Warspite
DS216j 2-bay basic model
2x 2TB SATA in SHR configuration, ext4 filesystem
At family's place
Iowa
DS916+ 4-bay advanced model with btrfs support
- Disk group 1 - SSD
- 2x 8TB SATA SSD
- Volume 1 - "FAST data"
- btrfs filesystem, this volume is synced to Backblaze B2 cloud for backups
- Disk group 2 - HDD
- 2x 10TB SATA HDD
- Volume 2 - "SLOW ephemeral data"
- btrfs filesystem, this volume is not synced anywhere
At home
Upgrade options
I don't need more capacity but I would like more speed. That'd mean 10G networking, and I'd need that in my workstation as well, though it does have a 2.5G NIC onboard which is a decent start. Otherwise I'd have to get a 10G PCIe NIC, and somehow use the M.2 connector on the back side of the motherboard.
- DS1621+ has room for a 10G NIC addon, Synology branded but normal PCIe
DS1522+ takes a mini 10G NIC, which is the perfect answer in my mind (non-standard vendor NIC E10G22-T1-Mini, but convenient
- DS2422+ is huge and takes PCIe 10G or 25G cards, that's way outta reach though
- DS1821+ also takes the same PCIe 10G or 25G cards
Model |
NIC |
Base |
NIC |
Total cost |
DS1522+ |
E10G22-T1-Mini |
$1150 |
$232 |
$1382 |
DS1621+ |
E10G18-T1 |
$1400 |
$261 |
$1661 |
DS1821+ |
E10G18-T1 |
$1678 |
$261 |
$1939 |
DS2422+ |
E10G18-T1 |
$2850 |
$261 |
$3111 |
The 1522 seems like a pretty clear winner on price.
Let's compare the two on the bottom end for features as well: https://www.synology.com/en-au/products/compare/DS1621+/DS1522+
|
DS1621+ |
DS1522+ |
RAM |
4gb |
8gb |
Drives |
6 |
5 |
M.2 slots |
2 |
2 |
1G ports |
4 |
4 w/ 1500 MTU only |
USB ports |
3 |
2 |
PCIe |
Gen3 8x (4x elec) |
Gen3 2x custom NIC |
Size |
Wider and longer |
52mm narrower and 20mm shorter |
Weight |
5.1 kg |
2.7 kg |
Power supply |
250 W |
120 W |
Power input |
IEC cable direct |
Friggen power brick |
Idle power |
25.3 W |
16.7 W |
The older model actually doesn't come off too badly in comparison. I really like that the newer one is lighter and uses less power and has more RAM, but I really dislike that it doesn't have an internal PSU.
Tools
If you're SSH'd to the box, you can install/activate extra tools that you'd be used to having as a sysadmin.
sudo synogear install
Despite being called with "install", all this does is drop you into a subshell with access to the tools, kinda like activating a python virtualenv. You'll need to run it any time you want to use them (or you can mess with your $PATH I guess).
root@iowa:~# echo $PATH /sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/syno/sbin:/usr/syno/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin root@iowa:~# synogear install root@iowa:~# echo $PATH /var/packages/DiagnosisTool/target/tool/:/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/syno/sbin:/usr/syno/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin
rsync over ssh
Maybe I broke it, but rsync doesn't work as expected without some fiddling. I thought it might be due to cruft in my ~/.bashrc but I don't think it's that.
This works though:
rsync -avx --rsync-path=/usr/bin/rsync furinkan@iowa:/volume1/path/to/files/ /somewhere/local/or/whatever/
The error message suggests it can't find or can't execute the rsync binary at the far end, but I can't tell why.
furinkan@suomi:~$ ssh furinkan@iowa 'echo $PATH' /usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin furinkan@suomi:~$ ssh furinkan@iowa 'which rsync' /usr/bin/rsync