Synology DS1813+ SHA Setup & Requirements

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Current storage infrastructure:
DS1813+, 4GB, 8x4TB Seagate NAS, SHR-2
DX513, 5x4TB Seagate NAS, SHR-1
DS214+, 2x4TB NAS, RAID 1

The DS1813+ acts as the file server and iSCSI for vSphere. The DX513 is attached to the DS1813+ as the archiving backup volume. The DS214+ is the Surveillance Station server.

I have a DS1813+ and an additional 4TB Seagate NAS drive on order. The reasons were to reduce/consolidate storage components and get VAAI support on the 2nd NAS for future flexibility (DS214+ was a poor purchase after using for a while). I expect to get good value on eBay for the driveless units.

Future storage infrastructure:
DS1813+, 4GB, 8x4TB Seagate NAS
DS1813+, 2GB, 8x4TB Seagate NAS

Right now I'm considering moving to SHA as the backup / redundancy schema vs the current archiving backup.

Issues:
(1) Some documentation mentions SHA requires identical RAM. True or False?
(2) The current volume is SHR-2 which is not supported by SHA.

Potential Solutions:
(1) a. Downgrade or upgrade the RAM
(1) b. Not a compatibility issue
(2) a. Do a full backup to the DX513, and back up the configuration. Delete the SHR-2 volume on the DS1813+. Create a RAID 6 volume. Restore backup. Restore configuration.
(2) b. Move all the drives from decommissioned NASes to new DS1813+. Create new RAID 6 volume. Restore configuration from original DS1813+. Copy data to new DS1813+.

Assistance:
Please let me know which solution(s) work best. Should I even care about SHA? Should I use shared folder sync? Should I just continue using [network] backup? Power savings using [network] backup vs SHA (always on)?

On the power saving note, I believe consolidating all the VMs to the NAS from local SSD storage on the hosts will allow me to use more aggressive/effective DRS/DPM settings.

 

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I ended up backing up my original SHR-2 volume and then restoring it to a new RAID 6 volume. I also upgraded the memory on the new DS1813+ to 4GB.

The setup was rather easy. I changed the host name of the original DS1813+ and recycled the old host name for the HA cluster name. This made it much easier to transfer services that were configured on systems in my environment. Especially for SMB shares and AFP.

For DSM 5.0 there's very little information on heartbeat load balancing mentioned in the HA section for 5.0 features. I configured eth3 and eth4 as a LACP bond2 before starting the HA setup. I selected bond 2 for heartbeat. So far the sync is running fine. It's super slow, but my throughput is similar to what 10gig users are experiencing 80-90MB/s.