SHR or RAID 1?

[sthapns247]

We just bought a Synology DS1813+ and 8 4TB HDD with the plan to create a RAID 1 array for simple redundancy plus an attached HDD for backup. I was not aware of Synology's SHR technology before purchasing and cannot decide if I should choose it over RAID 1. It seems to be geared more toward home users that may have mixed HDD drive sizes and may be looking to easily expand in the future, but I don't know if any of the advantages will benefit us seeing as we already have the NAS to capacity with all the same size/brand/model drives.
Is there any advantage for us to choose SHR over RAID 1?
We are a video production studio and will be using the NAS as an archive drive for old projects and transferring large files over the network. My knowledge of RAID is somewhere between novice and intermediate.

Thanks for any advice/suggestions.

 

[kanewolf]

Since you have 8 uniform disks, I don't see a benefit to SHR. What I might suggest would be RAID 6 (N+2) rather than RAID10 (assuming you use all the drives).

You should also take advantage of the link aggregation feature. Each individual user might be limited to 1Gb performance, but the workgroup should be able to get more than that using the link aggregation. You do need a managed switch to take advantage of link aggregation.

 

[sthapns247]

Since you have 8 uniform disks, I don't see a benefit to SHR. What I might suggest would be RAID 6 (N+2) rather than RAID10 (assuming you use all the drives).

You should also take advantage of the link aggregation feature. Each individual user might be limited to 1Gb performance, but the workgroup should be able to get more than that using the link aggregation. You do need a managed switch to take advantage of link aggregation.

Thanks for the response. The only question I have is how much total storage will I get out of RAID 6 in my set up? I have 8 4TB drives = 32TB with no RAID, what will I get with RAID 6?

 

[kanewolf]

Since you have 8 uniform disks, I don't see a benefit to SHR. What I might suggest would be RAID 6 (N+2) rather than RAID10 (assuming you use all the drives).

You should also take advantage of the link aggregation feature. Each individual user might be limited to 1Gb performance, but the workgroup should be able to get more than that using the link aggregation. You do need a managed switch to take advantage of link aggregation.

Thanks for the response. The only question I have is how much total storage will I get out of RAID 6 in my set up? I have 8 4TB drives = 32TB with no RAID, what will I get with RAID 6?

The RAID Calculator on Synology's page show 24TB usable (6 x 4TB). RAID 1 -- really RAID 10 would only give you 16TB usable. (4 x 4TB + 4 x 4TB for the mirror). Maybe you were thinking of RAID 0 -- which has NO protection. That would give you 32TB.

RAID 6 has two protection disks. The benefit of RAID6 is that if you loose a 2nd drive during a rebuild, you are still OK.

 

[sthapns247]

Since you have 8 uniform disks, I don't see a benefit to SHR. What I might suggest would be RAID 6 (N+2) rather than RAID10 (assuming you use all the drives).

You should also take advantage of the link aggregation feature. Each individual user might be limited to 1Gb performance, but the workgroup should be able to get more than that using the link aggregation. You do need a managed switch to take advantage of link aggregation.

Thanks for the response. The only question I have is how much total storage will I get out of RAID 6 in my set up? I have 8 4TB drives = 32TB with no RAID, what will I get with RAID 6?

The RAID Calculator on Synology's page show 24TB usable (6 x 4TB). RAID 1 -- really RAID 10 would only give you 16TB usable. (4 x 4TB + 4 x 4TB for the mirror). Maybe you were thinking of RAID 0 -- which has NO protection. That would give you 32TB.

RAID 6 has two protection disks. The benefit of RAID6 is that if you loose a 2nd drive during a rebuild, you are still OK.

Thanks for your help! RAID 6 definitely looks like the way to go.

 

[kanewolf]

Since you have 8 uniform disks, I don't see a benefit to SHR. What I might suggest would be RAID 6 (N+2) rather than RAID10 (assuming you use all the drives).

You should also take advantage of the link aggregation feature. Each individual user might be limited to 1Gb performance, but the workgroup should be able to get more than that using the link aggregation. You do need a managed switch to take advantage of link aggregation.

Thanks for the response. The only question I have is how much total storage will I get out of RAID 6 in my set up? I have 8 4TB drives = 32TB with no RAID, what will I get with RAID 6?

The RAID Calculator on Synology's page show 24TB usable (6 x 4TB). RAID 1 -- really RAID 10 would only give you 16TB usable. (4 x 4TB + 4 x 4TB for the mirror). Maybe you were thinking of RAID 0 -- which has NO protection. That would give you 32TB.

RAID 6 has two protection disks. The benefit of RAID6 is that if you loose a 2nd drive during a rebuild, you are still OK.

Thanks for your help! RAID 6 definitely looks like the way to go.

I will emphasize again, the NEED to use the link aggregation in the gig-e ports on that NAS. To get the most throughput you NEED to use link aggregation....

You didn't ask that question, because you may not be familiar with link aggregation.