But no matter what Synology NAS you get, youll experience most of what I previewed above, if not all. File names should: Be unique and consistently structured; Be persistent and not tied to anything that changes over time or location; Limit the character length to no more than 25-35 characters; This powerful business feature allows the NAS server to be part of a network with a Windows Server. For more information about the use of the Synology logo, please contact [email protected]. If youre a tech enthusiast, youll have no problem figuring one out. Dong, you helped me upgrade my Wi-Fi router so now Im thinking about an NAS. Most of them are tool-free, while others only require a standard screwdriver. Hey Dong, love your site. I decided to go with an 8 bay NAS and 10TB hard drives. In cases where you group your movie files together (not within individual folders for each movie), you'll need to make sure that the files are named appropriately. Thanks for the article. The number one mistake I think people make about NAS is thinking that it backs up your data. Again, you can run most, if not all, of these apps and more simultaneously. For example, Avatar was released in 2009. If you want to save a bit of money maybe consider looking at an earlier model. but I dont really understand the capacity. You can share anything, not just photos. I generally use WD Red and Seagate IronWolf HDDs, Andy. My people also use the ones in their homes for local time machine backups (we synch some of them) as well as as a DVR in places where theres great OTA TV service like Dallas and LA. That is handy when you need to replace your server due to hardware issues or upgrade to a newer one. Reddit and its partners use cookies and similar technologies to provide you with a better experience. We would use it to backup our MacBook Air. Learn more. Our needs are pretty basic. By adding supported IP cameras, you can turn your Synology server into a powerful surveillance system via the Surveillance Station app. But it never hurts to have a server with more bays. As a result, when you know one Synology server, for the most part, you know them all. You don't want to wake up one morning and find out that one of your hard drives failed and now you've lost all the photos of your child's first year. Supports home folders for domain/LDAP users. I plan on getting one and going to use everything that you mentioned you use. Why cant both be built in and let me have the card slot for something to expand to rather than just getting me part way to table stakes? Maybe someone else can fill in the details that I'm not as familiar with. Most importantly, it just not reliable. For something as important as peoples data, we want to do what we can to ensure the integrity of their data, and by instituting a validated drive system, were not only able to better avoid instances like this, but were also able to do better testing on a shorter list of drives to validate their performance. These are said to have the best price/performance ratio. Before continuing, you should check out this primer post that explains what a NAS server entails. A NAS with this suffix such as the DS216j is a budget, home-orientated model with a slower processor and often less RAM than more expensive versions. You can find Plus models with only 2 bays, J models with 4, and Value models with 8. Actually Ive read this post twice and several more of your Synology posts. File and Directory Names Dependent on the number of drives they can house, their hardware specs, and release year, youll see names like DS1621+, RS1619xs, FS1018, and so on. Tomorrow I will also back everything onto a external 4TB drive. There are more than 30 models listed on the companys website, with cryptic names such as RS3617xs+ and DS216+II. Yes, totally, Mark. Timeslip - a children's series from the 70's - there was only a single series - with 4 different stories - each about 6 episodes long. Quite annoying. Yet, it costs just about half the price ( $150 vs $300.). So Im not sure about that negative above. (Stuck with DSM 5, this server is outdated, and I now use it primarily for its sentimental value.). Sync shared folders in real-time with another Rsync-compatible server all Synology servers support this to have another live copy of your data. What makes the Plus series the sweet spot is that it typically has a fast enough CPU for enthusiasts with a decent amount of RAM that is upgradable. That turned out to be the simplest decision I would have to make. My understanding is that Apple requires AFSP formatting on SSDs. Heres my questions We had a ds414j running 3x3TB disks as one SHR volume. Also, if you use two drives, you might want to use two SSDs since you will need to use them in RAID 1 (or SHR equivalent). At code reviews, we can focus on important design decisions or program flow rather than argue about naming. We just bought the 420j to be able to smoothly take the 414j hdds and just plug and play. The way it works, the NAS server will retain a copy of the data and sync that with the clients. In all, the combo of the 2-step verification for login and Snapshot means you can rely on your Synology server to keep your data safe against malicious changes. But the server can support subsequent larger HDDs. standard series (no digit) = mixture of performance and storage.. And do the add on expansions follow the same rules? Click Save to save your settings. That vulnerability had been patched a long time before it was an issue. Looking at the DS923+, 1522+, and 1621+ (I recall having 4 disks and an SSD for cache. All you need to do is register a unique name. By the way, make sure you use one of its built-in LAN ports for this part. With heavy use of the ip camera recording. The unofficial Synology forum for NAS owners and enthusiasts. And yes, if you have a 2-bay server, RAID 1 is a must as I explained in the SHR section. I also have units from QNAP, Netgear and even a Lenovo and the Synologies seem to max out gigabit with the least effort. You can still use any drive with Synology, they are just not supported if something happens and got get a passive warning the drive health check still works, by the way. Ive worked on most Synology home and SMB servers, starting with the first servers released over a decade ago. It seems like the perfect mix of what I need know and what I'll need in a few years. One or two digits which represent the maximum number of hard drives the NAS can support. Subscribe! And even if you do know what those words mean then you probably don't care what is written here because you most likely know more than I do. Designed to fill a niche between DS216 and expensive business models, Same as above, with newer processor (as previous processor discontinued). It required MUCH more care and feeding than the Synology, and Im regretting recommending QNAP to one of my clients. The Replication portion works somewhat like the folder sync mentioned above and requires additional volume (or storage devices.) Plus series is the more powerful one with Intel CPUs and more RAM. Most importantly, DSM is consistent throughout the entire Synology ecosystem. Groundhog Day.mp4. Also love the built in NVMe slots. More in this post on how to pick a server. Pick the detected server and follow the wizard to install the DiskStation Manager (DSM) operating system directly from Synologys website and finish with the initial setup process. For years, Synology NAS servers (for homes and SMBs) used Intel Atom or Celeron CPUs. Available in all server that supports the new Btrfs file system most Synology server released in the past decade do the Snapshot Replication is an excellent add-on security feature. I have one more question, that may not be related to your post, I have 2 Synology NAS (DS710+ and DS1518+). Or you can get the same model from two years ago that maybe doesn't have everything but it'll suit you just fine. So, 5-bay is the sweet spot. The Synology supports encryption itself for the entire volume which you can turn on or off depending on your needs. One big issue is encryption of the backups. DS923+ migrates to 1GbE LAN, not 10GbE LAN, Probably screwed - lost username and password. Under "Default branch name", enter the default branch name that new repositories should use. For all of their products Synology publishes compatibility lists but all of the major brands are on there so it doesn't matter that much. VMs are fun (even usable) but the real highlight in your article, IMHO, should have been Docker. You Should Get One of These, Ubiquitis UniFi Dream Router (UDR) Review: A Near-Perfect Gigabit Wi-Fi 6 Router, More in this post on how to pick a server, https://community.synology.com/enu/forum/16/post/127155, https://dongknows.com/synology-surveillance-station-review/, Netgear EX7500 Extender Review: Wi-Fi Mesh System Made Easy, Synology RT2600ac Revisited (vs MR2200ac): A Lasting Flagship Wi-Fi 5 Router, Linksys Velop MX4200 Review: A Well-Priced Velop for a Large Home. Today, we have millions of users a month from around the world, and assess more than 1,000 products a year. No doubt it is a well explained review about NAS server but my point here is that why someone prefer nas server on nas appliance. Log Manager And it come with a real time built-in Log Viewer of your naming conversion activity. I noted that in this post, William, and the review of the DS923+. Don't expect amazing performance, would avoid it if you're planning to do anything more than a single stream of video (without transcoding), but overall it's a good home solution. What youre missing, Kent, is why you think you can keep getting free help. What would you advise? You can see that in the cheapening of the hardware line occurring the past two years. Install the WordPress package, and you can make your server host any site, including one like the one youre reading, locally or worldwide. in certain cases failure of HW RAID controller may render even RAID 1 disks unusable. I'm going to start with four 10TB Seagate IronWolf hard drives in a Synology Hybrid Raid and have the ability to add four more hard drives and evolve into SHR2. Thank you very much for your information. Plex media naming conventions There is a specific format that you must use to arrange your media in order to have Plex identify it. Not similar to the username or email address . r/StorageReview 1 mo. My take is Synology has decided to exert more control over the hardware, and removing support for third-party USB dongles is part of the effort. Naming conventions are therefore important. How can it support 18 hard drives then? I generally use WD Red or Seagate IronWolf, Marco. https://community.synology.com/enu/forum/16/post/127155, https://miketabor.com/secure-public-wifi-using-synology-vpn-server/. Wi-Fi 6 client (Air M1) connected to XT8 node has 40-60MB write and 70-90MB read to/from the NAS. And your assessment is fine. Thank you Dong! But with hard drive capacities getting increasingly high, this flexible RAID, which has no longer been Synology-exclusive, is not as significant as it used to be. Thatd take too long, Wee. It simply means the capabilities are less than the series above them. . I have a DS1512+ that seems a bit slow with things like NABnzdb, Radarr, etc., and Im thinking of upgrading. Privacy Policy. Specify Geography And rest assured that your server will last. I went outside of the Synology family for the first time in over a decade last year (for performance we do live streaming and ProRes recordings are slow to transfer). Download Station is the best way to download anything from any source. Thanks. Backup is different from redundancy. My major concern when opting to use software vs hardware RAID is reliability of consumer grade HW RAID controllers. Available in many servers released in the past ten years, it allows the NAS server to house multiple virtual machines on the inside. In the case of unwanted data alteration, such as after a ransomware attack, you can restore the data to the previous version, either the entire shared folder or by selecting individual files. Especially when there is additional functionality on top of basic RAID. The purpose was as the main storage for my wifes business files, mostly word and excel docs and massive outlook psts. Hiya, so before I start renaming 64 tv shows of ~ 3TB and ~ 1600 files, I'd like to make sure how to cover both naming conventions of Kodi (or better, the scraper for thetvdb.com) and Synology Video Station simultaneously. The Slim is similar to the normal ones, but only takes 2.5" drives, the main advantage is noise and energy saving. So if we go forward setting up a fresh SHR with new hdds on the existing, recently purchased 420j, will I be correct that a safe way to move is to run a full hyperbackup to C2 and set it to run everynight to update files that have changed AND also get her to start saving files also to the external HDD I am adding to our setup? Id take a 4- or 5-bay used server (as long as it can run the latest DSM) over a brand-new 2-bay server. Optionally, to enforce the default branch name for all organizations in the enterprise, select Enforce across this enterprise. The DS920+ is not a 5-bay, Edgar, its a 4-bay, plus the support for a 5-bay expansion unit. MODULES - Movies Naming - TV Shows Naming - TV Shows Releases - Metadata Scanner METADATA PROVIDER I was reading this and wondered how you stand on Seagate Exos vs Ironwolf pro? This is a tremendously helpful article, much thanks. You can sync or backup data across multiple (hundreds of) devices in real time. This is going to be the easiest decision you have to make because the answer is "DS". However, the finding the correct naming conventions has proved to be a right royal headache. 3. The last two numbers represent the model range. Once you are sure your NAS is operating fine for a few weeks, then you can easily shut it down and upgrade the RAM. Including a server package and client apps, Synology Drive turns the NAS into a personal cloud server, like Dropbox, but much better. Let's look at an example to try to make things a bit clearer. Synology's product line is absolutely massive. We have seen in the past where a third-party drive maker has validated drives and then later updates their firmware without telling us so that their drives are no longer compatible. Everything from DuffBeer to PanGalacticGargleBlaster was used, including Ambrosa, Shotz, Synthehol, Bootysweat, Butterbeer, Tantrum, and Moloko. I have always been the type of person who built and ran their own file server. Do you want to spend more money on features that you'll probably never use but can feel good that you have? The S is for the primary unit (you need at least one of these) and the X is for the expansion unit. On first look the array of Synology NAS devices and model names may appear bewildering. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding. Video Type: Select which type of videos you want to put in the folder. 3. with the above recommendations in place I would omit the sub-directories for season. TV Show Naming Maybe someone else can fill in the details that I'm not as familiar with. One thing kept me up at night trying to figure out why, was it never put the disks to sleep and even after disabling everything but the absolute minimum features/software, it still had a process (to do with RAID) doing a tiny write every few seconds. And out of that extensive experience, I cant find anything purely negative about Synology NAS. There is no other option. How do I make the first Doc West movie have the correct information? Itd be more sensible of Synology to include the number of default camera licenses according to the number of drive bays a 2-bay server has two, a 4-bay server has four, and so on. DS1821+ and a guide to hardware upgrades on Synology NAS servers. In general, the first number indicates the maximum number of bays that the unit can expand to. Is it known how Videostation parses file names when assigning them to shows? Not a good thing. When fitted with three or more disks, a Synology NAS will be able to tolerate one disk failing without the loss of any data and all you sacrifice is the capacity of a single hard disk. On the other hand, using Synology Drive to sync means you always have a backup on your computer (as well as the server). You use QuickConnect or DDNS to access your server via the web interface or the DS Cam mobile app. I have a bunch of TV shows (some single season, some multi-season) that Video Station has done a terrible job of cataloguing. probably by giving the list of best 2 bay NAS from top to bottom. Would the 923+ and 1522+ be about the same except for capacity (Figure I would eventually upgrade memory, so Im not worried about the difference in out-of-box memory)? I just remember I felt in control of DSM and any of the synology apps I tried worked perfectly, whereas QTS has a few issues, including thumbnail generation that did all images on volume not just chosen folders and it did this in an endless loop even as far as ver 5.0.1 if I remember correctly. Each drive model is put through a comprehensive validation test to assure maximum compatibility, reliability, and stability in our NAS. The website is an easy part as long as you know how to do it. But dont take my word for it. Oh you don't like Seagate for some arbitrary reason? Ill be looking to run my 4K media contents on an Apple TV 4K with this NAS, hoping it would work. Backup means that if your house burnt to the ground and your NAS was a molten pile of sludge your data is not lost. The prevailing sentiment from all the reading I've done and the YouTube videos I've watched is that you should not rely on expansion. I have been putting my Inspector Montalbano/Commissario Montalbano TV series in a /video/Italian TV/ folder identified in VS as Italian TV library with Italiano as the language. Of all the mesh brands, QNAP is the most similar to Synology, with much better hardware specs at the same price point. You can run many downloads simultaneously and queue an unlimited amount of downloads. Changing this field will change your Synology's Hostname and Server name. On the router, in the LAN > Switch Control, i just enable Bonding/LA. For example, DS for DiskStation, their desktop product, or RS for RackStation, their rackmount solution. It seems simple, but to me its confusing. Hopefully this article proved as useful for you reading as it was for me writing it. (Also, it might be a good opportunity to go through and create a consistent naming schema for everything, which I haven't done so far.). And considering you likely will enjoy it every day, at times even unknowingly, however much you pay today is a fair price. Cookie Notice . And thats about it. Please recommend movie naming convention that when alphabetized, all the movies whose titles include the definite article The, for example The Bourne Identity are grouped together. I have link aggregation successfully configured on them and it uses the Lan1/Lan2 ports on router and shows as Bonded in the DSM. Mount the internal drives onto the drive trays and insert them into the server. An excellent article and well written. Very interested in this topic. Music Naming Conventions While Plex can use the metadata stored in a music file, you should still follow these naming conventions outlined here. A file or folder name on Synology NAS is displayed as something like 12HWA0~8 when accessed from a client computer via SMB. Synology servers work with all standard SATA drives on the market, including the. Examples are content streaming, surveillance apps, photo sharing, downloading, etc. Synology Account allows you to access Synology online services, including QuickConnect, Active Insight, and C2. Another question I have a group of animations in the default Movies folder and the titles are NOT alphabetized. Also while we are on the topic of RAM, increasing your RAM is the easiest way to increase the performance of your NAS. Saturday, March 4, 2023 Welcome to the , Extra: Synology servers and their volume size limits, Volume, disk, partition, file system, and more, The leading letters in a Synology NAS servers name, The number part in a Synology NAS servers name, The ending letters/characters in a Synology NAS servers name, Synology NAS server: State-of-the-art operating system, Synology DSMs applicable core settings and features, Advanced storage and user management, with 2-Factor Authentication login, QuickConnect, VPN, DHCP, Dynamic DNS, DNS, and so on, Synology NAS server: Well-thought-out, practical applications, Snapshot and Replication: The ultimate ransomware protection, Extra: Step to migrate to a new or different Synology NAS server, Comparatively high cost, Gigabit by default, expensive upgrades, NAS Server Explained: Redundancy (RAID) and Network Attached Storage Basics. The benefit of this naming scheme is to prevent download loops which can occur on import when there is a discrepancy in the release title compared to the contents of the file itself (for example, if the release title says DTS-ES but the contents are actually DTS). And theres one more thing. I used to do it like My Movie Title (year) CD1 and it works fine in Kodi and c. but not for DS Video. Thank you for writing this article. If you purchase through links on our site, we may earn a commission. So let's assume we are going to use a Synology Hybrid Raid (SHR) and we're looking at that sweet spot of 4 to 8 drive bays. Read the post and you can figure it out yourself, its all there. 2. use something other than space. . So we got a 420j, popped the disks in, and all was great for about one month. This is accomplished easily with MakeMKV and using the following steps: Place the Blu-ray disc in the reader, and then open MakeMKV. We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Crucial P1 Review: Low Cost Meets Wild Performance, Best Wi-Fi 5 Routers: On a Budget? But thanks to the stellar DSM operating system, you still pay for what you get in most cases. The following matrix breaks down a Synology model name into its component parts. The aim is to have a single point of storage (the Synology DiskStation NAS), but two separate Hardware. Generally, each tray can house either a 3.5-inch (desktop) or a 2.5-inch (laptop) drive. That said, I now need to get that QNAP up on eBay. The system does have to do double the work or the entire job depending on how you look at it. If you dont want an account with Synology, you can skip QuickConnect and use Dynamic DNS. Wait a moment? Then from within Network you will see the field Server Name. In a NAS this is very important because it helps reduce the possible errors that could be getting injected into your data. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/weemple-video-tools/9njrdv6jzn76. I would rather not go through and individually edit the information in Video Station, especially as this would do nothing for those files that don't show up anywhere. For a bit more on Time Machine backup and NAS, you can check out this post. will not work. Upgrading your RAM means your NAS simply has that much more space to store files in fast memory rather than reading from disk. Now the question is: We need a local site where schedules, Hotel rules, etc. Its just like having multiple unlimited Dropbox accounts for free. If youre tech-savvy, you can figure things out quite quickly. Bob is a Founder of Seguro Ltd, a full time father and husband, part-time tinkerer-with-wires, coder, Muay Thai practitioner, builder and cook. And we are thinking of getting an outdoor surveillance camera. It will leave you with no room for expansion and barely let you take advantage of the benefits of a Synology NAS. Connect the server to your router or switch using a network cable and turn it on. Maybe you can discern what the first two letters indicate, but the numbers and accompanying symbols or random words are anything but clear. I've actually organised all my films into genre-specific folders like "Comedy", "Drama" and so on. JavaScript is disabled. I was one of the smart ones who had unattached backups and didnt lose anything. Before getting a Synology, you should remember some possibly unpleasant items below. Its normal that hard drives have a few bad sectors, Marco. That works independently from apps. This page actually has some good information too. Here is my question, it seems like the DS220+ would be adequate for what we need. The added power consumption of course is a factor as is the space necessary to set up a rack (but that can be done in a closet or basement often as not) and of course they are noisy. We have about 3 tb of family home videos we want to share and send to our TV. In the case of Synology, its pretty simple. Is there a delay to the database update? That listing for Buffy that has a movie poster only shows two seasons within. I'll do my best to describe most of it from what I know (after having done some research myself before buying a Synology a couple of years ago). After years of experience with all different NAS brands, since 2020, I have decided to no longer actively seek to try any NAS server but those from Synology. We already know the size of the hard drives we want so all that is left is to choose the brand. I believe they are the same thing, Anthony. I hope you can use it and be happy with it! As we have not formally heard Synology launch SRM 3 (in beta, provisionally or in RC), that likely means that the RT6600ax will arrive with the current fully-featured SRM software and services, with the newest version with enhanced network management, security, improved intuitive layout and enhanced mobile app soon afterwards. Or you can use the DS1621+ and have a separate SATA SSD volume. Download Station will come in handy if you need a large file that takes a long time to download, such as an ISO file of a Linux distro. RPi is connected over Ethernet to RT-AX92U. Today I am going to copy everything to a external hdd and then test/repair/etc the existing drives/volumes. Hi Carsten, Im guessing you mean multi-file movies (e.g. Finally, Synology makes a super-cheap se version of the two-bay DS216. However, the companys range is huge, which makes picking the correct NAS for your needs a little tricky. These are the most powerful devices Synology has to offer. The easiest to explain is j. This function works within the local network or over the Internet (via QuickConnect or a Dynamic DNS connection). I was impressed. How many drive bays your NAS has is probably the most important decision you will make because it determines how much data your NAS can store before expansion. Great review! If the volume is not (close to) full, chances are you wont lose anything, even when more than one drive fails at the same time. I am considering the DS1621+ as well, however tossing between this and DS1520+ due to lack of hardware transcoding in the DS1622+ due to the processor. , It is still a huge issue, having your NAS constantly attacked.