7 hours ago
Thanks for reaching out! Setting up your Synology DS916 for Time Machine backups is a great choice, and I’d be happy to help.
For your requirements, you have a couple of options:
RAID 1: This configuration mirrors your data across two drives. If one drive fails, your data remains safe on the other. However, this setup requires at least two drives, and you only get the capacity of one.
RAID 5: This setup requires a minimum of three drives and provides both redundancy and better storage efficiency. It allows you to lose one drive without losing data, as the remaining drives will retain the information. This option also maximizes your storage capacity compared to RAID 1.
Synology Hybrid RAID (SHR): This is a flexible RAID option that allows you to start with different drive sizes and add more drives as needed. SHR with redundancy is similar to RAID 5, allowing for one drive failure without data loss. While SHR is user-friendly, it does require using multiple drives to ensure redundancy.
Regarding your concern about error checking, Synology NAS devices are equipped with monitoring tools that can alert you if one of the drives is failing, regardless of the RAID configuration. If you choose to use a system where data is striped across all drives (like RAID 0), you would not have redundancy, and the failure of one drive would result in total data loss. Therefore, I recommend using RAID 1 or RAID 5/SHR for the safety of your data.
Since you want to back up to a separate system while maintaining the Time Machine functionality, a setup with RAID 5 or SHR would allow you to expand your storage as your data grows, providing a balance between redundancy and capacity.
For your requirements, you have a couple of options:
RAID 1: This configuration mirrors your data across two drives. If one drive fails, your data remains safe on the other. However, this setup requires at least two drives, and you only get the capacity of one.
RAID 5: This setup requires a minimum of three drives and provides both redundancy and better storage efficiency. It allows you to lose one drive without losing data, as the remaining drives will retain the information. This option also maximizes your storage capacity compared to RAID 1.
Synology Hybrid RAID (SHR): This is a flexible RAID option that allows you to start with different drive sizes and add more drives as needed. SHR with redundancy is similar to RAID 5, allowing for one drive failure without data loss. While SHR is user-friendly, it does require using multiple drives to ensure redundancy.
Regarding your concern about error checking, Synology NAS devices are equipped with monitoring tools that can alert you if one of the drives is failing, regardless of the RAID configuration. If you choose to use a system where data is striped across all drives (like RAID 0), you would not have redundancy, and the failure of one drive would result in total data loss. Therefore, I recommend using RAID 1 or RAID 5/SHR for the safety of your data.
Since you want to back up to a separate system while maintaining the Time Machine functionality, a setup with RAID 5 or SHR would allow you to expand your storage as your data grows, providing a balance between redundancy and capacity.