WD EX2 or DS918+

Ive got a few questions and wondered if you could help? Ive been relying on an ageing Lacie My Cloud 2TB (films and TV plus family photo backup) and a Lacie 3TB external drive for my work back up and storage needs but over the last 2-3 years Ive been looking to upgrade and maybe get a ‘proper’ high capacity NAS that i can access off site / from my IOS devices and

Im looking for 8 – 12TB with the ability to connect to my late 2016 iMac (core i7 27inch) but I’d like to use PLEX (currently use DNLA from Lacie Cloud drive to the Playstation 3 which works most of the time but would be nice to have something more up to date).

I’ve been watching the WD EX2 Ultra, wondering if a new version is due. I’m thinking of getting an empty unit and buying two WD Red HDs or 2 x Toshiba X300’s. I can connect the existing external 3TB Lacie to the EX2 via USB3 as additional storage.

First question – Ive just read that WD are not yet fully supporting high sierra re the new file system. Do you have any info? Is this a real problem?

Second question – If I got a WD NAS is it better (quicker read write access etc) to connect it directly to the iMac via the USB3 port and the gb cable or just use the gb cable on its own?

 

Sierra is new operating system and many storage device manufacturers are creating software to make their products Mac compatible. WD will make their products compatible if they are not working already.

Of course, it would be quicker to have USB3 direct attached drive, but not always speed is so important. Synology NAS will offer som much of backup and multimedia functionality that you will regret you didn’t get one earlier.

By the sound of it, it looks like you need some long-term investment which you can rely on. I would suggest Synology DS418play or DS918+ (expandable option).

On DS918+ you can create different folders or even volumes to appear in your computer disk list. I would recommend to fill it with 3 drives to start with and add the fourth one once your data have grown enough. This will let one of the drives fail – but you will be still able to use it without losing data. Three 6TB drives will give you the capacity of around 12TB and third drive will serve as data guardian.

 

 


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