiest and least-worry option (but long term more expensive), do this.
Also note, if you're frequently backing up large files you'll want decent internet

To be honest, this would be my suggestion as you just want pure storage.

You pay more for the Synology because they actually work, have proper qualified vendor lists, actual support, regular updates for security and performance, comprehensive backup/recovery tools, etc.

If you do want a NAS, as Beany says, just pay the extra and get Synology. I'm assuming your data is important...."Buy cheap, buy twice and also lose all your data" is a potential here by cutting corners.

But at the same time, just for pure storage Synology is a bit of a waste. They do so much more...hence the recommendation just to go with Scotta's approach.

[Sundayjumper]

Hmmm, something like this seems wayyy better value

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B071S6ZCMM

Unique 2+3 RAID mode: hard drive #1 & #2 can be configured as RAID 0, RAID 1 or Single disk. The remaining drives #3-5 work as single, independent drives.

Eh ? So it's a 2-disk NAS plus three drives that won't do anything that three USB sticks won't do ? Seems a bit pointless.

I guess cloud is the way to go for deep storage. Anything you're actively using needs to be local for speed. Which raises a separate question - would a nice NAS be better / faster for stuff you're actively working than your Lacie(s) ? Sounds like a Beany question.

(I have a Synology DS218+, it works well for me but I'm not editing vast video files like you are)

[Gavster]

The dropbox idea is a really good shout I've already got a dropbox subscription with 3TB for sharing video projects with collaborators and clients. Looks like I can upgrade for a few more £ per month and get 9TB, which will free up some space for very little cost. Nice shout, thanks guys!

[Gavster]

Hmmm, something like this seems wayyy better value

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B071S6ZCMM

Unique 2+3 RAID mode: hard drive #1 & #2 can be configured as RAID 0, RAID 1 or Single disk. The remaining drives #3-5 work as single, independent drives.

Eh ? So it's a 2-disk NAS plus three drives that won't do anything that three USB sticks won't do ?

I guess cloud is the way to go for deep storage. Anything you're actively using needs to be local for speed. Which raises a separate question - would a nice NAS be better / faster for stuff you're actively working than your Lacie(s) ? Sounds like a Beany question.

(I have a Synology DS218+, it works well for me but I'm not editing vast video files like you are)

Looks like a NAS would be the best solution, if I was willing to bung £1k+ into setting it up.

[Ascender]

Another vote for Synology.... We have two now, one for media and one for backups and "stuff". The first one has been running constantly for 5/6 years now without any issues.

They're both just two bay versions running raid1 with traditional spinning disks - more than fast enough for streaming large video files over the network.

QNap is the other obvious choice and we also had a Drobo for about 10 years - the benefit of that one was the ability to mix disks of different sizes and it was truly plug and play - so easy to just take a disk out and it would rebuild things for you. Utterly idiot proof.

[Sundayjumper]

Synology DS920+ :

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/196098877338

4x 4TB drives + 2x 1TB for a chunky cache, and RAM upgraded to 8GB too. Sounds like a nice spec.

[DeskJockey]

Synology DS920+ :

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/196098877338

4x 4TB drives + 2x 1TB for a chunky cache, and RAM upgraded to 8GB too. Sounds like a nice spec.

Doesn't look bad. Just a cautionary note is that it is a discontinued product with about a year's worth of support left before it drops to "limited" (e.g., don't hold your breath). However, any limitations I've come up against with mine relating to lack of features, I've found a workaround for. However, it depends on the value of what you're storing on it.

MIne holds an archive of MP3s that are never used, some movies that are never watched and then acts as a mirror of all our digital pictures and data *from* the cloud. The two last bits being the important stuff, but they are only copies, the main store is in the cloud.

[DeskJockey]

Another vote for Synology here. My DS212+ has been running for a decade without fault, using the hibernation function daily. My old DS107+ ran for as long.

Although when it powered up to do syncing duties this morning there was an audible and ominous clicking from one of the drives. It is still healthy, but S.M.A.R.T will doom it soon, so might as well buy a replacement now.

[simon_g]

I like my Synology but for one user/computer all you're really gaining is the ability to lose a drive and replace it without losing anything. It's an expensive way to just have some space to dump things on.

WD are still doing a 14TB desktop drive for £226 https://www.westerndigital.com/en-gb/pr ... 40HBK-EESN which is about the best £/TB at the moment. Perfect for stashing less important stuff on, or as another copy "just in case".

For proper protection something like Backblaze will back up everything in or attached to one computer (including that 14TB drive) for $99 a year.

We're in an odd time at the moment, SSDs are crashing in price and it's never been cheaper to buy a TB or two of SSD - but those bigger capacity spinning disks are staying really expensive. Was having a look at Black Friday prices and I paid less for an 8TB drive over 4 years ago.

[scotta]

Dropbox do 9tb for £16 a month. Expandable as and when you need future growth.

My issue with home NAS is what do you do when the NAS dies. Ive got a shitload of photos on a synology with redundant mirrorred drives. The NAS itself has packed in however so i cant access any of the data.

Define 'packed in'? If it's the power supply that's popped, they're available on the internet. If it's doing something like, say, the blue light is constantly flashing and it's not powering up, that can be fixed with a fairly simple solder job, depending on the model:
https://community.synology.com/enu/forum/1/post/130359

Its fucked fucked. Nothing. No power or lights. Ive tried another known good PSU. Its an external brick style laptop PSU. Made sure the voltage matches ect.

I could probably take the drives out and put them in something else as they are just mirrored not any complex RAID.

[KiwiDave]

This sounds complicated, can't you just buy a 20tb ssd and job ...jobbed?

Wash your fucking mouth out. Decent reliable storage = at least three copies, in at least two places, one of which is off-site. At the very least with your suggestion you'd need three 20TB drives and a really disciplined routine of backing them up manually.

I've ended up with 2x 4bay Synology NAS, plus the data in the PC. Around 16TB capacity, 9-ish used. The only one I'm failing on currently is one off-site as I don't have a mate close enough to go and dump it at their house who is prepared to have a device they don't own sat on their internet connection permanently, but one of them is really physically separated from the other at the house and in a 'quick exit' spot.