NAS versus standard desktop drives

[Mike Rubin]

I posted a longish rumination about upgrade path as my NAS runs out of storage space. I did not receive any comments, but have narrowed my focus. I'd delete what I posted before, but I can't figure out how to do it.

 

Here are simpler questions for those of you who maintain your music collections on NAS devices that you bought without disks or on which you have upgraded the disks:

 

(1). Do you invest the substantially-greater sum required for NAS-designated HDD's or are regular desktop drives sufficient?

 

{2} in a simple setup in which the only functions are the storage and streaming of audio files (from mp3 to DSD} and a handful of concert videos, do you invest in 7200 rpm drives or is 5400 rom sufficient?

 

I in the past have spent extra for NAS drives, but, looking at 6tb drives now, the premium over standard drives is much greater than it was with smaller drives. Further, NAS drives only recently began to show up with 7200 rpm HDD's. With both internal and external computer drives, I always found that faster drives with large buffers seemed to make backups faster, but the 5400 rpm drives I have been using in my NAS don't seem unacceptably pokey in either playback or file i/o. I also have read that the 7200 rpm drives run warmer and that, in electronics, heat is not our friend.

 

I appreciate all comments.

[kumakuma]

I posted a longish rumination about upgrade path as my NAS runs out of storage space. I did not receive any comments, but have narrowed my focus. I'd delete what I posted before, but I can't figure out how to do it.

 

Here are simpler questions for those of you who maintain your music collections on NAS devices that you bought without disks or on which you have upgraded the disks:

 

(1). Do you invest the substantially-greater sum required for NAS-designated HDD's or are regular desktop drives sufficient?

 

{2} in a simple setup in which the only functions are the storage and streaming of audio files (from mp3 to DSD} and a handful of concert videos, do you invest in 7200 rpm drives or is 5400 rom sufficient?

 

I in the past have spent extra for NAS drives, but, looking at 6tb drives now, the premium over standard drives is much greater than it was with smaller drives. Further, NAS drives only recently began to show up with 7200 rpm HDD's. With both internal and external computer drives, I always found that faster drives with large buffers seemed to make backups faster, but the 5400 rpm drives I have been using in my NAS don't seem unacceptably pokey in either playback or file i/o. I also have read that the 7200 rpm drives run warmer and that, in electronics, heat is not our friend.

 

I appreciate all comments.

 

I use Western Digital Red drives which are made for NAS use. They are only slightly more expensive than WD Green/Blue drives.

 

I think 7200 rpm is overkill for audio applications although, as you mentioned, backups may be faster with a faster drive. Not sure this is much of an issue as music data tends to be relatively static between backups unless you are adding lots of new albums or making wholesale changes to the metadata.

[Mike Rubin]

Thanks, Kuma. I appreciate the insights. I don't usually have massive backup jobs, but I sometimes have had to load my music library on to a new drive or a new server. I expect that, at some point, I will upgrade my music server and will need to do that again, but, you are correct, it's hardly a frequent thing.

 

I also read on another webpage that 7200 rpm because the drives are supposedly both electrically and mechanically noisy. I have no way of validating that comment, but it's something else I am keeping in mind.

[baddog]

I agree with Kuma - Synology NAS here - WD RED NAS drives here. No issue with the 5400RPMs. Use them to stream either video or music ( up to 24/192 /DSD 128 ). Has worked great. NAS is plugged into router and stream it wirelessly to either TV via AppleTV or from Mac Mini to stereo.

 

Other than that light use for document storage/retrieval/backup. Pretty much single user usage pattern.

 

System is quiet. If I need to make copies to external HD I plug into USB 3 port on the back of the NAS.

[Mike Rubin]

Thanks,Baddog. I just ordered two of those 6tb drives. Should be here Monday. Buffalo refuses to acknowledge whether my LS421DE can see 2x6tb as RAID 1, but it's worth a try. If that doesn't work, I will order a Synology 216+ and use the drives there.

[baddog]

I have two of their 6TB drives - very happy with them. I have a larger bay (8) Synology. In hindsight I certainly could have lived with a 4 bay, maybe smaller with a different backup strategy. Currently the two 6 TB drives are in the NAS but not part of the RAID configuration ( all 4 TB WD NAS Reds ) rather I use them to backup the NAS volumes. ( and yes from time to time I backup to external drive(s).

 

If the Buffalo does not work out, Synology makes a fine product.

 

I think you should be happy with those drives.

[sbank]

After reading comments here I recently purchased and setup a Synology DS415+ with two WD Red 4TB drives in raid1 to replace a 3TB Lacie USB3/Firewire HDD that was attached directly to my MacMini running Yosemite and A+.

 

For the initial transfer of ~2.7TB of music files, I thought it would be a good idea to physically connect the Lacie to the USB3 port on the Synology and use File Station to copy/paste the library to the Synology. Everything seemed to work like a charm until I tried playback via MacMini and A+. About 20% of my library wasn't visible on the mac in Finder nor A+, even though all the folders/files were visible and correctly sized when viewed on via File Station.

 

After 1.5 days of support calls w/Apple level 1&2 advisors, they told me that I needed wipe the Synology, hook the local HDD back to the Mac directly and do all the copying again using Finder and over the network to the Synology. Another day of copying later and all the files all now usable on the Mac. So a word of caution for Yosemite and probably El Capitan users...

 

Looking forward to soon scrapping the Mac and getting my files from Synology to dac with a better device! The Synology was a breeze to setup and shouldn't take much attention going forward.

[baddog]

@sbank - Just so you know - in your scenario - copying files to Synology NAS from an external HD attached to it, that should work fine. Sorry to hear it did not work for you and the extra time you had to invest.

 

I am a Yosemite and Mac user BTW, curious if you had both Mac and Windows File Services enabled on the NAS?

[Mike Rubin]

Interesting about the Mac issues. I use Windows 10 and used predecessor versions before that. I use the NAS to back up to an attached USB drive and, once in a blue moon, to restore a file or two. To populate the NAS initially, however, I had to use the network as my particular NAS didn't recognize Windows-compatible disk formats and couldn't read my external drive at all. Also, given the weakness of my NAS' processor, I suspect that it's faster to move files to it over a gigabit ethernet connection rather than the NAS' USB bus.

[blownsi]

Backblaze uses standard drives claiming that in the long run it's much cheaper to replace them often so I follow the same logic. In reality I've filled my drives in such a way that I have increased their size every 12-18 months. I started with a 500gb drive in 2007 upgraded to a 1tb then 2tb>3tb>4tb>6tb>8tb. With the subscription services of Tidal I'lll likely never need to go above 8gb of unique files. There's simply no point in keeping all of the stuff that I almost never listen to when I can simply stream it. Quite honestly if I were starting over today I'd probably buy a 1TB SSD for the vinyl rips and my really obscure stuff then stream the rest from Tidal.

[davide256]

I run SSD's for my audio NAS, obviously faster, less power draw so case fan runs quieter and my UPS is less challenged by short duration power outages. I have a second NAS for ordinary household use, use WD Red's in it as they supposedly are less likely to "cook" themselves in a NAS case than desktop intended HD's.

[sbank]

I am a Yosemite and Mac user BTW, curious if you had both Mac and Windows File Services enabled on the NAS?

 

@baddog Yes, both Mac & Windows File services were enabled.

 

Now I'm still struggling through the related aftermath as the combo of Yosemite & Audirvana+ struggled with the library changes after doing all the re-copying, causing all tracks to appear duplicated within A+. Path details for the files point to no-longer-existing folders, that have been deleted from the A+ library list, but A+ tries to play the tracks regardless. After no one replied to my pleas for help on the A+ thread I am working thru complete delete/reinstall now. Fun stuff!

[Fitzcaraldo215]

I posted a longish rumination about upgrade path as my NAS runs out of storage space. I did not receive any comments, but have narrowed my focus. I'd delete what I posted before, but I can't figure out how to do it.

 

Here are simpler questions for those of you who maintain your music collections on NAS devices that you bought without disks or on which you have upgraded the disks:

 

(1). Do you invest the substantially-greater sum required for NAS-designated HDD's or are regular desktop drives sufficient?

 

{2} in a simple setup in which the only functions are the storage and streaming of audio files (from mp3 to DSD} and a handful of concert videos, do you invest in 7200 rpm drives or is 5400 rom sufficient?

 

I in the past have spent extra for NAS drives, but, looking at 6tb drives now, the premium over standard drives is much greater than it was with smaller drives. Further, NAS drives only recently began to show up with 7200 rpm HDD's. With both internal and external computer drives, I always found that faster drives with large buffers seemed to make backups faster, but the 5400 rpm drives I have been using in my NAS don't seem unacceptably pokey in either playback or file i/o. I also have read that the 7200 rpm drives run warmer and that, in electronics, heat is not our friend.

 

I appreciate all comments.

 

I had heard that one should not use desktop drives in a NAS principally because desktop drives each individually contain automatic spin down internally when not in use for power saving, whereas NAS drives do not. There might be contention if you do not use NAS drives as individual drives in the array spin down. The NAS drives rely on logic in the NAS itself to spin all drives down, and wake them up, all simultaneously. That is in addition to the longer warranty and presumably longer life and greater reliability of NAS drives.

 

I personally use a Synology 1813+ with 8 4TB Seagate NAS drives to which I later added Synology's 5 drive expansion unit also filled with 4TB Seagates. I can add one more 5 drive expansion when needed. It has been trouble free for 2.5 years.

[Mike Rubin]

Just as an update, I installed two 6tb WD Red drives into the Buffalo enclosure without incident. The NAS recognized their full capacity, I copied over contents from a backup, and then I synced the drives into RAID 1. No complaints at all.

 

I also ordered a 12tb WD MyBook Duo USB 3.0 as an external backup. If I had been smarter, I would have ordered the WD first, as it comes with the same Red drives that I bought separately, for less money than I paid for the two bare drives. I would have swapped its 6tb drives with the 4tb drives originally in the NAS and saved $500.

 

Finally, I just ordered a Synology 216+, which I found at a decent price. It's more high-powered than the Buffalo and has more ports for external drives. I also like that it can run Logitech Media Server and Minim Server right off the NAS rather than off my computer as at present. I will move the 6tb Reds from the Buffalo into the Synology and move the 4tb's back to the Buffalo. Then, I will move the Buffalo to a system i have at our vacation place.

 

Fun, fun, fun.