MP 7,1 Preferred Hardware RAID?

[mattspace]

Anyone here usng a hardware-based RAID, via a multi-drive TB enclosure, or internally hosted drives etc and would feel like making a recommendation on their choices (largely the RAID card itself)?

I'm looking for something that ideally:

• can run ~8 SATA HDDs
• can do RAID 5 & 6
• preferably has fluid raid so individual disks can be upgraded over time without having to wipe and re-intialise
• has a nice native-ish management app (afaik this is difficult to find for hardware RAID?)

My options are looking something like a Terramaster D8-332 or an OWC Flexbay 8 with hardware RAID card. I've kindof soured on NAS options because I don't really like the whole instant delete thing for (lack of) network trash.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

If it's not a need for speed, I'd reconsider the NAS options and go with Synology. I have a 12-bay and use their own more flexible RAID-like setup instead of RAID 5 and find it great.

The challenge with DAS RAID especially using HDDs is the "unexpected ejection" bug(s) in macOS. If you know nothing about it, it's an effect like you've pulled the cord or detached without first ejecting the enclosure in software. You get the warning on screen about the unexpected ejection and it usually takes actually disconnecting if not fully rebooting to make the DAS available again. This can feel random, occurring in minutes or hours or days and often gets spun as <blame everything but Apple> redirection, something is wrong with only YOUR system or enclosure (also redirection), etc. by Apple fans. But if you search for the problem, you'll find abundant posts by many people with all kinds of configurations, cables, hubs & direct connect, Silicon and Intel Macs, etc both here and even on Apple's own support forums.

It's been a problem for now 4 generations of macOS, meaning if you take the same unexpectedly ejecting enclosure with same cable and hook it to a pre-Big Sur Mac or ANY PC, the enclosure magically "just works"... basically screaming where the problem actually lies. It doesn't affect all enclosures, so it's like a game of lucky chance: this one may work while that one won't.

More objective Mac users tend to think the problem is tied to Mac sleep- and there does seem to be something there- but I've had unexpected ejections while actively transferring files to/from a HDD RAID enclosure that works fine on pre-Big Sur Macs or any PC... so definitely not an exclusive source of the issue as neither end can be asleep during active transfers.

I suspect power management code from Silicon roots that hasn't been updated for Macs not necessarily dependent on maximizing battery is to blame: basically working the power draw of the attached enclosures down to "max battery life" (that may not even be in some Macs) to the point where it falls below some key minimum threshold for the enclosure and thus causes the unexpected ejection. I think sleep gets the blame because that would obviously be a time to minimize power draws in iDevices & MBs but also because sleep is often for hours or overnight, which offers abundant time for a random-chance unexpected ejection to occur.

A software remedy that seems to help some is apps like the one called amphetamine, which basically keeps the attached drive active/awake 24/7... at the presumed cost of wearing out the RAID faster than it would if this part of things "just worked" as it used to with macOS.

This problem also exists for SSD RAIDs but seems to not be quite as broad there. It is NOT a Silicon hardware exclusive as there are many reports of Intel Macs working fine with enclosures pre-Big Sur, upgrading to Big Sur or newer and crashing into this problem. In some of those cases, users needed a reliable RAID more than they needed new macOS features so they went to the trouble of downgrading again, which made the RAID resume its reliable usage... again screaming where this problem lies... because all of the variables usually blamed in redirection remain the same.

I've essentially got a perfectly good RAID DAS in temporary retirement... awakened with each macOS upgrade in hopes that Apple has finally got around to debugging this part of macOS. So far- now years later- no success. Take it over to any of my older Macs still running pre-Big Sur and it works as good as it ever has.

The hopefully-temp substitution for me has been a big single drive DAS but that's limited to capacity of single drives: 24TB for HDD and 8TB for m.2 SSD. I keep hoping the RAID DAS I have can come back into active use again vs. choosing to try enclosure after enclosure in search of one that can remain reliably connected. Hopefully, if you plow forward anyway, you will discover one that WILL not have this issue... and/or someone will recommend one they know for sure does not suffer this issue because they have and use it... not just reading about possible options on web pages. I look forward to seeing if there are some dependable ones available that fully overcome the unexpected ejection bug. I'd like to have access to my RAID 5 again myself.

All that offered, my Synology NAS has never suffered from this problem. It doesn't offer the speed of DAS RAID 5 with many drives, but it does offer dependable big storage in- IMO - a better-than-RAID 5 setup.

I hope someone can identify a solid choice they know will be reliable and/or you just take some plunges and discover one and report back.

 

[mattspace]

Thanks for the long, considered reply

If it's not a need for speed, I'd reconsider the NAS options and go with Synology. I have a 12-bay and use their own more flexible RAID-like setup instead of RAID 5 and find it great.

Yup, I was all keyed up to pull the trigger, budget allocated etc. on a DS-1522+ with 5x4tb, 10gbe, 2x400GB M2 cache, buuuuut I just can't see me being happy with the instant delete, and the fact I'd have to think about what I'm storing where, given some things (photo libraries etc) can't be kept on the NAS BTRFS drives unless it has an HFS+ external drive plugged in.

Also, having to go in through a browser to do snapshot recovery - I can't find a good documentation of it as to whether it allows individual files to be recovered from snapshots, of if you have to recover the whole snapshot first, then get the file out of it.

While a lot of people knock Time Machine, I've always found it super reliable, and flexible - my continuous versioned backups go back to 2015, now hosted by a High Sierra fileserver.

The Synology was a beautiful idea in theory as I was first looking at it, but it just became more and more complicated the longer I looked at it.

The challenge with DAS RAID especially using HDDs is the "unexpected ejection" bug(s) in macOS. If you know nothing about it, it's an effect like you've pulled the cord or detached without first ejecting the enclosure in software.

I've seen something like this with the 8 bay JBOD my fileserver is using on occasion, on my Intel Ventura workstation I've disabled all its auto maintenance routines that would wake it from sleep, and gained a lot of stability for my display configuration. I imagine that maintenance (which is primarily about the machine checking to make sure it hasn't been moving while asleep, so the time to leave warnings from the calendar stay accurate) may have something to do with the unexpected ejection issue. I'd be curious what folks suffering from it show in their:

pmset -g sched

Or running Sleep Aid to see what it records. But as you say, if it's happening in use, that sounds like the RAID card driver might be crashing.

All that offered, my Synology NAS has never suffered from this problem. It doesn't offer the speed of DAS RAID 5 with many drives, but it does offer dependable big storage in- IMO - a better-than-RAID 5 setup.

Yeah honestly, Synology was my first option, but there's downsides I'm already experiencing while trialling a Mac Mini & JBOD as a ersatz NAS, which I just can't see myself being happy with long-term.

Unless there's a "network trash" extension / workaround, because a new low end mini & JBOD/software RAID is certainly an option

I hope someone can identify a solid choice they know will be reliable and/or you just take some plunges and discover one and report back.

It is a problem that a lot of resources are very Windows centric (where network trash is a thing, and synology snapshots are navigable in windows explorer).

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

Synology Time Machine works as great for me as Apple Time Capsule ever did. I never have to give it a thought and it is as reliable as Time Capsule. I've used it for a very long time with multiple Macs in the household and never had any issues.

If I shared your desire for recoverable trashcan-like options, I'd probably get a big single drive DAS (that will hopefully remain connected) and use an app like Chronosync to then automatically manage regular copies to the "big storage" Synology. In other words, maybe a 20-24TB (or 8TB m.2) DAS becomes my recent storage/trashcan recoverable "middleman" and Synology gets the long-term storage not trashed copies? 8TB to 20-24TB would be a lot of recoverable trashcan space, while still giving you enormous- albeit not as fast as DAS- RAID storage too.

Again, I hope you find what you want... and it will remain reliably connected... and you'll report back to your own thread if you do (so I might buy one too)... but offer the above as a for-certain way to go that dodges the unexpected ejection problem.

 

[kboller07]

Anyone here usng a hardware-based RAID, via a multi-drive TB enclosure, or internally hosted drives etc and would feel like making a recommendation on their choices (largely the RAID card itself)?

I'm looking for something that ideally:

• can run ~8 SATA HDDs
• can do RAID 5 & 6
• preferably has fluid raid so individual disks can be upgraded over time without having to wipe and re-intialise
• has a nice native-ish management app (afaik this is difficult to find for hardware RAID?)

My options are looking something like a Terramaster D8-332 or an OWC Flexbay 8 with hardware RAID card. I've kindof soured on NAS options because I don't really like the whole instant delete thing for (lack of) network trash.

I have a Synology and you can enable the recycle bin on the Synology and deleted files go there first.

 

[mattspace]

I have a Synology and you can enable the recycle bin on the Synology and deleted files go there first.

Oh seriously? So much of this stuff just isn’t documented and doesn’t come up when you search for it… so in finder, you select a file on the synology, right click & choose move to trash, or use a trash icon on the finder window’s top bar, or drag it to the trash on the dock….

what happens?

 

[mattspace]

Synology Time Machine works as great for me as Apple Time Capsule ever did. I never have to give it a thought and it is as reliable as Time Capsule. I've used it for a very long time with multiple Macs in the household and never had any issues.

yes, that’s an option, a hybrid setup with a synology for some things that can’t be easily moved to new hardware to be resized but instead need to be abstracted, like Time Machine

If I shared your desire for recoverable trashcan-like options, I'd probably get a big single drive DAS (that will hopefully remain connected) and use an app like Chronosync to then automatically manage regular copies to the "big storage" Synology. In other words, maybe a 20-24TB (or 8TB m.2) DAS becomes my recent storage/trashcan recoverable "middleman" and Synology gets the long-term storage not trashed copies? 8TB to 20-24TB would be a lot of recoverable trashcan space, while still giving you enormous- albeit not as fast as DAS- RAID storage too.

Yes, I suppose I could have local HFS+ / APFS for the working storage backed up with Time Machine, and Chronosync running a daily backup run to the Synology, and then let the Synology do its own read-only snapshotting.

Again, I hope you find what you want... and it will remain reliably connected... and you'll report back to your own thread if you do (so I might buy one too)... but offer the above as a for-certain way to go that dodges the unexpected ejection problem.

I‘ll do some more research on the ejection issue, and muddle about with my JBOD DAS for the moment, and see if that remains stable.

Thanks

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

No need to do more research on unexpected ejections. If you find stuff by Apple fans, it's anything and everything else's fault including users. I see some of the same names in the same problem threads offering the same "it's not Apple" recommendations over and over again even when those have been tested & disproven in prior threads. It's like a game of keep redirecting until maybe Apple actually gets around to fixing it in macOS.

If you find stuff by objective sources, it either hard to pin down or Silicon or macOS. I've personally pounded the crap out of the issue, including digging old retired drives out of retirement to try as many combinations of drives/enclosures/cables/hubs (powered & unpowered)/etc and tried every suggestion that I could find only to deduce it down to macOS since Big Sur. I'm quite confident the resolution is Apple debugging port management and/or power management software in macOS.

But if you buy a multi-bay DAS HDD RAID that will stay connected to a Silicon Mac, I'd love to know the exact one as I'd like to bring that big storage back online with some direct attached RAID too instead of only network-based storage and single drives.

It is NOT a universal problem affecting all enclosures, nor is it brand-based (only this brand or that brand), nor is it age based (some very old enclosures I dug up will reliably stay connected vs. relatively new ones that won't). It's basically spin the wheel to pick a drive and then see first hand if it can "hang on" or not over several days: many will, some won't.

 

[ChrisA]

Anyone here usng a hardware-based RAID, via a multi-drive TB enclosure, or internally hosted drives etc and would feel like making a recommendation on their choices (largely the RAID card itself)?

I'm looking for something that ideally:

• can run ~8 SATA HDDs
• can do RAID 5 & 6
• preferably has fluid raid so individual disks can be upgraded over time without having to wipe and re-intialise
• has a nice native-ish management app (afaik this is difficult to find for hardware RAID?)

Buy Synology for the same reason you buy a Mac, ease of use, reliabilty and quality software, low power use. They last for 10+ years easy. It will certainly meet all four of your requirements, plus about 100 you don't list.

You REALLY want a "plus" line really is better and can do more.

 

[Timpetus]

While it doesn't meet your flexibility criterion and is software-based, I've been extremely happy with our OWC Thunderbay 8, currently hosting a 30TB RAID 5 (4 10TB drives + 1 hot spare) and a 5TB RAID 1 for Time Machine backups from our multiple MBPs and iMac. My wife is a full time photographer so she needed a lot of space and we got sick of the unreliable multiple external USB HD solution I had been using previously. It had too many points of failure and we nearly lost both drives in a RAID 1 (fortunately on one of them the bare metal drive was still ok, but the enclosure was toast!). SoftRAID seems to work really well and has accurately warned me of impending drive failures several times now, allowing me to start rebuilding the RAID 5 onto a hot spare as soon as a drive started to have issues.

 

[phrehdd]

You mentioned "amphetamine" as an option and a worry about drives. Get pro drives as they are meant to be active 2/47. Seagate Iron Pro or EXOS and then Westerndigital has its counterpart and so on. NAD or DAS would do well with these drives in RAID use.

 

[YoitsTmac]

I have a 2018 MacBook Pro. I removed the screen and it’s told to never sleep. I have a TR-004 as my backup array and now use OWC thunderbay 4 for my main array. I originally had 4 drives each individually mounted but now use RAID. I use drivedx to monitor health and carbon copy cloner on a schedule for my local backup.

Since I have about 25TB of data, I have a cold copy I leave with a friend. I manually copy stuff to that. For that cold copy, I encrypt a virtual disk, in which the contents is also encrypted with a separate key.

Laptops are good at low-idle power. But mine has a dGPU which is always enabled without the screen. It adds a hefty 5W, but some other tasks I give this computer can leverage that GPU. It’s primarily a DAS with macOS managing it as a NAS, but since it has horsepower, I have it do other stuff to. Horsepower is also good for read write for file level encryption. Hope that helps

 

[mattspace]

It is NOT a universal problem affecting all enclosures, nor is it brand-based (only this brand or that brand), nor is it age based (some very old enclosures I dug up will reliably stay connected vs. relatively new ones that won't). It's basically spin the wheel to pick a drive and then see first hand if it can "hang on" or not over several days: many will, some won't.

The RAIDs you're having problems with, are they Thunderbolt (hardware) raids, or Thunderbolt Software RAIDs (Like the standard OWC Thunderbay 8), or USB?

I'm asking because I recall my USB chain would be squirrelly on wake from sleep, when it was pluggd in over thunderbolt, via an Apple TB3 -> USB adapter, but plugged direct to one of my two USB A ports, it's rock solid.

I've been looking at the OWC Flexbay 8 and Terramaster D-332 specifically because they're native thunderbolt devices, that are effectively a TB PCI chassis, with a hardware RAID PCI card in them (that can be changed to a different one), that could just as easily be plugged directly internally to the mac pro.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

My main one is USB3 RAID and I tried EVERY USB port on the Mac Studio Ultra... then inserted 3 different hubs (2 powered and 1 unpowered) and tried every port on each hub... and multiple cables USB-A and USB-C. To a "latest & greatest" Mac running the most powerful chip, "it's dead Jim"... unless I take it to any of the older Macs or a PC and then it's fine again.

Really, I've been through ALL of this fairly relentlessly trying to make it work with that Mac Studio. There is no resolution until Apple debugs macOS for this problem. I either use it with older computers or just leave it semi-retired, awaiting another macOS point upgrade to do some fresh testing again. Sooner or later, they will hopefully get to that part of the code and fix whatever is broken.

No need trying to help me with this problem. Only Apple can help.

But if you buy a hardware RAID box with multiple bays and it will stay connected to your Silicon Mac, I'd welcome knowing which as I could be motivated to replace so I can have those drives back in play instead of continuing to mostly do nothing waiting on a macOS fix that may still not show for years.

 

[phrehdd]

My main one is USB3 RAID and I tried EVERY USB port on the Mac Studio Ultra... then inserted 3 different hubs (2 powered and 1 unpowered) and tried every port on each hub... and multiple cables USB-A and USB-C. To a "latest & greatest" Mac running the most powerful chip, "it's dead Jim"... unless I take it to any of the older Macs or a PC and then it's fine again.

Really, I've been through ALL of this fairly relentlessly trying to make it work with that Mac Studio. There is no resolution until Apple debugs macOS for this problem. I either use it with older computers or just leave it semi-retired, awaiting another macOS point upgrade to do some fresh testing again. Sooner or later, they will hopefully get to that part of the code and fix whatever is broken.

No need trying to help me with this problem. Only Apple can help.

But if you buy a hardware RAID box with multiple bays and it will stay connected to your Silicon Mac, I'd welcome knowing which as I could be motivated to replace so I can have those drives back in play instead of continuing to mostly do nothing waiting on a macOS fix that may still not show for years.

How fast do you need your external storage read/writes to be? It is possible to get NAS with 10gig ports and some that offer the use of cards and engage fiber connections.

My set up is a few SSD externals and then 2.5gig connection to my router which in turn does the same for my NAS. I use SSD for projects I am working on as well as some as being redundant to the NAS.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

Thanks, but I've essentially solved my problem with a suitable bandaid for now. So I don't need new help.

But I do have massive storage on a 12 Bay Synology and 8TB of (a single) m.2 standing in as "smaller" scratch drive for editing. I'm giving Apple about 6 more months and then may re-try some non-HDD RAIDS made of m.2s. I've been eyeing that 32TB one from OWC... but was stalling on some kind of 6-bay variation that was rumored and/or an updated version since that one has been out for several years now.

But if OP buys an 8-Bay Hardware HDD RAID enclosure that will maintain the connection, I certainly have enough drives around to load it up. I'll be curious about it's reliability to stay connected and it noise level. The overwhelming complaints I see about HDD RAID boxes in general is noise... but that's also hard to gauge relatively to one's own tolerances short of just buying one and hearing it for one's self.

 

[mattspace]

My main one is USB3 RAID and I tried EVERY USB port on the Mac Studio Ultra... then inserted 3 different hubs (2 powered and 1 unpowered) and tried every port on each hub... and multiple cables USB-A and USB-C. To a "latest & greatest" Mac running the most powerful chip, "it's dead Jim"... unless I take it to any of the older Macs or a PC and then it's fine again.

So I wonder if a Thunderbolt RAID would be different - is the problem specific to USB.

Really, I've been through ALL of this fairly relentlessly trying to make it work with that Mac Studio. There is no resolution until Apple debugs macOS for this problem. I either use it with older computers or just leave it semi-retired, awaiting another macOS point upgrade to do some fresh testing again. Sooner or later, they will hopefully get to that part of the code and fix whatever is broken.

No need trying to help me with this problem. Only Apple can help.

Oh I'm not trying to troubleshoot, more to figure out if your experience would be appliable to the devices I'm looking at.

But if you buy a hardware RAID box with multiple bays and it will stay connected to your Silicon Mac,

Yeah, I'm not really looking at Apple Silicon solutions - this Intel Mac Pro is going to be my home for many years.

That said, looking at the install instructions for Terramaster, the whole "leave your system with secure boot disabled" does give me pause.

 

[mattspace]

How fast do you need your external storage read/writes to be? It is possible to get NAS with 10gig ports and some that offer the use of cards and engage fiber connections.

My set up is a few SSD externals and then 2.5gig connection to my router which in turn does the same for my NAS. I use SSD for projects I am working on as well as some as being redundant to the NAS.

The issue for me isn't speed, it's that files hosted on a NAS over SMB don't behave the same as files hosted on a local APFS/HFS+ drive, and if I have to have some files on my local machine for that reason, then I may as well have all my files on the local machine.

Problems, as I've been led to believe I might encounter:

• Certain types of files cant be stored on BTRFS / SMB - Photos libraries, for example.
  • So I need a dedicated HFS+ external disk plugged into the Synology, because it cant do HFS+ internally
• Package files - you change one file inside them, and the synology can read it as the entire file being changed, so your versioning snapshot adds a whole copy of the file
  • Time Machine reads inside packages and just backs up the altered contents - so if I have to use Time Machine for some versioning, why not just use it for everything?
• Snapshotting in general - Great idea with read only snapshots for data security, but the UI to browse through them to find the version you want to restore to seems clunky

There really doesn't seem to be a great solution, short of maybe keeping all my files on a big local drive(s), and maybe using a synology for Time Machine because the volume is expandable... or just get used to the idea that every few years I'll have to replace a full TM drive with a new empty one, and put the old ones into cold storage.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

I was mostly able to test lots of USB enclosures in my own efforts. I even dug up some old firewire drives and used some thunderbolt dongle adapters for added testing.

But in reading so much about this, my belief is that ALL ports have issues, including ethernet... and there are many threads about it to fuel that belief. I've had my own issues with ethernet seeming to periodically crash/reboot... which if that's what is happening beyond the ethernet port, that could easily explain "unexpected ejections" too. That's why my suspicions are in "port management" vs. only USB port management and/or power management (related to ALL ports). There's a LOT of threads on this and other sites about misbehaving ports: USB, Thunderbolt and ethernet. I wonder if all of it is from the same core code in macOS... the same bug or bugs in place to generally manage all ports?

So whether it's more of less an issue with Thunderbolt connections, I don't know. But I do not believe Thunderbolt is immune. Ironically, my replacement "bandaid" for single big drive is- in fact- a thunderbolt enclosure and I've had no trouble with it.

So if I wanted to bet or gamble, I'd buy Thunderbolt over USB. However, I'd be sure I could return it if it can't stay connected... because the blanket advice for this problem is to keep trying different ones until you find one that sticks.

Relative to Post #18 comments, it's unusual that someone is as concerned as you are with maintaining trash access. Usually, things that go in the trashcan are not meant to be recovered. Of course, they can be until it is emptied but the idea of trash is that you are likely NOT going to dig through the trash to recover something. Your comments read like it's almost like another storage well for you and that access to trash is very important.

You also make the comment about wanting to keep what appears to be multiple TM backups for the long term (restarting with new TM backups when old ones are full). If files are that important, don't put them in the trash. Then, it's just keeping your non-trashed files & folders organized so you have access to them for (apparently) many years.

And I don't think TM should be viewed as some kind of archival manager but just backups for what is on your Mac now. For archives, store your files in organized folders and back those up to more than one bigger storage option, ideally with one full copy kept offsite and regularly rotated with the onsite copy so the offsite one is always fresh.

Maybe that could be a big Synology NAS and then several large single drives backing up up to everything on that Synology for off-site storage. For example, if you build a Synology with 100TB, you need 5 approx. 20TB single drives to duplicate it offsite. I store my offsite files in a safe deposit box at my bank and it could easily hold 5 HDDs. Or, it's easy to pair a second "twin" Synology to fully backup one to the other and then store the entire backup at another site... regularly bringing it back to update the new stuff since last backup.

For stuff like multiple Photos app libraries, unless you need access to all libraries frequently, put the ones you don't need on DAS with duplicates to DAS drives you could (also) store offsite and regularly refresh. Eject and store the locals so you can access them when you need them again. That might even be best covered with a multi-drive JBOD enclosure instead of a RAID... and just fill those JBOD slots with big capacity drives. There's a few I've noticed with individual on/off buttons... so you can have 8-10 drives in the JBOD enclosure but turn on only those to which you want access at any given time.

 

[kboller07]

Oh seriously? So much of this stuff just isn’t documented and doesn’t come up when you search for it… so in finder, you select a file on the synology, right click & choose move to trash, or use a trash icon on the finder window’s top bar, or drag it to the trash on the dock….

what happens?

So when you enable a recycle bin on your Synology you'll get a folder called #recycle and anything you delete on your Synology from your Mac will be put into that folder. The default behaviour is to delete immediately but you can change it to enable the recycle bin. I have files that I deleted today and they show up in the #recycle folder. And you can set it to empty at a set interval.

Enable Recycle Bin | DSM - 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.

kb.synology.com

 

[McScooby]

Judging by the comments so far you'll probably end up going for a syno.

I almost did as was replacing the Drobo, but when they started pulling that crap that you can only use their drives, I backed well off.

I know you can add lines to their code to fool the drive, but tbh it's a hard drive it stores stuff, I don't want to waste time tinkering with it, that's why I've got a Mac.

There was also the whole thing about not having TB & yes, you can get a 10GbE to TB adapter, but again their implementation of TB is over ip which, to my mind, opens up that whole hacking thing that hit Qnap.

So, I looked at Terramaster, who had woeful reviews on Amazon for flaky software & then OWC which seemed solid until they brought out yearly subscriptions.

I'd looked at Lacie (who seemed to have backed off their big drive range) and countless others.

In the end I settled on a Promise Pegasus. There loads of stuff on MR saying why they should be avoided & although this was true on the switch to AS, it's settled now. Their older DAS models work fine as they use the same drivers as the newer models & lacie even used promise drivers in their range.

At the end of the day you buy what you need.

I don't want to waste hours customising something for which 90% of the features I won't use. I don't want a NAS as a target on the network, I just want something to store info, easy to manage & that's why I went the DAS route.

As to upgrading drives on the fly, the bigger the drive the longer that'd take to expand, so I'm more likely to buy a new DAS before I get round to expanding it & as for Syno their SHR is good as can mix drive sizes, but at the end of the day, the other things to me didn't make it worth it.

As for premature ejection, can't say I've ever experienced it.

 

[kboller07]

Judging by the comments so far you'll probably end up going for a syno.

I almost did as was replacing the Drobo, but when they started pulling that crap that you can only use their drives, I backed well off.

I know you can add lines to their code to fool the drive, but tbh it's a hard drive it stores stuff, I don't want to waste time tinkering with it, that's why I've got a Mac.

There was also the whole thing about not having TB & yes, you can get a 10GbE to TB adapter, but again their implementation of TB is over ip which, to my mind, opens up that whole hacking thing that hit Qnap.

So, I looked at Terramaster, who had woeful reviews on Amazon for flaky software & then OWC which seemed solid until they brought out yearly subscriptions.

I'd looked at Lacie (who seemed to have backed off their big drive range) and countless others.

In the end I settled on a Promise Pegasus. There loads of stuff on MR saying why they should be avoided & although this was true on the switch to AS, it's settled now. Their older DAS models work fine as they use the same drivers as the newer models & lacie even used promise drivers in their range.

At the end of the day you buy what you need.

I don't want to waste hours customising something for which 90% of the features I won't use. I don't want a NAS as a target on the network, I just want something to store info, easy to manage & that's why I went the DAS route.

As to upgrading drives on the fly, the bigger the drive the longer that'd take to expand, so I'm more likely to buy a new DAS before I get round to expanding it & as for Syno their SHR is good as can mix drive sizes, but at the end of the day, the other things to me didn't make it worth it.

As for premature ejection, can't say I've ever experienced it.

Their own drive stuff was so off-putting and I have a ton of storage like a G-Raid Shuttle which also has the Promise Hardware Raid Controller and the OWC Thunderbay with softraid which I'm moving away from because they want money after every Mac OS update (for a new softraid update).

So you make a good point about the extra risk of exposing your nas to the internet. You can only use it locally but you miss out on all the functionality of a nas.

I have a 1815+ and even though it was out of warranty Synology replaced it for free last year which I appreciated. I'm thinking about dropping all the DAS units and getting a second Synology, a rack station. Having one backup to the other while one is offsite. Only thing holding me back is you can't use the cheap Backblaze backup with a nas. You have to go to their B2 storage which isn't a flat fee. That's another thing to keep in mind and where getting a basic das is worth it.

 

[mattspace]

Relative to Post #18 comments, it's unusual that someone is as concerned as you are with maintaining trash access. Usually, things that go in the trashcan are not meant to be recovered. Of course, they can be until it is emptied but the idea of trash is that you are likely NOT going to dig through the trash to recover something. Your comments read like it's almost like another storage well for you and that access to trash is very important.

I think it's the combination of insta-delete, and the Synology snapshot recovery being something that requires busting out a web browser and logging in to DSM.

You also make the comment about wanting to keep what appears to be multiple TM backups for the long term (restarting with new TM backups when old ones are full). If files are that important, don't put them in the trash. Then, it's just keeping your non-trashed files & folders organized so you have access to them for (apparently) many years.

I like a safety net on deletion actions, pure & simple. Also:

I prefer the aesthetics of the trashcan experience, Vs. the network deletion.

And I don't think TM should be viewed as some kind of archival manager but just backups for what is on your Mac now. For archives, store your files in organized folders and back those up to more than one bigger storage option, ideally with one full copy kept offsite and regularly rotated with the onsite copy so the offsite one is always fresh.

I go the other way with that, I use Time Machine as my chronological history backup, and a mirrored snapshot of now on a big dumb hard drive.

For stuff like multiple Photos app libraries, unless you need access to all libraries frequently, put the ones you don't need on DAS with duplicates to DAS drives you could (also) store offsite and regularly refresh. Eject and store the locals so you can access them when you need them again. That might even be best covered with a multi-drive JBOD enclosure instead of a RAID... and just fill those JBOD slots with big capacity drives. There's a few I've noticed with individual on/off buttons... so you can have 8-10 drives in the JBOD enclosure but turn on only those to which you want access at any given time.

I use multiple libraries, in multiple photo DAM apps, so that's largely what's directing things. I have a JBOD now attached to my fileserver, but I might move it over to my workstation - and as mentioned Backblaze is a good option if you keep all your storage direct attached.

 

[McScooby]

Their own drive stuff was so off-putting and I have a ton of storage like a G-Raid Shuttle which also has the Promise Hardware Raid Controller and the OWC Thunderbay with softraid which I'm moving away from because they want money after every Mac OS update (for a new softraid update).

So you make a good point about the extra risk of exposing your nas to the internet. You can only use it locally but you miss out on all the functionality of a nas.

I have a 1815+ and even though it was out of warranty Synology replaced it for free last year which I appreciated. I'm thinking about dropping all the DAS units and getting a second Synology, a rack station. Having one backup to the other while one is offsite. Only thing holding me back is you can't use the cheap Backblaze backup with a nas. You have to go to their B2 storage which isn't a flat fee. That's another thing to keep in mind and where getting a basic das is worth it.

TBH I wasn't entirely sold on Backblaze either, it's a bit like crypto; sounds a great idea having a backup, but getting hold of your data in a failure seemed to be a nightmare, what is it zip files or 8TB drives?

My DAS is over 100TB & although I could use cloud providers, it'd take ages to get my data back, better having an offsite personally.

As for the NAS thing & using it locally, I could've picked this up wrong, but I got the impression after the Qnap debacle is it didn't matter if you NAS was locally connected to your Mac & not a router, they could still hack it as it appeared as a network device with its ip address, too many questions & not enough answers out there. That, & combined with Syno refusing to support devices that didn't use their drives was a major put off. I know they've pulled back from it a bit, but I suspect it's coming if it hasn't already.

 

[cutterman]

Consider the Areca thunderbolt raid enclosures. Link

I am using the 6 bay version with a 2019 Mac Pro. Supports all RAID levels in hardware and has an ethernet connection for off line admin or can use installed app. Have SAS drives in RAID 10 which is pretty bulletproof. 2GB memory cache and speed is limited only by hard drive config. Personally have moved away from raid 5/6 due to very lengthy init/rebuild times and if you are not using enterprise/SAS drives chances of getting an error with a rebuild is pretty high trashing your data.

Also very quiet!