I'm trying to find a NAS solution for a small group of users who collectively need about 10 TB of storage for photo archiving. We want to move this data off our SAN to free up space for more critical uses. I've heard that Synology has a solid reputation and found one model that seems promising, but I'm curious about other alternatives as well. Ideally, we would like to add an expansion enclosure and extra drives later, but the quotes I'm seeing are around $50k to $60k. If I can use this one share effectively, it might help avoid that expense.
3 Answers
For your requirements, honestly, you can go with just about any NAS solution. It sounds like performance and protection aren't huge concerns since this data is mainly archival. I've used Synology both at home and in corporate settings, and while some people love them and others don't, they're generally solid. If you're okay with your users treating this as archival rather than active storage, it should work out just fine!
If you need something that performs well and is highly expandable, consider going with TrueNAS using ZFS. It's a bit of a project to set up, but my old gaming rig turned into a NAS with an LSI card has given me 38TB of storage that can easily handle a 10Gbps link—all for less than $3000. Plus, adding more drives later is super straightforward!
Have you thought about looking into cloud storage options? If you're looking at around $60k for your NAS, that's about $1,700 a month over three years. You might find nearline storage solutions for around a third of that cost. It could change how the team works, since it would shift towards purely archival use, but it's definitely worth considering instead of managing an on-premise system.
We haven't really investigated cloud options deeply yet, but I like the idea. Just concerned about how it would change our workflow for archiving.
I agree, as long as we can ensure the backups through Veeam/Wasabi are set up properly, that should work for us.