Newbie NAS Setup Question

[InfernoSTi]

I am looking for a simple setup recommendation for a new NAS, particularly related to using RAID or other drive formats. My goal is to have a two disk NAS with one disk holding my library and the second being a mirrored backup in case of local drive failure.

 

As background, I have recently built a CAPS V2+ music server and it is playing JRiver great. I decided to get a NAS for my music library (I have about 1 TB of music from Redbook 16/44 to 24/192 to DSD files). I selected the Synology 213+ based on some recommendations on CA. I have two 2TB drives, so I could double my library and still have it on one of the two disks.

 

I am looking for the proper setup of the NAS drives to allow one to mirror the other. I did manage to get the NAS running, I figured out how to map a drive so now I can access the library via JRiver directly. But I can't figure out how to make the second drive mirror the first drive.

 

Also, I have two USB drives each with the full library backed up (one kept at the house and "current" and the other off-site with a regular swapping of the two about once a month so the off site drive is not fully current but mostly current).

 

Any advice or direction to start my search would be appreciated. I did review the 25 pages of the Networking forum here but didn't see anything specifically on this topic...I'm sure it is there embedded in the posts somewhere...I just didn't find it.

 

Thanks so much for your help...

 

John

[baddog]

Hello John - It looks like you want a RAID 1 setup with the Synology. This link shows the various options available with the Synology NAS:

 

Synology Network Attached Storage - RAID Calculator

 

If you click the little "i" balloon next to RAID type it will give you more information.

 

This link from their site explains in detail, with pictures how to setup a RAID 1 configuration (or other RAID type system, the examples on the site under the CUSTOM option show a RAID 1 setup).

 

Synology Network Attached Storage - How to Create RAID Volumes on Synolo...

 

Lastly this link goes into greater detail in regards to different options for configuring the NAS, explaining the different RAID types versus using Synology's Hybrid RAID format (SHR). If you use the SHR format it will in your situation yield the same result as RAID 1 providing redundant store on the second drive. I cannot attest to whether you would see better performance with SHR versus RAID 1.

 

Synology Network Attached Storage - How to choose between different RAID...

 

A couple of other points, that model does have external USB 3.0 ports that allow you to plug in a USB 3.0 enclosure with drive and backup the contents (or selected contents) of your NAS to it. I highly recommend making a back up from time to time, because even with a mirrored setup there is always a risk of failure, however small that may be, I see you are already quite diligent in making backups. There is software included with the Synology that will allow you to backup to the external drives.

 

I have a Synology NAS as well and have about two months experience under my belt using it so happy to answer any questions you may have if I missed anything here.

 

Barr

[baddog]

p.s. the default setup for Synology is using the SHR configuration.

[InfernoSTi]

Thank you, Barr, that really gets me going in the right direction. I set up my NAS "one disk at a time" so it didn't give me a "1 disk fault" option. So I think I need to do a new setup.

 

Both of my USB drives do USB 3.0 so that will make that snappier than the previous FW800 connection (had been using a Mac Mini with an Oyen Minipro for the library).

 

Best,

John

[baddog]

Your welcome, you can also just add the second disk and then once you have re started the system select the existing volume, choose manage and there should be options to add and configure the second drive. If you haven't invested a lot of time on setting it up already or copied over a large amount of data in might indeed be easier to start over. BTW SHR is basically running the system as RAID 1.

 

Good luck!

 

Barr

[InfernoSTi]

I'll try to set it up that way first...great point!

 

P.S. my "off-site" music back up disk is because I'm worried about a fire or theft and there is no way insurance will replace a digital music collection. So I like to keep one copy off-site at all times.

 

I'm connecting a USB 3.0 disk to the NAS and backing up now...13,396 items, 800+ GBs...it's not as snappy with USB 3.0 as I thought it would be. But still easy enough to leave connected and backup new files regularly...I'm doing a complete (clean) backup this time.

 

Best,

John

[magister]

I'm connecting a USB 3.0 disk to the NAS and backing up now...13,396 items, 800+ GBs...it's not as snappy with USB 3.0 as I thought it would be. But still easy enough to leave connected and backup new files regularly...I'm doing a complete (clean) backup this time.

 

 

Hi John,

 

I have Synology NAS setup very similar to yours, and I spent some time trying to find the best way to do backups to external disks for off-site storage. As you say, USB 3.0 is faster than 2.0, but still no speed demon. As far as I can tell, there is no way to automatically sync a Synology NAS to anything except another Synology using Synology's own Diskstation Manager. The good news is that one can copy/move/delete files on a Synology using Windows Explorer on a PC that is connected to the network; my Synology appears under "Network" and I can open an Explorer window that looks just like what's on a Windows PC. I know that the Synology uses a different file system, Linux-based I think, but what matters is that one can do file operations easily despite the differences. (If you're on a Mac, I'm not sure about this.)

 

So I use the Allway Sync backup program and set up several backup jobs (one for my classical music folder, one for my pop folder, etc.). Once a week or so I sync the USB drive plugged into the Synology with the folders on the NAS. Allway Sync finds all the changed files, which is easier for me than remembering what I changed this week, or taking time to backup every file after installing it on the NAS. I'm sure there are other backup programs you could use; what I like about Allway Sync (aside from being reliable!) is that it does not compress the files or use a proprietary backup format, so there is never any problem about retrieving the backups should the need arise.

 

David

[bluesman]

I also run both my NAS drives (one for photos and one for music files) in RAID 1. But after I set them up and loaded all 40,000 files, I realized that RAID 1 is only a defense against actual HD failure. If files are somehow deleted from one, the deletions will be mirrored on the other if the RAID setup is working as intended - and that's what happened during a storm and power outage (no, I didn't plug them into my UPS - I'm just dumb!). I returned home from work to find my NAS powered down - and when I rebooted, one HD was non-functional and there were no files evident on the other one. I was unable to recover any files from either HD by putting them in an external USB HD box and plugging them into my PC.

 

I had on-site backup in a third NAS, so I was able to get everything back (along with a healthy dose of palpable angst until the final file was back). I've since subscribed to online backup after doing the HD-swap-and-run-to-the-safe-deposit-box every week or two for a while.

 

As I approached the 1 TB threshold for media files and considered that music and picture files grow much larger with each advance in technology, I began to think that the fastest RAID configuration makes more sense than a mirror for a multi-drive NAS for media. With proper onsite and remote backup, I no longer think there's much benefit to RAID 1 - file management is slower than RAID 10 and it provides only partial protection against file loss (which was not a design goal for RAID anyway). So next time I upgrade, I'll probably go to a 4 disc array in RAID 10 (which is faster primarily because it doesn't need to manage parity).

[InfernoSTi]

Wow, that is a really good point. I'm going to have to really think about this a little better. A standard backup routine may be best, after all....

 

Best,

John