Hey folks,
I hope I do not miss any specific forum guidelines by starting the topic right here. Please notify me if I am missing something.
I checked out a couple of reviews on storagereview.com and on other places on the internet as well as friends related to the IT sector.
Short summary of facts:
- ambitious amateur photographer with a lot of RAW image data
- Mac only network, which means there is a MacBook Pro Retina and two MacBook Airs at the moment (total internal capacity of ~1,8TB)
- TimeMachine backup running to external USB hard drive, an Apple TimeCapsule as well as CrashPlan online backup
- an old Drobo FS with mixed old HDDs, total ~13-14TB (do not like it, very very slow, bad performance)
- several USB 2.0 and FW800 drives, total ~6-7TB
Aims:
- buying a MacMini running OS X Server for home media consumption on HDTV, tv recording and automation workflows
- buy a NAS or DAS (attached to MacMini and available via network share from the OSX Server) with about 20 TB raw capacity
Use:
- storage will mainly be used for storing large HD video files, RAW images and backups from the network computers
- depending on hardware solution a dual disk redundancy should be workable
My options:
a) Synology DS1813+ with 8x 4TB HDD
- what performance is to be expected from a DS1813+ if used with a single gigabit ethernet connection in a Mac network? I read about a couple of performance issues with SMB/AFP file transfer on Mac OS X Mavericks
- I will not be able to purchase a switch with 802.3ad capability for my use as they are quite expensive. That means no link aggregation possible, correct?
- use of RAID 6? External backup solution might be a couple of USB drives
b ) Drobo 5D with 5x 4TB HDD
- dual disk redundancy using Drobo's Beyond RAID
- performance using Thunderbolt on a Mac should be around 100-150MB/s
- network share using a Mac as a server
- external backup using old Drobo FS or a couple of USB drives
c) Lacie or G-Technology RAIDs
- Lacie thunderbolt drives with 8TB or one 20TB, but they all come with RAID0/1, therefore having an exact copy on another Lacie drive is necessary - expensive
- G-Technology also offers 8TB thunderbolt, same problem as Lacie but maybe more reliable hard drives
- G-Technology G-Speed Q RAID is very pricey
Choose of HDD:
If deciding for a Drobo or Synology NAS, which hard drive is optimal to chose in terms of long life reliability? Performance should be ok with all of them for my needs
- WD SE or WD RED 4TB
- Hitachi Deskstar 4TB
I do not like to go with Seagate as I had bad experience, however I had a couple dead-on-arrival WD RED 3TB last year in my Drobo FS. Other suggestions on 4TB are welcome.
Looking forward for any feedback and suggestions, personal experience and recommendations!
Best, Robert
