I am considering acquiring an AS6804T to replace my aging no-longer-suported Netgear RN424 4-bay NAS. The AS6804T includes the option for installation of 4 NVME SSD's in addition to the rotating media. I can't determine whether or not I need the NVME option, or even benefit from it. I have been using the RN424 satisfactorily for >8 years with no such option. I use the system mostly for file serving and storage and from which I stream HD audio and HD video (ripped standard blu-rays) from the NAS using applications that reside on distributed PC's on my existing 1GbE network. At the same time, I want the system to adapt to my growing requirements, which I cannot foresee at this time.
1) Can the AS6804T operate without NVME?
2) Should I install 1, 2 or 4 NVME devices?
Any advice is appreciated.
AS6804T NVME: Do I Need It?
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Re: AS6804T NVME: Do I Need It?
The AS6804T will work very well without NVMe but, depending on your usage, it could perform better with it. You can use individual NVMe drives as either storage or cache but not both. Which you choose depends on your usage but four drive slots give plenty of flexibility. I use all four NVMe drives as my boot volume and active storage. This gets mirrored to the HDDs every night. Backups go straight to HDD. For my use, using the NVMe as cache will probably not gain much.
I suggest adding two relatively small NVMe drives in RAID1 as your boot volume but be aware that some folders like user Homes cannot be moved so choose your capacity accordingly. Leave the other two free for the moment then you can add further fast storage or cache when you feel you need it. The compatibility list becomes more relevant for NVMe drives as there are more constraints like whether a heatsink is needed or not - there's virtually no space for heatsinks in the 54xx, 67xx and 68xx ranges as they all use the same cramped daughterboard. I stick to WD SN700 NVMe drives and buy them direct from Sandisk as there's usually 15% off two identical drives.
I suggest adding two relatively small NVMe drives in RAID1 as your boot volume but be aware that some folders like user Homes cannot be moved so choose your capacity accordingly. Leave the other two free for the moment then you can add further fast storage or cache when you feel you need it. The compatibility list becomes more relevant for NVMe drives as there are more constraints like whether a heatsink is needed or not - there's virtually no space for heatsinks in the 54xx, 67xx and 68xx ranges as they all use the same cramped daughterboard. I stick to WD SN700 NVMe drives and buy them direct from Sandisk as there's usually 15% off two identical drives.