Feature Request Hybrid RAID
Posted: Tue Mar 16, 2021 4:27 pm
In short please add Hybrid RAID or some other method such as manually definable nested RAID as an option.
So the reason I ask this is I have been using a Synology 4 bay NAS for a few years now. When I first got the afore mentioned NAS I started with two 6TB drives. As my storage needs have increased I as needed added 12TB drives. My NAS currently has two 6TB drives and two 12TB drives. As you can probably surmise I will need to get a new NAS or swap out drives soon in order to expand. I have concluded to do the former as the NAS I have is getting a little old and there are many Synology quirks that I would like to no longer deal with. QNAP has got my attention with things like there USB based expansion units, add in card support, easy snapshotting, and so on. But then I noticed one very large problem with me switching over to QNAP from Synology. There lack of hybrid RAID.
With Synology's hybrid RAID I get a total of 24TB of usable Capacity with 12TB of redundancy. But if I where to switch to a QNAP NAS I would have to use RAID 5. With my drive arrangement at the moment that would only give me a usable capacity of 18TB with 6TB for redundancy and 12TB would just be wasted. This is unacceptable! You have an environment where you have to either stick with just one capacity drive for all your addons or having to swap ALL your drives to larger capacity drives all at once. There are a few major flaws with this. The first problem is that drive capacity's increases as time goes on. Like when I got those first two 6TB drives 8TB drives where just becoming a thing. Now at the time of writing 18TB drives are now becoming a thing. The second problem is not everyone has the money to just replace all there drives with new much more expensive drives. The third problem is that not everyone knows what there storage needs will be when they get a NAS.
Now there may be another way that I have been reading about that at least for me would work. (assuming I'm correct about what I've been reading) What I'm referring to is called manually defendable nested RAID. The process of using RAID in layers. So as an example what I would do with my current configuration would be to put those two 6TB drives in a RAID to make a 12TB drive per say. Then use RAID 5 on the "Three 12TB drives". I believe that at least with my current configuration that this is what Synology's hybrid RAID is currently doing.
This is the ONE thing keeping me from getting a QNAP NAS at the moment. Now if there is some way to do what I'm asking already that I have missed I would love to know about it. I was looking into using the ZFS based OS but it also does not support the adding of individual drives so.
So the reason I ask this is I have been using a Synology 4 bay NAS for a few years now. When I first got the afore mentioned NAS I started with two 6TB drives. As my storage needs have increased I as needed added 12TB drives. My NAS currently has two 6TB drives and two 12TB drives. As you can probably surmise I will need to get a new NAS or swap out drives soon in order to expand. I have concluded to do the former as the NAS I have is getting a little old and there are many Synology quirks that I would like to no longer deal with. QNAP has got my attention with things like there USB based expansion units, add in card support, easy snapshotting, and so on. But then I noticed one very large problem with me switching over to QNAP from Synology. There lack of hybrid RAID.
With Synology's hybrid RAID I get a total of 24TB of usable Capacity with 12TB of redundancy. But if I where to switch to a QNAP NAS I would have to use RAID 5. With my drive arrangement at the moment that would only give me a usable capacity of 18TB with 6TB for redundancy and 12TB would just be wasted. This is unacceptable! You have an environment where you have to either stick with just one capacity drive for all your addons or having to swap ALL your drives to larger capacity drives all at once. There are a few major flaws with this. The first problem is that drive capacity's increases as time goes on. Like when I got those first two 6TB drives 8TB drives where just becoming a thing. Now at the time of writing 18TB drives are now becoming a thing. The second problem is not everyone has the money to just replace all there drives with new much more expensive drives. The third problem is that not everyone knows what there storage needs will be when they get a NAS.
Now there may be another way that I have been reading about that at least for me would work. (assuming I'm correct about what I've been reading) What I'm referring to is called manually defendable nested RAID. The process of using RAID in layers. So as an example what I would do with my current configuration would be to put those two 6TB drives in a RAID to make a 12TB drive per say. Then use RAID 5 on the "Three 12TB drives". I believe that at least with my current configuration that this is what Synology's hybrid RAID is currently doing.
This is the ONE thing keeping me from getting a QNAP NAS at the moment. Now if there is some way to do what I'm asking already that I have missed I would love to know about it. I was looking into using the ZFS based OS but it also does not support the adding of individual drives so.