Synology Replacement DS420+ and new drives

[smurkin]

Well, after about 12 years continuous running my DS212J has died. All the status lights on the front were green but it wouldn't connect using the web interface, even on a LAN connection. I tried cleaning it of fluff and insects and even tried to wipe/reinstall the DSM install/partition but it just timeouts so I think its toast. Luckily I archived all my photos/videos onto a passport drive about a year ago so nearly nothing is lost although I'd like to get the data back from the old drives (2x3Tb on Synology Hybrid Raid with redundancy).

Apart from being computer senile, its been pretty good so I am going to order a replacement DS420+ - I'm going to use it for file storage for my home business multimedia and surveillance station. And backup.

Anyone have any thoughts on decent long running NAS drives? - I was thinking of 2x WD Red plus 6Tb. Installing these with redundancy and then once established moving the old drives over to create a separate partition in order to grab by old data? Not sure quite how this will work. There is a how to on moving drives over although it doesn't quite fit what I want to do.

How do I migrate data between Synology NAS (DSM 6.0 and later)? - Synology Knowledge Center

Synology Knowledge Center offers comprehensive support, providing answers to frequently asked questions, troubleshooting steps, software tutorials, and all the technical documentation you may need.

www.synology.com

 

[Embattle]

Backblaze provide stats on their hard drive failure rates every quarter - Backblaze Hard Drive Stats

Personally I've got the following mix:
5x Seagate ST3000VN000 - 4 of them are 7+ years old, one of them is probably 8+ with between 41000 and 50000 Power-on hours.
1x Seagate ST4000VN000 - Unsure of age but has 31815 Power-on hours.
1x Seagate ST4000VN008 - Bought in September has 1880 Power-on hours.
1x Crucial CT480M500SSD1

So far *tough wood* I've never had many hard drive failures in some 25 years and none I can remember on my NAS drives.

 

[Deebs]

Watch out for WD Reds, some are using that shit SMR.

Western Digital Comes Clean, Shares Which Hard Drives Use SMR - ExtremeTech

Western Digital has finally admitted which of its hard drives are currently SMR and which are CMR, allowing customers to avoid a technology that may not be compatible with their existing hardware.

www.extremetech.com

 

[caLLous]

WD have introduced a new line to accomodate the SMR drives but they were fuckers for introducing technology that is proven to work badly with RAID setups (ZFS especially) into a range that they specifically target at RAID setups.

Basically, avoid the standard WD Red range like the plague for any redundant setup, the WD Red Plus and Pro will be fine.

Before they split the SMR shite out into a different line I bought a few of the CMR ones (searching for the specific model numbers of the CMR ones) and they still turned up as SMR drives with CMR stickers on the packaging. I guess Amazon bought a pallet of mislabelled ones off of some dodgy bastard but it left such a bad taste in my mouth that I have since switched to Seagate Ironwolfs whenever I need to replace disks in my servers.

 

[MYstIC G]

Well, after about 12 years continuous running my DS212J has died. All the status lights on the front were green but it wouldn't connect using the web interface, even on a LAN connection. I tried cleaning it of fluff and insects and even tried to wipe/reinstall the DSM install/partition but it just timeouts so I think its toast. Luckily I archived all my photos/videos onto a passport drive about a year ago so nearly nothing is lost although I'd like to get the data back from the old drives (2x3Tb on Synology Hybrid Raid with redundancy).

Apart from being computer senile, its been pretty good so I am going to order a replacement DS420+ - I'm going to use it for file storage for my home business multimedia and surveillance station. And backup.

Anyone have any thoughts on decent long running NAS drives? - I was thinking of 2x WD Red plus 6Tb. Installing these with redundancy and then once established moving the old drives over to create a separate partition in order to grab by old data? Not sure quite how this will work. There is a how to on moving drives over although it doesn't quite fit what I want to do.

How do I migrate data between Synology NAS (DSM 6.0 and later)? - Synology Knowledge Center

Synology Knowledge Center offers comprehensive support, providing answers to frequently asked questions, troubleshooting steps, software tutorials, and all the technical documentation you may need.

www.synology.com

Dumb question, tried another network cable?

 

[smurkin]

Dumb question, tried another network cable?

Yes The NAS was behaving very weirdly. I was actually able to connect to it occasionally just incredibly slowly (eg. 10 mins to load the webman page). Synology assistant wouldn't detect the drive on the LAN. It was pinging the synology DYDNS server even though I couldn't get into the drive - I know this as I was getting synology's notification emails. It was able to connect to the router for an IP address but it wouldn't broadcast its device name. I even tried a direct connection to an old laptop that hadn't been updated in a while just in case it was a firewall permissions problem but no banana.

Thanks for all of the suggestions. The SMR/CMR thing was a huge bollock drop by WD - apparently even some of their black range had the CMR drives inside and I'm not sure I trust them any more.

 

[smurkin]

Went for the 8Tb ST8000VN0022 Ironwolfs in the end. The price was good and there were fewer bad reviews on Amazon. Main niggle was the packaging - I guess I'll find out tomorrow

 

[Jupitus]

Went for the 8Tb ST8000VN0022 Ironwolfs in the end. The price was good and there were fewer bad reviews on Amazon. Main niggle was the packaging - I guess I'll find out tomorrow

I predict brown cardboard and perhaps some scrunched up paper... ./coat

 

[MYstIC G]

Went for the 8Tb ST8000VN0022 Ironwolfs in the end. The price was good and there were fewer bad reviews on Amazon. Main niggle was the packaging - I guess I'll find out tomorrow

Drives from Amazon still tend to ship in "not the best" packaging so make sure you burn them in before you put anything precious on them.

 

[Embattle]

My recent one was in a little box with foam which was then in a bigger box irc

 

[smurkin]

My recent one was in a little box with foam which was then in a bigger box irc

That what I got with some foam around the drives. It was a bit of a faff but I managed to set up DSM on the new drives and then recover the old drives, identify the broken drive, remove it and set up a fresh volume on the good one. The Ironwolfs inside the 420 are perhaps the noisiest drives I think I've ever come across - even the wife complained - I think its mainly due to the 420+s open design so I mounted them into a draw on some some foam - seems to have done the trick

 

[MYstIC G]

That what I got with some foam around the drives. It was a bit of a faff but I managed to set up DSM on the new drives and then recover the old drives, identify the broken drive, remove it and set up a fresh volume on the good one. The Ironwolfs inside the 420 are perhaps the noisiest drives I think I've ever come across - even the wife complained - I think its mainly due to the 420+s open design so I mounted them into a draw on some some foam - seems to have done the trick

Think they're 7200rpm

 

[Embattle]

IronWolf 6TB+ and IronWolf Pro are all 7200 RPM.

 

[old.Osy]

Look mum, I built a NAS !

Bought a used HP Z420 workstation (could only use the mobo/cpu/ram, as the PSU doesn't fit ATX cases) - 140 quid
- Xeon E5-2640 (6 core/ 12 threads), 32GB ECC memory, bonus 2 TB internal 3.5 drive
Corsair Obsidian 750D second hand - 40 quid
Front panel for airflow off Scan.co.uk - 27 quid
Adata SU720 SLC SSD 500Gb new (for cache) - 60 quid
PSU + adapter (new, because the Z420 mobo had an 18 pin intake) - 75 quid
Various parts like new paste, 5.25 to 3.5 inch adapters, Kapton tape, etc) - 25 quid

3x 8TB WD Elements external drives - 376 quid off amazon.de

750 pounds all in all, for a decently powered computing platform, which offers 10x SATA III (albeit only 2 ports are 6 Gbps).

Will be using UnRaid, so that will add another 70 quid to the cost. 16 TB will be usable. Can always add disks If I need more. For now my Plex data is about 6 TB, and another TB of other data. 16TB should suffice for some time.

I finished the physical build yesterday, after dealing with a lot of issues derived from transplanting workstation grade hardware into standard ATX form factor.
- The original PSU is larger in size, doesn't fit ATX cases (so unless you want to Dremel and destroy the case to make the PSU fit, you need a new ATX PSU.
- Front panel connections are all weird and wacky, with proprietary sensing pins, non-standard pinouts, modified headers, etc. Took quite some research and trial and error to make it stop prompting at POST to press F1 to continue because it wasn't detecting stuff - this being a NAS, we need to rely on it booting straight through without prompts. You'll note the slashed firewire cable plugged into the mobo, precisely because of this. USB front 3.0 and 2.0 I disabled in BIOS (plenty ports on the mobo)
- Fan conectors on the mobo are not standard, so I had to either dremel some ridges, and/or force the header in. The mobo only accepts PWM fans, which is surprising for an older system and totally not a problem.

So yeah, quite an adventure to build, but fun nonetheless.

 

[old.Osy]

Built a DS 920+ for someone.

4x4 TB Toshiba N300 drives

2x250GB SSDs

16 GB extra RAM (for a total of 20 GB)

Runs a Windows Server 2019 VM with AD / DNS - will be used as an application server for their accounting software. They will rely on the 2 remote sessions provided by default, as it's only 2-3 users, and won't need to work simultaneously.
(Pro-tip about securing Windows Server / AD - http://www.itsecure.hu/library/imag...er_2016_RTM_Release 1607_Benchmark_v1.0.0.pdf)

Used this guide to move the VM to the SSDs in RAID1 (DSM does not allow this from the GUI), forces you to use the nvme slots for cache:
View: https://www.reddit.com/r/synology/comments/pwrch3/comment/is668yu/


Will setup an OpenVPN (the processor supports AES-NI, so it should work without issues) for them, and bob's your uncle.

 

[caLLous]

Built a DS 920+ for someone.

4x4 TB Toshiba N300 drives

2x250GB SSDs

16 GB extra RAM (for a total of 20 GB)

Runs a Windows Server 2019 VM with AD / DNS - will be used as an application server for their accounting software. They will rely on the 2 remote sessions provided by default, as it's only 2-3 users, and won't need to work simultaneously.
(Pro-tip about securing Windows Server / AD - http://www.itsecure.hu/library/image/CIS_Microsoft_Windows_Server_2016_RTM_Release 1607_Benchmark_v1.0.0.pdf)

Used this guide to move the VM to the SSDs in RAID1 (DSM does not allow this from the GUI), forces you to use the nvme slots for cache:
View: https://www.reddit.com/r/synology/comments/pwrch3/comment/is668yu/


Will setup an OpenVPN (the processor supports AES-NI, so it should work without issues) for them, and bob's your uncle.

You know you don't have to prefix your username with "old" everywhere, right?

 

[old.Osy]

You know you don't have to prefix your username with "old" everywhere, right?

Funny you should say that.

My little one (which I bike to the kindergarden) had me in stitches this morning. We get on the bike (shotgun seat for her), and we go through our little game where I have her countdown the "launch" - it helps to engage her and make her feel more involved into the ride.

So she does go through with 1, 2, 3 - GO routine, I start moving and I thank her profusely, saying how I really felt energized and she had helped me have a better morning, etc

To which she replies "Yeah, I do it because you're old" (infering I need the help)