New Synology DS1821+ installation?

[Enquiries]

Hi.

I just purchased a Synology DS1821+ with 4 6TB drives that were purchased together. I did not add extra RAM or SSD for cache at this stage. I will also add later 1 or 2 additional 6TB drives after moving a backup of my PLEX database from a PC. This will be the 4th Synology in my home. The current installation is single duty with a DS1511+ for PLEX, a DS716+ for Surveillance Station (11 cameras and 2TB storage) and a DS411+ for data, photos and Surveillance Station Backup. The environment is rather light use as only 3 people reside in the house regularly and no use is planned for off premise viewing. Max concurrent streams will be 3.

The plan is to centralize the data, photos and Plex on the new DS1821+ and use the DS1511+ and DS411+ for backup. They will also handle backup duty for 3 PC's, and will also backup an additional Synology DS216 used for surveillance in my boat.

My questions are:
1. Can I install 1/2 SSD drives in a separate array in the new nas to use for data and PLEX working files and metadata - movies in the main spinning disk array?
2. I would prefer not to pay the exorbitant Synology RAM prices - is the use of Kingston/Crucial problematic?
3. For the intended application, what amount of RAM should be ideal?

Thank you.

[ed]

This sounds like a sound plan. Synology do have really user-friendly and reliable software.Using SSD in a separate RAID will speed up PLEX. You can start the initial setup with just SSD and add HDD after initialization is done. This will speed up everything in a NAS.You can use Crucial memory, it works just fine. Synology is just trying to sell their expensive RAM by showing warning messages sometimes.The best size for RAM would be around 6-8GB.I hope this helps.