Qnap or Synology or ? for home NAS

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#1784672 19-May-2017 11:30

dt:

MikeB4:

What is the noise levels like from these units, could one stand to have them in the lounge or office?

From my experience, they're tolerable with 5400rpm drives, 7400rpm drives aren't tolerable.

All drives I've used have been western digital reds.

Either are far from silent though and imo are best suited to be stored in a garage if possible.

What are the transfer speeds like with 5400 drives?

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MikeB4

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#1784674 19-May-2017 11:31

Who is using either as a media server and if so how is it at this task and does Plex work well on them?

JaseNZ

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#1784679 19-May-2017 11:38

Run plex on the qnap and its great no issues at all.

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#1784692 19-May-2017 12:24

MikeB4:

What are the transfer speeds like with 5400 drives?

5400 is fast enough:

Using a Synology NAS with WD Reds in RAID 5 (transferring large files):

Gigabit ethernet: 100+ MBytes/sec (write)

USB3: 200 MBytes/sec (write)

Slower with multiple small files.

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Quinny

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#1784709 19-May-2017 12:57

The short - QNAP TS-651 huge but useless and wish I never invested over 2k in the darn thing. Synology DS916+ an amazing wee gem that never faults and I am in love.

The longer - brought QNAP believing that having more drives was good (comparison at the time was the DS416) and more options in setup would be better. Its a nightmare. Along with others on here with same issue the networking is now wonky after a firmware update and it plays so little of my media. The Synology I have had six months and never trips up and plays anything I throw at Plex (even remote).

If I could recover value (or close in the QNAP) I would sell it tomorrow and buy another Synology.

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#1784715 19-May-2017 13:10

I run plex on synology 412+.
No issues.
All movies are DVD streaming to atv, previously streamed to rasp Pi b+.

One day will try ripping blue rays.

MikeB4

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#1784772 19-May-2017 14:53

Next question where/whom are the best supplier to buy from?

MikeB4

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#1784773 19-May-2017 14:55

afe66: I run plex on synology 412+.
No issues.
All movies are DVD streaming to atv, previously streamed to rasp Pi b+.

One day will try ripping blue rays.

I have thought of ripping and digitally storing our Blu Ray collection but that would take an eternity and use a lot of storage. I also believe that it is not kosher in NZ.

dt

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#1784779 19-May-2017 15:17

MikeB4:

What are the transfer speeds like with 5400 drives?

They're good, 100~mb/s

I'm using mine as a plex media server and a torrent downloader / seedbox.

The model i'm using has upgradable memory(voids warranty) replaced the standard 1gb with 8gb and it purrs along :)

edit: bought mine from PB Tech, was the cheapest place with the best rep at the time of purchase.

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#1784799 19-May-2017 15:48

Rappelle:

Don't mean to be offensive, but you should have done more research into the QNAP. You would have seen the processor, and stayed away if you wanted to stream/transcode.

I picked up a QNAP TS-251+ (note the +) with a quadcore, and it plays plex like an absolute gem.

All good. Did heaps of research actually, mine could even be the plus as at work not home so can't check :).

Most on the box is non-hd and at the time I was mostly using dlna (home) not Plex (remote). The big issue was wanted 6 drives not 4 and to use Raid 6. Its a very very big baby full of much media. Bang for buck got absolutely the right machine for what was around when brought it and until earlier this year was reasonably happy with it as yes, very aware that 1080 remote streaming is a different trancoding beast :).

My serious issues are not how well it works streaming but the QTS software on it. Its just so frustrating. Have a look at some of the other treads on here - regarding dual lan, getting lost in Windows 10, issues with fixed ip and so on. In comparison the Synology has been totally hassle free. So yeah "my" recommendation (based on software not streaming as the boxes are a year apart in purchase time as well as have different chips as a result) stands. Totally Synology over QNAP for me (my idea box would be a 6 drive 916+ which does not exist bar expansion box).

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#1784925 19-May-2017 20:02

MikeB4:

I have thought of ripping and digitally storing our Blu Ray collection but that would take an eternity and use a lot of storage. I also believe that it is not kosher in NZ.

Technically not kosher, but personally I wouldn't worry. It has the same status as copying a CD you owned to your iPod before they relaxed the law on this. But, if you are copying stuff you have paid for then I don't see a moral problem, and from a practical standpoint there is no way it's detectable either. Any more than ripping a CD with iTunes used to be back in the day.

Yes, they take a lot of storage if you rip the whole disk (up to 50GB per film). But if you only rip the main movie, and transcode it down, you can usually get it down to the 5-10GB zone without worrying too much(*). A 4-bay NAS with 8TB drives in RAID5 will give you decent transfer speed, fault tolerance, and circa 24TB of usable space. At 8GB per film, that's still around 3,000 films on the NAS. I doubt you own that many Blu Rays - but kudos to you if you do!

*note: I no actual experience ripping/compressing Blu Rays, my experience is ripping my DVD collection to my NAS (which works well). But I have read quite a bit about it on various forums.

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#1784931 19-May-2017 20:27

MikeB4:

Next question where/whom are the best supplier to buy from?

Amazon.com is about $50 cheaper for a 216j than say PBTech so depends whether CGA plus instant purchase is worth that much to you. When I bought mine, it was a larger difference

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#1784936 19-May-2017 20:46

I have tried both, QNAP has slightly more features but Synology is m,ore polished, just get the best one (CPU/RAM) you can for your money.

afe66

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#1785060 20-May-2017 12:07

Ive probably got about 100 blu rays but I'm only using 2 of the 4 bays of my 412+ at the moment so could slip in a couple of 2-3Tbs.

Mind you, if I find myself running out of space/speed, I will happily buy a new NAS. My synology has been a joy to play with so will stick with same brand.

(Re DVD ripping legality. Just I know its not legal but all the DVDs I have on my system were bought and are sitting in the garage. )

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#1785118 20-May-2017 12:52

afe66:

Ive probably got about 100 blu rays but I'm only using 2 of the 4 bays of my 412+ at the moment so could slip in a couple of 2-3Tbs.

Mind you, if I find myself running out of space/speed, I will happily buy a new NAS. My synology has been a joy to play with so will stick with same brand.

(Re DVD ripping legality. Just I know its not legal but all the DVDs I have on my system were bought and are sitting in the garage. )

Not been able *legally* to back up DVD's one has purchased is silly. It's allowed for music CD's but I haven purchased one of those for years.

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