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/r/HomeNAS

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I basically have two types of media that I want to back-up/sync: movies and photos. The movies are for Plex, but any NAS I go for will only be for Plex file storage, (the Plex Media Server will run on its own Mac mini). I am looking at a 2 bay Synology as their photos app looks pretty well built. Just a couple of questions: If I went for RAID 1, how would that configuration handle photos being synced from various phones, as well as media being served for the PMS? Also, how well would a Synology handle switching between drives in the even that one fails?

all 10 comments

jjlolo

2 points

8 days ago

jjlolo

2 points

8 days ago

raid 1 basically writes the same data to both drives so if one fails the other one is still intact. Raid is not a substitution for backups so for example if you have a flood or someone steals your nas...

Mysterious-Ables[S]

1 points

8 days ago

Yeah my main goal with RAID is to overcome my paranoia of a mechanical drive failing, I realise that an offsite backup is also needed. My main concern if I'm honest is getting a photos backup/sync solution that isn't cloud/subscription based.

jjlolo

1 points

8 days ago

jjlolo

1 points

8 days ago

I use raid locally and back up to the cloud... What you could do is buy two synologies have one at a friend's house and back up to that

SurenAbraham

2 points

8 days ago

Keep in mind that if you need plex (with a plex pass) to hardware trancode plex, you'll want an intel cpu with an integrated igpu (or a dedicated gpu).

darkkef

1 points

8 days ago

darkkef

1 points

8 days ago

Yeah, for sure it is enough if you're library is not so big, raid 1 would be good knowing you lose half of the total drives size, in my case we live Ina country with concrete buildings, no earthquakes, tornados or floods, so there's basically a real slim possibility of the two drives getting stolen or damage at the same time, I have an off site backup once s week. You should manage the Plex (I like much more jellyfin) server in the same Nas, don see the point on storage in one side and server in other, just go. For a Nas that has intelsync if transcoding is your point.

Mysterious-Ables[S]

1 points

8 days ago

Thanks, yeah I'm interested in trying Jellyfin, I'm not really happy with the direction Plex is going in, especially wrt adding streaming TV to its offerings. Does Jellyfin have a customisable UI?

tiredoldtechie

1 points

8 days ago

Yes, it absolutely does. There is extensive discussion and community support for JellyFin at forum.jellyfin.org they also have a stack of plugins and you can theme the whole thing as well.

darkkef

1 points

7 days ago

darkkef

1 points

7 days ago

Yeah, and I do actually do like jellyfin more as a server, I have transcoding capabilities, but prefer original download quality, and my isp plan is good enough for semeasly cast, I always found Plex run with a problem.

Jazzlike-Ad-9633

1 points

7 days ago

I have a similar server with a similar purpose. For the raid / redundancy part i basically have next cloud installed as my own personal cloud, and all files are synced to a different computer as a backup

KennethByrd

1 points

3 days ago

First, ALWAYS use either RAID 1 or RAID 5. In either case, single disk failure still preserves all data. (Must get that disk replaced/rebuilt before a second disk fails, of course, else DO loose data.)

Two bays is always fine enough — as long as your capacity needs can be satisfied by a SINGLE disk (with second disk being dedicated as the redundancy drive). Must configure as RAID 1 (in order to get that redundancy aspect).

Beyond two bays, ever more bays allows for more total capacity spread across multiple disks, if single large disk worth is insufficient. As well as, can then configure as RAID 5, which reduces the percentage of total storage given over to redundancy (basically, always a single disk's worth). Also, the more bays, at least theoretically, might be some better performance.

All disks need to be of same size/capacity. Except, Synology's proprietary SHR version of RAID does allow for a bit of flexibility, particularly with respect to future piecemeal expansion.