I also wouldn’t use SSD cache. I think it is a waste of money and a RAM upgrade is money better spent. My DS918+ has 3 HDD’s for storage (RAID 5), 1 SSD for Roon and i expanded the RAM to 12GB. You can check the website of Crucial (RAM manufacturer) for Synology compatibel memory.
Hopefully Synology will make it possible to use both m2 slots to create a volume instead of wasting its potential by limiting it to be used as a cache.
I have been looking over the internet about the RAID 5 big issue…
i mean, the chance that, after a single disk failure, the reconstruction of data integrity fails - completely - with high probability with new big disks (like 10 TB).
i don’t know… i think i’ll stay for RAID1. i’ll pass from the actual 4TB to 16TB… and my NAS is just for music and pictures… i’ll never fill it…
It’s 10 or more years now that i’ve gone liquid with music… i had 2 NAS, many PCs, and never experienced a disk failure. but i wouldn’t like to be the lucky one. i think my music and pictures are more valuable than the cost of extra 8Tb…
Raid is not a backup it’s a redundancy,…you still want to have a backup of your data elsewhere…seriously people get a backup happening
I’d highly recommend using CloudSync on Synology to create an offsite backup. I use CloudSync with BackBlaze and it works great. Then you have redundancy in your house and an offsite copy if anything really bad happens.
AFAIK the failure probability is with the old disks, not the new ones. Mostly because of this:
The remaining old disks might just die out of old age within a short period of time. One of them was just the first one. And it is not limited to RAID 5.
While having a real backup available, even a complete loss of your NAS from a (near) lightning strike wouldn’t make you loose any data.
about RAID 5, there are many articles like this one:
anyway… i understand that RAID is not a backup. i have a offsite backup on an external HD. but i’ve got not any automatic way to do it. and i do not backup more than a couple of times in 1 year. so, i consider the RAID as a backup for more recent data, and (if you want) as a “second backup”.
maybe i can use the old NAS for a real-time back-up over internet. in that case, i don’t even know if RAID ha any purpose…
Which is exactly what I meant with my comment. The disks usually contain FEC data which is sufficient for many cases. When disks get old and the reserve pool that’s used to replace bad sectors is used up (can be monitored with S.M.A.R.T. tools), the probability to encounter an URE starts to get higher. But this affects all disks, also the ones used in an RAID 1 or 10 configurations. In the case you loose a disk you surely want to replace that disk and get your RAID back into a proper state. So a rebuild/restore operation has to take place anyway regardless of the RAID level used. If you then encounter an URE, some of your data might get corrupted/lost.
One of the reasons why one should use server/NAS disks for use in a NAS/RAID configurations is because of the different handling of error correction (see Error recovery control). Using desktop disks in RAID configurations might lead to disks marked as failed prematurely or the inability to complete RAID rebuilds. But again, this is not limited to RAID 5 and would affect the rebuild of other RAID levels much the same as soon as there is no more redundancy.
So to sum up:
hi Niccolo,
I own a Synology 918+ since 1,5 years. It runs with about 1500 CD rips and 1500 CDs in Tidal. The rips and many personal files and photos are on a Volume 1 of 4 TB in Synology Hybrid Raid (Synolgy RAID version) with 2 HDD. Further a Volume 2 is addressed with one SSD of 500 MB that runs Roon and its local part of the database (is only 5% filled, so far to big).
I have no cache installed.
The system is powerful enough to have fast access to all the music and all the searches. The 3 year old ipad Air for control might even be the bottle neck in speed.
I do not use sample rate conversion as my hardware does not need this. I have been experimenting, with the 918+ a conversion to DSD256 is on top of its limits.
There are also some problems with the 918+.
I planned a Volume 3 that was supposed to make copies to take remote, had to discover that this is a problem to get executed. Disconnecting and taking a disk out gives many failure notes and when the disk is back the Synology it does not recognize the previous disk and only wants to do formatting. Synology states that the connection is not made for frequent exchange.
An other problem is that when Roon is installed the machine is not able to hibernate ever. There was technical support of Synology but it was never solved. Synology does not feel responsible for the Roon software (dot). In my comparison of the 918+ and a Qnap I selected this Synology as it had the lowest hibernation power rate. As my previous QNAP ran problem free for 10 years I count power consumption as one of the cost factors. In 10 years and 20 hours of hibernation a day there is a cost difference of 300 Euros. When I would have known this before there would not have been a Synology.
It might be interesting to know that Roon actively supports the installation of Roon and does take responsability in this.
KR, Edwin
Hi @KeysAndSax
many thanks for your post.
i didn’t realize about the hybernate problem. should i get that you did not have the same problem on the QNAP? actually i had a previsous QNAP, but i had less problems with the actual Syno.
at the moment, my core is on a win PC connected to the syno NAS: i have to check if roon core prevents hybernation even in this configuration…
N
Hi Niccolo,
Well my previous QNAP TS209 was 10 years old and that would not have had the power to run Roon (I ran Squeezebox on this machine).
QNAP delivers apps as “qpkg”-packages that can be easily installed. Roon is part of the offered apps - by QNAP and I expect it to be serviced.
Before installing Roon on the Syno it was able to hibernate after file access (and wake for new access). On the Syno the Roon software has to be installed through a backdoor - not supported. From the moment I installed Roon on the Syno it has not ever been able to go into hibernation. Support looked several times into the problem but not ever solved it. Also the developer of the Roon-package Chris Rieke was not able to solve this or get support from Synology.
Wish you can find a money wise comfortable server.
KR Edwin.
Finally… i’ve abandoned the idea of the NAS. it seemed to me more cons than pros.
I have installed now a BIG HD on the core machine, and i’m going to buy an external equivalent HD for backup.
If one day i’ll go for a standalone and more silent miniPC for the core, i’ll switch the roles.