Synology DS215j NAS - time for an upgrade?
I've had this box for almost ten years now, so I've been thinking about getting something new. Looking at the market, the new systems don't seem to be all that much more advanced, though. So my question is, should I get a new one or just keep the old box and swap out the drives? What can a new NAS do that my old one can't? And what kind of drives should I get? I have 2 TB WD Red something, is that still a good choice? I'd move up to 4 TB, of course. This box is only used as backup for my home stuff and a small business, I'm primarily concerned with reliability.
Why would you buy something new if your current solution works and your requirements don't change? Just keep it.
I'm concerned about those drives. While they're not under a lot of load, every drive will fail eventually.
Go into your storage manager in DSM and check the drive health.
You could always replace failing drives on the same NAS, but replacing the NAS just to replace it seems like a waste of money, unless your needs have changed.
Provided that you have a backup solution (a NAS isn't a backup solution on its own), then you should be covered even if the drive(s) fail.
FWIW, I only use Seagate Ironwolf drives in my NAS.
Everything looks fine in DSM.
I wouldn't worry, then. You'll typically have a some kind of warning when a drive begins to fail. Keep your backups regular, and replace drives when needed.
I have my DSM set up to do a drive health check every month, and I'll get an email with the results. Gives me piece of mind.
Have you checked the SMART values of your drives? Do they give you a reason for your concerns?
Anyhow, you should never be in a position where you need to worry about drive failure. If the data is important, back it up separatly. If it isn't, well, don't sweat it then.
How do I do that?
You can get a quick overview via DSM, I think in the Disk Manager. For more details you could jump into a terminal and use smartctl.
Agreed, if the box works for you I'd look at cycling out the drives - 10 years is a long time for spinning disks to last and every day is another day closer to a failure.
So just swap new drives in one at a time, after backing your data up just in case. I upgraded mine to 4x10 drives 3-4 years ago, and its painless as long as you wait for the resilvering process to complete.
I have a perfectly functional ds416 but its old too. I bought a newer model as my 416 mirrors data to it. Its a backup of my backup.
The main reason i did it is support for future updates including security patches. The 416 doesnt autoipdate anymore i have to dl a seperate file and update. Im concerned how much longer it will get security patches. When it goes end of life i can easily make the newer box my main nas. Ill probably do it next year regardless.