QNAP TS-EC880 Pro - HDD and Memory compatability questions

[CRFrank]

Hi folks,

First time poster and (hopefully) soon-to-be first time QNAP purchaser - but I have a couple questions I'd like answering. Hopefully some kind soul can fill me in on a few details

I'm looking at buying a QNAP TS-EC880 Pro as (mainly, at least initially) a home media server. Yes, I realise that this might seem like overkill - but as I don't have the option of having the ability to replicate data offsite or to a second unit for backup purposes data integrity and robustness is a must (so RAID6 with ECC memory), plus transcoding and streaming to multiple devices around the house means I want something with some 'grunt'. As a techie, I want to experiment with virtualisation and get some experience there as well. Finally, I'll be using the NAS to backup various computers around the house.

On the memory front someone else in the forums has had luck with Kingston RAM, specifically KVR16E11/8 x2. I was wondering if anyone else can corroborate this, or recommend something else (maybe Crucial or Samsung)?

Also, HDDs - on the compatibility list it's pretty much all (EXPENSIVE lol) Enterprise-level drives (not too surprising for a unit like this). I'd rather not spend more on the drives than I do on the unit+RAM if I can help it - so I was wondering if the Hitachi HGST H3IKNAS30003272SE 3Gb NAS drives that are on the compatibility list for the TS-870 PRO would work just fine? The HGST drives seem to be very reliable according to Backblaze's blog posts.

...or am I COMPLETELY wrong with my choices and would you folks recommend I buy something different?

Thanks for your advice,

Charles.

[CRFrank]

Anyone?

[CRFrank]

Wow... a week, 220+ views and ZERO feedback... So much for Presales support - guess I'll be heading over to Synology instead. Their equivalent box is more expensive but at least you can get a timely and helpful response in their forums...

Poor show QNAP...

[QNAPJason]

Hi CRFrank,
As part of the official QNAP staff we cannot recommend the non-tested RAM and HDDs to you.
However, normally it should just work if the HDD passed in the lower-end NAS models.
The more affordable HDDs will be WD Red Pro or the Seagate enterprise NAS HDDs or the HGST NAS HDDs or the Toshiba ones.
You may also search the forum for user experiences on RAM and HDD compatibility.
For other questions, feel free to ask here or contact QNAP support team at helpdesk.qnap.com

[wallacebw]

I've been eyeing the TS-ECx80 pro series myself, I would look at the just released QNAP TVS-ECx80 series; I ordered one today myself. (look-up QNAP TVS-EC880-E3-16G-US or TVS-EC880-E3-8G-US on amazon). For some reason the new model has a substantial price drop from the 'older' TS-ECx80 Pro editions. Also, as for drive selection, SimplyNAS (authorized reseller) put's the HGST Deskstar NAS drives (7200RPM) in pre-configured TS-ECx80 NAS units, so I felt safe in ordering those. The HGST Deskstar NAS are at the top of the consumer space for most workloads and are closer peers to the enterprise drives than most desktop drives. I will be running 7 in a raid-6 with an 8th as a spare and will sleep fine.

NOTE: The RAM is NOT ECC, but for the discount, you could replace all the DIMMS with ECC as it's still a XEON E3-1245V3, which supports it. (Someone keep me honest here if I'm wrong). I will say that you *MAY* be overvaluing ECC slightly, are all of your endpoints workstation class and utilizing ECC (end-to-end ECC for writes). I work in IT, specifically 'mid-range' system virtualization, and would not use Non-ECC ram in my server equipment at work (my team manages several hundred large physical servers managing thousands of virtual servers. Downtime is measured in the 7+ figure range), but at home, I won't pay extra for it. To each their own. If, and I mean if, any bit errors were encountered in encoded media (say mp4 files or jpegs), I'd bet you wouldn't even notice. The erroring DIMMs would likely cause an OS crash before you detected anything with this data type. If you were doing transnational processing or other highly sensitive operations... you hopefully wouldn't even be looking at this class of equipment (no offence meant, just not the target workload for this equipment).

Quick note on the unable to mirror issue. I have the same issue, but I mirror the irreplaceable data (family photos, home movies, personal docs, etc.) to amazon S3 and to an encrypted usb drive I keep at the office. Stuff that is produced by third parties (Hollywood for ex.) is 'single instance' as it can be recreated and reacquired). Just a thought.

If you find anything out about memory compatibility, please respond.

[wallacebw]

On the memory front someone else in the forums has had luck with Kingston RAM, specifically KVR16E11/8 x2. Charles.

The Specs on this ram are (REF: http://www.kingston.com/dataSheets/KVR16E11_8.pdf):

KVR16E11/8: 8GB 2Rx8 1G x 72-Bit PC3-12800 CL11 ECC 240-Pin DIMM
DESCRIPTION
This document describes ValueRAM's 1G x 72-bit (8GB) DDR3-1600 CL11 SDRAM (Synchronous DRAM) 2Rx8, ECC memory module, based on eighteen 12M x 8-bit FBGA components. The SPD is programmed to JEDEC standard latency DDR3- 1600 timing of 11-11-11 at 1.5V. This 240-pin DIMM uses gold contact fingers.


Further looking at at the forums... http://forum.qnap.com/viewtopic.php?f=1 ... F8#p433572 it looks like this ram works (ECC): http://www.kingston.com/dataSheets/KVR16E11_8I.pdf

This document describes ValueRAM's 1G x 72-bit (8GB) DDR3-1600 CL11 SDRAM (Synchronous DRAM) 2Rx8, ECC, Intel® Compatibility Tested, memory module, based on eighteen 512M x 8-bit FBGA components. The SPD is programmed to JEDEC standard latency DDR3-1600 timing of 11-11-11 at 1.5V. This 240-pin DIMM uses gold contact fingers.

FYI: Why doesn't QNAP post memory specs / requirements. I'm not looking for them to create a memory HCL, but to provide proper specs: I.E. DDR3 240 pin single or dual rank ECC with SPD programmed to DDR3-1600 timing of 11-11-11 at 1.5V You can't really profit that much on ram sales)

When my unit arrives (still no word on shipping), I'll pull a DIMM (NON-ECC) and see what I can find on it.