Synology DiskStations Help Research Team in High Arctic

Synology America Corp. released a case study from CANDAC, the Canadian Network for the Detection of Atmospheric Change.

When temperatures can reach 50 degrees below zero and climate change statistics are hanging in the balance, reliable data storage can mean the difference between life and death of a research project. These are the circumstances when CANDAC relies on Synology DiskStations.

In Canada’s high Arctic, a mere 10 degrees from the North Pole, a team of scientists and researchers work from a remote laboratory tracking and analyzing the changes in the planets climate. Using lidars, radars, spectrometers, interferometers, and other instrumentation, researchers at the Polar Environment Atmospheric Research Laboratory (PEARL) near Eureka, Nunavut brave the bitter cold to collect data on atmospheric change in one of the planet’s most affected regions.

Professor James Drummond, Principal Investigator of CANDAC, depends upon Synology NAS server products to help answer some of the planet’s most pressing questions regarding climate change. After looking at different NAS solutions available on the market, Professor Drummond, chose the Synology CS407 for its reliability, RAID capabilities, and a price that fit well within a non-profit research organization’s budget. “We looked for a reliable NAS solution, that was able to work in remote locations and required minimum supervision. We chose Synology because they are actively improving their products, offer an excellent support team and well-developed forums. Cost was also a serious consideration for us,” says Professor James Drummond, Principal Investigator of CANDAC.

For research organizations like CANDAC, undertaking this kind of important project means effectively collecting, distributing, and analyzing data from several dozen different pieces of complex equipment, and this requires a reliable way to store and share the data collections at remote research facilities and worldwide.

With seven CS407s across the network, Yan Tsehtik, CANDAC’s Data Manager was able to easily connect them all and establish a reliable data backup and transfer system. Primarily data is first stored and backed up on two CS407s in Eureka at the PEARL laboratory. Then, it’s transferred via satellite links to three CS407s in Halifax, Nova Scotia for archival. Finally, the data is transferred to two more CS407s in Toronto, Ontario, where the CS407s act as distribution servers so that data may easily be accessible from anywhere by CANDAC scientists. The Toronto location also serves as a backup in case of disaster at one of the other sites.

Recently, CANDAC decided to upgrade the CS407s to the Synology DiskStation DS409+. With data needs increasing daily, CANDAC is preparing for the future by protecting its valuable research with RAID 5, secure FTP connections, and remote backups. "Currently, we have about 6TB of raw data. However, we expect that amount will increase dramatically after data processing and quality control," says Yan.

As Yan was managing seven Synology systems spread over several thousand miles, rock solid support from the Synology support team was important to keep Yan and the team up and running. When CANDAC began to run low on available capacity on their older 1TB hard drives, Yan undertook the task of upgrading to 2TB drives, which required expanding the RAID 5 volume without losing valuable data or experiencing downtime.

"We contacted the customer support team regarding our problem with RAID 5 volume’s expansion," Yan said, "They fixed the problem and provided us with a detailed explanation of the solution. It was very impressive."

"We believe that CANDAC’s research is an integral part of solving the growing climate change issue and we are honored that CANDAC chose Synology products to be part of their important research," says Doug Self, product specialist at Synology America Corp. "We look forward to seeing how their efforts impact our global decision making around climate change," adds Self.

To read the CANDAC case study