I have a Synology DS1821+, and I was thinking of upgrading to a DS1821+. Unfortunately, in Synology has, in their 2025 models, seen fit to actively block third-party HDDs, and to allow only Synology HDDs. My 2021 notes a third-party HD, but allows me to use it. 2025 models no longer allow the use of third-party drives.
This has me considering an alternative NAS.
Anybody have a NAS solution that you like? I need something that supports NFS + iSCSI. RAID6 (or equivalent) is also required. I am familiar with ZFS and would be happy to run a ZFS-based NAS.
Right now Iām just considering alternatives. It remains to be seen whether I actually switch.
Thatās a great list - thanks. Synologyās HDs are no longer outrageously overpriced, so I have bought two 8TB Syno drives, one each for primary and backup NASes. Iāll probably get a third for my backup (it is nearly out of space).
Whatās that you say? Purge data? Are you joking? haha
Unifi also makes a NAS storage solution. Starts at $500:
They have an amazing ecosystem. Honestly after setting up the most recent firewall for a friend using their Unifi UDM Pro, a good chunk of my mind regrets going with pfsense over Unifi.
All their UIās a so easy to use. Looking at the storage front and UI itās pretty much follows that logical easy flow.
Already have their APs and their security cameras are pretty amazing, maybe in a few years.
Yes, I recently learned about UIās NAS. I looked at it, and I think itās not big enough for my needs.
Agreed that UIās UI is great. (SWIDT? lol) Itās why I switched from multiple devices to the single-pane-of-glass setup of Ubiquiti. They are basically the Apple of home networking, and Iād call Synology the Apple of storage.
I have about 15 UI devices ā 3 cameras, a doorbell, 3 APs, a bunch of switches, and a router.
Iām an Apple fan, except that the walled garden is closing in on me. Iāve been a Mac OS X (now macOS) user since it it was called NeXTSTEP 2.1.
Not enough drives is what I mean. My primary NAS is an 8-disk unit, with about 24TB onboard, in a SHR-2 (RAID6) configuration. There arenāt enough drives in the Ubiquiti unit to handle that.
At my office we tried to upgrade our Synology 2416 to a 2421. I was not pleasantly surprised when I found out that it would not accept the generic drives.
After that we bought SuperMicro servers and loaded on TrueNas and we came off of Synology. For our needs the experience has been solid so far, and that is for the last two years.
It just so happens that my remote offsite backup NAS, a DS118 with a 12TB disk, is out of spaceā¦ so now Iām trying to decide if I want a 16TB disk or a new 2-disk NAS and two smaller disks.
Interesting decision to make. The largest drives I have in my backup space are 10 TB, and I currently have 4 of them in a RAID 5 configuration.
My nervousness about these large drives comes in the saying of having all your eggs in one huge basket. The interesting thing about backups and archives are that a backup should be a copy of your current working files, but an archive contains not just a backup but a history of backups.
For ransomware protection or even for other scenarios, itās always best to have that history. This enables you to pull files from a month ago, if you just noticed an error from the week before, for example. The thing with that though, is if you have only one archive and that fails, then all that history goes. Hence you would need a copy of that backup.
So I would tend to lean towards the two drives, unless you have another device you are backing up to.
I definitely get the notion of archive versus backup, and this is why I use snapshots on every filesystem. Those snapshots go back hours (for a day or 2), days (for a few weeks), weeks (for several months), and months (for a year I think).
My primary NAS uses a btrfs volume on 8-disk SHR2, my local backup NAS uses a btrfs volume on 6-disk SHR, and my offsite backup uses btrfs on a single disk.
I need to double-check that my offsite backup has snapshots, but Iām pretty sure it does. Good reminder, thanks.
I looked into things, and decided Iām going to shift some drives around, and get a new 2-disk Synology.
Purchase: DS225+, 16TB Synology HDD
Move: DS118 12TB HDD to DS1618+ (local backup NAS)
Move: DS1618+ 6TB Synology HDD to new DS225+ (2025 models only support Synology HDs, so I have to do this move)
Total cost: Around $700.
Iām going to use the 2 disks in the DS225+ as 2 separate volumes, 2 separate filesystems. That way if ones goes bad I donāt lose the entire remote backup. Iāll have to be careful to split backups to different drives, as either (or both) drive(s) could fill up with this scheme.
Still, I think 1x 16TB + 1x 6TB will give me a lot of space, and I should be able to split my backups to easily fit onto those and to not outgrow the drives.
