Reddit mentions of Synology 12 bay NAS DiskStation DS2415+ (Diskless)

I'll take a crack at this.

Based on the limited financial resources available, and a boss who seems unwilling to spend the proper amount of money to fix this the right way, here is what I would recommend as a bare minimum solution to tackle this challenge.

I fully acknowledge that there are better ways to solve this problem. But in the absence of logic on the part of an unreasonable boss...

To accomplish this task with some possibility of success, both software and hardware is needed.

Software - Adobe Creative Cloud Photography Package

• $10 a month and can cost as little as $90 a year with online discounts/sales that pop up from time to time.
  This subscription will give you access to Adobe Bridge, a digital asset management software that will catalog all of your tif files. Bridge supports other photo formats as well. Bridge will help manage the data once it is stored properly on network storage.
  
  Hardware - Synology DS2415+
  
  tldr; Buy a Synology 2415+, a USB 3.0 Hard Drive Dock. Create an SHR-2 volume on your existing drives, move data around, leverage Amazon Glacier (or whichever solution you prefer) for offsite backups. Problem solved
  
  Amazon or B&H
  
  
• Roughly $1400 retail cost. You can score this device tax free at bhphotovideo.com assuming you don't work in New York State.
  
  
• Priced at the consumer level, this network attached storage device will provide you with enterprise level backup features that are easy to set up. With the Synology, you will be able to create a large data volume where you can store all of your files while reusing many of your existing drives. It will also allow you to leverage cheap cloud storage solutions like Amazon Glacier to offsite backups of your files.
  
  
• The key to setting this up correctly starts with some planning. Let's assume that you will be forced to reuse many of the hard drives you already possess. With that in mind, you will want to give yourself lots of margin for error. Therefore, I suggest you set up the data volume in SHR-2 mode. This is a software-based hybrid RAID system that will provide redundancy in the event of up to two drive failures. More info about SHR-2 can be found here
  
  
• One of the benefits of SHR is that it will allow you to use different sized hard drives (i.e. reuse your existing drives). The challenge is that SHR-2 requires four drives at a minimum to start and they will need to be clear of data. I suggest you start with the smallest drives since it minimizes the amount of data you need to find a home for elsewhere. You will ultimately remove these drives from the volume anyway since the ultimate goal is to use only the largest drives in your possession. But you have to start somewhere.
  
  
• Once you've chosen your four starter drives and have moved off the data, PERFORM A SECTOR BY SECTOR TEST EACH AND EVERY ONE OF THEM. Seagate and Western Digital make software testing tools that will write ones and zeros to every sector of a hard drive. This is a sure fire way to weed out hard drives that might fail you out of the gate. Once you've tested your drives, create your SHR-2 volume but DO NOT start copying data yet.
  
  
• This next step is probably the most important part - setting up offsite backups. Synology's Hyper Backup tool supports several cloud storage solutions including Dropbox, Amazon Drive, HubiC, and others. There are also third party options like CrashPlan and BackBlaze that can be integrated via community packages. Regardless of which backup method you choose, DO THIS NOW. Automate the backup process and it will save your ass if something bad happens along the way.
  
  
• Assuming your offsite backup solution is in place, start copying data from your external drives via a USB 3.0 dock onto your newly created volume. Once the contents of each drive are copied over to the SHR-2 volume, erase and test each drive (1s and 0s test), then expand the SHR-2 volume by adding the drive you just erased and tested. Rinse and repeat this process until all 12 bays are occupied with drives. Remember, work with your smallest drives first then work your way up to the larger capacity drives. Once all of the drive bays are occupied, you will need to alter this process by replacing the SMALLEST drives in your volume with larger drives as you continue to migrate your data. This process will increase the size of your volume, therefore making more space for more data.
  
  A few things to look out for
  
  
• SHR-1 is similar to SHR-2 except it only provides redundancy for one drive failure.
  
• SHR-1 CANNOT BE upgraded to SHR-2. Don't screw around with this decision and choose SHR-2 from the beginning.
  
• To use 2-disk redundant SHR, you will need a minimum of 4 drives to create the volume.
  
  Some Tips
  
  
• Verify that your backups have completed before adding a new drive. This will ensure that your backups are as up to date as possible.
  
• Expanding any RAID volume, even an SHR-2 volume, will take some time. The more data you have, the longer it will take. BE PATIENT.
  
• If I were in your shoes, I would check the warranty status of every hard drive I planned to use long term. That way, when a warranty expires, you have justification to buy a new, larger capacity drive that is covered under warranty.
  
• For maximum success, make sure your drives are on Synology's drive compatibility list.
  
  
  Whew... That was a virtual mouthful. I hope some of my recommendations help. Good luck and godspeed.

If she has a few thousand to spend, then I would go with this Synology 12 bay NAS along with 12 WD Red 6TB HDDs. That brings the total to ~$4,638. If you configure all disks into a RAID 6 volume, you end up with a little over 54TB of storage. I would also strongly consider, eventually, looking into an offsite backup solution as well [remember...RAID is not a backup].

To get the most out of it, you might want to consider getting a managed switch (just L2 is fine) so you can configure the ports on the NAS in a LAGG. You'd also want to invest in a decent wireless AC router. If the iMac is close enough, you could also just connect to the network via Ethernet (or directly to the NAS).

You don't know what you're doing, and while this is a great thing to do for yourself, you shouldn't be doing that to paying customers.

Here is a commercial device that comes with a warranty, works well, and is fairly simple to set up:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00SWEM4DW

yes, it's going to cost more than your home built unit, but it comes with a warranty, support beyond just you, tested hardware, and software to handle performing those backups. It also eliminates the need of a boot device.

There are other budget-oriented storage hardware providers too, and another thing you can do is call them up and ask them to help configure the cheapest option (for instance, an 8-bay unit with an expansion unit using more 6tb drives may be cheaper than a 12-bay using 8tb drives.)

> how would the NAS be connected to the server? Ethernet, eSata, magic?

The "NA" in "NAS" stands for "network-attached," and there's your answer: Ethernet. You can use nfs, smb, iscsi, or any other network storage protocol that matches your requirements. If you're not sure what you want to use, you need to first decide what you're trying to accomplish here—what exactly you're going to use this NAS for. That answer will then inform how you want to set up your shares.

>If I move all my media to a separate NAS enclosure, how is that handled? Do I need to have a cpu/mobo/mem in the NAS, or am I still able to use my server?

I run a plex server on a mac mini HTPC, and I keep my plex media library on a NAS in the other room. They're connected via gigabit ethernet and the server doesn't care; transcoding, streaming, and all other operations work normally. Transcoding is done using the HTPC's CPU.

Think about it this way: the only thing you're moving is the physical location of the media. The server's going to work the same way whether it has to get its media from a locally attached hard drive or a network share. The server don't care.

> are there NAS enclosures that can handle the number of drives I'm using, without getting into the crazy price range (crazy for me is over $400-500)?

Prebuilt NAS systems, like a synlogy or qnap? As a rough guide to consumer NAS pricing, you can estimate that you're going to pay around $100 per disk slot. 8 bays is going to cost you a bit under a grand. From there, they tend to jump to 12 bays and get pretty silly.

If your budget is $4-500 and you have a hard requirement to hold 9 disks, you're either consigning yourself to DIY or you're going to have to start hunting through ebay for used NAS gear. Or revise your requirements down to a 4- or 5-bay NAS.

Depends on your budget and what kind of reliability you're looking for. If you want drives that are 4TB or bigger, there's no cheap options for reliable drives. Your best bet for SATA will probably be WD Datacenter Re or Se drives.

If you don't already have a server machine with a hefty RAID controller that supports at least 8 drives, I'd recommend getting a Synology.

A 12 Bay Synology and 12 of These setup in a RAID 6 should do you well. That will give you a tolerance of 2 failing drives and 60TB of data.

Dynamic disks have gotten a lot better, haha. If you are going with the case you own, There are some internal enclosures that can hold 5 3.25 in drives per 5 in bay. Like this. With the benefit of being hot swappable. If you don't care wether or not things are hot swappable, you can go cheaper and get better air flow.

You can also get a box case like this which has the bays built in and just fit it with a good motherboard, processor, maybe an HBA and maybe a NIC. Honestly, with current parts, you should be able to saturate 1 gigabit drop. Since we are dealing with pictures and videos, I'm thinking you'll be reading and writing sequentially for the most part which maximizes your read/write speeds.

Take a quick look at this before you buy your drives, that way you have the option to balance price with storage. 10TB drives usually cost more than what you get, especially since the 12TB drives are cheaper per gig right now. If you don't want to pay that much for a drive, you can go with one of the cheaper 8TB or shuck for an even lower price with a bit more effort on your part.

As for pre-built appliances, you can go with something like this or this both can saturate your network and give you the storage you desire.

Edit: My first gold, thank you!!

You are the one asking for solutions. I honestly think you are making too much heat if you are consuming 350 watts for your SAN and what looks like two servers plus the UPS.
Consumer grade UPS units also have replaceable batteries, but it sounds like your mind is made up on that. No problem.
A 12 bay synology with optional expansion unit can support 240TB of space. That should be enough to last you for a year or maybe two..... haha

Unit:
https://www.amazon.com/Synology-Station-Network-Attached-DS2415/dp/B00SWEM4DW/ref=pd_sim_147_1?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B00SWEM4DW&pd_rd_r=82Q1XT3SWR3XHNBA3RE0&pd_rd_w=Abcab&pd_rd_wg=jqDSi&psc=1&refRID=82Q1XT3SWR3XHNBA3RE0

They also have rack mount units if that is more your style. Rack mount gear is less flexible though if you decide your rack needs to go or you want to resell your devices. Non rack mount Synologies hold their value better than nearly any IT gear I have ever seen.

Expansion Unit:
https://www.amazon.com/Synology-Station-12-Bay-Expansion-DX1215/dp/B00QMVGBNQ/ref=sr_1_17?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1491247179&sr=1-17&keywords=synology

These draw between 37 and 75 watts of power depending on utilization.
You could then run several Intel NUC 6th gen I3 ESXi servers with 32 gigs RAM each. (NUCs are my current love interest for home lab ESXi hosts. They are small and silent workhorses.)

These draw 10 - 45 watts of power each.

So lets say you sell what you have and do this. What would be the power consumption and heat dissipation difference?
You are currently burning 350 watts. (I assume that is near idle power draw.)
With 2 NUCs and 1 Synology, you would be burning less than 100 watts 95% of the time. That is a huge difference in BTU of heat to dissipate, plus you would have less noise. I guarantee that.
Also, the synology has the ability to run a plex server as an app among other app running abilities. This 'could' get you additional flexibility if you used them instead of VMs in some cases and could allow you to use less VM resources should you decide to do so.

In addition to these suggestions, I would purchase enough RAM for your current or future setup to be able to shut down one or multiple hosts when not active in your lab. You could do wake on LAN to easily crank them up as needed where needed during lab testing workloads.