RAID5 vs SHR (again?)

[Rosco]

I'm sure this has come up before, but looking on the forums, I couldn't find the answers, so here I am again.

So, I'm a little confused on which I should go with given my circumstances: I decided to go with a DS414, and load it up with 4x WD Red 4TB drives.

Everything I read raves about the advantages of SHR over standard RAID5, but honestly, given I'm going to be using uniform drives, is there really any point? I'll say up front, I do understand how both work, so I don't need an explanation of that, but I'm trying to see what advantage SHR might provide me that I'm not seeing right now.

SHR allows for flexable upgrades, though I'm already maxing out the NAS with currently available drives. Yes, there will be 5TB drives available one day, but I don't see myself needing them any time soon. The reason for maxing out with 4TB drives, which is already far beyond what I need at the moment, is for that very purpose of future-proofing. Spend a little more now so I don't have to a lot more later.

If I do decide to put in bigger drives one day, I'll do them all together. I'm a believer that drive uniformity provides that extra little bit of stability. With RAID5, while time consuming, it shouldn't be so difficult to swap in new drives one at a time, and then expand the volume into the new unused space.

The other big advantage from SHR is it allows to easily add more drives, not just upgrading to bigger ones. The DS414 only has 4 bays, and doesn't play with the expansion units, so that's moot... right?

If I were to get a bigger NAS in a few years time, would I be able to just take the SHR disks out and drop them into a new NAS and still have it all work like cake?

Therefor, I can't see the advantage of SHR for this setup. But like I said, I could very well be missing something.

Thoughts?

 

[stevech]

In a 2 bay NAS, I elected to use two volumes instead of SHR or RAID.
Much better backup safety as the file systems are independent on two volumes. And on one, I use time backup for key folders on the main volume where all the shares are located.
Maybe the same concepts apply to a 4 drive NAS.

I rank drive failure likelihood lower than human error (oops on delete or hosed up editing), theft of hardware, NAS mainboard/power supply failure.

I do have a windows utiltity to mount/read ext4 drives from the NAS should I ever need it.

 

[Rosco]

That sounds like a good setup too.

The setup I'm coming from is three individual USB external HDs, most of which containing different parts of the same library of media. They all have the same folders organized in the same way, just different contents inside. It's ridiculous really. I want a single large volume to put it all in one place. Hence a RAID5 (or SHR).

Not looking for backup. None of this data is critical, and doesn't need backing up. I have other backup methods for my important stuff anyway. The NAS is going to store almost exclusively data that is entirely trivial. I just don't want to loose it for something as simple as a drive failure. I'm not worry about human error, because that's just my own damn fault. Not worried about theft, since there's nothing of value on it. (Except the unit itself, I guess...)

If the NAS itself fails, that's one reason I'm asking which to go with. I can simply replace the NAS unit itself too, but can I just plug the drives into a new NAS and have it recognize the RAID and away it goes? I kinda doubt it's quite that simple, but is it possible to do? Would it make a difference if it was SHR rather than RAID5?

Honestly, JBOD would serve my purposes too, but there's not even redundancy there, so RAID it is.

Thanks again for your input!

 

[stevech]

That sounds like a good setup too.

The setup I'm coming from is three individual USB external HDs, most of which containing different parts of the same library of media. They all have the same folders organized in the same way, just different contents inside. It's ridiculous really. I want a single large volume to put it all in one place. Hence a RAID5 (or SHR).

Not looking for backup. None of this data is critical, and doesn't need backing up. I have other backup methods for my important stuff anyway. The NAS is going to store almost exclusively data that is entirely trivial. I just don't want to loose it for something as simple as a drive failure. I'm not worry about human error, because that's just my own damn fault. Not worried about theft, since there's nothing of value on it. (Except the unit itself, I guess...)

If the NAS itself fails, that's one reason I'm asking which to go with. I can simply replace the NAS unit itself too, but can I just plug the drives into a new NAS and have it recognize the RAID and away it goes? I kinda doubt it's quite that simple, but is it possible to do? Would it make a difference if it was SHR rather than RAID5?

Honestly, JBOD would serve my purposes too, but there's not even redundancy there, so RAID it is.

Thanks again for your input!

Kind of a circular argument! You say the data loss isn't important. They why bother with RAID. Just get a single bay NAS with one big drive. RAID is of course much less capacity than non-RAID.

 

[Rosco]

I suppose it kinda is. A single bay NAS isn't going to hold 12TB though.

I never really considered not using a RAID setup even in a 4-bay unit though. I just assumed RAID5 or SHR would be idea in that scenario. Just trying to figure out which is better in my case.

Basically, I guess I'm not looking for backup, just protection against hardware failure.

 

[stevech]

?
An external backup is the protection for a NAS that fails such that you MUST have that backup. Or human error (not uncommon). And out of thieves' sight.

 

[Deleted member 28741]

Drop drives into another NAS?

I wouldn't think that it is possible to swop discs out of one NAS box into another.

In fact I tried it over the weekend and had more error messages and flashing red lights than I have ever seen before

I tried to revive a 4 disc buffalo box for a week with no luck .. I could format and check each disc but couldn't build a raid 10 without errors. And swapping in a drive from another two bay buffalo box only made matters worse. I almost got a hammer to the thing .. But in the end set it up as two raid 1 arrays...but by that time had lost all confidence in its ability to store important stuff. I kept it though .. Might come in handy one day.

I ended up buying two x 2 bay Synology boxes .. One 214p set as raid 1 and the other 213j with two single volumes. One of the volumes I am using as backup for the raid 1 box and the other volume .. I haven't decided yet!

I did consider the 414 as well but wanted the ability to write to mac discs which the 214p can do.

I also have USB HDD backups of the really important stuff offsite just in case.

Really happy with the Synology boxes and their DSM os