We have 15 year old (approx) ReadyNASes that seems to be getting to end of life and the disks are failing. I read the Synology thread and saw the recommendations for Mac Mini solutions with attached storage.
What kind of drive enclosure and drives do you use with a Mac Mini solution?
I recently discovered that SSDs can lose data if not powered on for a while. This makes me think (reluctantly) that at least some HDDs would be better for backups.
I got a 4 drive enclosure from OWC. My drives are Seagate Ironwolf some of which I took out of my Synology before I sold it.
I’ve never had much luck using a Mac as a NAS, for some reason I always tend to end up fighting with drive disconnet and sleep issues.
I gave up and went with a Terramaster F4-424 Pro NAS and installed Unraid on it as a replacement NAS OS and it’s been rock solid.
+1 on OWC. OWC Mercury Elite Pro Quad Four-Bay 3.5" Storage Enclosure OWC Mercury Elite Pro Quad Four-Bay 3.5" Storage Enclosure: Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories
I held off buying DAS (Directly Attached Storage) for years as I couldn’t find a unit which was quiet as it would live in my bedroom. But this is whisper quiet. I installed it with 4 x 8TB Seagate Barracuda drives.
The only downside is that out of the box it doesn’t come with RAID 5, you have to buy OWCs Softraid for another $149 up front and $75 a year therafter but to buy DAS with RAID 5 is far more expensive anyway. The software RAID is fast enough though.
Probably not a popular solution, but I’m on my 2nd QNAP NAS because the first one lasted me 10+ years and was rock solid. The transition from QNAP 1 to QNAP 2 was seamless and I haven’t had an issue in the ~2 years I’ve been on the new one.
This WunderTech video offers some opinions, which you accept or reject, but it also has some good fact-based points worth considering as you research your options:
I don’t need the fault tolerance of Raid5 so a JBOD container was fine for me. With a mixture of 4 and 8tb drives, Raid5 would be harder to implement.