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Electronic karma ?

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Posted on October 7, 2023 at 08:27:06

tlea
Audiophile

Posts: 508
Location: New Orleans
Joined: January 20, 2002
Contributor
Since: October 29, 2006

Back in early January someone on this forum posted an informal poll question about HDD uptime. It inspired me to check on my five drive NAS array, to find that they were approaching 10 years of service (more than 84k hours), waaaay past their expected lifetime. I started to think about replacing them and eventually decided to upgrade my entire NAS and move the 2012 unit to the bench. I finally got around to ordering the new NAS with drives and extra RAM and started building it this week. I decided to do a data scrub and final backup of the old NAS before transferring my music library (around 4TB) and other storage to the new unit. One of the old drives failed during that process. I am running RAID6 and have nightly backups so no harm done. But go figure.

. . . in theory, practice and theory are the same; in practice, they are different . . .

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RE: Electronic karma ?

Rod M

12:07:29 10/08/23

RE: Electronic karma ?

AbeCollins

09:38:37 10/07/23

RE: Electronic karma ?

tlea

12:41:36 10/07/23

...

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RE: Electronic karma ?

Rod M

12:07:29 10/08/23

RE: Electronic karma ?

AbeCollins

09:38:37 10/07/23

RE: Electronic karma ?

tlea

12:41:36 10/07/23

RE: Electronic karma ?

E-Stat

11:41:34 10/08/23

RAID calculator

tlea

12:06:34 10/08/23

E-Stat

12:40:15 10/08/23

Glad you approve

tlea

16:40:20 10/08/23

Just a thought....

AbeCollins

16:04:36 10/14/23

RE: Just a thought....

tlea

05:19:07 10/15/23

Speaking of hurricane country....................

Cut-Throat

15:15:27 10/22/23

RE: Just a thought....

AbeCollins

18:36:10 10/15/23

RE: RAID calculator

Rod M

12:15:40 10/08/23

RE: Electronic karma ?

AbeCollins

21:45:00 10/07/23

tlea

16:55:37 10/08/23

No problem here

E-Stat

12:12:42 10/09/23

Disk drive prices....

Rod M

11:44:26 10/08/23

RE: Disk drive prices....

AbeCollins

21:28:09 10/08/23

Pretty much the Set up I've got ................

Cut-Throat

12:48:11 10/07/23

RE: Electronic karma ?, posted on October 7, 2023 at 09:38:37

AbeCollins
Audiophile

Posts: 45472
Location: USA
Joined: June 22, 2001
Contributor
Since: February 2, 2002

What NAS did you get? What capacity disks will populate it?

Sounds like that data scrub put more stress on the drives than you would normally encounter. I run data scrub on my NAS maybe twice a year.

10 years is getting up there for HDDs but I've seen some last much longer in data center servers - - usually in government installations where they're too cheap to update their servers! ;-) Or a program is being shutdown anyway so they just let the HW run until it dies.

RE: Electronic karma ?, posted on October 7, 2023 at 12:41:36

tlea
Audiophile

Posts: 508
Location: New Orleans
Joined: January 20, 2002
Contributor
Since: October 29, 2006

Having had such a positive experience with the old NAS, I stayed with a similar lineup: Synology DS1522+ with 5 x 4TB WD Red Plus HDD. 4TB seems to be the sweet spot for $ per TB right now, and I finally caught the Syno on sale, so I'm pleased with the deal. I will deploy SHR, which wasn't available for the old one, giving me 14.5 TB capacity vs 5.4 TB in the old unit running RAID6. That should future-proof me for a while. I installed additional RAM to get to 16MB and also decided to install a 400GB M.2 SSD in the cache slot just to see what I can learn from it.

I've had success running Roon Core on a NUC8i7 but might try moving it to run directly on the new NAS. I think I can install the Roon Core and library on the M.2 drive or else on an outboard USB SSD. But since things are running so smoothly now, I'll take my time before experimenting further.

. . . in theory, practice and theory are the same; in practice, they are different . . .

Pretty much the Set up I've got ................, posted on October 7, 2023 at 12:48:11
Cut-Throat Audiophile Posts: 18004 Location: Minneapolis - St.Paul Area Joined: September 2, 2000 Contributor Since: May 16, 2021	I got a DS1520+ a couple years ago. Also with 5 - 4TB Drives - Seagate Iron Wolf However. I also have a DS916+ 4-Bay that I use for Backup Duties. I stuck a couple of 1TB Memory Sticks in it (Just because I could).

RE: Electronic karma ?, posted on October 7, 2023 at 21:45:00

AbeCollins
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Posts: 45472
Location: USA
Joined: June 22, 2001
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Since: February 2, 2002

Nice choice.

I've been real pleased with my DS 918+ 4-bay NAS. The updated model would be the DS 923+. I haven't shopped disk drives lately but its good to know that 4TB still seems to be the sweet spot.

The CPU in these NAS aren't power houses but even the modest Intel Celeron in mine handles Roon Core just fine so long as you don't have a huge libray and run any heavy duty DSP. I have about 1000 albums (ripped + streaming choices combined).

I'd be curious to know if you get your M.2 NVMe set up as storage pools rather than Cache. If I'm not mistaken when I set up my older DS 918+ with older DSM the only choice was to run the M.2 NVMe as Cache.

RE: Electronic karma ?, posted on October 8, 2023 at 11:41:34
E-Stat Audiophile Posts: 36661 Joined: May 12, 2000 Contributor Since: April 5, 2002	giving me 14.5 TB capacity vs 5.4 TB in the old unit running RAID6. For which in January you observed... The RAID6 has a capacity of 3.8TB of which I am using 1.6TB. That will certainly "future proof" capacity! :) My usage is somewhat less at 1.2 TB and chose the current sweet spot for SSDs with a mirrored pair of 2TB drives in a 718+.

Disk drive prices...., posted on October 8, 2023 at 11:44:26

Rod M
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Posts: 15980
Location: So. California
Joined: March 1, 1999
Contributor
Since: March 1, 1999

It really varies depending what you need. 4tb drives are $10 more than 2TB drives. However, the cost per TB does go down with 6, 8, 10 or 12TB drives.

-Rod

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/search?q=wd%20red%20drives&so

RAID calculator, posted on October 8, 2023 at 12:06:34

tlea
Audiophile

Posts: 508
Location: New Orleans
Joined: January 20, 2002
Contributor
Since: October 29, 2006

RAID6 has two drive redundancy, so for a five drive array the capacity is nominally 3x drive size, less some internal OS overhead. So 5 x 2TB in RAID6 should yield a little under 6TB. Not sure where I got that number back in Jan, which is clearly off.

Here's a RAID calculator:

. . . in theory, practice and theory are the same; in practice, they are different . . .

Synology RAID calculator

RE: Electronic karma ?, posted on October 8, 2023 at 12:07:29

Rod M
Web Geek

Posts: 15980
Location: So. California
Joined: March 1, 1999
Contributor
Since: March 1, 1999

Wow, 10 years is a long time. Five years is probably the safe time if you don't want any failures. I ran HGST 4TB drives for a long time and had one failure, not a complete failure, but the SMART info was marginal after about 8 years.

Like you, I updated my NASes last year, replacing 8TB WD Reds with 12TB Seagate Ironwolf drives and doubling the RAM. It took a long while like over a day or so to pull one drive and replace it with the new one. At the same time, I pulled the old 4TB drives from my oldest NAS with the 8TB WD Red drives from the newer NAS. I think it took nearly 2 weeks overall for the 8 bay drives.

Thus far, none of the WD drives have had any issues after running 2,240 hours between the two NASes. Of course, I do have spare drives and daily backups.
-Rod

RE: RAID calculator, posted on October 8, 2023 at 12:15:40
Rod M Web Geek Posts: 15980 Location: So. California Joined: March 1, 1999 Contributor Since: March 1, 1999	Yeah, a formatted drive yields only about 91%, so a 2TB drive is really about 1.82TB. For RAID6, you should have about 5.4TB (3x1.82) on a 5 drive NAS. -Rod

Ok, posted on October 8, 2023 at 12:40:15
E-Stat Audiophile Posts: 36661 Joined: May 12, 2000 Contributor Since: April 5, 2002	My observation was really about going from your usage in Jan for 1.6 TB to provide 14.5 TB today. Lots of growth potential! I'm just delighted that the cost of running mirrored SSDs for a similar need is so cheap. 2TB = $105 for each drive :)

Glad you approve, posted on October 8, 2023 at 16:40:20

tlea
Audiophile

Posts: 508
Location: New Orleans
Joined: January 20, 2002
Contributor
Since: October 29, 2006

The 1.6TB was music library only. It's a little bigger now.

I'll use this as an opportunity to consolidate and simplify some things for the family. Right now we have Time Machine backups and other storage spread around in various places that have grown up organically over the years. With all this new space, maybe I can bring some order and organization to our little galaxy.

The 4TB HDDs were just a few bucks more than the 2TB ones, so I couldn't resist. Also, I've learned a few things since I set up the old NAS and will go from RAID6 to SHR (single redundancy), which will increase capacity.

Hopefully I'll never get close to using up that space, but it will be there if I need it. I don't expect to be doing this again for a few years, so I think "future-proof" is the right phrase.

. . . in theory, practice and theory are the same; in practice, they are different . . .

NVMe SSD, posted on October 8, 2023 at 16:55:37

tlea
Audiophile

Posts: 508
Location: New Orleans
Joined: January 20, 2002
Contributor
Since: October 29, 2006

The newer Syno NAS units permit configuring the M.2 sticks as a storage pool or cache. I have it set up as cache right now but it looks easy to change. If/when I decide to try moving Roon Core to the NAS, I'll try putting on the internal M.2, which seems like a neat, tidy solution. I can't find anyone on the Roon forum who has tried it yet, but I'm sure it will happen soon.

I did pay the premium for 8GB of Synology proprietary RAM because I wanted to match the stock chip. The NVMe drive seemed less critical. Although the company authorizes third-party HDDs and SSDs in the array, it only lists its own over-priced RAM and M.2 sticks as compatible.

. . . in theory, practice and theory are the same; in practice, they are different . . .

Synology support

RE: Disk drive prices...., posted on October 8, 2023 at 21:28:09

AbeCollins
Audiophile

Posts: 45472
Location: USA
Joined: June 22, 2001
Contributor
Since: February 2, 2002

Interesting.

I was observing 4TB vs 8TB NAS disk prices several months ago and back then there was still a slight premium for 8TB on a cost per TB basis. It looks like that has flipped with 8TB being cheaper now.

On the other hand, if you have a RAID array with several bays and want to fill them all net cost is still cheaper with the lower capacity disks (but higher on a cost per TB basis).

Like you said it varies depending on what you need but nice to know that cost per TB on the higher capacity disks is still dropping.

No problem here, posted on October 9, 2023 at 12:12:42
E-Stat Audiophile Posts: 36661 Joined: May 12, 2000 Contributor Since: April 5, 2002	it only lists its own over-priced RAM and M.2 sticks as compatible. using a clone brand for my 718+ and exceed its specified capacity (8 GB vs 6 GB). :)

Just a thought...., posted on October 14, 2023 at 16:04:36

AbeCollins
Audiophile

Posts: 45472
Location: USA
Joined: June 22, 2001
Contributor
Since: February 2, 2002

- I had multiple household Macs set up with Time Machine backups going to NAS. It worked but was it was rather slow over the network compared to direct-attached USB disks (especially fast with direct-attached SSD).

I also found that Time Machine to NAS although slow was OK for photos, documents, etc but not so good for recovering macOS if the internal disk in the Mac failed. Direct-attached Time Machine works much better in that regard.

- After a few years I developed a multi-pronged Archive / Backup / Recovery strategy that works for me. And that's the important part. Having a strategy that you test and that actually works for YOU. There is no exact right or wrong way.

For our Macs:

- Each Mac (except my laptop) has a USB SSD permanently attached for Time Machine AND Carbon Copy Cloner backups. The 1TB or 2TB SSD is setup with two partitions. One partition is for continuous Time Machine backups. The other partition is for a Carbon Copy Cloner task that backs up to the other SSD partition once a night. I have a 2nd Carbon Copy Cloner task that backs up to NAS as well. This strategy is setup on three Macs in our house (but not the laptop).

- I also have an Archive folder setup on NAS and that's where we store a bunch of photos, documents, and other stuff we don't need access to. Various other things that we backup eventually get manually moved to the Archive folder.

The ENTIRE NAS is automatically backed up nightly at 4:00 a.m. to a large USB disk that is attached to the NAS. I've used either USB Copy or HyperBackup for this. It's also worth noting that formatting the large USB disk in a format that your Mac will recognize is a good idea. If the NAS totally fails, you can simply unplug the big USB disk from the NAS and attach it to a Mac and read its contents. I use exFAT.

ALL backups described above take quite a long time the first time around so it's best to do one at a time and let it finish. Subsequent backups are incremental so they go pretty quick.

I don't use the laptop that much and there's not a lot on it so I just attach a SSD to it now and then to do a Time Machine backup.

RE: Just a thought...., posted on October 15, 2023 at 05:19:07

tlea
Audiophile

Posts: 508
Location: New Orleans
Joined: January 20, 2002
Contributor
Since: October 29, 2006

Thanks for sharing your strategy. Having those redundancies gives you a lot of protection.

Here where I live in hurricane country, there is something comforting about having everything pointed to a single box that I can toss into a duffle bag on the way out the door with confidence that I have a least one current copy of EVERYTHING on the house LAN. Yes, Time Machine can be slow over the LAN, but I don't find that to be an issue.

Now that I have two capable NAS units, I am going to explore the native Synology solutions like Active Backup so that they can talk to each other in the background. Currently I am using ChronoSync, which I have used for many years with great success. It is fast, versatile, solid, and seamless, but it does require an intermediary. My understanding is that Syno Active Backup runs as a package on the NAS units without the need for a workstation to be involved.

. . . in theory, practice and theory are the same; in practice, they are different . . .

RE: Just a thought...., posted on October 15, 2023 at 18:36:10

AbeCollins
Audiophile

Posts: 45472
Location: USA
Joined: June 22, 2001
Contributor
Since: February 2, 2002

I haven't looked into Active Backup but it would be nice to centralize backup management through a single portal with small backup agents on each client. As it stands I have separate installs of Carbon Copy Cloner on each Mac and I configure them all individually on a schedule to backup to direct-attached SSD and to the NAS. One of the challenges is to stagger the schedules to minimize network traffic and the potential for NAS disk contention.

Speaking of hurricane country...................., posted on October 22, 2023 at 15:15:27
Cut-Throat Audiophile Posts: 18004 Location: Minneapolis - St.Paul Area Joined: September 2, 2000 Contributor Since: May 16, 2021	I just returned from 10 days in the New Orleans area.... Mostly in the far South of Venice Fishing.. Although we do get to City Park for some beignets. Caught some nice Redfish..... Will be returning in Mid November again.

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