Upgrading to Synology DS1817+
For the past 4 years my storage and back up plan has always involved my DS414 (4 bay) and then the external drives I use to back that up, its served me a s fantastic hard drive and has never missed a beat since the day I first powered it on.
However the time has come where I need something bigger and with more storage as my business has grown and I also want to have the option of 2 redundent drives and not just the one I was able to have at the moment.
For months i'd researched fit is should go to just a 5 bay or go all out and have an 8 bay, well the photographer in me decided to go for bigger and better so I jumped in and purchased the DS1817= 8gig RAM
I backed up all my data to both my spare backup drives so should this migration fail I was fully covered with two backups and the RAW images were still on my 256gig memory cards so if the worst was to happen my data was more than adequately backed up.
My DS1817+ arrived from Amazon priced at the time at £899 (excluding drives) and my one extra WB Red 3TB drive which after the upgrade would allow me to have 2 drive failures at any one time.
I was nervous about the proposition of all this going ahead smoothly but seems as though my DS414 hadn't missed a beat Synology was a brand for me to trust.
Like a big kid I opened the box and pulled this bad boy out, it's about twice the size of the DS414 and as like the DS414 all the important components were housed in a metal casing, this time there is no plastic housing on the front, you can just see all the drive slots.
It all seemed pretty straight forward according to Synology website, take the old drive out and slot them in the new DS1817+ in the same order (this is critical).
Power it on and instantly both rear fans spool up along with your hard drives, you are instantly greeted by a screen prompting you every step of the way through this EXTREMELY easy process.
Let it be known I'm no computer buff so achieving this screen is somewhat of a good start for me, soon as I saw this images i was on the right track and followed the screen prompts as and when they needed my attention, at no point was I ever stuck no knowing what was happening (yet) I did make one mistake but I will cover that shortly.
Everything is clearly prompted
Having selected the correct prompt my new DS1817+ was doing its bit and migrating my images and files for use on this new drive.
Roughy 30 hours later and 6 TB of information and my drive was ready to use !!
Now I was always happy with my DS414 but wow this was quick, instantly I found that loading up files and accessing information was so much quicker, I mean I never really had an issue with my DS414 but wow this thing showed me what I was missing out on !!
Anyway here is where I went wrong.......
I slotted in my 5th drive ready to expand my volume allowing me to then have 2 redundant drive should the situation ever occur.
WRONG !!
I was so wrong here so don't make the mistake I made, rather then EXPANDING the volume I needed to change the RAID but it was all too late and some 30 hours later i'd gained more TB's than I knew what to do with, in fact I could have probably backed up the entire roads computers ha ha
As soon as I realised I still only had the option of one redundant drive I spoke to Synology Helpdesk who within 1 hour of me making contact had told me where I went wrong and that I need to change the RAID volume and NOT EXPAND.
so...........
Yep you guessed it I was back on Amazon ordering yet another 3TD WD Red (now making 6 drive)
My new drive arrived and I slot it in and changed the raid and hey presto my DS1817+ now has the availably to withstand two failures .
Am I happy with my upgrade and purchase ?
Yes I can tell instantly the speed difference when accessing files, its still very quite as long as you don't have the fan on full speed, if you do have it on full speed you can hear it but don't expect it to be like an RAF Tornado in your office it's just like a small office desktop fan thats all, me personally I have mine on the middle setting.