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Hi, just been watching the review of the Thecus W2810 Pro by Wendell...

At the moment I'm running a Synology NAS as my network storage, but I am going to be needing a windows based solution for some other software in the not too distant future (PDM solution for Solidworks, and possibly Autodesk Vault).

I was planning to build something from some old hardware I have sitting doing nothing... but this looks to be a nice solution. I'm OK with network things, but not an expert by any means. So, does the following make sense? (or can you think of a better solution)

The Thecus as a Windows server, running the needed software (need to check that it is compatible - but I think it should be), and preforming some backups. Then use the Synology as a secondary backup for the server (possibly using the 2nd RJ45 on the Thecus).

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Yeah that should work fine.

A pro tip:
Enable Shadow Copies on Windows.

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I would at least compare against a Proliant Microserver Gen8 or a Dell T20?

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@wendell I know that the specification is for 4GB, but in the review you managed to get 8GB of RAM functional... do you think it is possible to get 16GB working...??? (or, do you have the ability to test 16GB?)

Go with the w5810 it had two slots

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Cool, thank you :)
Just found out that I need 4GB for the archive and 8GB for the database - thus looking at more than a single 8GB stick.

The W5810 is on order, and the 16GB of RAM upgrade has already arrived...

Moving from the planned 2 bay to the 5 bay design proposes an interesting thought. I've ordered 2x 4TB drives with the plan of putting them in RAID 1.
As I now have an extra 3 bays available, is it better to populate a second RAID 1 (2 drive) or a RAID 5 (3 drive) when the first set of drives get full. Or, is it better to get additional drives now, creating a RAID 5 or RAID 6 from the full 5 drive setup? (Or, I guess adding more drives to the initial ones and formatting them into a new RAID array)

Thoughts...?

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I've been asking around, and it looks like the best way to go is to get 3 more drives and set up as a RAID 6 from the beginning... so, 3 more drives are on order.

What size/model are your drives?

Western Digital Red Pro drives - 4TB. (7200 rpm, as opposed the regular Reds at 5200 rpm)

I have seen this available with a RAID 6 configuration as a prebought... but can only find RAID 5 within the actual configuration... which is a bit strange, but RAID 5 should do.

You can do that and it be acceptable, but generally speaking, RAID 5 is dead.

Arguably, RAID 6 is dead (as long as you are using conventional consumer HDDs).

However, since you are using WD Red Pro drives, they have a lower URE rate than conventional drives. Typically an order of magnitude lower. So you should be fine.

You should just be very aware of this issue if you ever consider expanding your array.

So, would you suggest a 4 drive RAID 10 then...? With the 5th drive just as additional storage.
Is it better to go with 2x RAID 1 on 4 drives, using Disk Management.
Or, Storage spaces to create 2x Mirrors and then Disk Management to Stripe them into a pseudo RAID 10...?

On a side note, Server antivirus programs aren't the same as regular free ones... I didn't know that.
Should I be looking at Symantec, or is there a better program for Windows Server 2012?

dear god no.

Get Sophos endpoint or something equivalent.

RAID 10 is where it's at imo. Yes, it costs more storage, but it doesn't have the potential pitfalls of Parity RAID.

A thought: Some OSes can treat RAID 10 as RAID 00 for reads. Meaning, since you have the data spread across four drives, even though two of the four are duplicates, the OS can read ahead on the duplicate drives spreading IOPS across all 4 effectively making it a RAID 0 of a RAID 0. Writes won't be that way of course.

Again, you have WD Red Pros which have better tolerances than regular consumer HDDs, so you shouldn't have an issue with RAID 5 or 6, but I still wouldn't use it personally.

If I were you and I wanted RAID 10, I'd just set up two RAID 1s then RAID 0 them.

In RAID 10, you can lose up to two Hard Drives without losing data depending on which ones are lost. If you lose 1 HDD in each RAID 0, as long as the one you lost is not the one you lost in the other RAID 0, the array would be able to give you your data. If you lose the same drive in both arrays, then you lose your data.

So it's technically better than RAID 5, but technically worse than RAID 6 in terms of data integrity. It just depends which are lost.