Old TS-859 Pro - new large capacity drives

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AdrianW
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Old TS-859 Pro - new large capacity drives

Post by AdrianW »

I have an old TS-859 Pro populated with eight 2TB drives. My current TS-853 Pro is getting full (it has eight 6TB drives).

So, I'm considering buying new drives for the old TS-859 - but the compatibility list seems to max out at 6TB drives (WD60EFRX).

Do you think 8TB drives will be OK? Trouble is it looks like I'll also need to purchase new trays.

I think my other option is to go for a TR-004 and connect it to the TS-853 and use 14TB drives in Raid 10.

I know the TS-859 is slower, but I was considering just putting my older archive stuff on there, freeing up space on the faster TS-853.

Any opinions on the best way forward?
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Re: Old TS-859 Pro - new large capacity drives

Post by P3R »

AdrianW wrote: Thu Aug 29, 2019 1:50 pm I have an old TS-859 Pro populated with eight 2TB drives. My current TS-853 Pro is getting full (it has eight 6TB drives).

So, I'm considering buying new drives for the old TS-859 - but the compatibility list seems to max out at 6TB drives (WD60EFRX).
6 TB was probably the largest disks available when they stopped testing disk compatibility on the now very old Ts-X59-line.
Do you think 8TB drives will be OK?
Yes I THINK 8 TB disks will work but I haven't tested it. Please be aware though that you can't expand the current storage by replacing disks one-by-one. That will fail as no expansion above a 16 TB volume is possible. What you can do is create a larger volume from scratch. That will allow a volume larger than 16 TB but no RAID migration/expansion will ever be possible.
Trouble is it looks like I'll also need to purchase new trays.
Buying new trays for a now around 10-year old NAS doesn't sound like a wise investment to me. I would instead drill new holes in the old trays. You have to be prepared that such an old NAS can fail any day. When that happen the new disks can be reused in any new NAS but new trays won't be worth much.
I think my other option is to go for a TR-004 and connect it to the TS-853 and use 14TB drives in Raid 10.
Or you could buy a low-end 4-bay and have the flexibility of a NAS instead of the limitations of an expansion chassis. In my market a TS-431P is currently only about 10 % more expensive than a TR-004.

Or you could bite the bullet and buy a more high-end model that you make your main NAS and have your TS-853 Pro fallback to be your archive unit. The 853 is about to receive it's last QTS firmware version update soon and then it will only receive security fixes until 2022-06. The Product Support Status page tell us that firmware updates for TS-853 Pro ended 2019-06 but as it's included in the 4.4.1 beta, that will probably be it's last new firmware version.
RAID have never ever been a replacement for backups. Without backups on a different system (preferably placed at another site), you will eventually lose data!

A non-RAID configuration (including RAID 0, which isn't really RAID) with a backup on a separate media protects your data far better than any RAID-volume without backup.

All data storage consists of both the primary storage and the backups. It's your money and your data, spend the storage budget wisely or pay with your data!
AdrianW
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Re: Old TS-859 Pro - new large capacity drives

Post by AdrianW »

Thanks for the very detailed reply.

My TS-859 only contains a copy of a certain library of files on the TS-853 anyway, so I would be building an array from scratch.

If I was to go for a new 8-bay, I'd want to use 14 or 16TB drives. But, I've heard that even RAID-6 is not a good idea with drives of that size. So, probably I'd have to go for RAID 10 - but losing 50% is hard to stomach when buying drives at those sort of prices.
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Re: Old TS-859 Pro - new large capacity drives

Post by P3R »

AdrianW wrote: Thu Aug 29, 2019 3:32 pm If I was to go for a new 8-bay, I'd want to use 14 or 16TB drives. But, I've heard that even RAID-6 is not a good idea with drives of that size.
That's FUD from RAID 10 fans so I think you need to get advisors that are better educated. An 8-disk RAID 6 is more reliable than an 8-bay RAID 10 also with 16 TB disks.

Even when just changing to 8*16 TB and leaving everything else at the default settings in this simple RAID reliability calculator it tell you that RAID 6 is more reliable. With more realistic settings in the calculator the RAID 6 advantage become clearer.
RAID have never ever been a replacement for backups. Without backups on a different system (preferably placed at another site), you will eventually lose data!

A non-RAID configuration (including RAID 0, which isn't really RAID) with a backup on a separate media protects your data far better than any RAID-volume without backup.

All data storage consists of both the primary storage and the backups. It's your money and your data, spend the storage budget wisely or pay with your data!
AdrianW
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Re: Old TS-859 Pro - new large capacity drives

Post by AdrianW »

Thanks again.

One last question - can you point me to a list of Qnap NAS's in release date order? With their naming schemes it's almost impossible to determine which ones are newer (and therefore will be supported longer).
TS-853 Pro; TS-859 Pro; TS-409
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Re: Old TS-859 Pro - new large capacity drives

Post by P3R »

No I'm sorry. If a list like that exist, I'm not aware of it.

I usually use a local price comparison site on my market to see how long products have been listed there to get an indication of how old models are.

But products don't have a predefined lifetime of X months so a list like the one you ask for would only give you one variable to enter into an equation with many other unknowns. Some early models in a product family will be kept active much longer than others depending on shared hardware design between models, popularity with customers and future product directions to name some of the unknown variables that probably will affect product lifetimes.
RAID have never ever been a replacement for backups. Without backups on a different system (preferably placed at another site), you will eventually lose data!

A non-RAID configuration (including RAID 0, which isn't really RAID) with a backup on a separate media protects your data far better than any RAID-volume without backup.

All data storage consists of both the primary storage and the backups. It's your money and your data, spend the storage budget wisely or pay with your data!
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storageman
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Re: Old TS-859 Pro - new large capacity drives

Post by storageman »

AdrianW
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Re: Old TS-859 Pro - new large capacity drives

Post by AdrianW »

storageman wrote: Fri Aug 30, 2019 10:02 pm Maybe this helps:
https://www.qnap.com/en/product/eol.php
Thanks - at least I know the units I'm considering aren't scheduled for EOL yet.
TS-853 Pro; TS-859 Pro; TS-409
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