Help setting NAS

[abescalamis]

Hello

This community walk me to the process of getting a NAS, and thank for that.

My DS916+ NAS arrived today, and I miscalculated one thing, I should have bought two 4tb HD instead of one 6 TB. I will buy another drive at the end of the year.

I wanted to be raid 6 + brtfs, but I cannot do it with only one drive.

What is the best set up for this scenario? I'm scratching my head with this.

Thank you.

 

[jeff3820]

With a single HD you can't do any raid at all. Basically you have a very smart external hard drive. If I recall, when you install a second hard drive the NAS OS will ask you if you want to setup raid 1 or just a second disk. I would setup raid 1. When you install a third HD you will be given a choice of raid 1 or raid 5. After you install a fourth HD then you can choose raid 1, raid 5, or raid 6. You can use this tool to visualize https://www.synology.com/en-us/support/RAID_calculator

At this time, just enjoy the NAS...when you install more drives then the NAS will ask what you want to do (what raid to use) and then build the new raid array in the background. There is a choice for SHR (Synology Hybrid Raid)...this works well and allows for easy addition of disks.

Why RAID 6? In a 4 disk system Raid 5 (or SHR) will offer protection if a disk fails and provides additional space. I believe RAID 6 allows for multiple simultaneous disk failures...doubt most will need that.

Also, be sure to invest in a UPS when you can...the Synology supports most systems directly and provides for a graceful shutdown during power failures. Even a $40-$60 small UPS (as long as it has a USB port) should be fine.

 

[abescalamis]

Thank you for enlightening me, I was going to choose the Raid 6 because I read that it gives more protection for disk failure, but you made it more clear to me.

For a 4 disk system, Raid 5 will be better as it offers the same protection as Raid 6, and Raid 6 is more suitable for large systems with more that 4 disk because it protects against 2 HD failures, and Raid 5 protects against 1 HD failure which is enough for a four bay NAS.

I'm I right?

So for now I have to use SHR, then when I reach 3 installed Drives I can tell the NAS to use Raid 5.

Thank you Jeff, you are awesome.

 

[jeff3820]

If you stay with SHR, it will automatically move you to raid 1 and raid 5 as you add more disks...just use SHR.

The RAID calculator will show you this.

Spend some time in the control panel thinking about Groups, users, etc. With a plan this is much easier to implement. Everything is done in the GUI with control panel so poke around and have fun. One thing I always recommend is under control panel/security/auto block be sure to enable this setting...use something like 4 login attempts within 5 min. Another good setting is under Update & Restore, click the button for Update settings...be sure to enable auto updates of DSM and all updates and to check the box to automatically check for updates. This will keep the system updates...there are frequent updates and many are security updates.

DSM 6.1 will also be here shortly...fairly big release.

 

[abescalamis]

I play with it as you suggested, I'm done setting it up, the only thing that I need to figure out is the ports that I need to forward to use the phone apps from the internet.

I have a RT-AC56U, when I go to the option to set the router, it says that the router didn't pass the UPnP compatibility test, So I went to the router and set a port manually to forward port 80 to 5000, I can access the DSM from the internet browser, but it doesn't work on the Dsphoto, DSvideo, DSmusic.

I have set a Dynamic DNS on the router Noip, and its own Dynamic DNS for the NAS Synology dns service. I don't think this is causing the issue

The NAS ip is static, I also set the Dynamic DNS on the NAS.

Can someone just show me their port forward rules, so that I set the same.

Thank you

 

[jeff3820]

For dsVideo, dsAudio just forward port 5000 (TCP) to your NAS...this is under WAN on the router. Be sure you provide user access to these apps under users.

For dsPhoto, it requires multiple ports so I went the easier route...just setup QuickConnect on the NAS. No port forwards required and for dsPhoto it works great. For higher bandwidth apps like dsVideo and dsAudio, I use DDNS for access.

 

[abescalamis]

For dsVideo, dsAudio just forward port 5000 (TCP) to your NAS...this is under WAN on the router. Be sure you provide user access to these apps under users.

For dsPhoto, it requires multiple ports so I went the easier route...just setup QuickConnect on the NAS. No port forwards required and for dsPhoto it works great. For higher bandwidth apps like dsVideo and dsAudio, I use DDNS for access.

I figured it out, it was my mistake doing the port rules, I open 80 and 5000 and everything works good now even DSphoto, Thank you Jeff.