Hi to all Sifus and experts.

I'm new to the world of NAS and big storage setup in general My current experience can be summarized thusly:

Storage Proficiency level: Beginner to intermediate

Have been using external HDDs for some years (WD Essential / Seagate etc) Just recently bought Synology DS220J and have tinkered with it for a bit.

ISSUE:

As mentioned above, I already have a NAS. Synology DS220J, 2 bay, total of 8 TB storage.

The NAS is good for its accessibility / network function but it's a pain when I backup terabytes of data.

1. Transfer speed over network is quite slow, 35 MB/sec. Plus, i will burden the home network.

2. Synology NAS cannot use USB 3.0 for direct connection to PC (for some reason) nut it can access external HDD that connects to it via USB.

3. Workaround to direct connect NAS is a hassle - need to use ethernet cable and configure manual IP. PC also only have 1 LAN port, so if connect, cannot use internet.


REQUEST

I want to supplement my current setup with a DAS. My plan is to have an "upgradeable" external HDD essentially.

1. Enclosure have to be RAID capable - want to have multiple HDD bays but want to map to only 1 drive in PC

2. Budget - around RM1k ~ 2k for enclosure only. Can recommend HDD to use.

3. Want to be able to direct connect to PC for fast transfer - USB 3.0


I have Googled for a DAS but most result show for NAS.

Found one from Orico:

Orico NS500RU3 (5 Bay) 3.5-in hard disk box desktop (With Raid) sata USB3.0 serial box

Orico HDD Enclosure

But dunno good or not. Also dunno if got any other brand.

So, need help in recommendation for a good DAS.

Thanks

Ditch the J series Synology and opt for the + one. I’m using an old DS-1010+ from 2010 and the data transfer speed is over 100MB/sec.

I upgraded over the previous Synology DS-410J which only allows 35MB/sec transfer.

I'm not sure if the DAS with RAID failed, can transfer the HDD to another DAS and access back the RAID pool? Important to confirm this to avoid data can't be accessed if the DAS failed.

The J series is no performance machine, but I don't think it will be that slow. Are you transferring dozens or small files? Even my 920+ can only transfer less than 50MB/s when it involved hundreds of small files. It would be faster to zip it first then only transfer.

Really? Damn, just bought the Synology early this year. Guess I'll be stuck with it for some time since no point buying another currently. Bought the Synology setup or RM3k+ lmao

Noted on the RAID on the DAS, will look into it.

The J series is my first foray into NAS so dunno what speed the average supposed to be.

Currently transferring a lot of videos so zipping it kinda defeat the point of them being streamable

Currently making do with a workaround that can yield transfer speed about 100 MB/s

https://youtu.be/64PFK1L_E74


But still, for purposes of direct USB connect and faster access / transfer speed, I am still looking for a DAS.

Plus, with the DAS, I can use the above method to "boost" the capacity of the NAS too. Hahaha.

So, appreciate if can recommend a good DAS.

I bought the 1010+ for 800 bucks via Carousell early this year. Has 5 bays. Due to being an old model, max size per HDD is 2TB only. Newer + model can support much larger size HDDs.

Zip only for transfer. After that in DSM, unzip it back.
I recently restore some portable program folders to my PC from NAS, there's thousands of few KB files. It keeps timeout after few minutes.
I open DSM, select all folders and choose download as zip, get maximum speed download.

I think most well known DAS that's available here is Orico.

I see. Will consider that Zip and Un-zip option

Well, I guess ORICO it is then...

hi all, i'm on DS220j and i realized the speed to access photos and videos are crazily slow! It's not like Google photos that u can instantly view the photos and videos. Is it due to internet problem? I'm on 100mbps now. I think to access files it's ok, just when accessing photos/videos then it's really bad, disappointed...

HDD speed also matters. Did you buy 5400rpm disks?

Another issue is network cable. Get at least CAT6 cables. Even CAT7 cables are cheap these days. You can get full 1Gbps speed.

hihi, i'm on 5400rpm/128mb cache disks that's right, will changing to 7200rpm/256mb cache help?
Is 100mbps sufficient btw? Else maybe i'll wanna upgrade to 500mbps, but before upgrade i wanna find out if this is the root cause as it's not cheap to be on 500mpbs...

Ah ok, i will look into the cables, not too sure what types of cables they are... Thanks yeah

You're accessing it outside of local network? If in local network is it fast enough? If local network also not fast enough then likely the NAS is the problem. I see it only have 512MB RAM and no m2 slot for cache. One way to speed up the data access is change to use SSD instead of HDD.

If local network not slow but over the internet only slow, then need to check a lot of things. 100mbps plan IINM is 50mbps upload which is good enough but you behind CGNAT, so likely you're using Synology QuickConnect and data relayed over their server, they also capped the speed to 30mbps IINM. You can use Tailscale instead for the connection, based on my test for a month or so it give speed almost as good as direct connection with port forwarding.

Same actually, within within the local network also slow, but outside of it is slower... oh ok, so you mean it's the limitation of my DS220J, right? If changing to let say DS224+ will likely to bring me a better performance, right? Also do you think it's worth to upgrade my network to 500mbps?
Thanks in advance...

DS224+ will be better than your current NAS as it have faster CPU and more RAM. But if you going to upgrade your NAS I'll suggest instead get DS423+ as it have 4 bays and 2 m2 slots or DS723+ as it have faster CPU and also 2 m2 slots.

Do you have few TBs of data in your NAS? If not much, the cheaper way is to try by using SSD first to see the improvement is good enough.

500mbps upload speed is only 100mbps, double than your current speed. For photos it won't make much difference. If your video size is by hundreds MBs then will see improvement but even then will not be fast enough if the video file is large. I just tried download 178MB file from my Synology, my upload speed is 100mbps with port forward and my phone on 4G connection, it take 2 minutes 52 seconds to complete the download. My suggestion is better to stick with current package but use Tailscale and also re encode if videos size is big.

Yeah, upgrading the HDD will help. Still depends on the network too. 1Gbps local network will provide you about 110MB per second.

Network through internet depends on your internet speed.

This post has been edited by TristanX: Jan 28 2024, 02:26 PM

hi hi, this is the resource monitor when i am uploading videos/photos outside of my home network via quickconnect:

the speed shows only around 85 kb (download) and 6kb (upload)?

This post has been edited by AgentVIDIC: Jan 28 2024, 06:38 PM


Attached thumbnail(s)

I presume you using your phone to upload? When you're outside home network is it using the telco network. Some telco package might have very low upload speed. Your NAS receiving 85KB means your upload speed is less than 1mbps. I don't think it is NAS issue, likely the connection.

Try using internet connection from place that you know got good upload speed (50mbps or above) to confirm it if because of your device internet speed.

How about upload when in home network? You using WiFi 2.4ghz or 5ghz connection also affect the upload speed.