NAS lifespan

[Powercat]

I have a Zyxel NSA325 with WD Red drives. I have over 10 years on this setup running 24/7. What is the life expectancy on a setup like this? It's set up with one drive mirroring the other so if a drive fails ( I assume that would be the first thing that fails ) I could recover. Just getting a little nervous at 10 years.

 

[degrub]

well. while it is working, pick a new NAS, install and migrate to it. Use the old one for backup of the new or vice versa.

mine are 15-17 years old, but not on 24/7

 

[Tech Junky]

The only thing that stands out is it's using SATA II and it's old. If it's working then I wouldn't worry about it.

If you want something new build your own with a PC / Linux. I rolled a few devices into a PC and NAS was one of them. Is setup raid 10 and get a lot of speed out of it. The PC option allows it to grow with your needs rather than being locked into a specific chassis. A better CPU let's you do more stuff faster and it functions of your primary PC breaks down as a backup.

 

[tgl]

I'm with @degrub on this: migrate off the old hardware while you can do it in a non-emergency framework. Those drives are way past manufacturer's warranty. Maybe they'll last another 5 or 10 years, but I don't think that's the way to bet.

If you are happy with the Zyxel chassis' features and performance, you could consider just replacing the drives one at a time. (If the Zyxel firmware can't handle drive replacement and resyncing the contents, then you should not be satisfied with its features...) But the chassis doesn't have an indefinite lifespan either. On the whole I think you'd be best off buying new gear and putting the existing box on the shelf as long-term backup + emergency spare.

 

[bdub76]

I replace my hard drives at 5 years. You’re pushing your luck statistically with them failing.

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another good one:

The SSD Edition: 2022 Drive Stats Mid-year Review

Andy Klein's much anticipated 2022 SSD Midyear Drive Stats Report is here. Read on to see the findings.

www.backblaze.com

 

[degrub]

watch out for max drive size limits if any in the existing chassis and software.

 

[Samir]

Most people forget about the nas unit itself as a point of failure and only worry about the drives.

I'm a big proponent of 'don't fix it if it isn't broken', but I'm also a big proponent of having sufficient backups and backup workflows. The easiest thing would be to get a second nas with some new enterprise drives (not that nas enterprise-wanna-be stuff) and keep an updated copy on the new. So when the day comes that you do have a failure, you basically don't change a thing except thinker with fixing the old nas and getting it back in service or replacing it with another.

 

[thiggins]

I hope you have your NAS on a UPS. Even if you don't get power failures, it helps protect against power spikes and surges much better than an outlet surge protector.

And I hope you have backup.

Real-life example of RAID is not a backup

My always-on home automation, web server, HD TV recording PC in the garage has run for 5 or so years 24/7. Has RAID1 motherboard, two 500GB disks (WD). And other disks. A C: partition in the RAID, and another for data and videos. No one ever uses this PC from the keyboard. No risky web surfing...

www.snbforums.com

 

[bdub76]

I hope you have your NAS on a UPS. Even if you don't get power failures, it helps protect against power spikes and surges much better than an outlet surge protector.

And I hope you have backup.

Real-life example of RAID is not a backup

My always-on home automation, web server, HD TV recording PC in the garage has run for 5 or so years 24/7. Has RAID1 motherboard, two 500GB disks (WD). And other disks. A C: partition in the RAID, and another for data and videos. No one ever uses this PC from the keyboard. No risky web surfing...

www.snbforums.com

Good point.

What's a good UPS to get for this purpose? I hadn't thought about this.

 

[thiggins]

Most anything will do as long as it supports the power load. I've used a lot of APCs in the past. But my home was in an area that lost power a lot. And the lower-end APCs don't handle the imperfect sine wave put out by a generator. They would keep tripping over to running on battery, which would not last that long.

So I started using Tripp-Lites. But found they didn't last.

IMO any electronic thing that doesn't run on a battery should be on a UPS. My router, NAS and TV and soundbar all are.

 

[Tech Junky]

I use one of these https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01II46HZQ/?tag=snbforums-20 while its not a UPS it does offer really good protection for power events. It has a higher than normal joule rating which is where the protection comes from and durability is better than your average $10 power strip.

I put some thought into what to get with putting some higher end equipment onto the power supply from the wall this time around. I've been using it for ~5 years now and it's been worth every penny. There was a period of time when the power wasn't stable and it handled it without blinking an eye. Of course it would have been nice to have some battery power but, for the watts needed that's an expensive proposition.

For my internet equipment though since I switched off Cable to FWA I can run the FWA GW off USBC @ ~5W and use a power bank that supplies 15V+ to get it to power up and put it inline between a USB AC adapter and the GW and the power bank gives me 16 hours of juice. I can use the PB as well on my laptop for an additional 2 hours of run time.

It all comes down to how creative you want to get and how much you are willing to spend to make things work w/o traditional AC power.

 

[bdub76]

I'm looking at this one now:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01FWAZEIU/?tag=snbforums-20

 

[Tech Junky]

The thing a lot of people don't consider with UPS setups is the devices plugged in need to communicate with the UPS to trigger a shutdown sequence. If you're not there to know the power is out to shutdown your stuff it just drops like a normal power outage.

If the power goes out and you spend that $80 on a UPS you better be within 20 minutes of your place to get there to do a proper shutdown. Probably less than that time though with how unreliable the times quoted actually are IRL. As those UPS batteries sit plugged in over time they lose capacity as well.

 

[bdub76]

The thing a lot of people don't consider with UPS setups is the devices plugged in need to communicate with the UPS to trigger a shutdown sequence. If you're not there to know the power is out to shutdown your stuff it just drops like a normal power outage.

If the power goes out and you spend that $80 on a UPS you better be within 20 minutes of your place to get there to do a proper shutdown. Probably less than that time though with how unreliable the times quoted actually are IRL. As those UPS batteries sit plugged in over time they lose capacity as well.

This isn't true with Synology NAS. You can connect it via USB to configure this bit.

UPS | DSM - Synology Knowledge Center

Synology Knowledge Center offers comprehensive support, providing answers to frequently asked questions, troubleshooting steps, software tutorials, and all the technical documentation you may need.

kb.synology.com

What are the Best Synology NAS UPS Devices in 2024?

This tutorial looks at the best Synology NAS UPS devices that you can purchase to ensure your NAS stays online and maintains RAID reliability!

www.wundertech.net

This is what I'm looking to do.

 

[dosborne]

Raid is not a backup. Sounds like you have no protection against accidental file deletion, malware, ransomware, fire, theft, NAS failure and many other things. I hope the data on the NAS is not particularly important to you or your first consideration should be a backup strategy that reflects the importance of your data.

 

[ddaenen1]

I am running a 9 year old Synology RS214 with 2 x 4Tb WD drives in RAID0 running 24/7 as a Time Machine backup for 2 Macbooks air and fileserver which i backup daily to onedrive and in the current operating conditions, i figure it will run another 9 to 10 years. and that would be perfectly fine as it doesn't handle alot of traffic, doesn't need to be fast or do any other fancy stuff. It is hooked up to an APC UPS though, as all my other critical devices such as router, switch and my TrueNAS server running Nextcloud and Plex.

 

[ddaenen1]

The thing a lot of people don't consider with UPS setups is the devices plugged in need to communicate with the UPS to trigger a shutdown sequence. If you're not there to know the power is out to shutdown your stuff it just drops like a normal power outage.

If the power goes out and you spend that $80 on a UPS you better be within 20 minutes of your place to get there to do a proper shutdown. Probably less than that time though with how unreliable the times quoted actually are IRL. As those UPS batteries sit plugged in over time they lose capacity as well.

That is true but also not entirely correct since that thing in the link can hardly be called a UPS. Seems to me like a load of marketing mumbo jumo, even if the brand is APC. A decent UPS will allow you to do that via either USB or via the LAN.

Here are my 2 cents. Dump the idea of buying that thing and spend your $200 on a real 2nd hand APC Smart-UPS. You will find a decent one for about $100 with a broken battery (when most sell them) and spend the other $100 on buying brandnew replacement cells and fix the battery pack yourself instead of buying a heavily overpriced replacement battery pack from APC. This way, you can configure graceful shutdown and the above is not a concern. I have my router, switch and 2 servers on the UPS and configured so the servers go down first, then the switch and lastly the router. I had a couple of power outages in the past couple of years and always worked like a charm.