That's under beta right?

Most new ones do. Just look for it. IEEE 802.3af compliant.

Some of my comments;

Even though in beta the Synology supports 49 cams, I would still split the load to 2 NAS. Try out with one unit of DS-713+ first and perhaps later on add another later to get better performance.

For me, the bigger problem is the Wifi connection. I know due to logistics that wireless is unavoidable but the reality is any wireless type connection concerning video will not end up well especially if you're using 30 IP cameras as input. Sorry to tell you this but that's a fact. You can try but I don't think it will work. After a lot of investment and hard work only to find out that the Wifi connection is not up to it is downright wasteful.

Anyway, how are the IP cameras powered? Logic says that if they can be powered, then you can get wired network connection to it.

Hook the drive up in another PC and format the drive as a GPT drive. This problem is due to the 2TB limitation of the N40L BIOS.

Errr... Paiseh. I don't have Windows 8. In Windows 7, you initialize the disk by right click on Computer, Manage. Select Disk Management. Or in Control Panel or Start menu, search for Disk Management.

Is your Windows 8 PC an old one? PCs with old BIOS will need to have hardisk larger than 2TB intialized with a GPT partition table.

It was a while ago since I installed my WD Red 3TB onto my N36L. If I recall, I did not have to do anything to it for the Microserver to detect all 4 of them at bootup.

Because of the non existent TLER, it is recommended NOT to use WD green drives. Of course some people manage to use it because their green hardisk did not experience write error situations which would require the drive to pause and take more time to handle write errors. When that happens, the RAID controller thinks there is an error recovery to be made and drops the whole hardisk. This is a nuisance when the drive falls out of the RAID array and forcing rebuilds.

I believe Green drives are ok for NAS that are not in RAID setup. I only dislike them because they are slow. Very evident if you use in desktop PC.

Anyway, before NAS drives like WD Red, I used Samsung F4E 2TB. I have 8 of them (4 in my other N36L and 4 in a an eSATA encosure). I could have also gone with Hitachi drives but they were not available locally.

No. Not from the N36L eSATA port because the N36L eSATA port is not Port Multiplier aware.

I installed the PCIE x1 eSATA RAID card and connected the external box to it.

It's running RAID. The transfer rate is fast. Just like if it's connected to the internal SATA. But then if I did something more complicated other than transfer files like unZIP or unRAR to that RAID volume in the eSATA enclosure, it will hang ! I think there is a bug somewhere in the RAID card. I transferred TB of files with no problems.

Anyway, that external enclosure is down at the moment. I suspect it's the PSU. My contractor had to switch off the mains because had to do some electrical work and I suspect the off / on /off / on stressed the PSU.

Why don't get a HP NC360T PCIe x4 dual GBit network card, mod it to PCIe x1 and install it in the PCIe x4 slot meant for Remote Access Card?



Actually any type of desktop PC can be made into a NAS. Put more hardisk in, do some simple sharing and you're done for a small office setup.

Don't forget to set up for backup. Cheap and fast would be backup to USB 3 or eSATA type of external hardisk.

No. Not x16 slot. Slot it into the slot meant for Remote Access Card. That one is a PCIe x4.

Congrats. Good that you got that solved. Now time to get more hardisk.

If it's 2 bay with RAID, I assume you're going to use RAID 1?

2 x 1TB in RAID 1 = 1TB storage. Is that enough?

You can go for WD Red drives instead for cost savings. They come with 3 year warranty instead of 5 years warranty for RE4.

As for NAS, the Asus looks interesting. Looks like the RM 2557 price with 2 x 1TB RE4 with almost no discount.

Anyway for support and software / apps maturity, the Synology cannot be beaten. A comparable 2 bay Synology would be the DS713+. Be careful not to get DS712+ which is the older model without USB 3. They are RM 1999. RM 100 more than the Asus.

Oh yes, forgot about the extension bay too.

Will try it out these few days. I'm still on 4.2.


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Thanks for the tip. Will get to it when it's ideal time to shut down.

The idea is nice. But I dare not think about how long the rebuild time is going to take.

1 day for replacing a like for like 3TB for 3TB.

For people like ttz, you need to replace the 1TB to 3TB. Than x 4 !!

The drives dropping out are the 3TB Seagates? Thought I mention before earlier on that they are not reliable for NAS.

If you want expandability, get the DS2413+.

If you look at price per drive bays, the most value for money would be the DS2413+ (RM 433 vs RM 462 for the DS1813 vs RM 600 for the DS1513+).

But of course since 8 drive bays would probably be most adequate for most users, the DS1813+ is a better buy.

Quoting those power figures alone is an unfair comparison. Those figures take into account that the unit is fully loaded i.e. 12 drives running in DS2413+, 8 drives running in DS1813+ and 5 drives running DS1513+. If you divide them accordingly, you'll see that per drive they consume around the same. I would assume all 3 units itself without hardisk consume around the same amount of power since running on the same Intel D2700 processor.

Concerning the read / write throughput of the Synology units, what they don't tell is how they achieve it. It's through bonding of the Gigabit LANs on the Synology units. But they also forget to tell you that you need LACP compliant switches (managed) to be able to

I'm currently using 2 Gigabit LANs on my unit in bonded mode. From one PC to the DS2413+, I don't achieve the close to 200MB/s writes across my Gigabit network as advertised. I will only achieve those write speeds when I have another PC writing to the DS2413+ at the same time and the total of the 2 PCs (or more) minus some overheads will be close to the advertised write speeds. Like wise the same for the read speed. So far I know I'm mostly alone on my network and not possible for me to be doing 2 things at different PCs on the same time in the network to take advantage of LACP. So more read / write speeds on the DS1813+ and the DS1513+ with 4 x Gigabit LANs bonded, though nice to have, does not give additional benefit for normal home user. If you have 2 or 3 power users running on the same network, then perhaps it's worthwhile.

But I digress about LACP... For my usage, I find the DS2413+ more convenient since there's room for expansion all under one housing.

How did you setup within Synology? I'm using Asus RT-AC66U router on Maxis Home Fibre (not on public IP) and connect via enabling QuickConnect. I run the EZ-Internet app in Synology and let the wizard detect and configue automatically with the router. I believe some settings are changed within the router itself by EZ-Internet. If EZ-Internet does not recognise your router, you need to manually configure it.

Simplest and perhaps cheapest would be something like Seagate Wireless 1TB. I believe WD also has an equivalent. About RM 500 to 600. Can bring wherever you go. Runs on battery if required. Does not require a wifi router since it has built in wifi.

Those Seagate drives are fast 7200rpm spinners and would probably give problems due to heat.

Can you post the temps of the Seagate drives you're running?

Still very happy with my WD Reds.

Nice. I like the specs of the 1815+ especially the quad core processor and the 4x LAN with Link Agregration.

May I ask how much did you get the unit for?

I've been trying for the longest time to purchase the HGST. It seems locally, only Seagate and WD are available unless you're willing to take chances and ride the high exchange rate wave by ordering overseas...

So between Seagate NAS and WD Red, I picked WD Red because of the good experience with warranty exchange.

The last I'm aware WD and Seagate has their own portable wireless hardisk. I have the Seagate 500GB Wireless Plus that I only use them when travelling and when my kids want to watch their cartoons. Has built-in WiFi and built-in battery. You can also use it as a normal USB external hardisk and connect it directly to your PC / notebook via USB if you're not using the WiFI. No experience with WD's Passport Wireless but I assume they are similar. I don't think their built-in softwares gives the ability to torrent.

In terms of performance, not too sure. I did try 1080p mkv files and it's a hit or miss. I played the files wirelessly with the native player on my phone. I did not expect too much from the Seagate's WiFi and it's transcoding ability is almost zero. My kids cartoon series are less demanding and there is no problems with playback.

However at home, I have a Synology DS2413+ that is connected to my home network and also to a wireless router. I have successfully played movies natively on my phone or have Synology transcode the files. I experience smooth playback when I play movies natively on my phone probably due to good WiFi connection. On the other hand, the experience with the Synology transcoding files is also good because of the powerful CPU in the Synology. You can do a lot of other things on the Synology on top of torrenting. Anyway, I don't torrent and that feature is one I don't use. For media playback, I only stream HD audio (lossless) via WiFi and for Bluray playback, I prefer wired LAN connection.

The Seagate and WD wireless are more expensive but they provide an all in one solution but going the cheaper route, you can connect any portable hardisk to a decent wireless router thaty is able to support external USB drive and play your files directly with proper media player softwares on your wireless devices. A caveat is that the suggested cheaper solution is not so portable.