Question about NAS QNAP TS 251+

Good morning dear @NilsL, @WalterB, @user109, @r00t, @Werner and @cslu.

Thank you very much for your many suggested solutions, tips and your time!

Now I need another big cup of coffee first.

Then I’ll be happy to read through everything at my leisure and will definitely write again in more detail later.

I was very positively surprised by the amount of answers. Thank you all again!

Kind regards and have a nice weekend.

Prior

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@NilsL wrote:

They say that constantly switching hard drives on and off is harmful, but if you only do it once a day, that’s not a problem at all with the schedule. What is problematic is automatic HDD standby

Hard drives can break, I say that has nothing to do with the schedule. I would skip the schedule and just to be on the safe side, invest in an external hard drive as an off-site and offline backup

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Good morning @NilsL

Thanks for your answer!

I actually had an HDD standby set for a long time…

For a backup of the backup, I have 2 older desktop HDD’s that I update monthly.

Best regards

Prior

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@WalterB wrote:

@Prio

I’ve been using the same NAS for two years but with an APC UPS PRo 900 (power failure bridging), in any case power interruptions during ongoing operation from a hard drive can cause damage to the electronics.

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Good morning @WalterB

Thank you for your experience report!

I’ll find out as quickly as possible.

Best regards

Prior

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@user109 wrote:

@WalterB @Prio I would buy an online UPS (has better switching times, protects better against undervoltage and overvoltage) Disadvantage: more power consumption), not an interactive UPS.

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Good morning @user109

Thank you for your purchase recommendation!

I want to compare the devices right away.

Best regards

Prior

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@r00t wrote:

Hi @Prio

Hard drives always break at some point. Even a UPS doesn’t change that 😉.

You write:

After almost 502 days, HDD 2 had a total failure.

I removed both HDDs and replaced them with two new Seagate Ironwolf, 4TB, ST4000VN006. (RAID 1)

Why did you replace both when one is broken? That’s what RAID 1 is there for - so you can replace the defective disk online and without losing data.

LG

r00t

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Good morning @r00t

I actually wasn’t accurate in my explanations… I’m sorry.

Thanks for your answer!

In the forum mentioned above and elsewhere it was stated that it is recommended to always use two identical HDDs.

When HDD 2 died, I ordered two new ones and then replaced HDD 2 first.

The NAS then synchronized the data from HDD 1 to HDD 2.

Then I replaced HDD 1 and the NAS then mirrored the data on HDD 1.

Looking back, I’m very annoyed about it, but I was shocked and a solution had to be found quickly.

Thanks again for your input.

Best regards

Prior

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@Werner wrote:

There are as many individual opinions as there are article writers on the topic of durability of hard drives in NAS operation.

I have been using a WD Red with 4 TB in a Synology NAS for over 7 years, which is configured for maximum energy saving.

In addition to the automatic night-time total shutdown with automatic reboot in the morning, there is also the hard drive sleep if it is not used for more than 10 minutes.

And I don’t have a UPS either.

There have never been any problems with it in practice.

But the most important thing is that a total loss of the NAS does not also mean a total loss of the data.

Of course, I also have a backup of the NAS data.

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Good morning @Werner

Thanks for sharing your experiences!

Do you see how exciting that is?

I received 9 answers and they are all different.

I think I’ll add total shutdown to my energy schedule.

Since I have to live more economically, your tip would of course be practical for me because I wouldn’t have to buy a UPS.

And I’m already looking forward to the HDD’s lifespan of 7 years.

Best regards

Prior

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@cslu wrote:

Nobody here will be able to tell you why your HDD really broke.

I currently have three NAS in operation.

The oldest of the three has been running with 4× 8TB Seagate IronWolf since 2017.

Two of the original four IronWolves are still running, the other two have failed over the course of seven years and have been replaced.

With one of the two newer ones, the first of four disks failed in less than a month. There is that too.

Especially with external hard drives, we often see sudden failures with drives that have runtimes in the low three-digit (or even double-digit) hour range. Shocks will probably play a big role.

On the other hand, I have seen intact consumer grade HDDs in some HP desktop PCs that have been running 24/7 for more than a decade. (I think the highest number I’ve ever seen with my own eyes was something in the region of 140,000 hours. Standard 3.5″ consumer HDD, I can’t remember the manufacturer, in some standard off-the-shelf PC.)

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Good morning @cslu

Thank you. I am happy about your experiences! Now I can put the event into perspective better for myself.

I actually had a similar experience with my desktop.

Some of the installed HDDs have been running since 2012! That’s why I doubted my user skills when the NAS HDD died.

Best regards

Prior

Hello again @WalterB and @user109

Thank you again for the purchase recommendation and the comparison opportunity.

I can definitely do something with that.

Best regards

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@user109 wrote:

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@Prio wrote:

Hello again @WalterB and @user109

Thank you again for the purchase recommendation and the comparison option.

I can definitely do something with that.

Kind regards

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@Prio see post 8 of mine.

Please always make sure that your NAS is always up to date with the latest software, as there have been many critical software errors recently.

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Good morning again @user109

It helped me that you took the trouble to find this homepage with the UPS comparison for me.

Thank you very much.

I usually check for updates every 7-14 days.

There were posts in the QNAP forum that a new update caused the error with the HDD.

I can neither confirm nor deny that.

Best regards

Prior