Who is using a NAS to play MKV files. (1 Viewer)

[crussader]

Just to confirm, all shared folders have read access set up for user "plex". There is also a "plex" folder (created during the plex install) where user plex has full control.

 

[crussader]

Broke down and created a plex account. That allowed me to get things up and running. Only had one tv series loaded on the NAS. Planning on getting some movies on there later tonight.

 

[SuckoutKing]

Plex is awesome!

 

[justsomedude]

FYI...

DSM 7.0 just dropped from Synology. It looks like a substantial update.

https://www.windowscentral.com/synology-dsm-7

 

[Nex]

Don't see much in there that would be of interest to me personally. Most of it is geared towards larger scale business use.
Synology Photos maybe, but I highly doubt it'd work correctly with my Lightroom libraries. And that alone I can probably get as a package update on the old DSM.

 

[Tommy]

FYI...

DSM 7.0 just dropped from Synology. It looks like a substantial update.

https://www.windowscentral.com/synology-dsm-7

Time to update!

It used to look pretty until I started to add stuff later.

 

[justsomedude]

Question for the Synology folks...

I'm running SHR with 2-drive fault tolerance in an 8-bay unit.
The older drives from my 4-bay are 6TB.
I've been filling the empty bays with 8TB drives.

I eventually want to go back and upgrade the 6TB drives to 8TB drives... can I do this one by one? Or does it need to be in sets of 2?

 

[buffalojim]

Question for the Synology folks...

I'm running SHR with 2-drive fault tolerance in an 8-bay unit.
My old drives from my 4-bay are 6TB.
I've been filling the empty bays with 8TB drives.

I eventually want to go back and upgrade the 6TB drives to 8TB drives... can I do this one by one? Or does it need to be in sets of 2?

View attachment 729034

Yeah, you can do one by one, at least I filled my 8 bay that way because 10 and 12tb are not cheap.

 

[justsomedude]

Yeah, you can do one by one, at least I filled my 8 bay that way because 10 and 12tb are not cheap.

OK... cool.

But the NAS/RAID won't recognize the increased capacity until at least 2-bays are equal size, is that correct? If there's an odd number of storage devices, I think it defaults to the smaller capacity per each set of 2 drives. I feel like I read that somewhere. Or am I wrong on this?

 

[buffalojim]

OK... cool.

But the NAS/RAID won't recognize the increased capacity until at least 2-bays are equal size, is that correct? If there's an odd number of storage devices, it defaults to the lower capacity or something per set of 2. I feel like I read that somewhere. Or am I wrong on this?

Its something like that, if I remember right. Synology I believe has a drive calculator too somewhere on their site where you can fill in what drives you have and are going to add to show how it all works. I think my above statement is true but better double check to be sure.

Check this out... https://www.synology.com/en-us/support/RAID_calculator?hdds=10 TB

 

[Tommy]

FYI...

DSM 7.0 just dropped from Synology. It looks like a substantial update.

https://www.windowscentral.com/synology-dsm-7

I'm glad I checked! I have two Synology units. DS1621 and DS720. I have Samsung SSDs in 1621, which I use as my network drive for all my systems, and also Iron Wolf Pros drives in it for recording my IP cams. The 720 has Iron Wolf Pro drives and is used to back up my 1620 network drive. I had reset my router earlier this month, and my 720 had a different IP and was no longer backing up my 1621.

I finally set up Reserved IPs in my router for the devices to have a static IP. I've meant to do this for a while.

 

[justsomedude]

Its something like that, if I remember right. Synology I believe has a drive calculator too somewhere on their site where you can fill in what drives you have and are going to add to show how it all works. I think my above statement is true but better double check to be sure.

Check this out... https://www.synology.com/en-us/support/RAID_calculator?hdds=10 TB

Oooo I forgot about that link. Thanks!

Yea... looks like I need to do blocks of 2 on the old drives (to realize the capacity increase). But it's nice knowing I can do it a drive at a time, over time.

 

[buffalojim]

Oooo I forgot about that link. Thanks!

Yea... looks like I need to do blocks of 2 on the old drives (to realize the capacity increase). But it's nice knowing I can do it a drive at a time, over time.

Yeah, for sure. The initial plunge into a NAS was quite expensive at the time. I have a 1817+ and I bought the unit and four 10tb IronWolf HDDs. Shit was expensive, cost me like $2500 to get it all going in SHR2. I slowly added a drive at a time afterwards.

 

[Nex]

Oooo I forgot about that link. Thanks!

Yea... looks like I need to do blocks of 2 on the old drives (to realize the capacity increase). But it's nice knowing I can do it a drive at a time, over time.

Keep in mind one thing though. Every time you expand an existing array with a new drive or by swapping a smaller for a larger, it's going to take a very long time (talk 2-figure hours) to reorganize all the data.

And during this time frame, the data on the NAS is extremely vulnerable! Doesn't matter at all what kind of RAID you have set up - it won't help you in such a case. The RAID will only be of help during normal operation when a drive fails. Not during expansion/reshaping. Do not do this under any circumstances without having made a full backup of the NAS' contents to some other storage first. You cannot pause this process, and if it is forcibly "paused" (like after a power outage) you cannot resume it. You will lose access to your files on that RAID.

This, in combination with impatience, is what made me break the RAID on my NAS at the beginning of last year, when I then was 4 months without access to the files on it and paid well over €4k to a specialized data recovery company to get the data out.

 

[justsomedude]

Keep in mind one thing though. Every time you expand an existing array with a new drive or by swapping a smaller for a larger, it's going to take a very long time (talk 2-figure hours) to reorganize all the data.

And during this time frame, the data on the NAS is extremely vulnerable! Doesn't matter at all what kind of RAID you have set up - it won't help you in such a case. The RAID will only be of help during normal operation when a drive fails. Not during expansion/reshaping. Do not do this under any circumstances without having made a full backup of the NAS' contents to some other storage first. You cannot pause this process, and if it is forcibly "paused" (like after a power outage) you cannot resume it. You will lose access to your files on that RAID.

This, in combination with impatience, is what made me break the RAID on my NAS at the beginning of last year, when I then was 4 months without access to the files on it and paid well over €4k to a specialized data recovery company to get the data out.

Oh... don't worry... I KNOW!

When I switched from my 4-bay unit to the newer 8-bay, added two 8TB drives, and changed the RAID configuration from SHR-1 to SHR-2... it took 17 DAYS to perform the parity consistency check.

I was in a panic the entire time, wondering if anything would still exist afterwards... posting on Reddit and the Synology forums for help. Everyone just told me to sit tight and wait it out. Thankfully... 100% of my data remained upon completion. Talk about a sweat.

I was so freaked out I even saved screengrabs documenting the process...

I remember I started this before I had any critical components on a UPS. I read about the data loss issue if the process is stopped with power failure, etc., and started panicking. I even discussed it with @One Eyed Dollar (who helped me with my first NAS purchase some years ago), to see if there was any way to switch power to a UPS in the middle of the process (since it was taking so long).

The craziest part...?

I was sitting at my computer watching the process complete the last few hundredths of a percentage points on DSM. And within about 30-minutes of completion we had a total power outage. It was short, only a couple of minutes, but it would've been enough to zap the entire RAID.

How bonkers is that?