SHR or Basic for a Single Disk system?

[GeneJockey]

Title pretty much sums it up. Am setting up my firsdt ever NAS - a DS215j with only ONE Drive right now. What are the pros and cons of SHR vs Basic for initializing the single disk.

I have no need of RAID and even if/when I populate the 2nd drive bay I will not need or want RAID. So other than allowing for 'future' considerations, is there an inherent advantage in SHR vs. basic. Or vice versa?

 

[stevech]

Read this?
http://forum.synology.com/wiki/index.php/What_is_Synology_Hybrid_RAID?

After reading this way back, I chose "basic", no SHR in a 2 bay w/2 volumes.

 

[GeneJockey]

Thanks again. I had indeed already seen this but confess that some (most?) of it went over my head. I wonder therefore if you could elaborate your reasons for choosing basic?

According to this there is really no wasted storage issues with SHR (one reason not to use it). Other forums and other users have indicated that there are no performance issues to distinguish the two. The system clearly defaults to SHR in the absence of other input. So what made you go basic?

I also would have chosen basic given the opportunity but I'm really not sure why

 

[stevech]

Basic is just one disk per volume. That's what I wanted.
SHR seems to me to be JBOD which with 2+ drives in SHR is the exact risk I didn't want, with a volume spanning 2+ drives.
SHR on one drive seems to me to bring no benefit and added complexity = risk.

The Synology user forum has debates on this topic.

 

[GeneJockey]

Given that I took your advice and have been "playing", if I wanted to re-initialize so that I can format the drive as basic instead, how would I do that?

I see that using the reset button either of two ways is not supposed to destroy data, which is presumably NOT what I want. Do I have to physically open the box and pull the hard drive right out and start again? Will it reformat?

Or can I just delete the existing volume under storage manager (destroy all data) and will I then be able to recreate a new one in basic?

Not sure how to undo and re-do.

 

[stevech]

Go into the Storage Manager GUI.
Click the help's blue Question Mark.
That gives text that explains the Storage Manager's capabilities.
The "Remove" volume says

To remove a volume:

Select the volume you want to remove.
Click the Remove button and follow the wizard to complete the process.

Note:

Data on the volume will be deleted after you remove the volume. Be careful when using this option

I've not done it. But it says you lose the data. Then I think you can create a new volume for the entire disk, with type = Basic rather than SHR.

With a drive as a Basic volume, you'll see the storage manager display a red warning "... no protection". That is, it isn't RAID. But I use the USB3 as the primary backup for folders/shares I don't want to lose. And also, I use Synology's Time Backup to keep a 6 month file version backup on the 2nd drive/volume. So the red warning is N/A.

Be sure to get a big USB3 drive soon for backup. Mine is a 2.5 in. USB powered drive. That was tricky because most USB3 cables have wire gauge too small for the drive's power. I found a fat cable with larger gauge. This problem took me on a long tangent to realize what was wrong. Note too which USB3 sockets on the NAS are blue.

 

[GeneJockey]

Thanks. I already have the USB drive ready to go. It is the external drive I was using before. It is a 3.5" SATA internal drive in a powered enclosure so I don't need to worry about cables.