DS423 Or DX517

[Enquiries]

Hi
I have a Synology DS920+ (with three 8TB hard disks in a RAID5 configuration) used for archiving and a little work on stills images and some Video (not 4K For now?), The data is backed up on an external HDD.
I was thinking of purchasing a NAS to save movies and TV shows (with Plax) and physical backup to my Dropbox account.
I prefer to distinguish between my work\arcive NAS and my other data, but I'm debating between adding the DX517 extension and a DS420+ or DS423
my questions
1. Will it be wise to install DX517 as an extension for my DS920+ instead of buying a new NAS (DS420+, DS423)?
2. I have a free Bay in my DS920+, can I use it with the five bays (of the DX517) to make one partition? or should it be at one NAS\extension?
3. can I add another HDD with the same volume as the three at the DS920+ and combine it with the Raid5 that exists?

Thanx in advance
Amir

[ed]

Thanks for reaching out! Considering your setup with the DS920+, adding the DX517 expansion unit is a solid choice. You can indeed use the free bay on your DS920+ along with the five bays on the DX517 to create one storage pool. However, keep in mind that RAID 5 doesn't support mixing drives. If you plan to incorporate another HDD, you might want to consider using Synology Hybrid RAID (SHR), as it allows for drive mixing. This setup will keep your work/archive NAS separate from your media storage efficiently. Also, if you're thinking of getting a new NAS, it's worth noting that the hardware on the DS920+ is still quite capable, so upgrading might not yield significant performance improvements.