Expensive la.... Right now 2 TB SSD about RM 800 - RM 1000. 2 TB Ironwolf RM 300+. 4TB RM 500+. I would really like to try, but the cost... ugh! But I'm surprised that you feel HDD is laggy. I would think the data connection is the problem, not the speed of the HDD.

So I have dug out some old PCs, and now trying Open Media Vault. Wow, I'm blown away! Really responsive and fast! Reading up to see how the setup for OMV is, and also adding all the necessary software. Quite a steep learning curve, but OMV seems to be able to do everything a pre-built NAS can. I'll try to write up the experience when I can.

Hardware that I'm playing around with:
1. Intel D945GCLF mainboard, integrated Atom 230, 2 GB DDR2, 10/100 network. OMV installed on old 3.5" 80 GB HDD.
- Very low power consumption, (Atom TDP only 4W!) but the built in 10/100 limits speed to about 20+ MB/s file transfer over the network.
- Expansion is PCI slot, so no way of adding Giga network. Bummer.
- 10/100 network no buffering with 1080p 5.1 playback.

2. Gigabyte GA-A55M-DS2 mainboard, AMD A6-3500 3 core, 4 GB DDR3, built in Atheros 10/100/1000, OMV installed on 8 GB USB Flash drive. 2 different sized 2.5" HDD spanned together to make one bigger drive.
- Performs absolutely stellar as compared to my Synology DS212j. Snappy web interface, boots up fast, shutdown fast. Speedy.
- Network file copying at 100+ MB/s, to and from the NAS. Tested with 4 GB iso file. Slowest I see is when there are a lot of small files being copied.

3. Dell Vostro, i3 2120, 4 GB DDR3, built in Realtek 10/100/1000. Just started, but I think might be like #2 above.

So before you all say it, yes, I'm a cheapskate. Yes, I'm still using a DS212j from donkey's years ago. It still works fine for what I want it to do. And yes, I should get rid of some of the crap I have lying around.

I must add the biggest con of using OMV that I'm facing right now - The information is out there for anything you want to do, but that information is all over the place. You end up reading on multiple forums, watching multiple videos on YT, reading and searching for everything. Very tedious and time consuming.

This post has been edited by stormer.lyn: May 6 2021, 09:29 PM

SSD maybe forever will never be lower price per-GB than HDD. I only use SSD to store frequently accessed files so doesn't need to have the largest size SSD. Other rarely or never accessed files store in HDD. Even on local network, loading some thumbnails on HDD will take one or two seconds while on SSD it's instantaneous. On remote connection, because of the latency and data speed, it's much more worse. With SSD it makes it more bearable.

Because of the time consuming and tediousness are the reasons I don't want to built own NAS. If for hobby project I can understand, or for building dozens or more drive bays NAS. But if for saving some bucks for 2 or 4 bays, it's really not worth the hassle and time.

https://www.synology.com/en-global/releaseNote/DSM

Synology released DSM 7 Release Candidate!

Stable release might come soon, maybe in a month or two.

So better clean install or just upgrade, glad that Photos being taking care ; Packages - Synology Moments and Photo Station will be upgraded to and merged as Synology Photos. is it

For me I'll just upgrade it since there's too many settings, apps and accounts that need to be redo if clean install.

I been running DSM 7 as VM since yesterday just to get a feel and familiarized myself with the new OS.

It said my NAS won’t receive automatically upgrade and got to DL from the site.

Don’t care. Wait few month later than update.

Quiet a lot changes with the new DSM.
Especially on Photos which is replacement for Moments and Photo Station. Shared Space is different than Sharing.

Nice.. will try over the weekend then

Sian. Got to learn again.

And wonder is that a improvement or just shook shook change interface.

Different ways to do things now. Don't know if improvement or not.
I didn't use Photo Station so don't know how much difference it is than Photos. For Moments users, now the snapped photos won't appear in Drive unless it was moved/copied to Shared Space. In Drive, it will appear in Team Folder.

The default space in Photos is Personal Space. If share pictures to other users from here it will be listed in Sharing for sharer and sharee. Can set the sharee have permission to view only, or plus download, or plus add/remove photos. But pictures shared to sharee, the user don't have ability to remove those pictures shared to him/her in Photos

Want to share by folder can only be done in Shared Space. Pictures in shared folder will not appear in Sharing. Here can set other user access permission, if set as Management, it have same permission as admin. If set as Entry, it can only view folder that are shared to them. Here also same thing again, if Entry then it can't remove pictures being shared to them.

Maybe I got the permission wrongly, very funny if user cannot don't want pictures to be shared for them.

DSM 7 still not available for me... guess waiting next quarter

Stable Release not yet out, only have Release Candidate which is almost same as Stable Release. But Release Candidate won't be pushed as update to users.
I'm running it as virtual machine in my NAS so that can try it. If you want to try you can download this and run as virtual machine.
https://www.synology.com/en-global/support/...rtualDSM#system

Meanwhile, ransomware getting worse. Recently Fujifilm become the latest victim.
https://techcrunch.com/2021/06/03/fujifilm-...k/?guccounter=1

So bad now until White House write open letter to all corporations asking them to step up their security measures for ransomware defense.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/03/us/polit...astructure.html

I also received such ransomeware. But filter up by email antivirus. So didn’t notice much.

My current set-up consists of 5 units of Synology old models for media consumption.

DS1010+ @ TV Series (1080P)
DS410J @ ANIME & CARTOON (720P below)
DS411J @ TV Series (720P below)
DS213J @ P0rn
DS411J @ TV Series (720P below)

Total for all? 40TB capacity.

All the above were bought used or given away by friends. If I have at least 20K cash then can really upgrade to a better Synology with at least 100TB or higher.

would it be nightmare if 1 of the HDD or the unit spoil?

2 units had their HDD replaced b4.

The good thing about Synology is that the unit will warn u first. Then u go out and buy another 2TB drive and replace the faulty one. From there, the system will rebuild the array and u can sleep peacefully.

However, if 2 drives died at the same time, then you're out of luck.

So, a RAID array is NOT a backup. Important files, I usually back up on an external drive and kept it far away.

something for the whole family indeed!

Only if u can access the unit. Plus, I disabled SMB so only my Mac can access it.

I understand this.

I go through all this with 12yrs using Synology. From the HDD spoil to the unit spoil.

1hdd die, 2hdd die, NAS fried, NAS network port surge and NAS intel CPU timing die.

So it would be nightmare for me to maintain that much NAS and HDD.