So long story short my existing NAS drive failed after a power outage in August. In the end we were able to isolate the issue and solder a component and resurrect it… (DS1815+)… It is almost maxed out though and so we purchased a new DS1821+. There was a deal some time back on drives so I picked up 9 Toshibas MG09SCA18TE drives. There were reports that they were reasonably good and I think Synology uses or has used Toshiba to make its own drives… one small problem I think I had been researching the SATA version of the drive and somehow managed to order the SAS version…
I found this out today the hard way…reinforcing that you should never start a project end of day Friday, I started to mount all the drives so I took them all out of the packaging installed them and then ran out of time so I left things in a bit of a mess in my office… Today when I took a closer look after it seemed the drives were not recognized I found the error of my ways…
I would look to return things however I bought the stuff over a month ago and as fate would have it our custodial staff cleaned my office early this morning and threw out the hardrive packaging and nas box…
So I am stuck with the DS1821+, which isn’t so bad as our DS1815+ is now getting quite old and might have further issues down the road so I will have that as a back up or when funds come available get the right bloody drives…
My question is does any body have experience with setting these up or building your own. I am trying to source something that is not outrageous that I can use to put these drives in service… ie something with a SAS controller…
I came across this thing,
Shows this feature which I think means I can interface the drives if I get a board and controller for SAS drives…
There are likely better ones out there and after I buy all the other bits of kit it might not be that cheap but so far this is the only one that I “think” might do what I need if I can find the right ITX board and controller.
A lot of the hardware I see for the sas drives seems to be rack mounted server kit…go figure if you buy drives made for servers…
Any way any tip hints suggestions would be welcome…
I would try returning them nevertheless, or if that fails, selling the drives (at a loss).
Otherwise, you need to set up a system with SAS. In addition to a HBA, you need a motherboard, CPU, RAM, PSU, etc. Even the cheapest setup will cost you around $800–1000. OTOH it is more upgradeable I guess.
Ya exactly the conclusion that I had come to from watching a few builds on the internet… I did reach out and see if I could do an exchange. I am outside the normal return window but I guess there is a slim chance since I just want to exchange them and might even end up spending a little more that they might make an exception… As for selling I can but its a work purchase so slightly more complex than if they were my own personal ones… Thanks for your thoughts…
Confess to management, apply for investment a set of SATA drives (guess it’s a new fiscal year now, so new budget).
Compared to recent standard desktop PC’s the Synology components are modest, so you could start with a refurbished PC and an external storage cabinet for the drivers - comes with added cost. Then you need an OS, the simplest could be to run TrueNas https://www.truenas.com/
If you include a risk analyze to this project you will definitely end with getting a set of new disk for the standard device. A lot easier to implement, operate and upgrade - if it breaks you can always blame disk manufacturer or Synology
I’m just going to keep the synology as a backup for the old synology that we have managed to repair and keep running…
I got a clunker case new for 150 bucks and I have a load of spare parts some from a couple of our now outdated Nikon scope computers… I think I have one with a motherboard that will fit. So I have to get a controller card and some cables…I have a new powersupply that I had kicking around and maybe a few more so I am rolling the dice that I can build one up that is not too bad…might bump up the ethernet with a pci card… fingers crossed…it might be a bit less energy efficient but it should do the trick…this one is really for the most part a big archive…
