Beep boop - this is a robot. A new show has been posted to TWiT…
What are your thoughts about today’s show? We’d love to hear from you!
When it comes to Synology NAS (probably others as well), I would recommend no smaller than the 4-bay models unless you have a specific purpose where the 2-bay or even 1-bay models will suit your needs. If you aren’t absolutely certain if you can live with a 2-bay model (such as for business purposes where losing data is not going to affect day-to-day productivity much or dedicated local surveillance system), you want to get the 4-bay. The 4-bay model will grow with the needs of most people. And even though you are buying a 4-bay NAS, you do not need to fill all 4 bays right away. Just start with two drives: 1 with enough storage to be more than sufficient to hold what you want to put on it, the second to backup the first drive.
When you start to run out of space, that is when you add a third drive of equal or greater storage as the first two drives (eg if you put in two 500 GB drives or one 256 GB and one 500 GB, then the third has to be at least 500 GB*). Then when needed, add a fourth drive. Once you start running out of space after you have filled all the bays, you will have to make a decision: replace one of the drives with one with more storage or buy the expansion add-on so you can add more drives. Most likely, the best solution will be to upgrade one of the drives, but your needs will likely dictate which path you choose. Although depending on how fast you fill all the bays with drives with drives it may be time to consider buying a newer NAS. At which point, there is a third option of buying a newer NAS that has more bays.
*Synology requires you to put in drives that are no smaller than the largest drive you have already installed. So if the first drive is 256 GB, the second drive can be 500 GB to backup the first drive, but you would need to put the 256 drive in first. Synology will not let you use add a drive to a pool of storage smaller than the largest drive already included in the pool. However, if you have all the drives filled with say 256 GB, two 500 GB, and a 1 TB drives, you can replace any of the drives with a 2 TB drive or larger. Given that you get the most bang for the buck replacing the 256 GB (and the fact the 256 GB will likely be the oldest drive installed), it is probably best to replace that drive first.
PS you technically don’t need to use NAS specific drives when you first start putting in drives. If you have old drives laying around, they will work just fine to get you started so you can keep costs down. Synology software will let you know if/when those drive are starting to fail. At which point you can replace them with NAS certified drives. Just remember to install the small drive you have sitting around first so you can use upto however many bays the model you bought has. And if you only have two drives in the NAS when one begins to fail, remember that you did not spend any money to use that drive in the NAS, but it probably did let you save money so you don’t think twice when you order a drive intended to be used in a NAS.
All true, but you CAN have multiple volumes if that’s something you wanted. Less relevant on a 4 drive model, but more relevant if you have more drive spaces and drives.