Question Building NAS into network

[toddthecat]

Hello everyone. Always appreciate the expertise you all have. Forgive me for being largely unknowledgeable in the networking area. I'm pretty solid on hardware though. Just need some advice as I've not done much of anything with networks...

I'm consolidating digital assets and want them all in one place and reliably backed up so I purchased a Synology DS220+ and two 4TB Ironwolf HDDs to RAID 1 for a 4TB back up pool (all my backup isn't even approaching 1TB so I'm decently future proofed and plan on working with some small video files in the future). I'm looking to set things up so that my wife and I can both read/write to the Synology as well as optimize some things with internet access. Here is what we are working with across the network (for Wi-Fi consideration, the home is single level wood frame/drywall with a very open floor plan with no connectivity issues to the routers, so much that everything is fastest and currently on the 5ghz frequency)

Two internet feeds:
-Starlink v2 on their router. Located in living room. My computer is located in the bedroom about 50 feet away. Separated by a wall but nearly have line of sight with the door open. Speeds vary. I'm showing right now 109 down/6 up on a 5Ghz wi-fi. Drops to usually around 60 on the 2.5ghz
-Cellular based internet from local provider with their TP-Link Archer A54 (serves as back up internet, was previously primary, I'm very rural). Located in the kitchen. Max speed from the provider is 8Mbps. I've seen it run 7 down on a 2.4ghz connection with 3 walls separating. Tends to run 3 down. I only use it for backup purposes and may drop it soon since Starlink has been entirely reliable since we got it 6 months ago, however I have low importance items on it such as some wi-fi lights, a non-essential tablet that has no cell, and a wireless camera,

Primary devices with LAN capability:
-My primary machine, an ASUS Zephyrus M16 capable of supporting WiFi 6e and everything in the 802.11 including 802.11ax and 2.5GbE port connected now wirelessly on 5ghz
-Wifes machine, an HP Pavillion with 802.11ac connected line of sight in the same room as the Starlink router on 5ghz. She runs in the >100 downs. 25 feet or so distance.
-NAS arriving later this week
-A sometimes used Samsung smart TV, connected on the 5ghz, 4 feet from Starlink
-A largely unused Xbox One, just below the TV

Devices with no LAN but are linking through with Wi-Fi (for information regarding network saturation):

• Two Samsung S20s, wi-fi usually to avoid cell data
• An Oculus Quest 2
• A single outdoor surveillance camera on the backup router
• A few various appliances, lights

To give an idea on the most intense use at any time, my wife may be on the internet at the same time I am while our son is on the VR and maybe the TV is streaming. Both computers usually streaming something as well. Have not had connectivity issues so far, even under this current configuration.

My main goal is to:

• Boost my internet speed for my machine by directly connecting (was getting shy of 200 down when tested wired today) and have everything set up as efficiently as possible. I just got the ethernet adapter for Starlink in the mail today. Oddly, using a new Cat6 cable, my wife's internet speed was slower than with the WiFi 5ghz...
• Be able to have the two of us access the NAS

Secondarily:
- Have the NAS be capable of wireless use. I will restrict it in the DSM from internet access though as I do not need to access the NAS from anywhere outside my home, nor do I want to open the potential for an attack on it

I'm thinking of doing this:

• Attach NAS to the secondary router and we can both read/write wirelessly. It's a backup only. Not a ton of large single files. The initial dump I'd do wired, then the rest could be managed easily wirelessly and switching over to that network to conduct some file transfers is not a big deal.
• Be on LAN connection for my machine to internet

I'm assuming everyone is going to say to get a switch and wire everything that can be wired to it. I'm not entirely keen on the idea, but am willing to do it if it would make some enormous difference or if there is something I'm missing. Data can be written to the NAS wirelessly, right? I know Synology has their "approved devices" list (doesn't mean other stuff won't work). Neither Starlink nor the A54 routers are on it. These wouldn't be huge writes. 10 or 20MB tops with no rush. Our multimedia consumption is largely YouTube. We don't have files like movies, TV shows, etc. With all other services out there, I see no need to use Plex with the Synology but who knows what I may later do with it.

Thanks everyone.

 

[bill001g]

First raid is not a backup it protects against hardware failure. It does not protect against a oops like you delete a whole directory or some bug corrupts the files or some ransomware encrypts your files. Nas is not used for backup...unless you have a second nas I guess.

So as you suspect you want as much stuff wired as you can. Your internet is slow compared to the speed you will be running data off the NAS. You can easily get rate approaching the full 1gbit speeds of ethernet cable. No wifi is going to even come close.

That does not mean you can not also access the nas via wifi if you want say if you wanted to play a video on your phone that was stored on the nas. That type of application is fairly low bandwidth compared to say editing large video files.

To avoid confusing things with discussion of how to run a network with 2 ISP what you want to do is hook the NAS to the router. It does not directly have to be attached it can have a switch in between but it still should be connected via ethernet. Now I have seen people that hook a NAS to a remote mesh node with a ethernet cable and think that is ethernet but it really is no different than if you put a wifi nic in the NAS. You will be limited by the speed of the wifi. You really want to avoid this. If you were to have a NAS connected via wifi and then copied data from another wifi device the data would go between the NAS and the router via wifi and then go from the router to the client via wifi. These 2 signals will compete for the total bandwidth. If the NAS is connected via ethernet they only the client is using the wifi bandwidth and you should get double the speed.