Expanding Synology
from scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech to selfhosted@lemmy.world on 28 Nov 22:54
https://poptalk.scrubbles.tech/post/1711713

Hey folks, happy Thanksgiving to those celebrating today!

I have a Synology DS1821+ that I have completely filled. I’m looking for expanding, but I don’t really want to completely replace the Synology yet.

Does anyone know if there is a way to expand the number of drives? I’ve heard murmers that I can use a DAS, but nothing for sure. Wondering if anyone has attempted this before. Thanks!

#selfhosted

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Ebby@lemmy.ssba.com on 28 Nov 23:04 next collapse

You can use an expansion unit DX517 to add more dives or upgrade existing to larger ones if you use some form of Raid/SHR.

The swap-drive-and-rebuild-array route can take it’s sweet time.

cRazi_man@lemm.ee on 28 Nov 23:06 next collapse

I think you’d just have to buy another Synology with more bays.

I guess not

rhacer@lemmy.world on 28 Nov 23:40 next collapse

Upgrading by replacing your drives one at a time will likely get you where you want to go. When I upgraded my 6Tb drives in my 920+ to 12Tb drives it took about a week.

just_another_person@lemmy.world on 29 Nov 01:54 next collapse

This is the answer. Just buy bigger drives, and replace them one at a time and let them resize.

Anyone saying to buy expansion units is wrong. It works like ZFS or btrfs, and very seamlessly. I’ve upgraded my drives 4 times with zero issues.

scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech on 29 Nov 03:25 collapse

Yeah, I wanted to and tbh that was my first approach, but I’m already at 16TB drives in there, even if I shell out a ton of money for 24TB drives I’d only add 33% more storage, so I think I have to look at either a bigger box or some sort of expansion.

rhacer@lemmy.world on 29 Nov 05:03 next collapse

Will that sounds like the perfect “Gee I have to spend this money on something bigger and better” reason!

TedZanzibar@feddit.uk on 29 Nov 08:49 collapse

That’s… A lot of storage. I’d say your options are, in no particular order:

  • buy a 12 bay NAS.
  • expansion unit. Do it as a separate volume and shuffle cold data onto there.
  • upgrade the drives.

Failing that you could just have a bit of a purge? If not straight deleting stuff, move things onto an external drive.

You could also try deduping. There’s a script that’ll add any drive to the internal “supported” list and also enable dedupe on mechanical drives. The savings were minimal on mine but you might have more luck. github.com/…/Synology_enable_Deduplication

jrbaconcheese@yall.theatl.social on 29 Nov 00:56 next collapse

There are expansions for Synology: www.synology.com/en-us/products/accessories?tab=n…

Probably most important is the 5-drive DX517 that will definitely work with your 1821+ www.synology.com/en-us/products/DX517#specs

scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech on 29 Nov 03:25 collapse

Thanks, I saw some of those, the prices seem… extreme for what is essentially a JBOD enclosure. It’s definitely there as a backup, but I’m hoping for something that won’t be that much… but maybe I’m dreaming

catloaf@lemm.ee on 29 Nov 02:43 next collapse

Literally on the product page, first result when I googled the model number:

DS1821+ comes equipped with 8 bays and can scale up to 18 bays with 2 DX517 expansion units as your data needs grow.

www.synology.com/en-us/products/DS1821+

Honest question: did you do any investigation on your own, or post here first?

scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech on 29 Nov 03:23 collapse

Hey, thanks for the mean answer.

Yes. I had seen that, I saw the price too. I saw on Reddit that people had had luck using QNAP expansions, or just anything that supports JBOD. I thought I’d ask here because people are usually nice and may have creative ideas. Note other people here giving answers that don’t have the attitude.

jet@hackertalks.com on 29 Nov 03:22 next collapse

What everybody else said plus

www.synology.com/en-global/dsm/feature/migration

Synology will migrate all of your data from one device to another if you just want to get a completely new device.

scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech on 29 Nov 03:26 collapse

Well, it’s in my back pocket if it comes to that…

kalleboo@lemmy.world on 29 Nov 05:21 next collapse

When I was following Synology communities closer, the common wisdom was that the expansion units weren’t great in either performance, stability or cost, and you were better off buying a new, bigger unit and then selling your old one used to recoup the cost difference.

I’m also in the same position, I have a DS918+ that is full. It’s also 6 years old and probably on the tail end of getting software updates so I’m weighing my choices…

Reaper948@lemmy.world on 29 Nov 16:37 collapse

Just in case it matters for you, the max single volume size for your NAS is 108TB

kb.synology.com/…/Why_does_my_Synology_NAS_have_a…