I love my NAS drive. It has been up and running for over 4(!) years now, with zero issues. In combination with my network switch, I am able to run all of my devices off of ethernet so I can store media files, important documents, and literally anything else on redundant storage.

It is a Synology DS418 with (x4) 4TB Seagate Ironwolf HHDs giving me 16 TB of raw storage. I forget what RAID array type I went with, but I know I ended up with about 10 TB of usable storage when it formatted. So far I’ve only used about 3 TB of it, primarily on Revit projects and a large media library.

If I recall correctly, the drives are supposed to have a lifetime of 10 years, so I still should have 6 good years until I have to worry about updating the drives. Hopefully by that time HHD storage is even more affordable and I can upgrade to far larger drives.

Installing the drives is so satisfying! They are attached directly to trays that slide into the chassis with ease. They connect to a board in the back and feel very secure. The front lever is used to hold them in place, and a key locks them in place. If this were a more secure facility, I would keep one key on me and one in a hidden location, but for now I just throw them on my desk.

I quite like the Synology OS and Synology Assistant. Once I had the drives installed the OS recognized them and prompted me through the setup. It was easy and, though it was over 4 years ago now, I remember being surprised at how quick it went.

One primary thing that took some doing to set up was the Plex media server. I like using Plex because many devices have apps for it so I can link my account to my PC, my TV, my phone, iPad, etc. and have my full Plex media library available to stream. I haven’t paid for the advanced version of Plex so this is limited to being available on my home network, but that is plenty for my use.