# My QNAP NAS just died. Recommendations?



## Rob Elliott (Sep 6, 2022)

I have had this QNAP - 419P+ for about 12 years so I feel I got my money out of it. But honestly I have a sort of love/hate relationship with it. It seems like over the years - every firmware update causes 'bad blocks', etc. which then means a day or two of scanning/fixing, etc.

The unit would be wired into my switch in a cooler closet. Another option to QNAP? Probably need a 4 bay config (I have 4 studio computers that would be connected to it). I am mostly just backing up daily project files (Cubase and VEPRO, etc) I have my sample libraries backed up elsewhere. Each bay should still probably have 2 TB drives. Many thanks in advance.


edit: high marks for straight-forward setup (no network engineer here  )


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## FireGS (Sep 6, 2022)

Any interest in 10G? I've been rocking a QNAP TS-932X for a couple of years with 4x SSDs for cache, and 5 drive bays. It's got SPF+ 10G nics in it, and I use a small MicroTik switch with 10G SPF ports to directly connect both my PC and the QNAP together. Super good speeds.

I've never had bad blocks show up because of a QNAP firmware update -- how old are the drives in your current one?


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## dijon (Sep 6, 2022)

My Synology 5 bay (1511+) has been going strong for about 10 years. I upgraded the drives a year or so ago and it needed a new power supply once, but both major operations took no time. Updates are fairly frequent and I like the OS a lot. Support from Synology has been excellent across the board. I bought it at simplynas who did an initial 'burn-in' drive check.


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## Jdiggity1 (Sep 6, 2022)

Synology is often a little pricier upfront, but I find they have one of the better OS/software platforms with good integration with 3rd party services such as cloud backup providers, as well as native off-site access options. They're also one of the easier systems to self-manage when you're not particularly techy.
Using a ds920+ here, which would be a slightly more beefed up version of your 419p, as far as processing specs goes.


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## Rob Elliott (Sep 6, 2022)

FireGS said:


> Any interest in 10G? I've been rocking a QNAP TS-932X for a couple of years with 4x SSDs for cache, and 5 drive bays. It's got SPF+ 10G nics in it, and I use a small MicroTik switch with 10G SPF ports to directly connect both my PC and the QNAP together. Super good speeds.
> 
> I've never had bad blocks show up because of a QNAP firmware update -- how old are the drives in your current one?


Memory serves I replaced all WD drives about 4-5 years ago.


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## rrichard63 (Sep 6, 2022)

I've also had good luck with Synology and find the UI and software pretty straightforward. Mine is an entry-level DS220j and I don't ask much of it in terms of performance.


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## Rob Elliott (Sep 6, 2022)

It seems like more than a few are recommending Synology (friends). I'll have to take a hard look there. Starting with the ds920+.


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## iMovieShout (Sep 6, 2022)

Oh dear, my greatest sympathies. I had a QNAP for about 6 years before it literally died because of a power surge. The hard disks were fine, though encrypted by QNAP. So I lost circa 8TB of personal data, including the backup!!!! Quite a price to pay as I lost about 6 years of some great memories of my kids growing up :-(

So, lesson learned I decided to go 'belts and braces' and setup a Windows Server 2012R2 on an old Dell server, with a replicate server for backup. That was back in 2017 and I've not looked back since, except to add a few VEPro servers to the setup, and have updated to Windows Server 2016.


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## FireGS (Sep 6, 2022)

Rob Elliott said:


> Memory serves I replaced all WD drives about 4-5 years ago.


Those drives may just be long in the tooth. IMO, as much as it might suck, if you're going with a new NAS altogether, now's the time to upgrade the drives, too.


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## dunamisstudio (Sep 6, 2022)

I have a QNAP but heard good things about Synology too.


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## Rob Elliott (Sep 6, 2022)

FireGS said:


> Those drives may just be long in the tooth. IMO, as much as it might suck, if you're going with a new NAS altogether, now's the time to upgrade the drives, too.


Ok - good suggestion. Looks like I am leaning in the synology direction so I'll check drive approvals for whatever unit I pick (ds 920+?)


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## Rob Elliott (Sep 6, 2022)

Jdiggity1 said:


> Synology is often a little pricier upfront, but I find they have one of the better OS/software platforms with good integration with 3rd party services such as cloud backup providers, as well as native off-site access options. They're also one of the easier systems to self-manage when you're not particularly techy.
> Using a ds920+ here, which would be a slightly more beefed up version of your 419p, as far as processing specs goes.


Hmmm. This on their website for the ds 920+. Are you using the M.2 drives - backing up and retrieval should be speedy!!!!

EDIT: looks like they ONLY approved the M.2 800 GB 'Enterprise' level?? Do I need 'Enterprise' level performance/quality? May have to go to std spinning drives.

Optimize performance and capacity​DS920+ provides two built-in M.2 SSD slots so that you can take full advantage of Synology SSD Cache functionality. Add SSD cache for up to 20 times faster I/O response without using front drive bays. You can add five more drives with Synology DX517 to expand storage capacity.


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## Rob Elliott (Sep 6, 2022)

dijon said:


> My Synology 5 bay (1511+) has been going strong for about 10 years. I upgraded the drives a year or so ago and it needed a new power supply once, but both major operations took no time. Updates are fairly frequent and I like the OS a lot. Support from Synology has been excellent across the board. I bought it at simplynas who did an initial 'burn-in' drive check.


I love the 'burn-in' drive check they offer. Did they supply the recommended drives as well? If so, what would you recommend for the ds 920+?


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## dijon (Sep 6, 2022)

Rob Elliott said:


> I love the 'burn-in' drive check they offer. Did they supply the recommended drives as well? If so, what would you recommend for the ds 920+?


Yes, as I said it was 10+ years ago but they supplied the appropriate drives and checked them out before shipping it.


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## Rob Elliott (Sep 6, 2022)

dijon said:


> Yes, as I said it was 10+ years ago but they supplied the appropriate drives and checked them out before shipping it.


Perfect. Great direction to go in. Thanks for your help.


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## Nimrod7 (Sep 6, 2022)

Also I can recommend Synology for <8 drives. I have a 1819+ with 10G ethernet.

They recently started to go downhill also by enforcing people to buy their "branded" crappy Toshibas, otherwise the NAS is getting pretty annoying if you don't do that. That's only if you're planning getting a NAS with more than 8 drives.

Rob, I am not sure if you're able to recover your raid array by changing NAS manufacturer, have you checked that? or you're starting from scratch?


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## Rob Elliott (Sep 6, 2022)

Nimrod7 said:


> Also I can recommend Synology for <8 drives. I have a 1819+ with 10G ethernet.
> 
> They recently started to go downhill also by enforcing people to buy their "branded" crappy Toshibas, otherwise the NAS is getting pretty annoying if you don't do that. That's only if you're planning getting a NAS with more than 8 drives.
> 
> Rob, I am not sure if you're able to recover your raid array by changing NAS manufacturer, have you checked that? or you're starting from scratch?


Yea I have two backups (second just external std drives bi-monthly) all is in there so I'll be starting from scratch on the new synology NAS. Yea, I'll probably go with the 4TB Seagate drives unless another is higher rated?


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## dijon (Sep 6, 2022)

I believe my Synology came with 2TB Hitachi Deskstar(?) drives. Way back when they were supposed to be the best in terms of longevity. I replaced these with 4TB HGST Enterprise drives which are slightly louder as they are 7200rpm vs 5400rpm. The speed difference was negligible. I'd go with whatever simplynas.com recommended though.


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## Loerpert (Sep 6, 2022)

Have had a Synology for a long time. Great experience. I recently went to Truenas, since I like building my own systems.


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## Rob Elliott (Sep 10, 2022)

Jdiggity1 said:


> Synology is often a little pricier upfront, but I find they have one of the better OS/software platforms with good integration with 3rd party services such as cloud backup providers, as well as native off-site access options. They're also one of the easier systems to self-manage when you're not particularly techy.
> Using a ds920+ here, which would be a slightly more beefed up version of your 419p, as far as processing specs goes.


Hey there - just getting ready to order the DS920+ and would like to 'reuse' (I'll reformat them with new NAS) my WD RED 5 TB drives. Ok to 'reuse' these - they aren't 5 years old.


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## vitocorleone123 (Sep 10, 2022)

I really like the value of QNAP (I have 2) but the ongoing issues with vulnerabilities would make me look elsewhere if/when one or both of mine stop working.


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## Rob Elliott (Sep 10, 2022)

vitocorleone123 said:


> I really like the value of QNAP (I have 2) but the ongoing issues with vulnerabilities would make me look elsewhere if/when one or both of mine stop working.


I am actually glad it finally died. Honestly, after most firmware updates I had issues. Glad to move on to synthology.


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## Jdiggity1 (Sep 10, 2022)

Rob Elliott said:


> Hey there - just getting ready to order the DS920+ and would like to 'reuse' (I'll reformat them with new NAS) my WD RED 5 TB drives. Ok to 'reuse' these - they aren't 5 years old.


Yeah of course. Though it might be worth upgrading them (either all at once, or individually over time) to a higher end model, such as the WD Red+, as the standard Red (non plus) drives are known to be inferior for moving large chunks of DATA due to their SMR technology, VS the plus model's CMR technology. 
It's a bit nerdy, but basically CMR is better. https://www.servethehome.com/wd-red-smr-vs-cmr-tested-avoid-red-smr/2/

But if you've been happy with the performance of those drives so far, then don't worry yourself about upgrading them yet.


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## Rob Elliott (Sep 10, 2022)

Jdiggity1 said:


> Yeah of course. Though it might be worth upgrading them (either all at once, or individually over time) to a higher end model, such as the WD Red+, as the standard Red (non plus) drives are known to be inferior for moving large chunks of DATA due to their SMR technology, VS the plus model's CMR technology.
> It's a bit nerdy, but basically CMR is better. https://www.servethehome.com/wd-red-smr-vs-cmr-tested-avoid-red-smr/2/
> 
> But if you've been happy with the performance of those drives so far, then don't worry yourself about upgrading them yet.


Ok good plan. When one or more of the drives crap out I'll go for the WD RED +. Great thing about the raid - I think data is salvaged even if 2 or the 4 drives go out.


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## colony nofi (Sep 10, 2022)

I'm likely a bit late to your discussion to be terribly useful - but just a couple of things.
Newer QNAP hardware is quite unbelievably good - and much much better than >5 years ago. We did a fairly big value assessment around 12 months ago for our studios, and QNAP beat out Synology on that front. 

But the thing that really took us to QNAP was the ability to run a file system that was readable on equipment that isn't QNAP. Their mid tier and higher units run QTS hero that allows you to format using ZFS - which = compatibility across hardware - and FAR simpler (though not 10% straight forward) migration. Basically, it gives us one extra bow in the bag should hardware fail.
We *WOULD* have gone with a custom truenas box if it weren't for the hardware availability issues which plagued the world - but particularly us here in OZ for hardware. We just couldn't get the hardware that was needed. (We needed a beefy box - 8 core Xeon with 128GB ram for high amounts of snapshots, multi-studios using it at 10Gb/s, realtime sync to another box off site, realtime use offsite through a custom vpn etc)

QNAP issues around firmware don't feel like a thing anymore. At least not from our experiences. Thats a far more robust process.
However, we ARE looking at migrating to trueNAS now - even though we've only had the units for 12-18months, given the issues surrounding deadbolt. Now don't get me wrong. All NAS that are exposed to the internet at large are vunerable. It has just been that there have been more vulnerabilities discovered with QNAP than Synology and truenas due to poor security planning/systems. Now, if you are not using your systems online (or are taking precautions) you are VERY unlikely to be effected. However, if you are working with Netflix / major broadcaster, then they WILL demand you use other hardware. They cannot be qualified to their security standards.

If buiding your own truenas NAS is a step too far, look at the systems IX create for them off the shelf. They now look after truenas (previously freenas) - and its being maintained as true open source. The systems are super good value, are now available (kinda important right?) and offer a much better pathway for system upgrades / maintainance IF you are ok with getting your fingers dirty.

As for drives.

There are some definite gotcha's out there these days with lower (<10TB ish) capacity drives which mean I'd recommend against getting them unless you want to do your research. 
A great starting point is









SMR, CMR and PMR NAS Hard Drives- A Buyers Guide 2021


A Guide to CMR/PMR and SMR drives in 2021 - Should You Buy Them? Remember when buying a hard drive was simple? The technology behind hard drives has existed for decades and it is only really in the last 10 or so years that the formula for how hard drives store data has changed substantially. Just o




nascompares.com




nascompares also has some great videos comparing QNAP and Synology systems if that's the route you're comfortable in going down.

If you are interested in truenas at all, go over to Level1 forums. Wendell is a true genius and gives of so much time freely to people who are genuinely interested in learning about mass storage / network connected storage. Linus from LTT goes to him when he doesn't understand something. He's also got a YouTube channel. Another great channel is Servethehome for building a server. From micro to massive.

HTH


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## colony nofi (Sep 10, 2022)

btw : these look bloody good for composers - could even share them with assistants (running the projects OFF these drives!) no sweat. Awesome hardware for small form factor Desktop NAS. But when will they arrive? 2-3 months time is my guess....


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## jblongz (Oct 28, 2022)

I got a new TS-453BT3 recently for HALF PRICE on Ebay. I guess some people are getting spooked by deadbolt. Its like the apprentice of the TVS models listed above, but thunderbolt 3 feature is working great so far on the newest firmware. 

MyQnapCloud and QVPN were not affective in the recent attack. If you need to access your NAS from outside your network, consider a VPN server. This way you can access your home/office network through your *own *tunnel, and manually give permission to each device to do so. There are good options and tutorials on Youtube. Most modern routers support OpenVPN and that works...but I recommend WireGuard as it performs faster. I've been testing my Raspberry Pi4 as a VPN Server using PiVPN and Wireguard...getting 500mbps each way. Since Pi4 models are out of stock these days, you can get a ~$150 mini PC witb gigabit ethernet, set it up with Linux (ubuntu) and still run PiVPN/Wireguard.

If your clients need access to network shares, you'll have to send them a certificate file or QR Code to install on their access device. You may need to use IPTables to restrict them to specific devices on your network...consult your local IT guy.

At this point, I would do the same for Synology or any other NAS brand. I watched enough video rants of creative professionals' entire catalogs caught up in ransome-ware. Be safe..keep offline backups if you access the WAN.


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## colony nofi (Oct 29, 2022)

jblongz said:


> I got a new TS-453BT3 recently for HALF PRICE on Ebay. I guess some people are getting spooked by deadbolt. Its like the apprentice of the TVS models listed above, but thunderbolt 3 feature is working great so far on the newest firmware.
> 
> MyQnapCloud and QVPN were not affective in the recent attack. If you need to access your NAS from outside your network, consider a VPN server. This way you can access your home/office network through your *own *tunnel, and manually give permission to each device to do so. There are good options and tutorials on Youtube. Most modern routers support OpenVPN and that works...but I recommend WireGuard as it performs faster. I've been testing my Raspberry Pi4 as a VPN Server using PiVPN and Wireguard...getting 500mbps each way. Since Pi4 models are out of stock these days, you can get a ~$150 mini PC witb gigabit ethernet, set it up with Linux (ubuntu) and still run PiVPN/Wireguard.
> 
> ...


This is very sound advice.
We are looking at going one step further and requiring a specific physical device at each end of a remote connection, as well as needing credentials for the VPN and server share.

Yes, it means more work to get a client connected, but it is also incredibly secure. Physical device means client end doesn’t need any tech help beyond plugging the device into the network between their modem and switch


colony nofi said:


> btw : these look bloody good for composers - could even share them with assistants (running the projects OFF these drives!) no sweat. Awesome hardware for small form factor Desktop NAS. But when will they arrive? 2-3 months time is my guess....



And fwiw these are now out. They're not cheap. And even though it was widely reported, they do *not* seem to support ECC ram (at least that's what the Australian distributor told me) - which kind of makes sense given the hardware, but it makes less sense for ZFS. 
Now, of course ZFS can run without ECC - but in rare circumstances, it can allow data corruption to occur without you necessarily knowing about it. But I do mean rare. You'll see loads of folk on dev boards fighting about this and getting infuriated about it. Its likely to be more important for database users and the like, but there IS definitely an extremely small chance that you can corrupt your entire drive pool without knowing about it - as well as backups of that pool, which for some might be disastrous. 
I'm very close to pulling the trigger on one though - as a backup to another beefier QNAP unit, and general store for my own personal sample libraries / installers. Will see. If I go that route, I'll report back


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## jblongz (Oct 29, 2022)

Thinking about it more...the TVS series has nice features, but maybe TrueNas is more bang for the buck. Surely one can build a tower or rack PC with ECC ram, powerful CPU, raid array, network shares, backup protocol, and media server like Plex for less than a TVS system. From a composer/director perspective, this would be all that is needed right? I bought into all the marketing of both Synology and Qnap, and they work, but I wonder of its really less work than the other to setup/manage. I intend to explore TrueNas with a spare PC, so I'm theorizing at the moment. Even if I paid a tech to configure it like I want, I may still total about $1500 for a solid ZFS system, not including drives.

Please share some perspective on this.


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## Gerhard Westphalen (Oct 29, 2022)

I've set up a number of Synology units for other studios which have been great but when it was time for my own unit I ended up going with QNAP since it was cheaper and I don't need any features beyond daily backups to it and project archive. I haven't had any issues with it so far (2 - 3 years old) and I've heard similar to what @colony nofi mentioned with their current units. I need to get a bigger unit soon for higher capacity and I'll probably stick with QNAP. Synology has some cool features for using like Dropbox but I don't have a need for that.


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## colony nofi (Oct 30, 2022)

jblongz said:


> Thinking about it more...the TVS series has nice features, but maybe TrueNas is more bang for the buck. Surely one can build a tower or rack PC with ECC ram, powerful CPU, raid array, network shares, backup protocol, and media server like Plex for less than a TVS system. From a composer/director perspective, this would be all that is needed right? I bought into all the marketing of both Synology and Qnap, and they work, but I wonder of its really less work than the other to setup/manage. I intend to explore TrueNas with a spare PC, so I'm theorizing at the moment. Even if I paid a tech to configure it like I want, I may still total about $1500 for a solid ZFS system, not including drives.
> 
> Please share some perspective on this.


Truenas is cool - but there is a learning curve. And lots of potential pitfalls. If you are willing to put the time in to learn (both about security as well as best practices, and a bunch of tweaking) then its most excellent. Its just not turnkey (even buying the systems off their owner) - and if you are paying for tech support will end up costing you a TONNE more in the long run for most situations where there's small numbers of people using the system. Also - truenas now has two different products which has different features, and for some it can be even days of work to figure out what they even need. If you have time - all good, but many folk don't!

A massive advantage of truenas is that the hardware can be almost anything - meaning that if hardware dies, one can just replace parts with off the shelf parts (including motherboard, power supplies etc!). In a production environment, one cannot run QNAP without also having another system as a "spare". Supply chain issues mean it could be weeks to buy a new QNAP of the same sort you have - or even days just to get one which can perform the same duties but a different model. And spares sometimes run out (and did 12 months ago!). For a studio, or any composer with serious deadlines and potential penalties if deadlines not met (not to mention issues in the industry of people talking) this should be a red flag.


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## jblongz (Oct 30, 2022)

Indeed. Im just toying with the Qnap for now, and I’ll play with TrueNas. I recently discovered that my friend runs a PaaS business on TrueNas. Through our application is different, he still recommends it for better control and hardware obscurity.


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