Question NAS Decision - Terramaster F4-220 vs Synology DS218+

[jjmpeters]

I have been using a WD myCloud device to stream my owned 4k movies to my LG OLED with no issues. However, I was concerned over the lack of redundancy as my library grows. I decided to make an investment in a NAS with RAID capability.

I ordered from Newegg the TerraMaster F4-220 4 bay NAS that I have just received but have not opened. The reason I haven't opened it is that I came across a significant price mistake on another site for a Synology DS218+ 2 bay NAS and was able to place an order before the price was corrected. To my surprise, and after much back and forth with the vendor, they have shipped the Synology and it will arrive next Tuesday.

I understand the Synology has superior hardware, user interface and functionality, but I like the 4 bays of the TerraMaster so I could do RAID 5 which you can't do with only two bays. Since I am only streaming the 4K movies to my TV, I really don't need the Plex server capabilities of the Synology.

I need to decide whether to crack open the TerraMaster and ebay the Synology, or return the TerraMaster and keep the Synology.

I would appreciate feedback from members of this forum as to what they recommend and why. Thanks!

 

[USAFRet]

What size drives are you putting in this? While RAID 5 gives a single drive failure recovery, it becomes problematic with larger drives.

I have a 4 bay Qnap, with 4x 4TB drives, RAID 5. That is about as large as I'd recommend with a RAID 5.
Rebuilding a RAID 5 with ~7TB consumed space and a new drive takes around 6-8 hours.

 

[jjmpeters]

What size drives are you putting in this? While RAID 5 gives a single drive failure recovery, it becomes problematic with larger drives.

I have a 4 bay Qnap, with 4x 4TB drives, RAID 5. That is about as large as I'd recommend with a RAID 5.
Rebuilding a RAID 5 with ~7TB consumed space and a new drive takes around 6-8 hours.

8TB. Too big?

 

[ElectrO_90]

I'm a big Synology Fan - I think their stuff is really good.

But if you need redundancy Raid 10 the 4 bay.
I have 2 Synology NAS running, one of them a 416 4 bay and another Rx3618 12 bay
The 12 bay is all Raid 10 of 12x8TB WD Red Pro drives and sadly one drive did go down, but luckily the Raid saved a lot of data from being lost.

 

[USAFRet]

8TB. Too big?

I wouldn't.

The problem with large drives like that, is when the array needs rebuilding, it rewrites all the data across all drives.
4 x 8TB = 24TB RAID 5.
Assuming you have maybe 15-20TB data space...that's a couple of days to rebuild from a failed drive. And during that rebuild, another drive fail, or any hiccup...all data is toast. Unless, of course, you also have a whole backup of the thing.

On my 4x4TB array, I do indeed also have a full backup of the data, on 2 other drives. Most of it on a single 8TB, and some on a 3TB.


Don't get me wrong...my 4 bay Qnap has been flawless for over 2 years, 24/7. But if I were using larger drives, I probably woundn't do a RAID 5.