HomeLab Stage LXII: New Power NAS

In the last episode of my HomeLab journey, I have written about my new Datacenter 3 location. This time I am focusing on storage….

It´s time to replace my custom build Xpenology NAS with something new….. My new network (HomeLab Stage LXI: New network) has enough power to support a new Power NAS.

The old system was based on an IBM x3550M3 server where I replace the CPU with a low power model, 64GB RAM, SAS controller and 8 x 2TB SAS drives. It worked fine for several years, but I wanted something new….

I am looking for a new rackmount NAS with the following features:

Low Power, High Performance, 25-100GbE networking, 8-12 SSD slots, upgradable memory…..

Use cases: File sharing (of course), replication and storing surveillance camera videos (14 cameras around my house)

Decision: Synology RS1221+

  • Quad Core CPU 2.2 GHz
  • 4GB RAM (upgradable to 32GB) ECC SODIMM officially, 64GB unofficial
  • 8 x drive
  • 4 x 1GBE onBoard (not usable for me….)
  • PCIe 8x slot for network expansion
  • 25dBA (pretty silent)
  • 50W maximum power when using 8 x HDD

I will use the following additional software from Synology:

Synology Virtual Machine Manager

Synology Snapshot Manager for VMware

Synology Storage Replication Adapter for SRM

Synology NFS Plug-in for VMware VAAI

Synology Storage Console for VMware

Synology CSI Driver for Kubernetes

Memory Upgrade to 32GB: Done 🙂

Network expansion with dual port 25GbE (E25G21-F2)

OnBoard 1GbE NICs are not used

Port Aggregation configured to Nvidia Networking SN2100 with breakout cables and LACP on the SN2100 side

I wanted enough storage capacity combined with high performance….

8 x 4TB Samsung QVO SATA SSDs

Perfect combination of capacity, performance and budget
2,5″ device in 3.5″ caddy

I decided to perform a Raid 6 storage configuration for all SSDs:

Synology Surveillance Station License 8 + 4 additional license (2 are included with the RS1221+) = 14 licensed cameras

30 days actual retention time for all cameras:

Copy performance from my workstation (connected via 40GbE) to NAS is about 1GB/s, which is pretty nice

VMware Synology Storage Console:

Synology Storage Console plugin within vSphere Client

Looking for the next episode: HomeLab Stage LXIII: New UPS setup