I needed some more backup storage space, so I got another Synology box. This time I thought I’d spring for the rack mount version, to get a couple more drives, ease of stacking with my rack mount servers, and maybe a little more reliability. I get the RP2212+, forgoing the much pricier model with redundant power supplies. I also ordered 10 of the Western Digital 3 TB Red disks, which play nicely with RAID configurations.
It was easier to install the disks in the carriers than in the non-rack Synology NASs, since the screws go in from the bottom of the drive rather than the sides. I was soon ready to power it up. When I did, the Synology Assistant found it right away:
But the installation failed:
I swapped Ethernet cables. I swapped Ethernet switch ports. I swapped LAN ports on the NAS. All to no avail. I could ping the box, but I often got dropouts:
Finally I power cycled the NAS. That fixed it:
Sometimes the simplest solutions are the ones that work the best. But now I was a little worried about why the NAS box got in a funny state after the first application of power. I put those thoughts out of my head and pressed on.
After I logged on to MrsPatmore, I picked RAID 10 (striped and mirrored) as the configuration, wanting to minimize rebuild times in case of a failure, scared of having and 8:2 disk ratio as would have been the case with RAID 6, and not wanting to deal with two volumes, as woulc have been the case had I gone with two RAID 5 volumes.
The array construction went rapidly, completing in less than a minute:
But the mapping of the bad sectors will take several days:
All in all, not too bad. I still wonder about what happened with the first power-up.
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