Question 1

If this device fails but the drives are good, is the data recoverable?  Eg can I pop the drives into a linux PC or buy a replacement unit and be able to access the data without any super-human efforts?

Accepted Answer

Well first off i know the unit stores the configuration with the drives because I did swap them out after setup and I had to setup the new drives from scratch (I didn't leave existing in)  but depending on your raid level that is the part that will make it where you can do what you are asking or not.  IE  Raid 0 stripe  No you can't just drop in any machine and make it work, same with Raid 5, 10 or any other spanned format.  You should be able to put it directly in a PC for RAID 1 or no raid without issues as it is just linux file system.  I didn't try this as I am running in Raid 5.

Question 2

If I have a mac and a pc how do I format the hard drives to be used by both.  Like I want to have time machine backup to here and I want my DVRCMS for my camers to store here as well...Can this be done?

Accepted Answer

You don't worry about formatting - Synology takes care of that.

So I have this unit on my network and use both Macs and PCs.  It is not a dedicated Mac drive, but a network drive or resource that both the Mac's and the PC's can access.  The unit takes care of formatting to suit the needs of RAID, which gives you the data redundancy (i.e., if an individual drive fails, and you have enough drives in the unit, you don't lose your data).  Synology has created software to help you use either a Mac or PC with it.  I'm still figuring out how to optimize it's use, but I can tell you that both the MAC and PC technologies have no problem reading from or writing to the Synology as a network drive.

Question 3

Is this NAS a software or hardware RAID?

Accepted Answer

My guess is a software raid. To change raid type would require reconfiguring through the NAS interface.

Question 4

I see one bad review complaining about data recovery issues when a drive fails.  I have lots of experience with RAID.  In my experience, if one drive fails you can still access data. Is this possible with this device?

Accepted Answer

Of course. If you lose one drive in a redundant RAID mode, you'll still have access to your data. I've purposefully pulled a drive (while powered off!) to see if this works on the DS413j, and upon reboot, you can still access data. Then I put in a new replacement drive (while off!), and rebooted, and you can still access the data, while rebuilding the array.

Question 5

Can I use the Network or the USB to transfer data to the device?

Accepted Answer

Network definitely. The USB I am not sure.  I know its their if you want to hook a printer to it, to have a shared network printer.  The Synology website, which you should by all means check out before you buy, has a list of compatible hardware.  The forums their are really helpful too.  Good Luck.

Question 6

Has anybody used this with a "hybrid" drive (SSD + Disk)?

Feel free to comment on whether this is even too stupid to consider :)

Accepted Answer

The CPU seems to be the bottleneck on this particular NAS in terms of transfer speed. If you start transferring files to or from the device and watch the CPU usage in the web interface, it's almost always maxed out. I'd imagine it could definitely transfer faster if it had a beefier CPU but that's what we're paying for at this price point. I highly doubt this NAS would be able to take advantage of any increased speeds with a hybrid drive.

Question 7

Is this device capable of joining a domain?

Accepted Answer

I have not used it but, it is advertised :

Domain Integration

Synology NAS supports Active Directory and LDAP domain service. IT managers can centralize user account and permission control in one place for end users to access Synology NAS and its various DSM services with single domain account. You can also host your own LDAP server to manage network devices with ease.

Questions & Answers