Synology NAS Servers

[fullfloridiancj]

I currently have 4 3 TB separate harddrives
I would like to consolidate and put everything on one NAS Server with RAID
Everything
ITUNES
Iphoto
documents / School work
Downloaded DVDs
including an application called phoneView
each have a separate hardrive

My questions are:
I understand Sinology has there own "apps" for viewing movies and Photos
Am i able to keep my iPhoto libraries or do I have to extract the photos out of iPhoto if I you a synology NAS?

Second out of all these hardrives a total of 8TB is full
How many bays do you think a 1st time backup -er / NAS user should get to allow me to store my old photos & movies well into the future
for example:
4sd15 play sinology nas has 4 bays
putting two 4tb in the first two bays will cover the 8tb minimum I need for my old data
However, Im going to need another two 4tb for the RAID backup
leaving me no room for extra data
does this mean I'm forced to get a 6 or 8 Bay?
what are my options ?

 

[ColdCase]

Any reason you want to consolidate on a NAS vs a local multibay enclosure. You would save some money and won't be slowed down by the network.

The synology apps for video leave a lot to be desired, especially for larger libraries. Its slow and relatively awkward. I gave up on it and their photo app awhile ago and went to a shared library approach. You'll find similar function for a number of their apps, nice to toy around with, looks great on paper, but, unless you go big time, not very satisfying performance... and if you are going that big time you'd save money by just going to a mini server or spare computer option instead. You didn't mention it, but I wouldn't use anything but an apple product for a time machine destination. Backup apps something like CCC would work better.

If it was me I'd never but working data and backup in the same NAS or RAID box, especially a NAS or RAID box with proprietary drive formats like synology. When the enclosure breaks, unlike directly attached drives, you cannot just pull the drives and use them elsewhere, they need to be placed in another synology NAS.

The best performing option may be to put your drives in a TB enclosure and use MacOS RAID to combine them into one volume. Put another set of drives in another TB enclosure and daisy chain them. Use a backup app to backup the first to the second. If you must put he storage on a network, buy a base or refurbbed mini, attached the enclosures to it and put the mini on the network.

 

[Crzyrio]

I currently have 4 3 TB separate harddrives
I would like to consolidate and put everything on one NAS Server with RAID
Everything
ITUNES
Iphoto
documents / School work
Downloaded DVDs
including an application called phoneView
each have a separate hardrive

My questions are:
I understand Sinology has there own "apps" for viewing movies and Photos
Am i able to keep my iPhoto libraries or do I have to extract the photos out of iPhoto if I you a synology NAS?

Second out of all these hardrives a total of 8TB is full
How many bays do you think a 1st time backup -er / NAS user should get to allow me to store my old photos & movies well into the future
for example:
4sd15 play sinology nas has 4 bays
putting two 4tb in the first two bays will cover the 8tb minimum I need for my old data
However, Im going to need another two 4tb for the RAID backup
leaving me no room for extra data
does this mean I'm forced to get a 6 or 8 Bay?
what are my options ?

I understand Sinology has there own "apps" for viewing movies and Photos
Am i able to keep my iPhoto libraries or do I have to extract the photos out of iPhoto if I you a synology NAS?

Ideally you would want to extract and upload all the pictures, that will allow Synology Photo app to porperly index everything and oranize it all.


If you already have 8TB Full of data that you would like on the synology then yes, I would recommend atleast a 6bay. You can also attach external Hard Drives and make weekly or daily backups to them.

 

[fullfloridiancj]

thank you
but is there a way to use iPhoto proper on a synology drive ?

also the cheapest prices I could find was through newegg.com with a 3rd party seller

----------

Any reason you want to consolidate on a NAS vs a local multibay enclosure. You would save some money and won't be slowed down by the network.

The synology apps for video leave a lot to be desired, especially for larger libraries. Its slow and relatively awkward. I gave up on it and their photo app awhile ago and went to a shared library approach. You'll find similar function for a number of their apps, nice to toy around with, looks great on paper, but, unless you go big time, not very satisfying performance... and if you are going that big time you'd save money by just going to a mini server or spare computer option instead. You didn't mention it, but I wouldn't use anything but an apple product for a time machine destination. Backup apps something like CCC would work better.

If it was me I'd never but working data and backup in the same HAS or RAID box, especially a NAS or RAID box with proprietary drive formats like synology. When the enclosure breaks, unlike directly attached drives, you cannot just pull the drives and use them elsewhere, they need to be placed in another synology NAS.

The best performing option may be to put your drives in a TB enclosure and use MacOS RAID to combine them into one volume. Put another set of drives in another TB enclosure and daisy chain them. Use a backup app to backup the first to the second. If you must put he storage on a network, buy a base or refurbbed mini, attached the enclosures to it and put the mini on the network.

Thank you for all the info
may i sound ignorant and ask what the difference is between a multi bay enclosure and NAS?
I thought the 6 bay sinology was a multi bay enclosure
and NAS comes with RAID (backing up to another hardrive) ability
I understand what your saying about CCC cloner and apple time machines working better but do they make mac minis with 8 tb hardrives ?

 

[fat jez]

There's no reason you have to use any of the Synology apps. The disk just appears as a disk on your Mac, just move the libraries you want to use onto it and access them from there.

 

[AFEPPL]

Agree with the chap above - you don't "need" to use the apps at all.
If you want to just move the iPhotos lib to the external drive thats not a problem its a very straight forward process. Depends if you want to view the photos outside the apple eco-system. using the apps means you could view them directly from many other devices without the need for a mac in the middle.

As for not using the Synology raid as it propriety well its not anymore propriety than the software raid used by apple!!!

I've just moved my iTunes server off a mac on a windows PC, and it actually runs better.. so there a 1000 different ways you can jump on this, its limited only by either your imagination or your brand loyalty.

Also id be tempted to get just a 4bay device and use the existing drives giving you a usable capacity of 9TB. Then you can buy additional drives over time and replace out the old ones increasing your useable capacity as you go or need to.

 

[glenthompson]

thank you
but is there a way to use iPhoto proper on a synology drive ?

also the cheapest prices I could find was through newegg.com with a 3rd party seller

----------




Thank you for all the info
may i sound ignorant and ask what the difference is between a multi bay enclosure and NAS?
I thought the 6 bay sinology was a multi bay enclosure
and NAS comes with RAID (backing up to another hardrive) ability
I understand what your saying about CCC cloner and apple time machines working better but do they make mac minis with 8 tb hardrives ?

In order of importance:

RAID is not a backup. It is for fault tolerance. If any calamity (fire, theft, electrical glitch) takes out the unit, you have lost all your data. Whatever device you use for storage, you need a separate place for backup.

A local multi-bay enclosure is usually called a DAS (direct attached storage) as opposed to a NAS (network attached storage). If you only have one device accessing the storage then a DAS is usually best. If you need multiple devices having access a NAS works well. I have 4 computers and 2 iPads accessing my Synology. An intermediate option is to use a DAS on your mini and install server on it to better share the space.

I use Aperture and accessing a small library over the wired gigabit LAN to the Synology is very quick.

I use the Synology iPad apps for watching videos on my iPad. Never had any issues.

 

[fullfloridiancj]

Need your help!
ok ... I invested in the synology Nas
set it up no problem
created folders. Done
I connected my western digital hardrives via usb (bc the should make copying speeds faster than over ethernet) to the back of the nas
and tried to rewrite data
I dislike using quick connect to access the server and "copy rewrite" data to the Nas bc when i highlight and move multiple files at once
the download times under notification center seem to freeze.
So i decided to access the server via the mac finder to create folders and transfer files to the nas
it looks like it works... but it does not
a notification pops up on my desktop saying it is copying 34,000 items to the new file location and will take 4 hours
when I come back later in the day
a notification pops up that reads-
"the operation can't be completed bc one or more required items can't be found" error code -43
also
under the notification center on the server tasks read "failed to copy"
also the server seems to shut down bc I am prompted to enter my name and password for my sinology nas again
The only thing I can think of is going through my mac to
settings
energy saver
sleep as never
and uncheck the box which says
"put hard disks to sleep when possible"
If anyone has any information on how to copy and transfer information from western digital hardrives to a sinology nas
Please enlighten me

Thank you!!

 

[AFEPPL]

Are the files on the USB drives read only or something silly like that?
Can you do anything with the files when you connect the USB drives to a PC?

I just pointed to the other NAS, mounted the FS and then used the internal tools.
I did use logical breaks rather than the whole drive so i could see and monitor/compare easier.

 

[ColdCase]

You need to break up your file transfers into smaller chunks, no more than 500 files at a time. The Mac finder isn't robust enough.

What you are observing are the kinds of things that happen when a large number of files are transferred, especially wirelessly. You may find, as you go through the chunks, that there are files with corruption and these will error when finder tries to copy them. Its easier to troubleshoot smaller chunks.