Yeah, I agree with that assessment.

I just finishing doing the nuclear option on my desktop iMac. It's been behaving oddly and rather than sort out why, I just made a list of the applications I use on it, wiped it out, and did a full reinstall from scratch.

I did that for my laptop. Took notes, made sure apps could be downloaded again and be functional, have backed up data and nuked it from orbit.

I really need to come look at your whole setup some day, ND.

Sex on racks.

I'm better at helping others figure out their setup needs than dealing with my own. I have wireless backup and a prayer. I have Time Machine backing up wirelessly to the Capsule because I lucked into having a dead machine and a good enough backup. But it was pure luck. So now I have a slightly better plan. One that does not include me remembering to do much.

Nuclear option underway.

...and it's alive!

Sex on racks

remind me to wear rubber gloves when next working on Diablo Sound racks.

Okay, so I think I've (finally!) made up my mind. Looking at this 2 bay Synology which I'll fill with the 3TB WD Reds, with the possible intent of swapping them out for the 4TBs when they become available (later this year?), and with the definite intent of expanding the whole system once I've started accumulating enough project data to make it necessary (2 years?).

If I stick with RAID1, that will not give me quite as much space as I'd hoped, i.e., only 3TB, where I think I'll need about 5. But I think I can mitigate that by only using the new NAS for long term storage. Once I've got the new machines loaded with all their current files, I'll prune the old NAS for duplicates, which should give me enough space to allow it to continue as the primary automated backup for the Windows machines. The 3TB USB I'll repartition and dedicate to the Time Machine backups for the iMac. The 1TB USB will remain the active project drive.

And maybe I'll set up the zombie laptop as the media server.

I dunno why I'm telling all of you this, just thinking through the process, I guess.

Why not go with a 4-bay DS413 for the same price?

[link]

You can use two drives and make it SHR (effectively RAID1 with two drives), then expand latter. You can mix drive sizes so with two extra 4TB drives later you can get up to 10TB with redundancy.

Because the 413 isn't further expandable, right? It has an eSata port, but if I'm reading it correctly, it doesn't use the expansion unit, so drives attached to that port or the USBs only function as separate volumes, much like my current problem with the Buffalo NAS.

But I need to hold my horses, because apparently I have a donor running to the bank right now to potentially fund this. I have no idea why people want to throw money at my tech right now, but you don't see me complaining, that's for damn sure. Depending on what she gives me, I may go with the 1512 instead? I dunno!

The 1512 looks pretty sweet.

Yeah, the 413 isn't expandable beyond its four bays.

Okay, the donor came through already. So I'm pulling the trigger on the 1512 & 3 3TB WD Red HDs. Which with the Synology Hybrid RAID should give me 6TB usable space and 3TB parity. Then when the 4TB Reds come out, I'll add two two of them, which will give me 13TB usable space and 4TB parity, if I'm reading the calculator right. And then down the road I'll be able to add two more units if I need them.

Wow!