Solved Back up NAS

Im using a Synology DS720+NAS which I have backed up to a 4 TB Lacie HDD via the USB 3 port on the NAS, im looking to replace the Lacie HDD to an NVME M.2 SSD in and enclosure, so am I better to buy a GEN 4 faster drive or does it not make any difference as im going to be using the NVME SSD in an enclosure?

The Gen3 vs Gen4 issues have almost no bearing when used in an external enclosure. It only means something when used as internal drives (NvME) in Systems that contain those particular PCI Express hardware generations.

Froggie thanks, didnt want to waste money buying the wrong NVME ssd.

won't make any difference, with USB 3.2 Gen 2 and an NVMe drive, you will top out around 1000-1200MB/sec....which is about 1/3 of the potential of a Gen 3 drive.

Thanks pparks1 what would be a better option?

I use a Buffalo LinkStation NAS drive with 2 x 2TB drives as RAID 1 for 2TB storage [getting close to needing 3TB or 4TB drives]. The second drive is a mirror copy of the first drive. Also have most of the data on a 4TB USB My Book drive.

pparks1 said:

won't make any difference, with USB 3.2 Gen 2 and an NVMe drive, you will top out around 1000-1200MB/sec....which is about 1/3 of the potential of a Gen 3 drive.

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Gen 4 with USB-C is better -- anyway depends on how much data you need to backup from NAS to other storage.

If using a Linux type OS on the NAS you can use rsync or if you have a GUI on it or can ssh remotely with -X (X server) enabled you can use grsync (gui front end for rsync.) Loads of options - so just connect external devices and run a cron job --usually I only want data that's changed or new files.

The Gui interface isn;t all singing and dancing --but hey this is Linux --not Windows so you need to
know what you are doing !!!!.

grsync with std options (you can also run in test mode to see what's going to be archived).


for example backup all data from mnt/DV2 to wherever you want meeting the standard default settings -- zillions of other options too including logging process etc.

Note add the final '/' in the source data or you'll get new directories created on the target device. For non existent directories on the target device the backup will create them automatically on the target.

Used this for years --100% reliable. (and FREE). Otherwise you can use paid software like brubackup etc -- not really worth it for home users though.

Cheers
jimbo

One thing to check, will the NAS device accept the NVMe drives or will adapters be needed? I just received a package of 2 adapters for mounting 2.5" drives in a place for 3.5" drives.

jimbo45 said:

Gen 4 with USB-C is better -- anyway depends on how much data you need to backup from NAS to other storager.

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My Gen 3 NVMe is capable of 3500 megabytes per second, and achieves that speed when plugged into a PCI-e Gen 3 or 4 slot on a PC.

In the 10Gbps enclosure that connects to USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 either via a standard type A connector or a Type-C connector, the speeds are the same, just a bit over 1,000 megabytes per second. How could a Gen 4 NVMe perform better, the limiting factor is the 10Gbps USB 3 speed?

Guys the reason im looking to replace the Lacie drive is its 3 years old, the NAS has 2 4TB drives on SHR which are backed up to the Lacie drive but im looking a faster back up drive so thought an NVME M.2 SSD in an enclosure would be the way to go TBH i am open to all your recommendations, as im sure you have figured out im a computer novice.

Berton said:

One thing to check, will the NAS device accept the NVMe drives or will adapters be needed? I just received a package of 2 adapters for mounting 2.5" drives in a place for 3.5" drives.

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The NVME SSD will be used in an enclosure which will be plugged into the NAS which has 2 USB 3.0 ports

@Bikeit

It's NOT worth.
I am running a home NAS. main bottle necks is the port (USB, Cat5/6). speed of SATA3 or NVMe ports are much higher than these bottle necks. i.e. SATA3 is enough.

you can add the NVMe SSD internally. but still port of NAS (USB3 or Cat5/6) is key bottle-neck. Hence I wouldn't spend $$$ on NVMe SSD for NAS.

speed
cat5/6 port, upto 1/10 Gbps
USB3, upto 5 Gbps (USB2, max 480 Mbps)
SATA3, 6Gb/s port. NVMe 5X -6X of SATA.

siliconbeaver said:

@Bikeit

It's NOT worth.
I am running a home NAS. main bottle necks is the port (USB, Cat5/6). speed of SATA3 or NVMe ports are much higher than these bottle necks. i.e. SATA3 is enough.

you can add the NVMe SSD internally. but still port of NAS (USB3 or Cat5/6) is key bottle-neck. Hence I wouldn't spend $$$ on NVMe SSD for NAS.

speed
cat5/6 port, upto 1/10 Gbps
USB3, upto 5 Gbps (USB2, max 480 Mbps)
SATA3, 6Gb/s port. NVMe 5X -6X of SATA.

Click to expand...

The NVME SSD isnt for the NAS it will be used for an external backup of the NAS

my point, only internal use of the NVMe SSD is worth.
any external use, then its port speed will be a bottleneck. (in your case, where is the USB3 port of external enclosure).

(you can try a USB-C port, 10Gbps, of enclosure. but it's still much slower than NVMe Gen3 speed. no need to say Gen4 speed)

pparks1 said:

My Gen 3 NVMe is capable of 3500 megabytes per second, and achieves that speed when plugged into a PCI-e Gen 3 or 4 slot on a PC.

In the 10Gbps enclosure that connects to USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 either via a standard type A connector or a Type-C connector, the speeds are the same, just a bit over 1,000 megabytes per second. How could a Gen 4 NVMe perform better, the limiting factor is the 10Gbps USB 3 speed?

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USB3 is of course the limiting factor -but I mentioned USB-C which again is much faster.

Cheers
jimbo

jimbo45 said:

USB3 is of course the limiting factor -but I mentioned USB-C which again is much faster.

Cheers
jimbo

Click to expand...

USB-C is simply the name of the connector type. The protocol that it supports is what determines it's speed. This universal connector can support USB 2.0, USB 3 (3.1, 3.2, 4) and also Thunderbolt 3 and 4. USB-C "can" be faster if you have the right protocol support. But just merely using USB-C over a Type A cable doesn't make it faster.

I'm pretty sure that Synology DS720+ is running USB 3.0 limited to 5Gbps. So, theoretical max here would be 625 MB/sec....assume you will get about 85% of max, that's about 530 Megabytes per second.

On my current desktop, my USB 3.2 ports are 10Gbps, and my USB-C port is also 10Gbps. Hence now it gets about 2x that of 5Gbps, and maxes out between 1,000 and 1,200 Megabyte per second. There is 0 speed improvement with USB-C in this case over my standard USB 3.2 Gen 2 type A cable.

With USB 3.2 Gen 2 x 2, you can get up to 20Gbps, and with TB3 you can get up to 40Gbps, and USB4 could get 80-120Gbps, yadda, yadda, yadda.

But the point here, is that with the DS720+ and USB 3.0, you are going to max out around 550 Megabytes per seconds with any NVMe drive in a USB type enclosure. At that point, it's not really even advantageous to use NVMe over a standard SATA SSD. They certainly would be 0 advantage going from PCIe Gen 3 to Gen 4 on the NVMe drive...unless you were going to use it for another purpose later.