Synology 215J VS Western Digital My Cloud Mirror

erniejade

My Seagate NAS died. I must have gotten a bad one. Since day one it gave me problems especially on speed and dropping off even though it was NOT on DHCP. I need a replacement. I want a mirror at least for some kind of extra backup. I have it down to a Synology 215J with 2 Western Digital Red 3 or 4 TB drives or, a Western Digital My Cloud Mirror 6 or 8 tb.

I can get the My Cloud Mirror 6tb ( 3tb mirror) for around $379. VS the Synology @ $199 plus buying the drives. The drives on Amazon run 119 for the 3tb so cost would be $440.
Or if i went with the 4tb Synology would be $560 vs the 8 tb western dig $440. Or even the EX2 Western dig. for another 25-30$. The Ext is $477 on Amazon.

Is it worth the higher price for the Synology? Granted both would be using the Western Digital red drives but, looking at reviews, the 215J seems faster. What one would be easier?
My uses are to back up documents, pictures and music.

I am open to suggestions outside of another Seagate. I have had bad luck in the last couple of years with Seagate products.

ZLTFUL

Go with the Synology...I am a fan. Only reason I replaced my DS212J is because i wanted to run some things that they do not have an app for and I didn't want to have to hack the OS on it to do so.
I will still be using it in a backup capacity.

As for the HDs...skip the WD Reds. They are noisy and their reliability record is high in the grand scheme of things.
Personally, I have and will continue to go with HGST drives. Yes, they are a subsidiary of WD but they are still the only division of WD still using the very reliable Hitachi/IBM technologies.

BackBlaze, a cloud based hosting service, does continuous reliability reports on their drives in their data center and the results are pretty impressive for HGST vs WD and *especially* Seagate.
I can't access the link from work but Arstechnica pretty much copied their September 2014 report word for word here: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/01/hard-disk-reliability-examined-once-more-hgst-rules-seagate-is-alarming/

I have owned several of the multi-drive WD solutions and while they worked, their long term reliability was ho hum. Had a 2x2TB WD Studio external that had the same drive die twice...the original and then the warranty replacement. Both times costing me downtime in replacing and then rebuilding my RAID 1.

Just my dos pesos.

erniejade

Thanks for the 411. Back in the day I was a big fan of IBM and Hitachi drives and IMB computers especially laptops. Heck I still have an old T23 and T60 running. I just took at look at HGST web site. I had no idea the deskstar name was even still around and they have a NAS version. The price is right in line with the others.. Actually a few $ cheaper.. but only 64 meg cache vs 128 for the cheaper ones. Also, WOW on the link. It is nice to know it's not just me with the Seagate issue!

The 215J on specs looks like the ram is lower then some of the higher up models but, the speed is the same or faster on some. I don't need ultra high end but, I want to back up my files / music and stream music and let the kids have a place to grab some of my DJ music from their phone or laptops. It looks like the 215J will do that and then some.

erniejade

So in my Amazon cart, I have the d215J and 2 X 4TB HGST NAS drives. Total cost $528
I hated that my old NAS ( besides was slow and died) didnt have any type of Redundency. I don't need a raid 5 for this type of home use but I would like a mirror just in case. I think 3 tb would be plenty but, it seems every year the collection of Flac and my DJ music of MP3 is growing at a faster pace then i thought so I can probably get away with this a little bit longer.

Again I appreciate the help. There is a lot less bad reviews on the HGST drives Vs the red's even on Amazon.

ZLTFUL

Not a problem. I pulled out a lot of hair trying to decide (which is a feat in itself as I shave my head!) which route I wanted to go with my media server. It now houses 4 x 4tb HGST drives for storage and a 120gb SSD for apps and OS.

The reliability was just so much greater and having this server buried in my HT rack sold me on wanting to take the lowest drive failure gamble.

Glad I could help.