Synology DS 1515+?

Cursor · Dec 29, 2014

Good afternoon,

I'm in the market for a DS1515+ to replace an old WD FireWire drive. I'm looking to have it hold my iTunes library (music and movies), iPhoto library, archived graphic design jobs and my time machine backup. The itunes library will be accessed by 2 iPads, an Apple TV and a Mac mini HTPC. I'll have it on RAID1 redundancy and separate the drive into 2 partitions (one for time machine backups and one for everything else). I have a few questions and need guidance.

1. What kind of disks should I get? I know WD Red would work, but am intrigued by the seagate hybrid drives. I plan on getting 4, 2TB drives.

2. What is the purpose of the RAM in the drive? Should I max it out?

3. Is this drive able to be accessed from outside of my home, if I need files on my laptop or if I want to watch a movie?

4. Any advice on the optimal way to set this up?

Thanks in advance for any help.

ColdCase · Dec 29, 2014

A NAS is not a good solution for you, a bandaid at best. My advice is to think about setting up a mac as a server before you waste much time and money trying to make a NAS work.

Third party NAS time machine backups are not supported by Apple but some have some luck with them. I had nothing but issues trying to use TM with my synology. If you must, use something like CCC instead. The NAS does not have the power to deal with sharing large iTunes libraries videos or photos and the NAS app is quirky. Been there done that, have been much much happier since I went with a used mini and connected a 4 Bay thunderbay to it. Set and forget, everything just works... and so easy to reconfigure storage.

Cursor · Dec 29, 2014

Could you setup that Thunderbolt drive in a RAID configuration? Also, could you hook up to it remotely (away from your house)?

ColdCase · Dec 29, 2014

Yes, disk utility does RAID0 and 1 nicely. Drives can be moved from mac to mac without issue. RAID5 does not make sense for modern large drives, but if you want RAID5 you can buy a software RAID app that works well or buy a DAS box with built in HW RAID. You can access the Server and storage from anywhere if you so desire.

the $30 OSX server package provides all the functions of a NAS plus more things you haven't thought about yet... like hosting a web page if your ISP allows it. Maybe 5 years ago NAS made more economical sense. If all you were doing is file sharing, a NAS would do that very well... but should you want to try more... well its limited.

Cursor · Dec 29, 2014

I'm trying to switch gears and follow your path of thinking. I'd need a Mac mini server with some brand of thunderbolt multi-drive, capable of RAID, attached to it correct?

Would I need a monitor or could I see it and configure it through my rMacBook Pro?

Also, if most thunderbolt drives use thunderbolt 2 now, would it be supported by a Mac mini server?

Bear with me, this direction is new to me. Thanks.

mmomega · Dec 29, 2014

Cursor said:
Good afternoon,

I'm in the market for a DS1515+ to replace an old WD FireWire drive. I'm looking to have it hold my iTunes library (music and movies), iPhoto library, archived graphic design jobs and my time machine backup. The itunes library will be accessed by 2 iPads, an Apple TV and a Mac mini HTPC. I'll have it on RAID1 redundancy and separate the drive into 2 partitions (one for time machine backups and one for everything else). I have a few questions and need guidance.

1. What kind of disks should I get? I know WD Red would work, but am intrigued by the seagate hybrid drives. I plan on getting 4, 2TB drives.

2. What is the purpose of the RAM in the drive? Should I max it out?

3. Is this drive able to be accessed from outside of my home, if I need files on my laptop or if I want to watch a movie?

4. Any advice on the optimal way to set this up?

Thanks in advance for any help.

I actually just got my DS1515+ delivered today.

I just recently did the set up and am in the middle of creating folders and copying files over.
I also planned on doing some testing while I am at it.

I picked up 2 recommended replacement fans and a 4GB stick of RAM to max it out but first I am copying approx 3TB of info on a complete stock system with it's 2GB RAM and using 2 of the 4 ethernet ports and check temperatures, fan sound levels and if added RAM makes a difference.

I am using HGST Deskstar NAS 4TB HDD x 5 and using SHR, which is essentially RAID5. Except with SHR (Synology Hybrid RAID) you can mix HDD sizes. So if one of my 4TB drives died I could replace it with a 5TB if I wanted.

Yes the system is capable of being accessed remotely but I haven't touched that part of the system yet.
This is my 1st Synology NAS and just in the few short hours I've had it, it has completely changed my thoughts on a NAS. I've used less expensive devices before like the WD and Netgear offerings and this is definitely a "you get what you pay for" market.

I weighed the other options and for me this is the best scenario. I am currently using a MacMini i7 server with external storage, Thunderbolt and USB3. Both options have their + and - but for me, at least right now this NAS makes way more sense....again for me.

I'll let you know about how streaming is from the NAS to 4 AppleTV's compared to the MacMini.

This NAS isn't super powerful but a 2.4GHz QuadCore isn't terribly bad but it isn't a Quad i7 either. More to come.

The 1515 can also host websites, be a DNS server, etc, etc. It's a real nice system.

Cursor · Dec 29, 2014

Also, how would e erything connect together, through Ethernet via my AirPort Extreme? I also use a Thunderbolt Display.

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mmomega said:
I actually just got my DS1515+ delivered today.

I just recently did the set up and am in the middle of creating folders and copying files over.
I also planned on doing some testing while I am at it.

I picked up 2 recommended replacement fans and a 4GB stick of RAM to max it out but first I am copying approx 3TB of info on a complete stock system with it's 2GB RAM and using 2 of the 4 ethernet ports and check temperatures, fan sound levels and if added RAM makes a difference.

I am using HGST Deskstar NAS 4TB HDD x 5 and using SHR, which is essentially RAID5. Except with SHR (Synology Hybrid RAID) you can mix HDD sizes. So if one of my 4TB drives died I could replace it with a 5TB if I wanted.

Yes the system is capable of being accessed remotely but I haven't touched that part of the system yet.
This is my 1st Synology NAS and just in the few short hours I've had it, it has completely changed my thoughts on a NAS. I've used less expensive devices before like the WD and Netgear offerings and this is definitely a "you get what you pay for" market.

I weighed the other options and for me this is the best scenario. I am currently using a MacMini i7 server with external storage, Thunderbolt and USB3. Both options have their + and - but for me, at least right now this NAS makes way more sense....again for me.

I'll let you know about how streaming is from the NAS to 4 AppleTV's compared to the MacMini.

This NAS isn't super powerful but a 2.4GHz QuadCore isn't terribly bad but it isn't a Quad i7 either. More to come.

Thanks. Please let me know. I need to buy it in the next couple of days to get it in this year' tax write-off. The two different paths of thought are confusing me. I'm sure both work, but I'd like to have a great solution for the next 8-10 years.

mmomega · Dec 29, 2014

Cursor said:
Also, how would e erything connect together, through Ethernet via my AirPort Extreme? I also use a Thunderbolt Display.

----------

Thanks. Please let me know. I need to buy it in the next couple of days to get it in this year' tax write-off. The two different paths of thought are confusing me. I'm sure both work, but I'd like to have a great solution for the next 8-10 years.

Still copying files over so I haven't tried any video streaming as of yet. So it may be tomorrow before I have any "real world" info.

One of the issues I had with the MacMini + externals was all the power bricks as you can see in the photo below.
I could have purchased more raid enclosures to consolidate my individual externals but I felt this was in the end be my better option.

I go from 2x 2foot power strips using 10 power connections down to 3 power connections.
I don't believe you would have this issue as you wouldn't be using as many externals.
I started with a 1TB, then added a 2TB, then a couple 3's then a couple 4's and before I knew it I'm sitting here with single external drives lined up.

I also did not want to build a dedicated RAID tower/computer. I wanted one of the smallest footprint I could get even if it may cost a little more.

**********Edit - forgot to add the photo -
The amount of space the power bricks were taking up was starting to get out of control. Behind the DS1515+ you can see the power strip I was working with, I needed 2 of those. So that was 4' of space not counting the MacMini and the external drives.

Cursor · Dec 29, 2014

I was concerned about the cost as well as the power consumption. But, in the end, want the best option. Let me know! Thanks.

poiihy · Dec 29, 2014

Synology DS1515+. $500-$1000

mmomega · Dec 29, 2014

It is already performing hands-down quicker than my old WD NAS in RAID0.
That WD World NAS would transfer around 10-18MB/s.

The DS1515+ is currently transferring at 98 - 120MB/s. This is pretty much the bandwidth of a single Gigabit Ethernet line(125MB/s) so in that respect it is performing as it should be.
I'll connect my MacMini with Dual Gigabit later and retest transfer speeds. Which should be about 240-250MB/s max.

On another note: adding the other 4GB RAM seems to have raised the temps up about 4-5deg F. I'll remove the extra RAM and retest for 15-20minutes while transferring large files and see if I notice a change.

mmomega · Dec 29, 2014

Cursor said:
I'm trying to switch gears and follow your path of thinking. I'd need a Mac mini server with some brand of thunderbolt multi-drive, capable of RAID, attached to it correct?

Would I need a monitor or could I see it and configure it through my rMacBook Pro?

Also, if most thunderbolt drives use thunderbolt 2 now, would it be supported by a Mac mini server?

Bear with me, this direction is new to me. Thanks.

The thing to remember when using a MacMini is, if you are mainly using it to 'remotely' store and retrieve files and not using it as your day to day machine then you are limited to the speed of whichever connection you are using to access that Mac Mini.

So if you have it hardwired with CAT6, you are limited to 124MB/s max on your network going in to the Mini and out of it.
You could get a Thunderbolt to Gigabit adaptor and bond the built in Gigabit port + the TB to Gb adaptor and have a max of 250 MegaBytes/s in and out for best case scenario.

Even if you have a Thunderbolt 2 RAID system, the RAID drive may be capable of reading/writing 20Gb/s to the Mac Mini only, you'll never see that speed over the network.
Same with USB 3.0. USB3 can do 5Gb/s from the Mini to the external only.

Also keep in mind if you're using standard HDD's, they only output approx. 1Gb/s or 124MB/s for the most part. So putting a single HDD in a USB 3.0 enclosure you're only going to read/write at max 125MB/s even though USB 3 is capable of 5Gb/s.

You'll also have to use RAID0, 5, 6, 10 your HDD's to get faster read and writes no matter what connection type you're using but again unless you are able to remotely connect faster than Gigabit, the speed boost will be lost or never ever used.

The quickest connection an AppleTV has is Gigabit, 2nd being 802.11n WiFi.
iPad is your wifi.

Cursor · Dec 30, 2014

Correct me if I'm wrong, but USB 3 speeds only work, if you have a USB 3 port on your server. Mac minis or any Mac for that matter don't have USB 3 yet, right?

mmomega · Dec 30, 2014

Cursor said:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but USB 3 speeds only work, if you have a USB 3 port on your server. Mac minis or any Mac for that matter don't have USB 3 yet, right?

The entire Mac Lineup has USB 3.

Late 2012 Mac Mini and higher
Late 2012 iMac and higher
Mid 2012 MacBook Air and higher
Mid 2012 MacBook Pro and higher
Late 2013 Mac Pro

Cursor · Dec 30, 2014

mmomega said:
The entire Mac Lineup has USB 3.

Late 2012 Mac Mini and higher
Late 2012 iMac and higher
Mid 2012 MacBook Air and higher
Mid 2012 MacBook Pro and higher
Late 2013 Mac Pro

I didn't realize. I don't know what I was thinking. Thanks!

Cursor · Dec 30, 2014

Would the Sinology be able to hold and run my iTunes and iPhoto libraries?

mmomega · Dec 30, 2014

Cursor said:
Would the Sinology be able to hold and run my iTunes and iPhoto libraries?

Yes and No.

Yes it can store and share all of your media files.

The No comes in that if you're viewing media from the AppleTV you need HomeSharing enabled, which only works on a computer.
So you must have at least 1 Mac turned on with iTunes running that is linked to your media on the NAS.

If you are viewing from other computers then you can watch movies straight from the NAS.

If you want the NAS to be your main iTunes storage you will need to tell iTunes by changing the location of the default media folder.
Go To iTunes ->Preferences ->Advanced
and click the Change button to point iTunes to where you are storing your media files.
You can do this if you're using a NAS type device or if you just want to store your media on an external USB or Thunderbolt drive.

So even if you use a MacMini and an external drive, you'd probably want iTunes set to open on power up of the machine and HomeSharing enabled.
This way if you restart your remote headless Mac Mini, iTunes will automatically open and you'll immediately have access to your media from your AppleTV without having to remember to manually open iTunes.

Cursor · Dec 30, 2014

mmomega said:
Yes and No.

Yes it can store and share all of your media files.

The No comes in that if you're viewing media from the AppleTV you need HomeSharing enabled, which only works on a computer.
So you must have at least 1 Mac turned on with iTunes running that is linked to your media on the NAS.

If you are viewing from other computers then you can watch movies straight from the NAS.

If you want the NAS to be your main iTunes storage you will need to tell iTunes by changing the location of the default media folder.
Go To iTunes ->Preferences ->Advanced
and click the Change button to point iTunes to where you are storing your media files.
You can do this if you're using a NAS type device or if you just want to store your media on an external USB or Thunderbolt drive.

So even if you use a MacMini and an external drive, you'd probably want iTunes set to open on power up of the machine and HomeSharing enabled.
This way if you restart your remote headless Mac Mini, iTunes will automatically open and you'll immediately have access to your media from your AppleTV without having to remember to manually open iTunes.

Ok. Thanks for the info. Would Iphoto work the same way? Point iPhoto to your photo location. So the only thing is that time machine won't work, correct? I'm so confused why some users don't like NAS solutions, and some do.

ColdCase · Dec 30, 2014

Cursor said:
I'm so confused why some users don't like NAS solutions, and some do.

Some are stuck in the old school standardized answers, some are free thinkers. Up to you what you want to do, you can make anything work and perhaps good enough.

You need a Mac always on, running itunes and an apple device for time machine, so might as well set up a mac server. One can argue that a server may cost a few extra bucks but no one can credibly argue that a NAS provides better performance or scalability (adapt to your changing needs). Good enough is subjective, and your POV may be different than others.

bennibeef · Dec 30, 2014

ColdCase said:
Some are stuck in the old school standardized answers, some are free thinkers. Up to you what you want to do, you can make anything work and perhaps good enough.

You need a Mac always on, running itunes and an apple device for time machine, so might as well set up a mac server. One can argue that a server may cost a few extra bucks but no one can credibly argue that a NAS provides better performance or scalability (adapt to your changing needs). Good enough is subjective, and your POV may be different than others.

I dont think its right to call all NAS Users old school and using actual desktops with attached hard drives "new" school. Because mainly its the other way around.

I am actually using a Mac mini as a server with a multibay enclosure but to be honest its not the holy grail. It does what it should do and thats awesome but modern NAS systems are more than a network attached storage. They should be labeled different in my opinion because they can do as much some normal servers can do in a "easier" format (DHCP,VPN,Webhost,SQL host etc etc).

Products from synology work really well and are much more than a NAS.

And I have to say the time machine backup works fine. Couple of months ago I installed a 412+ in my parents house and they are happily backing up with Time Machine no problem. Back when I used a Debian server at home to do my time machine backups - forget it - it always corrupted the backup was a nightmare.

I am kinda tempted to go the synology route as well and scrape the mini server solution... but yeah never change a running system...

mmomega · Dec 30, 2014

Cursor said:
Ok. Thanks for the info. Would Iphoto work the same way? Point iPhoto to your photo location. So the only thing is that time machine won't work, correct? I'm so confused why some users don't like NAS solutions, and some do.

Time Machine seems to be working just fine for me. I have 6 Macs backing up 100's of GB's since late last night with no hiccups.

As for changing iPhoto's default save location, it is as easy as dragging and dropping the current iPhoto library to a new location and then double-clicking the file to open iPhoto, it will remember the new location.

http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT1229

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bennibeef said:
I dont think its right to call all NAS Users old school and using actual desktops with attached hard drives "new" school. Because mainly its the other way around.

I am actually using a Mac mini as a server with a multibay enclosure but to be honest its not the holy grail. It does what it should do and thats awesome but modern NAS systems are more than a network attached storage. They should be labeled different in my opinion because they can do as much some normal servers can do in a "easier" format (DHCP,VPN,Webhost,SQL host etc etc).

Products from synology work really well and are much more than a NAS.

And I have to say the time machine backup works fine. Couple of months ago I installed a 412+ in my parents house and they are happily backing up with Time Machine no problem. Back when I used a Debian server at home to do my time machine backups - forget it - it always corrupted the backup was a nightmare.

I am kinda tempted to go the synology route as well and scrape the mini server solution... but yeah never change a running system...

I agree, I've been using a Mac Mini as my home server with externals since Leopard Server came out and SL Server were their own OS and not an add-on app. I still am using this as my current solution with Thunderbolt enclosures and USB 3.0 enclosures but the Synology is winning me over.
I do have to say the more time I spend using this NAS the more and more I like it. I don't think you can understand how much different a DS1515, 1815 or 2015 is from the typical consumer NAS device. It's actually quite impressive.
QuadCore CPU, DDR3 RAM, 4xGigabit Link Aggregation, 4x USB 3.0 ports, 2 eSata, expandable to 90+TB's of storage. WebServer, DNS, GitServer, Wordpress, Bittorrent Server and the list goes on and on. This little NAS box is pretty cool.

Cursor · Dec 31, 2014

mmomega: How is the speed backing up your data via Time Machine, and the speed copying to.from the Synology? I won't be working off of the NAS or have active files on there, except for iTunes and iPhoto. My archived jobs will reside there.

Also, do you have it hooked up through iSCSI or just standard?

bennibeef · Dec 31, 2014

Most drives are capable of writing >100MB and the synologys have way more processing power than needed for writing that fast. You will be capped at gigabit ethernet which should be around 110-120MB/s. That will be your connection speed.

Cursor · Jan 1, 2015

Well, I ordered the Synology 1515 yesterday with 4-3gb Red drives. I have a 30-day return policy, so I figured I'm covered if this thing doesn't pan out.

mmomega · Jan 2, 2015

Cursor said:
mmomega: How is the speed backing up your data via Time Machine, and the speed copying to.from the Synology? I won't be working off of the NAS or have active files on there, except for iTunes and iPhoto. My archived jobs will reside there.

Also, do you have it hooked up through iSCSI or just standard?

I actually haven't noted the Time Machine backup speeds. All my Macs have been doing their hourly backups and I just kind of forgot about it because they have just been performing as they should.
This isn't much of a TimeMachine test yet but each of the machines move very fluidly while navigating through the TimeMachines backups. I haven't had a need to try recovering from a backup but I may just do a format and reinstall from backup just to test it's speed, then repeat but do it from my Mac Mini ->Thunderbolt enclosure and note speed differences if any.

As for the setup, I just went to the Synology website. Downloaded the Assistant app from https://www.synology.com/en-us/support/download/DS1515+.
Then went through the setup and I went with SHR which is Synology's Hybrid Raid. It is very similar yet with some differences from normal RAID.
SHR allows you to mix different HDD sizes. You can use the raid calculator here https://www.synology.com/en-us/support/RAID_calculator to see the difference between SHR or SHR2 with normal RAID 5, 6, 10, etc.
SHR is more similar to a RAID5 setup and will give you 1HDD worth of failout protection. So if you are using 5 - 4TB drives, your usable space is 16TB with 4TB of protection.
SHR2 will give 2 HDD of protection. So 8TB of protection and 12TB of usable storage.

Synology DS 1515+?

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