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"Not sure why you are continuing to ignore my question on using the NAS admin credentials to access the NAS."
I try not trying ignore anything you say, I must have missed the question or more likely didn't understand...sorry.
As to why I use the admin credentials (password?)... it's the only one I know!
I reset the admin password when I did the factory reset Sunday, I have not set (or created) any other accounts (shares?) yet.
Should I? What would you suggest?
I seriously look for the simplest way to do things, I soon as it works, I stop fiddling with it!
"On the speed, is the NAS still syncing?"
No idea, I didn't know it was...what would it be synchronising with?
"You should be able to see that in the web admin ui. It will be slow until that step completes."
Where should I look? What should I be looking for?
**You should know using the web administration user interface for me is quite difficult, I've no idea what half of it means, bit like trying to decipher ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics without the use of the Rosetta stone!
Imagine you are trying to explain to someone how to unlock a car door... but they've never seen a 'key'....have no idea what a 'car' is... and have little understanding of which language you are speaking!
Bonjour .... c'est moi, mon ami, croyez-moi, j'essaie. Et je suis très reconnaissant de votre aide et de votre patience. Quand tu viendras à Paris, nous boirons ensemble et rirons de tout ça !!!
Lionel
PS. Note: I am English I'm just not familiar with a lot of the computerese ( vernacular terminology) and antonyms used here.
PPS; If you speak French, my attempted humorous aside was lost.
The Duo supports RAID-1/XRAID. If you have two disks installed, they are mirrored - everything written to one disk is also written to the other. That gives you some protection against routine disk failures.
When you first do a factory install (or later on if you replace one of the disks), the NAS has to set up the mirror - copying everything from the one disk to the other. It copies every block on the disk (including unused blocks). That process is called syncing.
Where should I look? What should I be looking for?
If you only have one disk installed, then it can't be syncing (as there is nothing to sync with).
The speed issue could also be related to your network (especially if you have an older router, but also if you have a bad ethernet cable). It might also be a failing disk. So we should figure out what's going on before you put data onto the NAS.
If you do have two disks, then look on the main page when you log in, and also on the volume page. If the NAS is syncing, it will normally say that
the volume is degraded
the volume is syncing (it will also give you an estimated completion time).
As to why I use the admin credentials (password?)... it's the only one I know!
I reset the admin password when I did the factory reset Sunday, I have not set (or created) any other accounts (shares?) yet.
Should I? What would you suggest?
I seriously look for the simplest way to do things, I soon as it works, I stop fiddling with it!
There are some aspects to consider before you start loading data onto the NAS.
(a) Using admin username and password (as you are doing now) can be convenient, and it is something I often do myself. But there are a couple of drawbacks.
One drawback relates to data security. Admin gives you full access to everything on the NAS. Some people want to restrict access in some shares (not allowing family members to write to the share, or not allowing them to access it at all). So one question I have is whether you want to restrict the NAS in that way, or if you want full access on every PC.
Another drawback is that it can create some confusion when you navigate the NAS folders. In your case, you are seeing "C", "Home" and "Admin" at the top level. If you navigate into "C", you'll see "home" again. That home is actually the same folder as you see at the top level - it's just another way to get there. If you click on either home, you'll see "admin" again. All three "admins" are actually the same. Similarly, all shares will appear on the top level, and they appear again under "C".
If you don't want to restrict access for other family members, I'd still suggest creating one user account - and using that username/password to access the NAS from all your PCs.
(2) a related aspect relates to the "admin" folder. It's actually a somewhat special folder. When you create a NAS account (admin or anything else) the NAS will create a "home" share for that user. The "home" folders are intended to be private - only that one user can see them. If you don't want to restrict access to the NAS, then you should disable the "home" share feature. When you do that, the admin folder will disappear. I can tell you how to do that later on (depending on your answer to the access question above).
I suggest turning off the home share feature. I'd do that before you load a lot of data onto the NAS. Let me know if you want instructions on that.
(3) A third aspect relates to data organization (shares). Shares (basically top level folders) are a good way to organize your files. I have a lot of them on my own NAS (~20 at the moment). But a lot of people prefer fewer shares, so there's no one right answer here.
Restricting access also relates to the organization. It's easy to restrict access to a share. It's much harder to restrict access to a subfolder in a share.
One thing here is the speed of your NAS. It's old, and quite slow by modern standards. Browsing large folders over the network will be a particularly slow process, so you do want to be careful not to dump thousands of files into one folder. You can use shares for that, or you can create subfolders within the shares.
As there's no one right answer here, I can't give specific advice. But you might want to organize your files on one or more PCs before you move them onto the NAS. That would give you some idea of what top-level shares you'll need.
I will say it usually works out best if you put documents, videos, music, and photos in different shares. If one of those shares becomes very large, consider dividing it in a way that makes sense to you (for example, separating out finance documents from other documents. Or separating out home videos from commercial movies).
(4) One last thing to consider is data preservation. Even if you do install two disks, it is important to back up anything on the NAS to another device. All devices can fail, and when they do the data on them is often lost. And your particular NAS is already 8-10 years old. The best way to keep the data safe is to have at least one backup to another device. It'd be good to set up a backup plan now.
The most cost-effective method is to back up the files to a USB drive. The NAS has some backup features that you could use to do that automatically. There are also some free backup tools you could run on one of the PCs that could back up the NAS to a USB drive attached to the PC.
You might be wondering why have a NAS if you are going to back it up anyway. One answer to that is that the NAS can consolidate your data, so all PCs can access a single copy. This makes files easier to find, and it eliminates the need for putting copies of files on different PCs (which often end up somewhat different on each device).
Thank you so much for the detailed answer. It sheds a light on so much.
If I give you a bit of background it may answer few of your questions at the same time. There are four 'main' computers on our home network: mine, my two daughters and Madam. The network is pretty open, I can 'see' everyone from the office..... I just don't look... unless asked.
The idea of the NAS is to make available the media library to everyone.
I have four files (Films 433Gb, Music 30Gb, Photos 50Gb, TV and Film Series 545Gb) that I wish to share; each file contains numerous sub files.
This is a total of 1058 Gb to be stored on one disk of 1500Gb installed in the NAS. I do not need a backup of the NAS as I have spare copies of all these files on external drives... as well as my computer.
Here in France it is normal to study several languages; the films I want to share are in French, English and Spanish which I hope will help the girls.
Windows OS backup for my wife and I is made to an external disk; the girls system backup is taken care of by their school as they supplied the computers.
As regards to organization. On a day to day basis I will not be using the NAS unless the configuration needs changing. So turning off the 'Home' file or any other file... I will follow your recommendations. For me the less files the easier it will be.
For the other three youngsters, it would be nice if they all had the same password and ID which gave access to the four files (Films, Music, Photos, and Series) only, this might avoid any confusion for them. They do not need to write anything to the NAS. If we do need something added to the NAS I will do it... this will be very rare.
As regards speed.... there is no second disk,.... the router was upgraded by our Internet provider a couple of months back. The router comes as part of the package. The USB cable I used is new.
I have just accessed the “Frontview” setup program via the Firefox browser. Before fully opening it flashed up the following message for the first time...
“Reallocated sector count has increased in the last day. Disk 1: Previous count: 17 Current count: 19 Growing SMART errors indicate a disk that may fail soon. If the errors continue to increase, you should be prepared to replace the disk.
[Tue Dec 3 04:00:02 PST 2019]”
We might have found why we have a speed/copy problem!!!
“Reallocated sector count has increased in the last day. Disk 1: Previous count: 17 Current count: 19 Growing SMART errors indicate a disk that may fail soon. If the errors continue to increase, you should be prepared to replace the disk.
[Tue Dec 3 04:00:02 PST 2019]”
We might have found why we have a speed/copy problem!!!
Yes. I'd definitely replace the disk.
If you had two disks installed, you could simply hot-swap it with a replacement. But with one disk you'll need to do another factory install, and reconfigure the NAS again.
I live in a small commune in the eastern suburbs of Paris, France. The village was founded in 644.... but 1375 years is obviously not enough time to open a computer shop!.... I will have to go to Paris.
“What about 'Amazon' you say”
I would not say we were out of touch here but if you mention Amazon to our neighbours here they will tell you it's a large river that has been recently discovered somewhere in the New World.....!!
I will accept this answer as the solution. Thank you for all your patience and help.
When I have purloined another disk and set it up... I will post another topic under the heading:
“First time setup on a RND2000v1/ Chapter 2” to fine tune the setting we discussed.
This could be after Christmas because, believe it or not, all the trains, buses and metro are going on strike!...starting tomorrow!!
In the meantime I would like to wish you and your family a really 'Happy Christmas'.....
….and to anyone else who has been silently following our adventures.
Lionel
PS. Can you say “Happy Christmas” in the US still???
