--- title: "Homelab SSD Failure: How Synology RAID Saved My Data" description: "I recently spent 3 weeks in Ireland with my wife Wendy and our son Nate." date: 2022-11-21T15:46:53+00:00 modified: 2026-06-01T19:02:40+00:00 author: James Kilby categories: - Homelab - Storage - Synology - Artificial Intelligence - Docker - VCF - VMware - Nutanix - TrueNAS Scale tags: - #Homelab - #Storage url: https://jameskilby.co.uk/2022/11/homelab-bad-days-almost/ image: https://jameskilby.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/BrokenHardDive-1200x630-1.jpg --- ![](https://jameskilby.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/BrokenHardDive-1200x630-1.jpg) [Homelab](https://jameskilby.co.uk/category/homelab/) | [Storage](https://jameskilby.co.uk/category/storage/) | [Synology](https://jameskilby.co.uk/category/synology/) # Homelab SSD Failure: How Synology RAID Saved My Data By[James](https://jameskilby.co.uk) November 21, 2022 · Updated June 1, 2026 • 📖2 min read(362 words) 📅**Published:** November 21, 2022•**Updated:** June 01, 2026 I recently spent 3 weeks in Ireland with my wife Wendy and our son Nate. This involves driving from the south coast of Dorset up to Scotland and then getting a ferry over to Belfast before travelling west to the Republic. While driving I got a slack notification that one of my SSDs in my Synology DS918+ was in a bad way. (You do have notifications set up, right? ) The timing could not have been worse. Now for years anyone that I have talked to at VMUG’s around data protection etc, I have advocated never using RAID 5. The reasons for this are well known. But when it’s your homelab and your wallet is on the line corners sometimes need to be cut. When I got to Ireland I logged into the Synology, it was pretty obvious it wasn’t happy ![Homelab bad days \(almost\) Screenshot](https://jameskilby.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Screenshot-2022-11-14-at-20.56.39.png)Unhappy Array (for historical reasons I was using slots 1, 2 and 4) and it had pages and pages like this…. ![Drive Errors 2048x236](https://jameskilby.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Drive-Errors-2048x236-1-1024x118.png) I had 3 SSDs in this particular array all from around the same time. Out of curiosity, I checked how old they were. The drive that failed had a power-on-hours count of 49599 hours (5.6 Years). It had more than served its purpose so some replacements were ordered for when I was back in Poole. For now I had to run the risk and hope another drive didn’t fail. Returning home to swap a drive was never going to go down well with the family. I decided to order 4x 2TB SSDs and went with the Samsung 870 QVO’s. They are def on the budget end of SSDs but are cost-effective and given the limited network bandwidth on my Synology were more than adequate. I first replaced the failed drive and then when this was complete extended the array to be 4x Disk before replacing the other 2 existing drives one at a time. ![Homelab bad days \(almost\) Screenshot](https://jameskilby.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Screenshot-2022-11-21-at-16.43.51.png)Everything is green again Everything is now back to being green and hunky dory. I have run scrubs to validate all data. I still have RAID 5 on both volumes but I have undertaken a task to improve some of my backup handling. Just in case….. ## 📚 Related Posts * [My First Homelab Storage Setup: HP Gen8 & Xpenology](https://jameskilby.co.uk/2018/01/lab-storage/) * [Can you really squeeze 96TB in 1U ?](https://jameskilby.co.uk/2024/09/can-you-really-squeeze-96tb-in-1u/) * [Homelab Storage Upgrade: Synology DS918 for VMware & NFS](https://jameskilby.co.uk/2019/02/lab-storage-2/) ## Similar Posts * [ ![Self Hosting AI Stack using vSphere, Docker and NVIDIA GPU](https://jameskilby.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/pexels-tara-winstead-8386440-768x512.jpg) ](https://jameskilby.co.uk/2024/10/self-hosting-ai-stack-using-vsphere-docker-and-nvidia-gpu/) [Artificial Intelligence](https://jameskilby.co.uk/category/artificial-intelligence/) | [Docker](https://jameskilby.co.uk/category/docker/) | [Homelab](https://jameskilby.co.uk/category/homelab/) ### [Self Hosting AI Stack using vSphere, Docker and NVIDIA GPU](https://jameskilby.co.uk/2024/10/self-hosting-ai-stack-using-vsphere-docker-and-nvidia-gpu/) By[James](https://jameskilby.co.uk) October 11, 2024 · Updated June 1, 2026 Artificial intelligence is all the rage at the moment, It’s getting included in every product announcement from pretty much every vendor under the sun. * [ ![Homelab Storage Upgrade: Synology DS918 for VMware & NFS](https://jameskilby.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/81-ZoEW24UL._SL1500_-768x461.jpg) ](https://jameskilby.co.uk/2019/02/lab-storage-2/) [Homelab](https://jameskilby.co.uk/category/homelab/) ### [Homelab Storage Upgrade: Synology DS918 for VMware & NFS](https://jameskilby.co.uk/2019/02/lab-storage-2/) By[James](https://jameskilby.co.uk) February 10, 2019 · Updated June 5, 2026 Since starting my new role with Xtravirt my Homelab has gone through several fairly significant changes. * [ ![VMware Holodeck on Older CPUs: Fixing Compatibility Issues](https://jameskilby.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/40oOd8IipPvtrPJs-1198788743-768x737.jpg) ](https://jameskilby.co.uk/2024/01/holodeck-cpu-fixes/) [VCF](https://jameskilby.co.uk/category/vmware/vcf/) | [VMware](https://jameskilby.co.uk/category/vmware/) ### [VMware Holodeck on Older CPUs: Fixing Compatibility Issues](https://jameskilby.co.uk/2024/01/holodeck-cpu-fixes/) By[James](https://jameskilby.co.uk) January 18, 2024 · Updated June 1, 2026 How to deploy Holodeck with Legacy CPU’s * [ ![New Homelab Nodes: SuperMicro BigTwin for VMware & Nutanix](https://jameskilby.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/IMG_6629-768x149.jpeg) ](https://jameskilby.co.uk/2024/07/new-nodes/) [Homelab](https://jameskilby.co.uk/category/homelab/) | [Nutanix](https://jameskilby.co.uk/category/nutanix/) | [VMware](https://jameskilby.co.uk/category/vmware/) ### [New Homelab Nodes: SuperMicro BigTwin for VMware & Nutanix](https://jameskilby.co.uk/2024/07/new-nodes/) By[James](https://jameskilby.co.uk) July 2, 2024 · Updated June 5, 2026 I recently decided to update some of my homelab hosts and I managed to do this at very little cost by offloading 2 of my Supermicro e200’s to fellow vExpert Paul . * [ ![Can you really squeeze 96TB in 1U ?](https://jameskilby.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/QuantaGrid-SD1Q-1ULH-Front-Three-Quarter.png) ](https://jameskilby.co.uk/2024/09/can-you-really-squeeze-96tb-in-1u/) [Homelab](https://jameskilby.co.uk/category/homelab/) | [Storage](https://jameskilby.co.uk/category/storage/) | [TrueNAS Scale](https://jameskilby.co.uk/category/truenas-scale/) ### [Can you really squeeze 96TB in 1U ?](https://jameskilby.co.uk/2024/09/can-you-really-squeeze-96tb-in-1u/) By[James](https://jameskilby.co.uk) September 12, 2024 · Updated June 1, 2026 Yes, that’s a clickbait title. 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