Hey Ralph, if you decide to completely switch ecosystems, I will totally take those EX2 shells off your hands 
I dont need drives really for what I want to do with them.
where abouts are you Wierd_w?
Most likely Iāll go the craigslist route as I should hopefully get at least $700 for the 16TB EX2 ultra and maybe $400 for my 4TB EX2, $400 for my single drive 8TB my clouds (because they are rare now ).
Yup look at all that money Iāll save 
I was meaning the ones you steal the drives out of. Most users wont have the technical moxie to make them into something fun and enjoyable.
But if you insist on selling them instead of donating them to science after harvesting their organs, then so be it.
Iāll donate them to you if you donate money back in an amount that is acceptable
I am quarter way through my tests as it took 6 hours for the unit to build and sync my empty raid 1 mirror drives but yup, this is a what a real NAS is all about.
There are two features that I really love and that is that it actually sleeps, plus there is absolutely no clicking.
I still need to mount my 2x10TB drives on the QNAP to see if it accepts 10TB drives and if it does, that would probably be the last testing phase before moving into full on data transfer (which will take a week).
I should have done this sooner, like a few years agoā¦
soon I will be able to say ā¦
So long, and thanks for reading all my rants over the yearsā¦
wellā¦
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this thing has a power button!! but it takes many minutes to power down just like a real computer!! (I think it takes 6 minutes, just guessing though because I didnāt measure the time it took but yeahā¦ it shuts down by a press of the button).
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iSCSI direct read/writes to hard drive or image, your choice but even with direct read/writes the speed is only 40MB/s writes and 60MB/s reads, not that impressive. With my EX2 Ultra I get about 32MB/s writes and 40MB/s Writes on image. I was hoping for 100MB/s read writes like what you get with just SMB.
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Thick and thin drive options from a pool of free space. Thick is space that is pre-allocated and thin is allocation as needed so you can use the free space for other purposes like iSCSI. Using Thin allows you to create an 8TB share and a 2TB iSCSI on a 8TB mirror or something like thatā¦ but kinda neat if you ask me.
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so many apps, plex, music, photos, website plus the cloud app which is really qfile which allows you to access your NAS in 3 or 4 different ways; direct wan ip, cloud ip, QNAPcloud ip, local ip.
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real sleep, at least it stayed asleep plus the fact that it is quiet. A few times during the day I would touch it and it was cold and silent (no fans running either while asleep). I woke it up via the cloud app on my iPhone and I couldnāt hear any activity from the device and I had to put my ears almost on the device to find out that it was actually awake. Iām impressed.
So Iām taking it back for a refund because Iām so impressed with QNAP that Iām buying the 4-bay model of the same line as this one. Iām looking at filling it up with 4x10TB drives to give me either 30TB in raid 5 or 20TB in raid 10 or raid 6.
Optionally since I have 2x10TB and 2x8TB, I can have a 24TB raid5 with 2x2TB leftover for iSCSI or something else.
Anyways, it has been quite a while since I looked at NASes and I didnāt realize that the NAS has changed so much. I like the idea of a pool of free space and the idea of thin allocation.
While it may be true that a QNAP unit can fail, the ability to buy another QNAP and simply plugging the drives in is the last factor in my decision. However I will still backup my data on two single drive My Clouds, or perhaps spread across 3 MyBook Duos since I have already started separating my data.
Iāll do one final exploration of the My Cloud to see if I can kill that incessant clicking as I believe it is just a script that is running in the background checking if anything on the hard drive has changed before spawning the scans. If I can find that one job, maybe I will stay with the My Cloudsā¦ yeah rightā¦
p.s. one last thing. Apparently you can change from one raid to another or upgrade your hard drives to a larger size with no loss of data as well as full access to your data while the change or upgrade is happening. This was the dream with Drobo back in the days but now it is just a part of a normal NAS it seems. Although I would always have a backup, this would make upgrading so much simpler.
Yes WD EX2 Ultra does support the growable NAS concept but after I tried growing a 2TB mirror to the same size 2TB and the system got stuck without the ability to back out resulting in the total loss of all my data, I donāt know how safe it is with WD. Apples, Oranges and perhaps Tangerines
With thin provisioned LUNs, be very careful. It is very easy to have them grow simply by having some dumb fool ass software try to defragment the drive.
only on windows Wierd_w
no defragmenter here on Macs
So a change of plansā¦ after returning the 2 bay QNAP and coming to my senses of being a kid in candy store, I decided to stopā¦ and think about what Iām doing.
In preparing for migrating the 2x10TB to the QNAP, I ended up copying all my movies over to the 2x8TB EX2 Ultra on the shelf across the room and there the clicks are not as annoying.
To spend $339 for the quad QNAP and another $800 for 2 more 10TB or to simply use the 2x8TB to pad out the 4 drives needed for raid 5/6/10, is something Iāve dreamed about since my earlier NAS days butā¦ even with all the apps, growable raids and simply the luxury of having 30TB at my fingertips is something I donāt really need.
Of course with my buying OCD, I will probably pick up the Quad QNAP that is currently on sale for $339 Canadian (a savings of $50) next week and the additional 2 x 10TB because I got to have the matching pair of gold 10TB drives a week laterā¦
but meanwhile I DID NOT buy the Quad QNAP and I actually walked out of the store without buying. Although I could order it from Amazon tonight with prime on an overnight delivery
Anyways, everything at my house is back to normal with clicking My Clouds to the back of me even though I added no data and currently it is waking every half hourā¦ going insaneā¦ hahahahahahaā¦
okā¦ going to hibernate the driveā¦ and turn it back onā¦ ā ā ā ā ā ā ā ā ā ā ā ā ā ā ā WDā¦ ā ā ā ā ā
Was just pointing out the potential. You dont know how many support calls I fielded working at NetApp about thin provisioned LUNs serving virtual exchange servers, and the SUPER CONVENIENT background defragmenter doing its thing making the thin provisioned LUN not be so thin anymore, all suddenly. (In big deployments, where they have a dozen or so virtual servers all living on thin LUNs using VMWare or some other virtualizer, all living crammed together on a barely sufficient storage controllerā having them all suddenly decide that they need their full allocation, all at once, all at the same timeā makes the virtual server admins have a heart attack and call support frantically.)
You try explaining to a customer that there is nothing wrong with the storage controller at all, and that their virtual server deployment(s) is(are) responsible. Try doing it when the admin gets paid way more than you do, and proudly knows it, and refuses to listen to you. It gets even better when they expect you to be able to get corporate to change their advertising to contain a caveat about windows background defragmentation service when they proudly proclaim the virtues of thin provisioned LUNs.
Iām still a bit sore about it actually. Just be wary of thin provisioned LUNs unless you know EXACTLY what you are doing.
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I posted at the beginning of the year I purchased a Qnap TVS-673 NAS and was leaving WD MyCloud behind. I can certainly tell you I havenāt regretted the purchase. Besides the apps that are available, raid configuration options, thick or thin provisioning, etc., Qnap is on top of the firmware security updates (along with features).
So far, there has been at least 1 firmware update a month ā¦ and a patch if there is a security hole that needs patching immediately. Their forum, like this one, is a user based forum with tons of help and some extremely experienced users.
Although it is unfair to compare a Qnap to a WD MyCloud based on price and usability, you will not regret purchasing a Qnap no matter what series you choose. I use my 2 MyClouds as backups to other Backup devices, so I havenāt stopped using the MyClouds ā¦ just reallocated their purpose.
All the best,
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Hi guys,
Please be respectful on the community per our TOS. Iām not going to flag this one, but itās a borderline case.
And here I thought it was an intermittent connection between the keyboard and the outside world.
yes guys please be respectful of me.
it seems that Iām a borderline caseā¦
I know it has been- nonetheless, if someone were to get offended and complain (it wouldnāt be the first time someone complained over something you or I might take as a joke) Iād be forced to take action despite your good intentions (as you said, thatās the crazy world we live in today) which is why I gave you a friendly warning to be careful.
The straw that finally broke me was all the work that I put into separating my data into non-scanable files; all my photos into a 3TB My Book Duo and backups into another 3TB My Book Duo, did diddly squat on the 2TB EX2 that had no files in it except for a 1TB iSCSI partition, was on all night with its fans on. In addition, both of my My Books had the media switch turned on with one My Book unmounted.
Like āsay what?ā
These backup units have been untouched for days and "how did both of my My Books suddenly have the Media Switch turned on?
I re-booted the device by doing it the long way, unconnected both USB drives, Hibernate the EX2, re-power up the EX2, reconnect both USB drives, the My Books were blinking rapidly showing that they were being SCANNED!
Remember folks, I live alone and having my My Book UN-Mounted is strange. After boot-up, the drive (one) re-mounted without any problems.
The media switch being turned on? I donāt understand. Iām guessing that I must have accessed it by my iPhone app, which then triggers the scan process. Just to be clear here, there are absolutely no files on this 2TB ex2 that would trigger a cloud access scanning and I have turned off all Cloud access on ALL my Cloud drives rendering them useless as a Cloud device simply for the fact that I hate the scans.
It is unacceptable especially after the latest cloud update is about privacy.
Who is accessing my data and why?
Lastly as you can see my 8TB cloud light is red. That is a Microsoft like ā ā ā ā ā move where they tell you that your drive is full even if you have 400GB of free space.
Yup time to move onā¦
clickā¦ clickā¦ clickā¦ clickā¦clickā¦ clickā¦ clickā¦ clickā¦clickā¦ clickā¦ clickā¦ clickā¦
. like a marching bandā¦ on my 8TB single Bay My Cloud.
so mea cupa 
The loud clicking of the drives is apparently the design of the helium filled 10TB gold drives or at least they were clicking loudly on the initial startup of my brand new QNAP. Iām not sure if they normally click every few seconds, but right now QNAP is formatting them and the rattling sound is about the same volume as my EX2.
Found this on youtube regarding the loud clicking noises from the 10TB.
Not happy but I guess I have to sayā¦
cāest la vie.
Iām not sure if anyone cares about my findings, but apparently unlike the old days of Windows server where you can allocate portions of the hard drive for a certain raid type and the remainider to another type, QNAP does not allow this. For example 2x10TB with 2X8TB raid 5 would give you 21TB usable (that is because the 8TB is really 7TB in size, thus 3x7 = 21TB with 2TB left over on each of the 10TB drives of which I was planning to create a 2TB mirror. Except QNAP doesnāt allow you to do that. All you get is 21TB total pool.
So what this means that because of my OCD where everything must balance, Iāll need to spend another $1k on another pair of 10TB hard drives to balance the raid 5 to 28TB.
Anyways I am at a loss on what to doā¦
So Iām committed.
Iām curbing my OCD by closing my mindās eye and just using the QNAP as-is with 21TB Raid 5. Once all the data has migrated, which should take about a week, iāll reset all my clouds and my books duo and just sell them off on Craigs. Replacing all 3xEX2/2xMyBooks with one QNAP
So this is probably good-byeā¦ and thanks for all the memories. Not looking backā¦
Iād say enjoy the peace and quite. But as it seems you are a click magnet. Not sure that is going to happen.
PS I did not spell click incorrectly.
you spelt quiet wrong
anyways QNAP is a different marriage that I am much more incline to forgive than the decade old marriage to the āmy cloud hussyā
