Synology NAS

A couple of weeks ago my current storage array lost a power supply and could not keep any drives mapped to a current RAID configuration. I will have a post soon about my original setup. So here is the high level design of my initial array. Dell pizza box server. JBOD attached through a SCSI card. The NAS software I was use was Openfiler.

I am glad that mess is behind me, it is time for the future.

I purchase an 8 bay DS1815+. Currently I pulled 4 – 1TB hard drives from the old array.

You can find the NAS specification for this Synology Here.

I was impressed.  I saw immediate performance improvements.

Install day

I had a very limited amount of time to take down my old storage array and bring the new array online. (My firewall was virtual, and I have teenagers) So I cheated a little. I left the connection into the VMware environment as iSCSI. My future plan is to add 4 – 4TB drives to this array over the next couple of months.  After that upgrade, the plan is to setup NFS storage in vCenter.

I know this recommendation has been said many times before.  If you are working on improving you VMware skills and/or preparing for your VCAP and/or VCDX, this NAS is a must have.

I will be posting more blogs about this awesome product in the very near future. As I work through my home lab fork lift upgrade.