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expirediconian | Staff posted Oct 7, 2024 4:01 PM

Synology NAS Enclosures: DS224+ 2-Bay $240, DS923+ 4-Bay

$480

$600

20% off
& More + Free Shippingat B&H Photo Video
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Deal Details
B&H Photo Video has select Synology NAS Enclosures & More on sale below, discount will apply in cart. Shipping is free.

Thanks to Deal Editor iconian for finding this deal.

Available:

Editor's Notes

Written by StrawMan86 | Staff
  • About this Deal:
    • This offer is valid for a limited time only / while supplies last.
    • The prices for the DS923+ and the DS224+ match this previous +66 Frontpage Deal in July.
    • Please see the original post for additional details and give the WIKI and forum comments a read for helpful discussion.

Original Post

Written by iconian | Staff
Product Info
Community Notes
About the Poster
Deal Details
Product Info
Community Notes
About the Poster
B&H Photo Video has select Synology NAS Enclosures & More on sale below, discount will apply in cart. Shipping is free.

Thanks to Deal Editor iconian for finding this deal.

Available:

Editor's Notes

Written by StrawMan86 | Staff
  • About this Deal:
    • This offer is valid for a limited time only / while supplies last.
    • The prices for the DS923+ and the DS224+ match this previous +66 Frontpage Deal in July.
    • Please see the original post for additional details and give the WIKI and forum comments a read for helpful discussion.

Original Post

Written by iconian | Staff

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224 Comments

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Oct 8, 2024 1:47 AM
764 Comments
Joined May 2009
ripplinghurstOct 8, 2024 1:47 AM
764 Comments
Quote from CTRFK8 :
You did not mention your upload speed if you were to be working remotely

Working with videos you want a unit that has at least 4 bays , using raid 5 with 10GB/s network. If you want to upload files to the unit faster install a NVME as a cache drive to move onto the array later which would give you around 350-550MB/s with enterprise drives

to solve all this i would look into a synology that just uses SSDs with a 10GB network card
but then again you have to have the upload speed to work remotely and your network needs to be 10GB/s and i recommend cat6a
Thanks for the reply. I can't use SSds only for 12TB of storage that I have...also I don't care much for remote access and upload. i wanna work from the counch or the backyard with a laptop and access the files. i do have ethernett everywhere (cat 6, but using 1 GB/s)

I'll look into 10 GB/s devices.

I have an desktop PC with several sata 3 big drives. I dont use it much, but when I do its very fast. Problem is they're jbod with varying sizes which is a pain. The two USB drives that I have is a temporary compromise.
Oct 8, 2024 1:47 AM
122 Comments
Joined Nov 2013
AnonyM8611Oct 8, 2024 1:47 AM
122 Comments
Quote from CTRFK8 :
sure it opens up alot of bandwidth. For Iscsi , SMB, VMs , sharing files across the network etc.
1GB/s technology is about 24 years old now using CAT5e. Even then if this is all you have most routers now have 2.5GB/s ports and so do motherboards so why stick to 1GB/s? unless you are just managing photos and syncing. These type of units with 1GB/s are ripping off the consumer IMO. The only reason i would consider a synology is because of the Software DSM is very user friendly , especially when it comes to security and Synology updating the software to make it secure. I would say the software alone is worth 250 bucks.,

They just raised unraid software to 249.00 to attach unlimited storage devices and free os updates for life.
so basically you are getting the 2 bay hardware for free. I would not trust qnap, or terramaster which is a chinese company
Its a big G and a little b GB and Gb are very different.

One is gigabyte and one is gigabit. Generally 1Gb/s is 100MB/s (using base 10). 1GB/s is 1000MB/s. So that would actually be 10Gb.
Last edited by AnonyM8611 October 7, 2024 at 07:10 PM.
Oct 8, 2024 1:51 AM
122 Comments
Joined Nov 2013
AnonyM8611Oct 8, 2024 1:51 AM
122 Comments
Quote from tommytqt :
Stupid question. If i buy the 4 bays now but only use 2 bay. Will it be a good idea? Can i add more drives later without rebuilding the RAID set up again? I keep debating whether to get 2 bays or 4 bays. I am thinking about the cost to have this thing running 24/7 as well as the HD cost.

Also are they loud? I assume the 4 bays one has 2 fans on the back will be louder.

I only need it to store movies and watch them with Infuse, but mainly photo back up for the family.

Thank you for your advice.
Yes you can add them but you should get 3 as a minimum if you want your data protected. The only way to protect a two drive setup is with a mirror which essentially only gives you one disk of space. (All of the data is copied to both drives.). Or back it up to something else. Thats raid 1. Raid 5 needs a minimum of 3 drives. You lose 1 drives space for parity. If you have 3 10TB drives you get 30GB of useable space. 9x 10TB drives you get 80TB of space. They are not loud. You can adjust the fan speed as well.
Oct 8, 2024 1:54 AM
122 Comments
Joined Nov 2013
AnonyM8611Oct 8, 2024 1:54 AM
122 Comments
Quote from wbs3333 :
I would go for the 4 bays. The fans are not loud, I have mine running the fans on high all the time and don't notice them. What you should worry more about are the hard drives. Depending which ones you pick they might be noticeable loud.

If you pick SHR as your raid then you can grow your raid later by adding more of the same size or bigger drives. You could also add new drives and just set them up as their own volume.
If you add different sized drives you arent going to get reliable performance. It will change depending on the number of drives the data is stripped across. A simple example if you have 2 large drives and 2 small drives some of the data will be stripped across all 4 while other data maybe only on 2 or 3. So performance will change depending on the dats location. Not an issue if they are all the same sized drives.
Oct 8, 2024 1:59 AM
612 Comments
Joined Jul 2023
HappyBirthdayBtchOct 8, 2024 1:59 AM
612 Comments
Quote from AnonyM8611 :
Hahaha filling up all bays is a common mistake. So what buy bigger drives to put in the holes you do use? Im going to check out this "space rex" guy. Done watched a couple of his videos.
That guy "spacerex" is an idiot. First one he is talking about westerdigital software on a synology nas showing warnings on drives if they are online for more than 3 years and if there is an issue you wouldnt know. You can set up different kinds of alerts. You dont have to use the WD software in the synology nas. Here is an even better one…. Synology wont actually let you use any drive without getting an its "an supported drive". Unless you buy the drives from synology. I have had 4 8 bay synology nas arrays. Currently running 1817 and 1821. Synology back when 4TB drives were around put 4TB seagate drives on the supported list. Mine kept dropping offline. Contacted them then they said it was only with a specific firmware that they didnt publish. Given that I was an enterprise storage engineer at the time for a large server manufacturer I got the firmware directly from seagate and force flashed it. (The real issue was too aggressive head parking timings.). Leave drives out? In a real enterprise environment they have drive blanks in to keep airflow correct. So keep the empty ones in. Or buy what you need. Leaving open slots…. Link me that video I would like to see his justifications. Maybe its because I come from an enterprise SAN design background but i dont agree … you should keep slots open. Waste of money. Buy what you need. Get wd or similar usb drives and take the drives out and put them in synology. They are usually enterprise drives. Currently running ~400TB using iscsi and NFS 4.1 on an Esx cluster. Mixing different drives sizes using shr isnt going to perform as well. And its a huge hassle to recover if it breaks. Ext4 i can rebuild a failed raidset at the command line. When you see the your volume has crashed for the first time… but the data is still there…. Most people have to blow it away and restore. Synology also takes functionality away with dsm upgrades. Nfs 4.1 was on the boxes then they removed it at a later release. (I use 4.1 with multipathing for my esx cluster.). The few times I have had issues I was able to fix it before their support could. Drives falling out of the raid set, scsi luns getting locked etc etc.
Nobody reading all that - particularly without any paragraph breaks.
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1
Oct 8, 2024 1:59 AM
122 Comments
Joined Nov 2013
AnonyM8611Oct 8, 2024 1:59 AM
122 Comments
Quote from davidneedham :
Not a stupid question at all! I've heard that it's always a good idea to have an empty bay or two available for future expansion. My understanding is that you just add the new drive, click button in the UI telling it what to do, and it starts assimilating it.

Check out SpaceRex on YouTube. He has a few beginner-focused videos and regularly mentions that filling up all the bays is a common mistake.
Its not a good idea to have bays free. For example if you add 2 drives later and they are different types, have different speeds or cache.. those different performance characteristics can cause drives to fall out of the raid set… with only 2 drives unless you use raid 1 you wont have any protection for a drive failure. If you do leave them empty make sure you leave the empty carriers in. Otherwise the airflow for cooling the drives can get messed up. (Pretty big deal on servers and enterprise storage arrays.)
2
Oct 8, 2024 2:04 AM
122 Comments
Joined Nov 2013
AnonyM8611Oct 8, 2024 2:04 AM
122 Comments
Quote from MerryCaption1810 :
Nobody reading all that - particularly without any paragraph breaks.
Typing from my phone after dental surgery Smilie. I am a Fibre Channel Storage Design Architect with 20+ years of experience. So if someone doesnt want to avail themselves of some knowledge because of the format. I dont mind. The people who do read it might glean something worthwhile. Cheers and thanks for the feedback.
6

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Oct 8, 2024 2:12 AM
122 Comments
Joined Nov 2013
AnonyM8611Oct 8, 2024 2:12 AM
122 Comments
Quote from AnonyM8611 :
Its a big G and a little b GB and Gb are very different.

One is gigabyte and one is gigabit. Generally 1Gb/s is 100MB/s (using base 10). 1GB/s is 1000MB/s. So that would actually be 10Gb.
I do agree about the synology software. Its easy.. it used to be easier. I run a few synology VMs as well. They have been doing questionable things for years tho. I think this will be my last synology box since they will mark all your drives unsupported unless you buy them from them.
Oct 8, 2024 2:16 AM
122 Comments
Joined Nov 2013
AnonyM8611Oct 8, 2024 2:16 AM
122 Comments
Quote from ripplinghurst :
Thanks for the reply. I can't use SSds only for 12TB of storage that I have...also I don't care much for remote access and upload. i wanna work from the counch or the backyard with a laptop and access the files. i do have ethernett everywhere (cat 6, but using 1 GB/s)

I'll look into 10 GB/s devices.

I have an desktop PC with several sata 3 big drives. I dont use it much, but when I do its very fast. Problem is they're jbod with varying sizes which is a pain. The two USB drives that I have is a temporary compromise.
Its 10Gb not 10GB. One is bit the other is byte makes a difference of ~800%. 10GB would be 100Gb (using base 10 to make math easier.)
Oct 8, 2024 2:19 AM
122 Comments
Joined Nov 2013
AnonyM8611Oct 8, 2024 2:19 AM
122 Comments
Quote from ripplinghurst :
From the comments above it seems that this is too slow to store and backup photos and gopro videos?

My photos top out at 47.3 megapixels or 70MB. I want to browse them remotely and only load on my laptop the ones I plan to edit.

Is that doable or the network will be too slow?

Currently I am uskng two 16tb USB3.0 drives. One is writen on import for backup. I'm not happy with the speed.
The more drives you add to a raid array the faster it will go. I can get between 200-600MB/s with 8 drives in a ds1821. Raid stripes the data across all the drives at the same time so it is the total aggregate speed of all the drives combined. (Minus parity overhead etc.). Then it comes to your network. 1Gb is only around 100 is MB/s so you need to use multiple 1Gb NICs or have faster ones.
Oct 8, 2024 2:23 AM
122 Comments
Joined Nov 2013
AnonyM8611Oct 8, 2024 2:23 AM
122 Comments
Quote from CTRFK8 :
I would only recommend the 2 bay unit as 95% of the people out there using a ISP only have 40MB-50MB/s upload.

If you truely want to build a NAS to do VMs/ iscsi/smb and all sorts of backup/sync things look into True nas scale it is free. Build a 24 bay

keep synology just for cloud base stuff for set that up to host sync/backups/cloud data sharing outside you LAN since DSM is the most user friendly and will ensure your security is fool proof when setting up.

If you are still interested /stuck on synology get the 4 bay , spend the extra 100 bucks and get a 10GB lan card by synology.
it is completely stupid to throw in a bunch of enterprise drives to do raid 5 and then only get 150MB/s over your network.
Just does not make sense to spend this kind of money unless you find a better deal on synology 5 bay or 8 bay units that have 10GB lan already installed or you can buy a SFP+ or 10GB lan card cheap that is compatible. There are many enterprise SFP+ cards on ebay for 20-30 bucks that do 10GB/s
People dont have 50MB uploads unless they are on fiber typically. They might have 50Mb or 5MB (the big B and little b are important 50 Mb is 5 MB). You can get cheap 10Gb cards but then you have to have the network to run them. I usually get mine off ebay. Intel cards work. I have 2 10Gb nics for my synology arrays. (Well 1 dual port nic in each.)
Oct 8, 2024 2:25 AM
122 Comments
Joined Nov 2013
AnonyM8611Oct 8, 2024 2:25 AM
122 Comments
Quote from NotThatCup :
Think I might get the DS224+ for a Plex server. I regret not jumping on the B&H deal a few weeks ago. Anyone have advice? I was looking at maybe grabbing the 12TB refurbished eBay drives that keep popping up and then grabbing a RAM upgrade as well from Amazon.
If you are going refurbished get at least 3 drives for a raid 5. Alternatively you can get external usb drives and "shuck" them. The WD drives usually have enterprise drives in them. I have 16 of them running right now with no issues. Just buy them at the same time so you get the same model.
Oct 8, 2024 2:29 AM
122 Comments
Joined Nov 2013
AnonyM8611Oct 8, 2024 2:29 AM
122 Comments
Quote from marvin83 :
Synology supports the following RAID type expansions:
- Basic to RAID 5
- RAID 1 to RAID 5
- RAID 5 to RAID6 (with 2 or more drives)
- SHR-1 to SHR-2 (with 2 or more drives)

I'd recommend going from R1 —> R5. While I wouldn't recommend doing R5 in an enterprise world, it should be perfectly fine for home use/your use case.
Depends on the number of drives. Most enterprise stuff i deal with is raid 6 now a days. Depending on the storage manufacturer and how they handle failures. I would recommend raid 5 on ext4 not shr or brtfs. Easier to rebuild an ext4 raid set without losing data than the others. (Unless you are using some of the advanced features.)
Oct 8, 2024 2:30 AM
379 Comments
Joined Jul 2016
TechOrangeOct 8, 2024 2:30 AM
379 Comments
Walmart already offering both DS224+ and DS923+ at $240 and $480.
Interesting to know is return period for DS923+ seems to be until JAn31st.

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Synolo...2605215022

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Oct 8, 2024 2:31 AM
122 Comments
Joined Nov 2013
AnonyM8611Oct 8, 2024 2:31 AM
122 Comments
Quote from gr8kingalex :
how can I use this as an alternate to store photos in my phone? now i'm nearing 2 TB and planning to move to NAS instead of paying for 6 TB plan.
can I replace the synology photos in place of photos app on iphone? meaning, when I take a photo, can I configure to save it directly to Synology cloud solution instead of icloud? thanks!!
Yes you can. If you leave the app open it will sync. If you are outside your home network you can do it but it takes a little more work. But when you go home it will sync all your photos to the nas.

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