What Hard Drives Should you Buy for your Synology NAS?

This tutorial goes over what hard drives you should buy for your Synology NAS
#Synology #HardDrive #Deal
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Recommendations*:
Cheapest (Shucked drive): amzn.to/3GYZEC9
Segate IronWolf (90% of users should get these) geni.us/00RP
Exos (Can get an awesome deal for a better drive): geni.us/rPJnJok
Synology Branded drives(Large businesses) : geni.us/N0gE
*These are affiliate links, which means that if you purchase a product through one of them, I will receive a small commission (at no additional cost to you). Thank you for supporting my channel!

[@RogerC68]

I recently purchased the DS920+ and love it!! I started off 6 years ago with the base WD cloud drive and was always disappointed with the speed. You get what you pay for I guess. When they announced they were ending the security updates early this year I was fuming!! So I started shopping for another unit and determined not to ever buy a WD NAS again. I found Synology, and LOVE the speed! I have 2x 6TB WD Black hard drive and it works really great. Thanks for your videos and I may hire you one day when I want to upgrade my system. Thanks again.

[@zgboy23]

WD cloud is BS. I transformed my wd cloud mirror to xpenology and still using this device like synology NAS.

[@npapan]

Hi Rex , I have a DS420+ and I have filled it up with Toshiba N300 drives (PN starts with HDWG4xxUZSVA) which are probably the same as the Synology branded ones. Also they tend to have more Toshibas in the compatibility list than the others. They were also cheaper than the WD Pro and Seagate Pro… Firmware was 0601 as Synology recommended.

[@1stpanda3903]

I started out using an IBM 360 , IBM 370 , and later, an IBM System 3. Yep, a Jurassic Park of the 1970s. Throughout that time until now, I haven't seen anyone be so fucused and so honest for everyone who is watching the video. I have listened to great advice from former MICROSOFT people who always have been available to great things. Your time in explaining everyting in NAS is honorable and very appreciated. I hope others understand why. Tute, si rece vixeris. If John Lennon was a techie, he would love this. Thanks!

[@SpaceRexWill]

Thanks!

[@oranaz551]

Lol fortran for the win :) started off running a IBM 360 moved up to a 360/40.back in the stone age

[@DrivingPhilippines]

​@@oranaz551old timers unite! 360 with REXX and COBOL, assembler. Then as400, then z series. Good old days! Now relaxing by the beach 😊

[@m4nc1n1]

I just bought eight 14TB WD Red CMR drives for $279 ea on Amazon. Excellent price. I usually get Iron Wolf Reds, but I was filling a DS1821+ and could not pass up the $279. It is nice to have 86TB of space :). I also upgraded my Synologys to 16GB RAM, 1TB m.2 caches, and a 10G NIC. I also use the 1621+ with 8TB Iron Wolfs as a NAS backup for important files on the 1821. The new project I just finished is a TrueNAS box with a 12400k, 64GB DDR5 RAM, ROG B660-I MB, four 16TB Exos Drives, JONSBO N1 case, Asus 10G NIC, and a 750w SFF PSU! It is a gorgeous NAS!

[@ESHIELDS]

Damn, that's a lot of porn!

[@MatthewMorseCA]

Good comparison review and discussion. The amazing reliability and MTBF with the EXOS drives vs. IronWolf is worth any complaint of a little extra dB for the longer lifespan. I switched to using EXOS for my DS2419+II which is simply worth the TCO value over time to know my NAS array will have solid uptime and performance. Honestly, the 12 EXOS drives spinning 24/7 isn't more noticeable audibly than my primary workstation at my desk. iPerf3 tests show I'm reliably getting 8-9Gbps over the 10Gb NIC copper; definitely the better performer when doing Virtual Machines or Docker containers and especially for real-time video/photo editing. But the most important question, "What's your data worth to you?" My Best Disk Buying Tips: 1) Always buy the best you can afford 2) Don't short-change the value of your data when shopping for storage 3) Always buy N+1 cold spare drive (if your data integrity and up-time matters to you when the $h!t hits the fan) 4) Buy with intent for reliability of devices to fail... nothing is perfect, so build into RAID 5 or 6 (best) and plan for (at least) one drive to eventually fail over time, 5) Try to buy matched drives by type and capacity. Mixing drives and using dynamic RAID formats is nice, but nothing beats a RAID 5/6 with matched capacity for speed and reliability. Lastly, I also try to buy disks in mixed batches so that I can have some drives from different production runs (think QA control to offset any disks that might have a repetitive mfg issue.)

[@rajahdoha]

Thanks for the SMR & CMR topic, Its Helpful

[@Ramserik]

Thank you for great explanation. Your way to explain is so detailed and I love it. My firt NAS was configured by your tutorial. I really love your channel and subcribed immediatly. You do very valuable content. Keep doing what you doing man.

[@SpaceRexWill]

Thanks man! Really glad you like it!

[@UMfan21]

I have a DS918+ with Ironwolfs and just built a DS910+ with Exos. Both have been flawless so far.

[@marinoscotoni9382]

Thanks for your comparison, you have great videos, very informative. I had a Synology RS2016 and changed 7 out of 12 Western Digital Red drives. I have switched to the Ironwolf 10Tb since 3 years that are working extremely well in a Synology 1019. Keep up the good work.

[@Dakhor]

I have the opposite experience - 4 ironwolf drives failed within 6 months of purchase - replacements started failing also so returned them and got my money back. Running WD Red 8 TB fine for 2 years now.

[@Erin-Thor]

I’ve had several Seagate drives fail, and warranty replacement is fought. Yes, they will replace them but will question you and make you work for it. It’s as if they offer a warranty only to those serious enough to push back, thinking it will save them money. The opposite is true for me, I try and NEVER recommend Seagate drives to any client unless they demand it.

[@zainahmed6258]

Thanks but what do you recommend? I was looking at newer EXOS 7E10 8tb drives from home NAS.

[@Erin-Thor]

@@zainahmed6258 -- I should admit I have a few running Seagate's and the clients are happy, but they have had zero failures. I prefer WD or Toshiba. Edit: If you get Seagate's, ask the client or end user to purchase them themselves, not you, and strongly suggest they print hardcopies of all receipts, every charge record, photos of the install, Amazon Receipts, installation notes, etc., put them in an envelope and tape them to the bottom of the NAS. And also write the date of warranty expiration on the envelope. If the drives have different purchase dates or sources, do the same with a sharpie on the drive before installation. Not joking, Seagate will argue with you about everything, THAT drive is older and out of warranty (Date sold to the vendor not end user), THAT drive was not sold to you but whatever the reseller's name was. The hours I have spent tracking down, printing, emailing, etc. receipts for customers would boggle your mind. And on 2 clients behalf, I just purchased another drive and gave up on Seagate support as it just wasn't worth it (but the client was worth keeping happy).

[@zainahmed6258]

@@Erin-Thor Very strange how internet is divided. I found out the WD has lost its spot and is now producing less reliable drives which break unexpectedly. Seagate EXOS is the way to go. I would prefer Toshiba but only one retailer in Australia has some in stock and they are N300 6tb for $320. When you say WD then which WD and which Toshiba? At the moment i can only afford upto 8tb of space which is plenty for me for storing photos and family videos. Currently EXOS 8tb 7E10 are on sale for $299 same as Toshiba N300 6tb and Ironwolf (not pro) 8tb.

[@Erin-Thor]

@@zainahmed6258 - I’m in the USA, so this may not be an apples to apples comparison. And yes, everyone will have a different take, opinion, or experiences. I just purchased 6 Toshiba 12 TB N300 drives for about $200 US each for a job. That’ll provide them with 60 TB plus a spare (on site, not hot). If you’re in Australia, Seagate service might be totally different there than here in the US. I would advise you NOT let my bad Seagate experiences influence your decision in Australia. And as I mentioned a few of my clients love and trust them. As you say you budget and needs are small (not being disrespectful), but if you’re looking at, considering a NAS, think redundancy. If you need 8 TB total, 2x 8TB (mirrored) or 3x 4 TB drives would allow that redundancy and fault tolerance, and save you money. If you like and buy Seagate, great! My .02¢ worth is to save, print and document your install just to be safe, something you should be doing anyways with any major purchase. 😎

[@zainahmed6258]

@@Erin-Thor Thank you for sharing such valuable experience. I am just getting into the world of NAS and I know its going to be one expensive one down the line 🙂

[@danyelg92]

Hi very informative info on synology and i have one and like synology. I was trying to upgrade and have offsite backup and this month got super great discount on 16Tb Exos, they were on 42% discount at 320 bucks each. So i'm an getting upgrade :), keep up good work.

[@SpaceRexWill]

Yeah those are crazy cheap and I still can't figure out why

[@pietschreuder5047]

I own a Synology 416 Play which is an update from the 411j. I migrated the drives in 2017 from the 411 to the 416, so I still use the same four WD20EARS 2TB for about 10 years! Never seen one fault report from SMART. My NAS is configured in BTRFS with snapshot, RAID 5, local backup and critical backup in the cloud, so whenever a drive fails, I wil replace them one by one.

[@softwareengineer9435]

Such great review once again.

[@dorkasaurusbecks]

I went with 5 16TB Seagate EXOs in my Synology 1520+ in Raid 6 few months ago (1st time buyer). The noise isn't bad but its a lil strange hearing a light knocking or spinning up sound out of the blue. If you're able to keep your NAS in another room you'll never notice it. I can't do that with my apartment but I've gotten used to it. Unless they die on me anytime soon, I'd buy them again.

[@Wistbacka]

I have 4x seagate barracuda drives. 2 of them are in my system in Raid 1, and the 2 others are hard backup copies that I use to backup the two in the system whenever I add/remove major amount of files. These are stored on a shelf in a dry, cool and dark place. So far this has worked fine.

[@Haiyami]

Be warned that Barracuda drives have issues as they aren't properly being read by software for drive health. I've had multiple drives that either clicked or took a long time to start spinning show as excellent health only to fail with no warning. When monitoring drive health I've never had issues with Western Digital.

[@Mark-hp5rm]

Advice & Assistance: Hello, I currently have a DS920+ Nas with 4, 4TB drives, and Synology RAM DDR4-2666 Non-ECC SO-DIMM 4GB (D4NESO-2666-4G) . My RAID configuration is SHR1. I'm looking to replace/upgrade one of the drives to a 16TB. When I went to purchase, I saw 2 different kinds and wanted to insure I get what is compatible with the other 3 remaining drives. Descriptions: Current drives - Seagate IronWolf Pro 4TB NAS Internal Hard Drive HDD - 3.5 Inch SATA 6Gb/s 7200 RPM 128MB Cache for RAID Network Attached Storage, Data Recovery Service - Frustration Free Packaging (ST4000NE001) Replacement options - Seagate IronWolf Pro 16TB NAS Internal Hard Drive HDD - CMR 3.5 Inch SATA 6GB/S 7200 RPM 256MB Cache for Raid Network Attached Storage, Data Recovery Rescue Service Or Seagate IronWolf Pro 16TB Enterprise NAS Internal HDD Hard Drive - CMR 3.5 Inch SATA 6Gb/s 7200 RPM 256MB Cache for RAID Network Attached Storage, Rescue Services - FFP g (ST16000NTZ01) I will eventually replace/upgrade all the remaining drives. What’s the difference, and which should I choose to go with in your opinion? Thanking you in advance

[@BornRiders]

Thanks Rex, I'm going with Synology Ironwolf drives!

[@Mcfoxter]

Another in depth review. Thanks so much! How do you know if your WD drives are either CMR or SMR?

[@prowler1567]

Thanks for the info on HDs. Someday I may replace my current (DS1019+) Synology NAS but not anytime soon. I probably will replace drives before the NAS unit itself.

[@doctorkj5640]

Man, your videos are top notch and really helpful. I was set to buy 2x8TB WD REDs but now I'm considering Seagate Ironwolf (or Ironewolves bacause I need two of them :-) Good work indeed. I will forgive you your taste in shirts and sometimes weird almost-out-of breath way of speaking :-).

[@redumbrella4218]

Great Job! Thanks!

[@aesres]

Thank you very much for sharing your thought for once more. I am about to upgrade my DS220j synology to DS920+. Following your info i am about to stop using WD Red and turning into buying two drives Exos X 16-14 TB. What is your opinion about those drives? Is there any big difference with the X18 you suggest? I also checked Synology's list with all the compatible drives and i realized that the disk i am looking for, also the one you suggest are out. Should be safer to buy a little smaller disks as long as i am about to use SHR-1 for the very beginning? and therefore the Ironwolf would me more ideal for me? Thanks

[@TrueToad]

Seagate IronWolf is my go-to for Synology. I purchased 8 10TB Ironwolf drives for a project, and about one year later 6 drives began to show sector errors. I contacted Seagate - they covered replacements, and in fact, I received 12TB replacements, Seagate stated they were out of 10TB drives. I paid to ship the failed drives and Seagate paid for the shipping to me. 100% satisfied with Seagate. Side Note: the 6 drives that were failing all were within 100 serial numbers, so it must have been a bad lot.

[@SpaceRexWill]

Great to know! I have had the same experience when I have had to do an RMA

[@radiospank]

i got those seagate exos and I think they are just fine sound wise.

[@richardharmon9596]

Awesome Video . Thanks so much

[@HappyBuddhaBoyd]

I have always used Ironwolf NAS and have never had a problem. Currently, I am thinking of changing to Exos because they have the same specs and you get a much longer life for the money.

[@williamearlephotography]

Love your channel and I'm learning a lot. I wanted to share a recent experience with Seagate Ironwolf 12TB hard drives. I ordered five drives for a new Synology DS1522+ and three of the five were dead on arrival. They did not work at all. I've been using a DS716+ for about six years with Western Digital hard drives and have experienced zero problems. I'm going with five Western Digital drives to replace the Seagate drives. BTW, I did move them around in the NAS confirming that it's not the NAS. The NAS was making strange beeping sounds and the green drive lights never came on for the defective drives. The Seagate drives were also deeply discounted at B&H Photo so I'm suspecting they were off spec or something similar.

[@martinh5114]

On the topic of SMR drives: It can also lead to a RAID failure when there's not enough free storage left. Happened to me and I changed all my WD Reds to Ironwolf after WD had to admit that some of their WD Red models were SMR drives.

[@nasnewbie356]

Another Great video, and thanks so much for the WD warning/recommendations. Years ago I swore off seagate due to frequent failures on a netgear nas and only bought Hitachi or WD, from your video I learned we had 4 WD SMR with 8 WD CMR in a 12 drive synology raid. I'm swapping them out one by one as fast as I can. One question I had is if you know if the RED drives (WD3001FFSX) also had this secret swap of smr for cmr NAS drives ? I've tried searching on the net and haven't found evidence of this, it seems the WD gold (WD4003FRYZ) are all cmr drives. Based on your suggestion, I've ordered all new seagate iron wolf pro drives. Thanks so much SpaceRex, keep the educational videos coming!

[@ironfist7789]

Red plus, red pro, and wd gold should all be cmr. Regular reds I believe are all SMR now (old ones may or may not be).

[@ejharrop1416]

Thank you and I will have to look for some cheap stand alone drives to harvest. I have an older six bay Synology NAS with. 2 empty slots, that should not be a big risk. Do you have any concerns? I am not too tech savvy but am willing to experiment. Cheers.

[@williamhicks2763]

I’d really like someone to test the startup draw on these NAS and Enterprise drives. As your NAS gets older and the drives get bigger they put more strain on the power supply, which is usually not got much headroom. My power supply went out after placing a 16TB Toshiba in my fifth slot, that I had never used before. Synology basically said that the drives I had migrated to over the years were probably drawing too much power. Some of the large server manufacturers, like 45Drives, have a feature where the drives will start up sequentially to reduce that initial spike. This is a feature I’d like to see in the smaller NAS systems. I could find nothing about startup current on any of the manufacturers websites.

[@VankillaVanil]

Great video 😉💪🍻

[@graemequinn3710]

Perfect timing for your video! I’ve just picked up a Synology DS1621+ to replace my old Drobo, I was just beginning to look at what hard drives I should purchase to populate my DS1621+. My Drobo has original older 3TB and 4TB WD Red drives (CMR) but I need larger capacity drives to go in my Synology to have enough space to migrate my data across. Would the Seagate Ironwolf or Exos be my best options then, also what would NVMe SSD would you recommend for use in the 1621+ as a cache?

[@MatthewMorseCA]

Either the IronWolf or Exos are fantastic options. I chose Exos for the extra MTBF reliability and data center proven spindles. The Samsung Evo Pro SSDs are the best out there, but depending on your use of the Synology DS1621+ you may not see much performance gain with the file transfers as if you would by adding the 10Gb NIC card. I have both upgrades and found the NVMe cache has done little to accelerate my R/W performance for normal file sharing/transfers. If using the DS for VM's or Docker then yes, adding the SSD cache would be helpful.

[@graemequinn3710]

@@MatthewMorseCA Thanks for the reply. I've settled on using Seagate Exos drives as my main storage and just waiting on them going on special offer before ordering. Is it worth going with the Samsung 970 Pro over the Evo Plus? I'm guessing it's to do with lifespan of the drive (Read/Write) and overall drive performance?

[@ZHilmi]

Very informative video, kudos for that. I have a 5 bay Synology that is meant for personal use (DS 1019+), I have 5X12TB WD 5400 RPM in it, 2 of them are WD RED and 3 are shucked easystore drives. My question is: Can I replace any of them with a WD Plus 7200 RPM? My goal is to replace all of them gradually, one at a time.

[@digilifepro]

Wow! That was an incredibly helpful and clear overview of NAS drive options, best practices and also the added details about the inner workings of the companies, their pricing models and the few "questionable" practices of some were great side notes. I feel significantly better informed as a consumer. What are your thoughts about using SSDs instead of HDDs for a DS220+ NAS? If price weren't a major concern, would you be comfortable with the reliability and performance of SSDs vs HDDs with the added benefit of reduced noise, power and mechanical failures? Also, do you have a threshold for minimum RPMs for HDD such as 5400 or 7200? Thanks for the great video! Cheers

[@PapaJohnald]

I just bought a DVA3221 for a video surveillance NAS server. I was thinking of using all Seagate SkyHawk drives. Since it’s mainly video surveillance and security, would these be an okay hard drive? Are there issues to look out for?

[@StardustOneReviews]

When you buy a Seagate 5TB 2.5 inch external USB enclosure, you will find a very low power consumption and very silent Seagate Barracuda 2.5 inch SATA drive in it. These drives have 600000 load/unload cycles. You will find exactly the same in each external enclosure from Seagate. Combine 4 x 5TB in a 4 bay NAS and you get 15 TB of storage :-). Very silent, low power consumption and also very lightweight.

[@GregRobinsonHD]

@SpaceRex - based in part on your helpful vids, I just bought and set up my first NAS - a Synology DS923+ with a pair of 18TB Iron Wolf Pro drives. Does it sound right that my drives (and thus Drive Pool) size are showing as 16.4TB with just 15.7TB as the total size of starter Volume 1?

[@digitalhighway76]

Great Video!! I am researching for a purchase of a NAS. I like the DS920+ but I have a question about adding more hard drives in the future. if i went with 3 drives to start with say 4TBx3 drives. can I add a four drive that is larger then 4TB to gain more storage.

[@keesverhagen9227]

Thank you. That is a great tip about the Exos drives. 👍 Would the Exos 18 Sata 3 be a good choice. 2 of them and beginning with my first Nas ever , the DS1522+ ? And what kind of Raid setup schould i choose ?

[@CanberkSezer]

Hi again Space Rex, i saw some noise test videos for the ironwolf series and that made me worried. People say that wd red series are quiter. What do you think about it? and I you remember I plan to edit videos on nas do you think would that makes different if I choose ironwolf or wd red series? Couple questions too... What rpm does wd red series has, some people said that they are working on 5400 some said 7200 I'm confused. Also you have said that ironwolf pro wouldn't make any differences for video editing compared to normal ironwolfs. Do you think it is the same for wd red plus and wd red pro? It has been a long message but very appreciate if you have time to reply. Thanks!

[@jenniferw8963]

I just bought a synology DS1522+ (from Amazon) along with 3 used Seagate EXOS 14TB HDD from ebay ($115 a piece). I installed the three drives in the 1522 and it says they aren't on compatibility list. I used them anyways but I don't know if I should replace them with another drive or not.. something on the compatibility list. I don't see why they wouldn't be on the list as they are enterprise NAS HDD's. The drives I got are the ST14000NM000G.

[@JD-go1nq]

What about a raid 6 w/ hot spare using a in large arrays? I solved the supported drive error issue on the RS2821RP+. Using the 10G NVME cache network card... it moves data...

[@VegasMadMikey]

Timely video for me. I’m buying a 1522+. I used the drive selector and decided on these but they are not listed on the synology compatible list. Should this be ok or should I find another!! Seagate IronWolf Pro 4TB NAS Internal Hard Drive HDD - 3.5 Inch SATA 6Gb/s 7200 RPM 128MB Cache for RAID Network Attached Storage, Data Recovery Service - Frustration Free Packaging (ST4000NE001)

[@BFArch0n]

I have over 16 Seagate 16TB Exos drives for my 2 NAS machines.....1 died and I submitted an RMA with Seagate...BACK IN JULY 2023, it is not well into October, I have no replacement, when I contact them they say they are "out of stock" and will replace "soon", and this goes on over and over again. Their warranty has no deadline, how is this legal? They still sell the drives on Amazon and Newegg, always in stock there, they should just send me a check to purchase a new drive if that's the case, this is ridiculous! Because of this, I never want to purchase another Seagate product again, what good is a warranty if they never honor it!?!?! I no longer have a cold spare on hand if another drive fails!

[@RetBaron]

I am very satisfied with DS920+ with 4 pieces of WD 18TB Gold (WD181KRYZ). Running 24/7/365 fifth year.

[@ZakiWasik]

Just did a quick price check and at the time of writing a 16TB Synology drive is more than twice the price of an Ironwolf Pro in my market.

[@jmanko]

I only buy reds for my storage. I have external enclosure WD units that have been going strong for multiple years where I'm constantly writing data to them (security camera footage). But I also have backups for these units just because I know they will fail. Plus the warranty is normally shorter than buying reds directly.

[@tonyvink961]

Recent subscriber... your vids are always worth the time to watch. Can you comment on using the newest and largest hard drives on Synology? I am OK with forgoing tech support on the drive but want to know if a particular drive "should" work. For me specifically I want to use EXOS 18TB drives on a DS1520+. Are there any architectural or size issues that would result in incompatibility? Thanks, Tony

[@SpaceRexWill]

Synology is based on Linux and Linux is able to run with 18 / 20 hard drives no issue so I would say any issue you would run into would actually be synologys fault. That being said I have not tested any sizes larger then 16TB with a synology so I cannot verify it would work (but it should)

[@tonyvink961]

@@SpaceRexWill Thanks!

[@VirtualTourPhotographer]

I've chosen to go with Toshiba Enterprise drives and they have been both best value and very good performance. The fact that it's who Synology uses, should make them an obvious choice.

[@serdar-ors]

how is their sound ? i think 14TB toshiba. i have ironwolf pro 14tb and it is high when writing.

[@VirtualTourPhotographer]

@@serdar-ors not that bad but I also have them in a case with acoustic dampening and away from my desk.

[@serdar-ors]

@@VirtualTourPhotographer acoustic dampening , interesting. thanks.

[@karmascotland8]

Hi Rex, have you any opinion on NAS drives like Toshiba N300, as they are provided here in the UK?

[@BarnabY07]

Hi, Thanks for your channel and sharing with us. I just bought a DS220+. Is it possible this NAS doesn’t recognise basic WD Red Plus HDD (ref : WD40EFPX). It’s seems Synology isn’t very transparent about that 😕.

[@droneforfun5384]

Thank you Will! What about DSM 7.1 beta, do you recommend installing it? A brief DSM 7.1 highlight video would be great to watch. Take care! 😊

[@SpaceRexWill]

7.1 is really a business update, so I would always recommend waiting till release unless you have a real feature you need

[@robertdrobertofphiladelphi3393]

Wow! Great informative vid. Thank you! What a price difference with exos! I never knew that. Is it possible to mix exos with ironwolf pro in same Nas? I have 3 8 tbyte ironwolf and 1 16 t byte ironwolf. Want to replace 8tb with 16tb.

[@SpaceRexWill]

Depends on the pricing, you might have a bit of a pain with vibrations or having other weirdness. That being said I know tons of people who have 4 different types of hard drives in a RAID with no issues

[@TomaszTwojFotograf]

Thx! How about Toshiba HDWG21EUZSVA 14TB? If they produce for Synology - and it have the sensor it sould be OK?

[@Chazwozel1]

So I've got an Ironwolf 4 TB. My main concern has been that I've got it partitioned with 1 TB dedicated to Surveillance station. I know that Skyhawks are better for camera footage. In your opinion are the Ironwolfs ok to use as dual purpose for NAS use AND cameras? I'm debating whether or not to buy another Synology (mine only has two bays) with four bays, two of which I could dedicate for Cameras with a Skyhawk.

[@SpaceRexWill]

I would not worry about it! Ironwolfs are still rated for very high work loads!

[@Chazwozel1]

@@SpaceRexWill Thanks!

[@MaxxPainII]

May years ago my work used Seagate drives all the time, but most of them failed including the replacements. So Seagate left a bad impression for me. I've stuck with WD and have been happy. I do notice my WD Red drives in my Synology 918 are a tad noisy at times for my home office. I have 6 Synology units with WD drives, all have been working great.

[@SpaceRexWill]

I have heard similar things from guys who worked with Segate 10-15 years ago! seems like they have gotten themselves together but its hard to get that kind of a bad taste out of your mouth

[@mantasvilkelis2224]

@@SpaceRexWill I had so many problems with seagate 10+ yers ago, but for the past 5 years we are using in the studio heavily seagate ironwolf hdd and never had (knock on a wood) any issues

[@maxxomega6599]

It's weird and goes through cycles. I had SO many problems with WD Drives, especially Raptors. Switched to Seagate with no problems...

[@jasonhall9364]

Not sure if this is a HDD or NAS question. I’m looking to set up a NAS that will be part file storage, part Plex server and in the near future a surveillance NVR. Could I/should I use IronWolf Pros for the file storage and Plex server RAIDs and a NVR class drive for the NVR or should I use IronWolf Pros for the entire NAS?

[@vardagsteknik6576]

Is't Toshiba getting hot? I have WD red and they worked for years, non smr.

[@JevVan]

I worked as a PC Technician in the late 80s and again in the mid 90s. I know it's a long time ago, but I saw significantly less failures of WD Drives than Seagate. Couple that with the only HD Failure I've ever had was a Seagate. So I stopped used them completely by 2000. I've never had a failure since. While other people I know who are in particular or Seagate fans are regularly telling me their stories of HDD failures.

[@XouZ88]

IronWolf was my choice also when I first got into NAS, it's still what I have

[@fantasticjack10]

Personal experience - Ironwolf was really good at first but it seems companies build a name, then make worse stuff relying on the name, then release a new series. I had been recommending ironwolf, but the last couple of years, for me at least, have been poor. 2 DOA and the replacements failed in two years. Total failures were 3. My ironwolf drives from the first few years are still running. My first two wd reds had a good run, but the ones after not so great. Running HGST at home, with one Toshiba I had to get because there were no other drives available that wasn't 3x the price in the middle of the pandemic and I had a wd red failure. Personally, never had a hgst fail. We'll see what happens going forward. Again just my experience. Also I find backblaze's reports interesting.

[@SpaceRexWill]

Where are you buying from?

[@fantasticjack10]

@@SpaceRexWill @SpaceRex BH photo, "Shipped and Sold from Newegg," and Microcenter. The replacements were under manufacturer warranty.

[@leodsouza5272]

We are getting Unverified drive for Seagate Exos drive? Can we use the unverified drive for Synology DS1522+ Please advise

[@rickdent2719]

Setting up a new NAS. I currently use an SSD on my laptop and really like it. Is an SSD a good idea for a Synology NAS?

[@jakesells2379]

Have you looked at the Exos Mach 2 dual actuator drives? If so, do they work as intended in a Synology NAS?

[@briankwok3636]

Who still miss Maxtor drives, my favourite brand of HDDs ever

[@juancarlosgarcia3025]

Excellent video, thank you very much, within this world of disks for NAS and its entire metaverse... At the same total capacity in a RAID 5, which is better, many low-capacity disks or few high-capacity disks? For use as a home stream of music and use of lightroom, is the use of SSD disks justified instead of HDD? Thank you.

[@SpaceRexWill]

I would highly recomend buying a NAS, and leaving a few bays empty. This way you can grow into more space without having to get rid of old hardware

[@uria702]

Wd red for em all the way. Luckily, we haven’t had any server yet that requires those Synology drives.

[@andreasoberg2021]

I have Exos and they are loud. When they are searching you hear these strong TOK TOK TOK. I can even hear it downstairs in the floor below. Otherwise they work great.

[@12Alex121]

Over the years I collected a box with broken stuff, all my failed had’s are inside. So there is 4 Seagate, 1 Toshiba that is totally my fault since I dropped it and 1 WD. Swore to myself never use Seagate, so since 2017-18 been using only WD and up to now had 0 troubles.

[@Attila_G]

There are several models of the IronWolf disks: IronWolf, IronWolf Pro, IronWolf NAS and then those with different transfer rates or Max. Workload Rate. This is quite confusing! I ask myself every time anew, which model I should now use in a Synology NAS.

[@GrantSR]

I'm old enough to remember about two major scandals for each major HDD manufacturer. Every time, they tried to hide it from customers. It's practically SOP for the industry.

[@Prod-23]

TOP TIPS ... Don't buy all your hard drives from the same shop at the same time. Spread it out and hope they're from different batches.

[@michal_szymanski]

Ok but right now 3x6TB WD RED (WD60EFRX-68MYMN1) and I've to replace one drive in RAID5, can I use Segate IronWolf 6TB and mix HD from different vendors?

[@gvvillanueva6053]

how to like storage no need to connect to net ? or always connected to net ? this one like a harddrive in pc because i need to more storage thanks for the answer

[@gregmunro2121]

Hi, couple of questions, how can I tell if my old wd red is smr or cmr ? Is it worth if I need to change drives going for ssd or sticking with hdd. I only use my ds220+ to store and access music, also keeping photos, appreciated

[@SpaceRexWill]

For your workflow, I probably would not worry about switching to CMR drives even if they are SMR. You can lookup your model number to see if they are

[@hurd23]

Yep, agree

[@peterloader974]

Just bought two 4TB Seagate Ironwolf's a week ago to replace a failing WD 6TB drive in my Synology DS215J, which now employs Raid. Happy with them.

[@SpaceRexWill]

Nice!

[@jumpinwired1]

What about Water Panther Arsenal series? I'm trying to stay very, well cheap so I'm thinking about getting a couple "renewed" drives on Amazon.

[@SpaceRexWill]

As far as I can tell (have looked at those before) they are designed to be OEM clones for business who want to buy a dell, but don’t want to pay dell 4x the cost of the hard drive. I probably would look at something like a cheap Exos before going for those unless there was a really good price reason

[@iamnotapoet]

SpaceRex, As usual thanks for the FANTASTIC video. ALL of the Fantastic Videos. And I know in many you have addressed the Seagate 18TB IronWolf Pro Synology Compatibility alerts. I know you say “all is fine… it’s just an alert you cam ignore.” But I am still super scared. I just now put a 18TB drive in my DS1821+ with 4 8TB drives. And I got the SHOCKINGLY RED ALERT saying “Important data may be lost if you choose to proceed.” I panicked and removed the drive. I had been sitting on the unboxed drive for 6 months WAITING for Synology to add it to compatibility. But it APPEARS it NEVER will. And it also appears that they may NEVER add any NEW drives to compatibility other than their own much, Much, MUCH more expensive drives. Problem is I have THREE eight bay Synology Servers and MANY clients with 8 bay Plus model Synology Servers. And now I am afraid to even REPLACE drives. The NEW 16 TB IronWolf Replacement [ ST16000NTZ01 ] ALSO gives these scary alerts. I know I can’t deploy Synology Servers or replace drives if they will PERPETUALLY alert of “Important data may be lost”. A client would consider this a fireable offense. Have NO confidence in me as their consultant or Synology as a solution to protect their data. I own and have tried QNAP, but HATE the interface… But I MAY have to switch to them for clients [and personally] to avoid these SUPER SCARY alerts. Have you heard if Synology is aware they may be SCARING customers AWAY from having confidence in their equipment. And/or making them much, MUCH more expensive that QNAPS if you HAVE to put in ONLY Synology Drives. Have you heard if Synology will AT LEAST stop giving the INCOMPATIBILITY alert AFTER they have been installed and after that one SUPER Scary alert? Most of what I do as a Mac Consultant is Synology Server support. But I’m totally terrified of this alerts on my own Synology Servers and my clients servers too. What are you thoughts? And are you FULLY CONFIDENT that these alerts can be 100% ignored? And, as a sidebar, is it true and Synology and Seagate have officially dropped support for IronWolf Health Management on all new drives… just 3 years after promoting the heck out of that? What are your words of wisdom? And also what are your words of CONFIDENCE… That you can SUPER SAFELY proceed past all those BRIGHT RED alerts about LOSING DATA if you proceed. And, with those alerts, I would imagine Synology would use that as an excuse to NOT support your troubleshooting if and when you have issues. Please help with words of wonderful re-assurance of Synology having a present and Future with SEAGATE IRONWOLF Pro 18, 20 and 22 TB drives. Thanks - Eric ZORK Alan - Mac Consultant circa 1984, Synology Consultant Circa 2013

[@diosyntaxa]

I don't know if anyone said anything about it but I looked at prices just now since I'm planning to get another newer NAS at some point and like to look beforehand... I have a Gold from before but since WD has done what they've done I've started looking more at Seagate as well and... The price difference between Exos and Ironwolf Pros could be due to there being two different Exos-models. I found one that was 400 SEK (I'm in Sweden) cheaper than the other, both being 4TB Exos. Noticed one was mentioned to be 512n, the other 512e/4kn, so different sector sizes and less compatible with older software/hardware. Could be what you saw back then as well... The newer standard 4kn is cheaper :p Might not work with all NAS:es though. Would be loathe to find out my new drive just won't work in the NAS.

[@TazzSmk]

I saw some of your older videos where you talk about 10GBe which made me really curious on what drives and how many would make sense to buy for Synology NAS with 10GBe to get full speeds, would 5 (+1, SHR) be enough, or are 7 (+1, SHR) needed to sustain that 10GBe throughput?

[@SpaceRexWill]

So you would get between 150-200MB/s per writeable drive summed up. So an 8bay (7 + 1) will get you faster speeds (especially as drives fill up and slow down)

[@TazzSmk]

@@SpaceRexWill hmm so when looking at future 10GBe NAS options, I should be looking at 8-bay (or more) NAS models, thanks! :)

[@MatthewMorseCA]

@@TazzSmk and @SpaceRex is right - the more drives in the Synology array the faster your R/W will be with a 10GbE connection. SSD cache doesn't help with file shares/transfers and is only best for VM/Docker instances. In my DS2419+II (12x Exos 18Tb) with the 10Gbit NIC my iPerf3 tests reliably show 8-9Gbps transfers over copper via UniFi Aggregation Sw. to my Mac Pro on 10GbE. Blackmagic's Speed Test averages >700MB/s Reads & Writes. I use strict RAID 6 because I'm matching all disk types; I saw a slight perf increase with this format over SHR which is why I chose standard over dynamic RAID.

[@ades788]

Hi, what about Samsung QVO ssd?

[@scocassovegetus]

What about SSD drives?? I have some of those, but they're not on the synology compatibility list. Samsung 870 evo. 860 is on the list, but not 870.

[@drewbizdev]

I'm sharing this on a couple of different video comments: I still use Western digital, but I acquired a certain standard for many different devices, and once certain qualities came into question, (For instance) ...I for the past 10 years, only buy Western digital Gold drives. They are Data Center quality and in 10 years I have NEVER had one go bad. ...Just say'in. - P.S.: I do NOT use SMR. SMR drives are not even allowed in the front door.

[@marekd3758]

I am planning to buy Nas. My friend told me that WD are worse than symology. I was considering wd es2 ultra, but it has much worse specs than synology 223 or 224+. Drive will be needed only to backup data, maybe rarely to access the data. Which one should I buy? Which drive should I get? I am trying to understand if synology 223 or 223j will be enough, and I think yes, it will be. Am I correct that more expensive Nas like 224+ are for more professional use? And that they differ only with hardware? What is the difference between 223 and 223j?

[@ArrangingFear56]

Was about to go with EXOS but a huge sale went on for WDs Ultrastar line so went for that instead, hopefully they can last long enough.

[@SpaceRexWill]

Nice! 100% go with where ever the sale is at (esp if they are high quality)

[@the_bogeyman.]

How are they doing? Noisy? I want to buy 4x WD ultrastar 16TB for my nas, they are a lot cheaper than WD gold here lately.

[@ArrangingFear56]

@@the_bogeyman. occasionally they to make a bit of noise but nothing unacceptable, none of them have failed yet.

[@the_bogeyman.]

@@ArrangingFear56 thankyou.

[@CAIDMASTEROFPYRO]

I bought a drive to shuck for less than half the price of the drive bought separately, it's still going, super slow drive though i imagine that is why it ended up in an enclosure

[@sampk9229]

can i use one iron wolf and one barraCuda seagate in DS220+ ?

[@cplstato]

A really good video for beginner and experiences NAS users alike! Quick question though...could you use a WD Gold or Seagate EXOS for normal NAS use? (as long as they are SATA of course) if they are designed for enterprise systems (as long as you can withstand the little extra noise. Thanks

[@SpaceRexWill]

As long as they are sata yes. They just tend to be a bit more noisy

[@pauld7827]

I've bought my first Synology NAS for testing, just a small 2 drive system and am really impressed with the operating system, functionality etc. All the videos I've seen use traditional hard drives. Is there any reason not to use SSD's as the storage media?

[@gokuafrica]

It's really simple: SSDs are expensive. Even 10-15 years after their first occurrence, they are still at least double the price of hard disks on the lower side.

[@TobiLotta]

im not able to find any suggestions: will 18TB HDDS work with synology?

[@SpaceRexWill]

They will work, but it may complain

[@TobiLotta]

@@SpaceRexWill what can happen

[@TalentedTom91]

So i have a 2 bay Synology and i've bought 2 Barracudas for it by mistake. However, after watching this video i kinda feel like i'm just going to go ahead and use them as i'm literally only using it for TimeMachine backups on 1 mac. Maybe some storage but it won't be in constant use. I feel like i'll be ok no...? I mean the data's not sensitive so if i lose it all it's not a problem. I guess i'll just buy the NAS drives when/if the worst happens.

[@vokal2000]

What manufacturer has the better policy when the drive fails under warranty? Are Seagate and WD equal in their replacement speed?

[@SpaceRexWill]

They tend to be in lockstep in-between each other in terms of warranty. I am not sure about the replacement speed as I have yet to RMA anyones

[@karenorgan6203]

Seagate Ironwolf 12TB, how are they for acoustics? I'm currently running WD Red Plus 14TB, but in the future I'm looking to leave WD, I saw your other video about flagging early

[@karenorgan6203]

How do you know if your HDD is SMR? I have a number of WD Red Plus 14TB NAS Hard Disk Drive - 7200 RPM Class SATA 6Gb/s, CMR, 512MB Cache, 3.5 Inch - WD140EFGX

[@liugeorge4670]

I am a small business user with DS 1621xs+, I would not buy Synology HDD unless they drop their price to keep in line with other brands. CMR sata 7200rpm exos

[@SpaceRexWill]

Yeah, I really hope they do not bring the Synology hard drive recommendation down to the smaller units!

[@Mark_Chandler]

wd had a sale recently on its gold drives.

[@wilsonlee6091]

I was going to go with the EXOS drives but I didn't see them on the Synology compatibility list...? Would've been nice to save some $$

[@JoeTaxpayer]

LOL. Wasn't the quote "No one ever got fired for buying IBM"? As always, great video.

[@SpaceRexWill]

Haha I had always heard “buying a dell” but probably has moved as time goes on

[@---GOD---]

"I'd be worried if they did" LOL me too