I got a 453a as a gift and need help with the setup

[Kordo]

Hey

I recently got a TS-453a as a gift from a nice guy in the local area.

I know that he upgraded the RAM but do not know to what amount of RAM, It have 4 HDD’s 2x6TB WD Red Pro and 2x WD Red 3TB.

I have in in a location without a computer, so I went with HDMI.
This is where my problems start.

I am completely new to the world of NAS, so I am kind of lost.

At bootup I am prompted with a textonly login, and after login (did the 3 sec reset on the back to reset admin password) I get a nice screen with a few options.
I might be blind but I cannot see any apps, appstore or any options to do a factory reset.

Here is what I wish to do, but in no way am I sure it is possible.

I want to do a factory reset, getting NAS back to the state where it was when received. If I am going to learn anything, I better start at the beginning.
I want to totally destroy any content on disks and I want to reconfigure the RAID if any.

How do I do all this, with only a TV and connection to the internet?
I do have wireless keyboard and mouse.

Please be gentle and not overly technical.


Thanks in advance

Edit: Added keyboard and mouse

[dolbyman]

The setup needs to be done via webfrontend, so get a computer and read the manual and start setting it up

with the 4 mismatched drives you can either do 2x RAID1 or 1x RAID5 (with some loss on the larger drives) (of course there is more ways to set it up, but those would make the most sense)

[Kordo]

Thanks for a speedy reply.

What manual? I just got a box with PSU and remote handed to me.

I now have connection to the NAS, a factory reset with deletion, DID NOT delete the RAID, so I had to manually delete it.

I am now at the point of creating RAIDS, but I cannot figure out if I should go with a static/thin/thick volume.

I have read
https://www.qnap.com/en/how-to/knowledg ... ck-volume/

Not sure I fully understand it, but I guess the easy way is thick volume, so I can use snapshots.

I want to create 2 RAID1, where some files from the big RAID are copied to the small RAID.
Would it be smart to create 2 storagepools for this or did I misunderstand something?

I also thought that maybe I could use the small RAID for snapshots from the big RAID?

The NAS have 16GB of RAM so I am thinking maybe I would fiddle with a VM or 2, does that make any difference when chosing volume type?

Thanks in advance

P.S. Chrome refuses to connect to the NAS with ERR_CONNECTION_REFUSED, lucky for me Safari does the trick.

[dolbyman]

What manual? I just got a box with PSU and remote handed to me.

https://docs.qnap.com/nas/4.3/cat2/en/index.html

I now have connection to the NAS, a factory reset with deletion, DID NOT delete the RAID, so I had to manually delete it.

I am now at the point of creating RAIDS, but I cannot figure out if I should go with a static/thin/thick volume.

take all drives out and do a diskless firmware update via qfinder
format all the drives in an external computer)
then setup the NAS from scratch
this way you can be pretty certain that you do not have infections on it

Not sure I fully understand it, but I guess the easy way is thick volume, so I can use snapshots.

if you want snapshots a thick or thin volume on a storage pool is what you need

I want to create 2 RAID1, where some files from the big RAID are copied to the small RAID.

Never backup to internal drives .. always to external targets

I also thought that maybe I could use the small RAID for snapshots from the big RAID?

I don't thick you can store snapshots outside the source pool (aside from snapshot backups, but I could be wrong)

it's a little celeron processor, don't get too excited, but you can try

[Kordo]

What manual? I just got a box with PSU and remote handed to me.

https://docs.qnap.com/nas/4.3/cat2/en/index.html

Thanks, that will will be helpful.

I am now at the point of creating RAIDS, but I cannot figure out if I should go with a static/thin/thick volume.

take all drives out and do a diskless firmware update via qfinder
format all the drives in an external computer)
then setup the NAS from scratch
this way you can be pretty certain that you do not have infections on it

I was thinking about that, but I was not keen on the idea because of the time needed. As I understand it , creating the RAIDs also take quite some time, depending on HDD size.

Anyway, i do follow your advice and are formatting now.

Not sure I fully understand it, but I guess the easy way is thick volume, so I can use snapshots.

if you want snapshots a thick or thin volume on a storage pool is what you need

I might be wrong, but it seems to me, that snapshots are just like timemachine for Mac with versioning, I am not sure I need that.

Will there be any performance gain by using a static volume over thick? I would think it will be minimal if any.
Will I be missing out on anything other than timemachine going with static volume?

I want to create 2 RAID1, where some files from the big RAID are copied to the small RAID.

Never backup to internal drives .. always to external targets

It was not meant as a backup, I know better than to think a RAID is a backup. I was overthinking shares, but I can just make a folder for that.

I also thought that maybe I could use the small RAID for snapshots from the big RAID?

I don't thick you can store snapshots outside the source pool (aside from snapshot backups, but I could be wrong)

I am sure you are right, I will just have to reserve som space if I go for it. I will have to think about how much space I will use, probably 5-600GB

it's a little celeron processor, don't get too excited, but you can try

I was thinking a Linux distro to fiddle around with, but I will use a hypervisor on my main PC.
I was just thinking of ways to utilize those 16GB of RAM. I am sure I will come up with something, when I have more knowledge.

Thank you for taking the time to help, I appriciate it.