New NAS required(?)- all views welcome. Thanks

[radders]

Hello everyone
First post, forgive any techie errors that I make.

So, I have a WD MyClouse EX2 Ultra which is about 6 1/2 yrs old and is used for photos (camera, not phone) and music storage primarily on a home network so that various devices can access them as required. It's set up in RAID1

Recently 1 disk started to fail, so I bought a replacement of the same size and installed it. Blue lights everywhere on the WD, happy days. The WD dashboard told me how much was free and that altough the RAID was degraded, both disks were healthy. I then rebooted it, having set rebuild to AUTO and then everything started to go wrong again. The new disk has a red light on it, the volume says there is 0 data, I can't access it via app and can't via URL. Given the news about WD in the last couple of days, I've obviously chosen a really bad time to do this as everything's offline!

I'm going to try to recover data from my Disk2 and copy that to a new 2TB SSD while I work out what to do next. I'm looking at recoverit or suchlike for that. Any suggestions or pitfalls are welcome.

My main question is what I should do now about the NAS:

1) The WD has never worked particularly well and is quite possibly failing as a device as well. I'm minded to not return to them for a product
2) Synology seem to come out well in the reviews I've read, easier to use software, but they're begining to force people down a Synology HDD route which might restrict things in future, and their GbE speeds are low which is a bit of a pain
3) QNAP seem to have more tricky interfaces but better hardware. The new 262 offers rapid transfer speed which would be nice but I don't need some memory monster so expansion isn't a major concern.

I'm reasonably techie, but completely lost in the myriad of options and opinions. I want a NAS which allows me to copy files via laptop or directly and to access them, particularly the music, via streaming devices such as TVs, Sonos or Naim systems. I'd like to be able to access it directly in Explorer in Windows (WD has always been a bit hit and miss on that side of things) and possibly remote aswell.

If anyone has any views that they'd be happy to share on what choices I should make I'd be very grateful.

Have a good day
Radders

 

[bbunge]

I recently purchased a Synology DS220+ to replace a DS218j. I am very please with it running WD Red Pro 8 TB drives. I have the dual LAN ports bonded to provide load balancing and redundancy. The switch from the DS218j was very easy as I simply moved the drives to the DS220+. I also obtained a 4 GB laptop RAM of the correct specs and added it to the DS220+.
That left me with the DS218j and the old 4 TB drives. I had thought to donate it to a local museum. But I ended up using it to back up photos and videos from the DS220+.
As for your comment about Synology drives, I would guess as long as other companies make drives you will be able to use them in a Synology product. My choice in spinning rust is Western Digital as I have had horrible experiences over the years with Seagate.

 

[radders]

thank you @bbunge I've just purchased a Seagate Ironwolf 6TB drive...

Obviously I have an extra issue in that I've got to account for moving from WD so can't just drop the drives in, but the main concern at the mo is to get the data off the drives as simply and effectively as possible!

 

[Tech Junky]

Sounds like the NAS is on its last legs from what you're describing or it's just a software issue on it that could be reflashed. On the other hand there's been another WD leak affecting products as well. Though the symptoms don't sound like that's the issue since it's mostly a data wipe issue or denial of access.

Brand doesn't really matter as they all do the same thing. The issue is the SW they're running which poses an issue when there are leaks / hacks happening with them.

I went DIY with a PC and put Linux on it to secure my data and not deal with the hacks being pushed out in the SW updates. There's a bit more flexibility on how you can stack drives, NIC speeds, drive types, etc.

Since you're mirroring in R1 that's a good first step as long as it's working. In the case of your current NAS enclosure you're down to a single disk. If you need to recover data then boot with a Linux USB and you should be able to recover everything w/o much fuss.

Things I would be looking at though in a new NAS if you're uncomfortable with a DIY setup would be the option to change the HW like adding a NIC / SSD tiering / faster than 1gbps ports built in. Of course you don't need some monster $1000 NAS for photos / music as it would be overbuilt for that purpose and geared more towards being a ";server" that does more like a mini PC with a full blown CPU.

The thing I don't like about NAS off the shelf units is the cost of them compared to taking a PC and converting it into a "NAS". for the same price you can cobble things together with a SFF PC / disk enclosure. Running an open source OS on it will be more secure than relying on code monkeys to keep your data safe.

SFF PC - ~$150
DAS - $150 - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07KY73BNQ/?tag=snbforums-20 this one is the best spec for speed @ ~420MB/s / just under 4gbps

So, for $300 you have a "NAS" ready to slot drives into and it's just a matter of configuring the data folders for sharing and deciding on if you want to keep using R1 or switch to R10 for speed + mirroring. It's not quite as simple as taking it out of the box and hooking it up to your network but, put a little bit of time into it and it will be rock solid for years.

 

[radders]

thank you @Tech Junky I'm going to have to have a look at that when I have more time. The Linux option for data recovery is something I've seen mentioned a few times, I'll have to investigate and see what's entailed. I know my brother's done it for his kit but he designs jet engines and he got the brains!!

 

[Adooni]

if you lookign for complete solution with dedicated HW SYnology is the way to go.

if you think of making miniPC and build NAS alone you have 2 good options.
1, Xpenology - Synology with loader for not branded HW.
2. OMW - I am using OMW for 10y no and depend of transfer you require you can put it even on raspberry pi 4 - it has docker with portainer/yacht integrated - from this point sky is the limit. At yt you can find all tutorials you need made by Techno Dad Life for example installation process and setup

 

[radders]

this place is an education, than you @Adooni

 

[Tech Junky]

thank you @Tech Junky I'm going to have to have a look at that when I have more time. The Linux option for data recovery is something I've seen mentioned a few times, I'll have to investigate and see what's entailed. I know my brother's done it for his kit but he designs jet engines and he got the brains!!

Pretty simple if it's not corrupt. DL Linux, Burn with Rufus, boot to the desktop, go into disks, mount the drives, copy the data off.

If you want it to be Windows accessible convert the HDD to NTFS and copy the data back from the other drive or just leave it alone until you have your new "NAS" setup. If you don't have an enclosure or cable for the 3.5 HDD then I use this - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B071GRCGF4/?tag=snbforums-20 works with both 2.5/3.5 and has power for the 3.5 / works with just the cable on 2.5 drives.

 

[radders]

thank you @Tech Junky I've got the SATA power device I need which I've used to test drives along with HD Sentinel for a health check. Fortunately, Disk2 and the new one both seem to be in good health, despite what WD says!

 

[Tech Junky]

thank you @Tech Junky I've got the SATA power device I need which I've used to test drives along with HD Sentinel for a health check. Fortunately, Disk2 and the new one both seem to be in good health, despite what WD says!

That's a good start. Now, you just have to boot into Linux and grab the data.

 

[Clark Griswald]

@radders
I had a WD MyCloud, the white single drive model, and moved to the Synology DS-918+. Being a NAS neophyte I am glad that I went with an established NAS company. Currently, I have two teenagers streaming movies and entire Family has their own "private cloud" for storage.

 

[sfx2000]

I recently purchased a Synology DS220+ to replace a DS218j. I am very please with it running WD Red Pro 8 TB drives. I have the dual LAN ports bonded to provide load balancing and redundancy. The switch from the DS218j was very easy as I simply moved the drives to the DS220+. I also obtained a 4 GB laptop RAM of the correct specs and added it to the DS220+.

Funny this comes up - just picked up a 723+ and a couple of Ironwolf 8tb drives...

It complained one time about the drives not being Synoogy, but no problems after that initial warning...

DSM 7.1.1 is pretty nice - first time for me with Synology, previous units were QNAP.

 

[coxhaus]

I have a small Synology NAS my first and only NAS. It seems to work well. The software updates seem to work without intervention. I ran servers for years but not NAS. I am on DSM 7.1.1 update 4 which I think is the latest.

 

[sfx2000]

I am on DSM 7.1.1 update 4 which I think is the latest.

It is - 7.2 is in Beta, but i would not recommend running beta software on something that stores important data..

 

[coxhaus]

I would never run beta on a storage system. dumb. I had to turn on my NAS to look.

 

[Clark Griswald]

Synology has IMHO better software, but is far behind in hardware (923+ has 1Gbe and an upgrade for 10Gbe must be purchased), and that is pitiful.

Now keep quiet, or @L&LD will show up with his QNAP praise.

 

[L&LD]

When compared critically, QNAP does offer a better value overall.

Yes, I love, love, love QNAP! But Synology is an option if you have the dollars to match what QNAP offers at a lower price level.

For NAS, they truly are the only two options to consider, if you really care about your data for the least $/day into the next decade or more, with comparable features and recovery options.

 

[sfx2000]

When compared critically, QNAP does offer a better value overall.

Yes, I love, love, love QNAP! But Synology is an option if you have the dollars to match what QNAP offers at a lower price level.

For NAS, they truly are the only two options to consider, if you really care about your data for the least $/day into the next decade or more, with comparable features and recovery options.

Not so sure about that - I've got QNAP and Synology...

I needed a 2-bay NAS box, best QNAP could offer is a Intel Atom chip, which after the whole Intel AVR54 issues (SAD - Sudden Atom Death) and QNAP not extending coverage for failed units (we're sorry, would you like to buy a new one???) - Syno did extend warranties for the issue, and did goodwill repairs after the fact - Intel paid for it, Syno passed it on to Customers, whereas QNAP pocketed it and told customers "tough noogies, so bad, so sad"

That is huge, and one reason why they were _not_ on my list for my recent NAS purchase.

Am I a bit bitter about this - yes, I am - this is what happens when a company f**ks over its customers.

Outside of that - QTS is quite capable, but so is DSM - with DSM, I haven't found anything lacking over QNAP's QTS platform.

My 723+ has an AMD Zen CPU, which is a dual-core 4 thread big core chip, not an efficiency core like the Atom's in QNAP, and I wanted to run some VM's so bumping it up to 32GB of RAM is kinda useful.

 

[coxhaus]

Reliability and security trump blazing fast speed. I want something I can count on when it comes to storage. Speed is secondary.

 

[thecheapseats]

...after the whole Intel AVR54 issues (SAD - Sudden Atom Death) and QNAP not extending coverage for failed units (we're sorry, would you like to buy a new one???) - Syno did extend warranties for the issue, and did goodwill repairs after the fact - Intel paid for it, Syno passed it on to Customers, whereas QNAP pocketed it and told customers "tough noogies, so bad, so sad"

and that is the primary reason to avoid QNAP... a lot of mfg's were great and acted responsibly (including cisco) with that intel atom disaster - but not QNAP...

they threw away a lot of customer goodwill which is NEVER easy to recoup and exhibited deplorable behavior in that instance...

on that point alone they should be avoided... arrogance should never be rewarded...