2y ago

is this any good

www.amazon.nl /ORICO-docking-schijven-freelancer-thuiskantoor/dp/B07W6MF1TG/

So i want to do a large uograde to my “homelab” but since i dont want to spent 1200€ on an empty synology nas and another 1200€ on hdd, i saw this on amazon (sorry site is dutch) I have a synology ds416play with 40tb and want to use this new one with 80tb hdds and a lenovo m600 i5 attached with some nas software. Probably running on mint linux (no linux expert, heared this was the most newby friendly). Would this be good enough? Or should i just buy a synology rs1221rp+ My network just got expanded also to 2.5g internet and 10gbit network. There is so much out there that cant choose.

EDIT: tnx. Didnt need a lot of convincing but the usb is the killer. So gonna look further.

EDIT 2: thanks for all the advise and tips!! :)

19 comments

I would avoid USB hard drive enclosures. Did you already buy the Lenovo system? If not, you'd be much better off building a pc in a simple tower case and having your drives mounted inside and connected directly via SATA or through an HBA.
EDIT: Additionally, for your OS, I would look into TrueNAS Scale instead of Linux Mint.
- Yeah the usb is indeed not the fastest. The lenovo mini pcs i already have (got 3 different kinds) and want to make them servers just havent gotten around to it. Thing is if i build a pc just for the nas thats going to cost me about the same as buying a synology or other nas. But yeah usb not ideal.
  
  You'd be surprised by how much PC you can get for way less than the 1200€ that you said the Synology box would cost. This person was able to snag a very competent base system for a NAS for under 300€, and in another video they walk through how to build one from scratch using mostly standard parts
- Or Unraid if you are willing to pay their price, since Unraid is more suitable for Linux newbie.
  
  I will look into that. Doesnt have to be linux but seems most versatile.
- Yeah was afraid of that. Think those or one of theae lenovo mini pcs has a sata on the back.

Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:

Fewer Letters	More Letters
NAS	Network-Attached Storage
NVMe	Non-Volatile Memory Express interface for mass storage
SAN	Storage Area Network
SATA	Serial AT Attachment interface for mass storage
SSD	Solid State Drive mass storage

5 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 6 acronyms.

[Thread #106 for this sub, first seen 4th Sep 2023, 20:35] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]

Why are you upgrading? Is it to take advantage of the 10g network speeds?
- Because. Well, space…. Cant really delete anything and it just keeps getting bigger and bigger. And if i have to search through a lot of files and other things in my house and studio have to do this also, i like to get rid of the network bottleneck. And, well its going to be more and more multiGig routers and switches. And i like speed :)
Set up your existing PCs as a NAS or SAN with probably unraid. I really like that you wanna use a small PC to do the work. Big, heavy server PCs are not that fun. I assume you have a server rack set up for this 40tb synology? If you're really already so gungho about this storage be looking for a 2U used server on ebay to fill your next spot. Not a 3 or 4U. Go smaller than you might need. Yeah, there is a lot of hardware out there - remember that software is there to solve the problems.
- Those lenovo thinkcenters are small but there very robust, dont consume a lot and basicly have to function as a mb for hdds. A synology nas has way less cpu power. Tnx for the tips.
In your shoes, I'd put the money in a proper case (eg. fractal node 304/804) rather than an USB enclosure (no, you don't need hot-swap for a home server): besides the performance issues of USB (which may or may not be an actual issue depending on what you plan to do with the NAS), having a single box makes everything simpler.
For components to fill up the case, you can look at second-hand computers on ebay.
As for the OS, if you are not familiar with linux you may want to look at truenas scale (which is linux).
If you never built a PC, you'll have to do a lot of research not to buy incompatible components... otherwise you could rely on a friend/shop or stick to sinology and similar.

19 comments