NAS Recommendation

[tracerbullet]

I'm replacing a 7 year old D-link NAS and have been brushing up but would like a recommendation, please. I'm backing up desktop & laptop O/S's, and photos and videos taken over the years. I'm interested in streaming those videos to one or two TV's as well and am considering Plex but have no experience with it yet (I have a Tivo, PS3, and newer Blu-Ray player to try out for this).

My top 3 NAS's appear to be the Qnap TS-251, Western Digital PR2100, or Synology DS218. I get the idea that any of these 3 would be fine for speed and transcoding. Does any one of them stand out in particular or is that assessment about right?

As for filling the drive bays, my current NAS has a pair of Samsung 2TB HDD's, they seem to be in good shape but are 7 years old, making me nervous, and a bit on the small side (I'm about 80% full and expanding with pictures). I'm considering buying & shucking 2 of the WD 8TB Easystore's reported to have the Red drives to fill up the NAS (It's more than I need, but those look to be a great deal). With either setup, I would have them mirror each other. I may consider a 3rd Easystore, that stays intact, as a backup device. Thus I'd have PC's backed up to NAS, and NAS backed up to portable storage. Does this sound like a good plan?

Price is a factor, I'm interested in some savings, but mostly I want it to perform well and be reliable. 4TB should be plenty, maybe I should save some money and stop at that?

Thank you for any help finalizing this!

 

[smitbret]

No prebuilt NAS is adequate for streaming/transcoding with Plex if you are streaming from BD rips or personal HD recordings. Others will tell you that they do it just fine and maybe it works for their situation but you have been warned.

 

[tracerbullet]

Thanks. I would have everything connected to a network via cables, with a good router, so I am expecting to be covered there. I wondered about pre-builts, I'd have to imagine some could do it but at a pretty high cost compared to DIY. Perhaps not.

Do you think the 3 diskless units listed above would be sufficient?

I'm also considering the 4-bay Synology DS418, maybe using my 2 x 2TB drives with 2 new 2TB drives, running RAID 10, and ending up with 4TB useable. Plenty for me for now. Added cost for the box, lower cost for the drives. Ugh so may options.

 

[Ranulf]

I favor pre-builts these days over DIY. It all depends on your needs. Pre-builts are just so much easier, being plug and play versus build your own and any OS setup headaches. I too think that the 2bay's are likely weak for transcoding HD. For that you might want to look at a 4bay with more powerful cpu. With a 4 bay you could run mixed drives if need be, upgrade as needed to more/newer/bigger drives and keep the old dlink as a second backup

 

[tracerbullet]

I'm eyeing a Synology DS218+, it's $299 at a variety of sites. https://www.synology.com/en-global/products/DS218+

Synology claims it "provides transcoding of up to two concurrent H.264/H.265 4K video streams". For me, if I can run a single stream of 4k home-made mp4 videos from it to appropriate devices, I think I'll be happy. Even if said devices need to be bought or upgraded someday. If it can do this I'm sure it can handle my file storage needs.

It feels sufficient for performance, but then obviously I'm a noob on this. The price seems good, and I'd get a pair of 4TB hard drives with it. WD Reds look to be about $130-ish, I think I'd just go for 2 of them. And yeah, keep the current box as my "backup" of the files I truly care the most about.

 

[smitbret]

Intel Celeron J3355 Quad-core 2.0 GHz

The only way that this NAS can transcode h264/h265 in real time is using Quick Sync. It may be good enough for your needs but if you ever need actual software transcoding you are up the creek.

 

[tracerbullet]

I think I finally see what you're saying. It's not that one NAS might be better than another, it's that to truly do it you're looking at something else. I.e. an actual HTPC, maybe a NUC or something. Or a NAS box that's $2000 or higher with an i7 or so in it. I was fooled by their claims, I should know better. Argh.

Any decent NAS can handle the data flow, but for actual hardware transcoding, not so easy. On that thought, if I keep my videos in a format that doesn't need to be transcoded, I could be OK. And if not... I really just needed a newer / faster / bigger NAS and the whole transcoding thing was just a bonus anyhow. If the CPU with Quick Sync works well, yay, if not no big deal.

I think I'll get the Synology linked above or the QNAP TS-251+. Look to have the same processor and same 2GB RAM. I'll see if one is better than the other for some reason and if not go for the cheaper one or just flip a coin.

 

[repoman0]

I'm in the same boat ... looking for a 2 or possibly 4 bay NAS with 4 TB mirrored storage. I have the drives, just need the unit. I almost bought a DS216j months ago but saw the recently released DS218 (for twice the price). If the 218 can't do transcoding anyway, what is the point of buying it over the 216j? I've never used a NAS before so genuinely don't know. My main purpose for buying it is to have a robust mirrored file system accessible from both Windows and Linux. I guess I could envision using it to stream video to a TV, but I don't buy or archive video, just stream / rent.

 

[tracerbullet]

...If the 218 can't do transcoding anyway...

My understanding (take that for what it's worth) is that it "can", but it's really just dependent on what the source is (file type, resolution, etc.) and also what sort of quality you want to put out. Running blue ray rips in odd formats at full res may lead to disappointment, but converting say a 720p file to your iphone might be just fine (not actual examples). It sort of depends on your standards for your output.

I think I'm back to just looking for a NAS at this point, and if I want to stream video I will be sure it's in a format my preferred watching device can handle natively. Then the NAS just has to keep up with the speed. I'll try to stay away from the need for an actual transcoding, and not be set up to be disappointed. Looks like MP4 works for my Tivo, if so I'm lucky I've been using that when shooting.

 

[Elixer]

For what it is worth, a couple days ago, installed a QNAP TS-677 for a client, and that thing is a beast. Yeah, expensive, but, it did everything they wanted to do, and with an added GPU in it, it is a transcoding beast.

 

[tracerbullet]

For what it is worth, a couple days ago, installed a QNAP TS-677 for a client, and that thing is a beast. Yeah, expensive, but, it did everything they wanted to do, and with an added GPU in it, it is a transcoding beast.

I could imagine it would. The high end models have Core i3's or better, and score pretty high on the CPU benchmark tests. I'm sure they've got the power to plow through it. I looked at a few and we're looking at $900 or so for starters.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I would love one of those 8-bay QNAP units with the Ryzen CPUs in them, and PCI-E slots, etc. Basically, "the works", for a NAS.

I've got a 4-bay TS-451 (Intel Atom) and a 4-bit TS-431 (ARM). The one with the Atom is faster, of course, and could be faster still if I upgraded the RAM a bit more. But both of them are decent for file-storage. I don't do movie viewing or transcoding from the NAS itself. Mostly just file-storage for me, over a gigabit LAN.

 

[tracerbullet]

I would love one of those 8-bay QNAP units with the Ryzen CPUs in them, and PCI-E slots, etc. Basically, "the works", for a NAS.

Sure, after I win the lottery I'll get one for both of us.

Given what I've learned, I think that unless I want to go for it and get something a $1000 or more after adding drives I'll just stick with something in the $200 - $300-ish range and expect it to simply be a good NAS and not much more. Probably Qnap or Synology, maybe WD. I think I'm going to hold out through Black Friday / Cyber Monday and keep checking hot deals here and the F/S section as well. Hopefully something pops up. If not I'll just go for it after the holiday.

 

[topmounter]

I'm shopping for a DAS or NAS. I could get by with a FW or TB DAS with my Mac Mini, but the NAS option is compelling. I like the idea of spending a bit more for 4-bays and growing into it. I'm more familiar with Synology and have been reading up on the DS418, DS418Play and DS918+ (the latter is most certainly overkill for my needs). I'm far less familiar with QNAP, but am researching the TS-451+ and 451A.

All of these seem to be good choices, but the feature list comparison between any of these devices is a bit overwhelming. The one thing I do like (at least based on their marketing literature) is the USB Quick Access feature that appears to allow you to use the TS-451A as both a NAS and DAS... it's just not clear to me yet whether this functions simultaneously and seamlessly. I'd also like to be able to install 2 drives in a RAID-1 configuration initially and add migrate to RAID-5 when I need more capacity and add a 3rd and 4th drive, I'm still reading up on that process though.

 

[LevelSea]

I've got a DS216+II with two 4TB WD Reds that's worked great so far. Never transcoded on it before though, I use a Shield TV and Kodi for playing media.

 

[shortylickens]

whatever you get make sure the unit is FAST. I bought a MyCloud (Western Digital) without thoroughly investigating it. Thing is notoriously slow even on a gigabit router. It got slightly better after many firmware updates. Went from 5 MB/s to about 45 MB/s but thats still pathetic compared to a local drive.
I started using an old computer in place of the NAS and its so much better.
In fact thats actually my recommendation, a small, cheap, slow computer instead of a regular NAS.

 

[Orsorum]

I have a older generation Synology DS214 with two 6TB Western Digital hard drives. Has worked fantastic and I regularly get greater than 50MB/s transfer speeds. Not a huge fan of the Synology UI but I can live with it.

 

[tracerbullet]

In fact thats actually my recommendation, a small, cheap, slow computer instead of a regular NAS.

Ugh, I know that would be best for transcoding by far. And probably everything else. But I feel like those days are over. I ditched my HTPC when I discovered a Tivo, and ditched another PC when I discovered my current NAS. I'm a fan now of devices replacing PC's, so I don't have to futz with them so much. Your'e right, but I am lazy.

The one thing I do like (at least based on their marketing literature) is the USB Quick Access feature that appears to allow you to use the TS-451A as both a NAS and DAS... it's just not clear to me yet whether this functions simultaneously and seamlessly.

Interesting feature. I looked at the manual but it didn't say. I'm sure you did that as well. Mine will probably live in the corner of the basement throughout its life and not need this, but it is interesting to consider.

I think I'm still waiting for a BF deal of any kind and will jump on it. thanks everyone for the info. Hopefully this info is helping someone else as well.

 

[Hail The Brain Slug]

I was looking for a NAS earlier this year. I ended up nabbing a 7600k for $180 and building a system around that to do NAS duty. I started using it as a low power browsing machine and it's snappier than my 5960x gaming rig. Sigh.

I might even put a GPU in it someday, but I'm happy with the 20w idle/30w data transfer power consumption figures.

 

[topmounter]

...

Interesting feature. I looked at the manual but it didn't say. I'm sure you did that as well. Mine will probably live in the corner of the basement throughout its life and not need this, but it is interesting to consider.

I think I'm still waiting for a BF deal of any kind and will jump on it. thanks everyone for the info. Hopefully this info is helping someone else as well.

I can't seem to find a review where someone actually used this feature. Qnap does say you have to install their software to use it, so it's not clear whether it shows up as a standard USB device or not. Seems like all the NAS reviews out there (at best) simply list features or are (at worst) SEOd to death with crap like "This NAS is great, click here to buy this awesome NAS... blah... blah... blah".

 

[paperfist]

No prebuilt NAS is adequate for streaming/transcoding with Plex if you are streaming from BD rips or personal HD recordings. Others will tell you that they do it just fine and maybe it works for their situation but you have been warned.

What what your recommend for parts on a custom build? I always wanted to build one, but never really looked into weather a stand alone RAID card would be beneficial to onboard stuff.

 

[rchunter]

If what you're after is a typical media server just install freenas or unraid and be done with it. No raid card needed.