Question 1

It says "Scale Up to 60TB with Synology DX513 " but what size is it to begin with when you purchase it?

Accepted Answer

From the specifications of the NAS this does not come with any hard disk drives.  This is what people call a disk less station.  Currently I have 5 two TB western digital red hard drives in my home unit. The quality of the unit is well worth the price!

Question 2

Does this divide come with the five drives included or would I need to buy those separately? And if so, how much data does each of the drives hold?

Accepted Answer

It does not come with any drives, you have to supply your own.  You may use any size drive up to 4TB each for a total of 20TB, but can expand with an expansion enclosure up to 60TB.  The cool thing is you may mix and match any type/size drives and upgrade as you can afford it.  I currently have 2 3TB drives and 1 2TB drive in my system and will be upgrading to 4TB drives as I can afford them.  Using Synology Hybrid RAID option, you can upgrade easily and still have protection if one of your drives fail.  The upgrade is seamless... pop out the old drive and pop in the new one or add the new one to an open slot.  The NAS will detect the change and automatically upgrade while you continue to use the NAS!  Awesome and it has worked will for me for several upgrades I've done in the past.  Can't miss with this NAS, it is the best out there.

Question 3

do I need to load all 5 hard drive bays? what is the minimum amount of bays I could load? 1?

Accepted Answer

You could install 1 but a RAID configuration would require a minimum of two hard drives preferably of the same size and rated to be installed in a NAS (Ex. Western Digital Red series). A minimum of 3 is required for RAID 5. RAID configurations will preserve your data if one of the drives fails depending on the configuration you choose. We have all drive bays loaded with 4TB drives.

I have been very satisfied with the Synology. We use it for all file storage for 18 employees working both remotely and in the office. There are more apps and configurations built in than you will need. Remote access through android and ipad/iphone is fantastic. Great less expensive alternative to a traditional server and way easier to configure and manage. We have 6MB Up and 50MB down internet speed so that helps remote users.

Question 4

Don't I need a computer with 4 NIC as well to fully benefit the link aggregation? It's confusing because I don't see how connecting this NAS to a switch with 4 cables and then connecting a computer with 1 cable to same switch would be beneficial (bottleneck?).

Accepted Answer

The 4 NICs are useful in 2 situations.
1. If you want to be able to put this NAS on more than one subnet (or network). You can then use a NIC for each different one.
2. When used with a switch that supports LAG Aggrigation. If this is this case then you can have 4GB worth of through put on the device. This either helps when there are mutiple computers accessing it at the same time or when 1 computer has multiple NICs and is using teaming or load balancing. Even if a computer has only 1 NIC connections you will most likely see some added benifit to having all 4 connections LAGed than using just 1 in terms of throughput.

Of course both situations are more important and used by businesses than individuals using this personally.

Question 5

Is it possible to have 1 HD contain all of my companies data so i can take it home over the weekend? Or maybe setup when i plug in my external HD for it to automatically back all data onto?

Accepted Answer

To answer your question, the first part: Yes it's possible, but not wise.  It limits the function of the RAID in the first place.

If all you want is a backup volume you can take home on weekends, get an external drive case that has ethernet (lots of them here on Newegg).  If that's the live data, you need to rethink your strategy and have a backup!

If you're wanting to take the data home to work on it, it won't work without a lot of extra work and hardware since you can't slap that drive into another device.

You second question is a better solution and yes, that can be set up as well. It's easy to accomplish once you understand how to manage drives and create volumes.  Some reading is involved, but the reward is there at the end.

Better yet, get and set up a second, remote (at your home as an example), device (NAS) and either set up a backup schedule to periodically copy the data or use iSCSI to create a link and have a constant backup copy.

Remember, a RAID array (in a NAS) is not a backup device. And neither is a NAS unless it IS actually backing up data from somewhere else.

Good luck in your efforts!  Picking a Synology device was the best step forward I made in simplifying and improving my data storage situation.  Hopefully it will be for you too.

Question 6

how many harddrive  does it come with and what are the size of each drive. all cloud software include in the box?

Accepted Answer

Unfortunately the DS 1513 does not come with drives.   It's a little on the expensive side but mine has been rock solid for 6 months now.  I'm using it for multiple iSCSI endpoints for my VMWare ESXi hypervisor lab.   4 bays with 4TB drives (RAID 5 iSCSI LUNs); 1 bay shares volume for archives. Goodness.

Synology has a website where you can download all kinds of useful utilities.

Question 7

Does anyone know if I can use the new WD Red 6TB drives with this? And if so, can I use 5 of the hdd in this?

Accepted Answer

So to be safe I would go on their site and check to see if that drive is compatible. I have 4x 4TB drives in mine and a 2TB. works great. sticker shock for a bare bones NAS, but other than that it has been awesome. great support on the DSM updates and other software that is included.Be sure to look into other synology software packages after your purchase to really make this thing a beast. I didn't think I would need it, but now I hover at 80-90% of RAM usage, so I would get the additional RAM so you don't have to worry with it in the end.

Question 8

Is this the last specs of the DiskStation DS1513+ ? I am asking this as the manufacturer on his webpage says that the station is expandable up to 90TB with addition of two DX513/DX213, but you mention only 60TB as maximum.

Thank you and regards
Filipe

Accepted Answer

You have to remember that HDD technology is constantly evolving with increased storage amounts. As far as the manufacturer's page, it shows the maximum limit to be 90TB (30TB x3), which would be 5x 6TB drives per unit. When the item was added to Newegg, 4TB drives may have been the maximum at the time, or may have been what Synology had the units tested with, or it could have been a firmware limitation at the time (which has since been resolved).
Also - keep in mind that the type of RAID that you set up will also limit how much of the drive space will actually be useable - in a RAID5, for instance, you would instantly drop from 90TB down to about 72TB of useable space. Full mirrors, you would have even less useable space, etc.

Question 9

How do the permissions work? Can i create multiple virtual volumes (Fixed and dynamic) for distribution to multiple users with varied permissions?

Accepted Answer

This isn't quite like a SAN where you create multiple volumes. Usually you have a single volume. You can create multiple shares and then set quotas for users. This NAS also supports iSCSI connections, so if you are creating iSCSI volumes, those support size limitations. I hope that makes sense.

Question 10

Hello, can you set me up with the additional 2GB correct RAM module - DDR3?

Accepted Answer

Here is the ram I put in this nas. Kingston ValueRam 2GB (KVR1066D3S8S7/2G). I have not had a problem with the ram. On Newegg it is located here: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820239354

Questions & Answers