Synology Ds218
2 x 8 TB, WD Red Plus
Question about Synology Ds218
Hi guys. I am a Mac user and a NAS greenhorn. I have connected 10(!) external hard drives to my MiniMac via a USB hub. Music (Logic Pro X), Film (Final Cut ProX), various office activities, Time Machine.... I'd like to tidy up the Jungle and buy a Synology NAS. But here is also a Jungle... The Synology website recommends a DS218 or DS218play or DS418 for my applications. 2 questions: - can I cut film / record & edit with Logic directly on a Synology DS or is such a thing too slow? - Can I expand a DS with one or more expansion units (DX1215II or DX517)?
The expansion of a 2 Bay NAS is not optimal. It would be better to choose a Synology DS1520+. The NAS has 5 hard drive bays. The problem is the 8TB hard drives, which make the NAS more expensive. A DS218 or DS218Play model does not have enough power.
The DS418 would also be OK, but to speed it up with an SSD you would have to sacrifice a slot (then you would still have 3 slots for hard drives). The DS1520+ offers 5 slots for disks and has the possibility to install up to two SSDs (it does not need a hard disk slot, it has 2 x built-in M.2 2280 NVMe SSD slots). It also has very high read and write performance (around double that of the DS418), has a fast CPU and offers 4 Gbit LAN ports that can be bundled for performance optimisation.
Synology DS1520+ (0TB)
Depending on the RAID size you want, you can also buy 4TB hard disks. Link to the WD RED Plus 4TB disks:
WD Red Plus 2021 (4TB, 3.5", CMR)
While the WD RED Plus with 4TB costs around 105 francs, you have to pay 255 francs for the 8TB version, i.e. more than double the price, which is not worth it in my opinion. It is better to upgrade with additional 4TB disks.