Recommend me NAS, what you got?

[marctwo]

e8_pack said:

Bought a 215j with 8tb hard drives.

My modem is in the attic, can I connect to the router from downstairs using a powerline Ethernet plug?

Yes, it should work as long as the circuits are on the same consumer unit.

[richie99]

marctwo said:

Yes, it should work as long as the circuits are on the same consumer unit.

I've put my Synology within Ethernet cable distance of the router itself to eliminate any possible bottleneck from the Homeplugs. My experience is that Home Plug connections are not as fast as a wireless connection - this with 200M Homeplugs.

[marctwo]

richie99 said:

marctwo said:

Yes, it should work as long as the circuits are on the same consumer unit.

I've put my Synology within Ethernet cable distance of the router itself to eliminate any possible bottleneck from the Homeplugs. My experience is that Home Plug connections are not as fast as a wireless connection - this with 200M Homeplugs.

That can be the case but they are generally more reliable than wireless. Proper Ethernet is best though.

[e8_pack]

marctwo said:

richie99 said:

marctwo said:

Yes, it should work as long as the circuits are on the same consumer unit.

I've put my Synology within Ethernet cable distance of the router itself to eliminate any possible bottleneck from the Homeplugs. My experience is that Home Plug connections are not as fast as a wireless connection - this with 200M Homeplugs.

That can be the case but they are generally more reliable than wireless. Proper Ethernet is best though.

Could probably run a flat cable actually. There's one spot that runs under the carpet upstairs so just need to get across that. Would like the server in the TV cupboard so i can transfer files to it easily from my travel hard drives, or can i just do that from a PC?

[marctwo]

e8_pack said:

Could probably run a flat cable actually. There's one spot that runs under the carpet upstairs so just need to get across that. Would like the server in the TV cupboard so i can transfer files to it easily from my travel hard drives, or can i just do that from a PC?

If you can run a cable, do that. Otherwise, homeplugs now come in 1200Mbps flavour.

You can connect the travel drives to your PC and copy from the NAS, you don't have to connect them directly to the NAS itself.

[westtra]

I have a qnap hs-210 which is fanless. runs cool and quiet with 2 x 2tb WD red drives.

had no issus with it and works well with samsung tv.

[ivanjob]

I own both QNAP and Synology. both are pretty decent products. Personally I prefer QNAP. Here is my experience.

QNAP performance and hardware is always better when you look at the same price band. It adapts faster/ more powerful CPU with larger size of RAM support. Web interface which you will use the computer browser to manage and configure, this part both companies are doing about the same.

QNAP however have much more features, which could be the very important factors to change the game. some features require RAM upgrade.
e.g.
Most series (Intel-based, e.g. their tS-x51 or TS-x53 Pro), comes with HDMI port. when you activate the feature called "HD Station" then it will bring you a whole new world. There is built-in XBMC (Kodi) player that you can playback the stored video and photo right on your TV or home theater system (7.1 passthru is supported). Besides QNAP can let you run multiple virtual machines, including Windows OS on top of QNAP. that means you can have a Windows PC but running on QNAP without owning a physical laptop. You can also connect to USB keyboard mouse & use it as a PC. The QNAP also run PLEX, DLNA, also stream to mobile device with on-the-fly transcoding which allows you do remotely watch the stored video on the smaller screen smoothly and fast.
Now they also have Qsirch, the google-like search engine that you can locate your stored files on qnap fast and easily...
Simply say my synology is doing about 50% of what my QNAP can do. QNAP will give you more bang of the buck.

[mattyn1]

I have a QNAP TS-210 - an old model but has let me down twice when we suffered power cuts. The support from QNAP customer service is superb and were able to rebuild the drives over the net.

But once bitten as the saying goes, I wanted something else - so I bought a cheap Buffalo Linkstation with two 4TB drives in. It is superb - rock solid and feeds two Mede8er players simultaneously through homeplugs with no stuttering on 1080P movies.

QNAP and Synology are good - Buffalo Linkstation performs just as well in real world mode, and is far, far cheaper!

[T1berious]

I Have a Synology DS 415+ with WD Red disks. Really pleased with it. Really quick and does a great job providing datastores for my lab and then acting as a media station for Movies \ photo's and Music.

The great thing for me was that it was adamant about dodgy sectors on one of the disks, replaced it and all good (I'm sure they all do that but I gave me a warm fluffy glow).

Many months issue free storage just need to get it's smaller brother to act as a backup.

[NiceCupOfTea]

Just bringing this thread back onto the front page again!

I have been looking at the Synology 2 bay NASes with a view to using a couple of 2 or maybe 3 TB drives mirrored for backup/fileserving/media playback.

There seem to be loads of different 2 bay drives though - according to the Synology website:

DS 215+
DS 214
DS 214play
DS 215j
DS 214se

for starters!

Need at least 2 USB ports (external drive for backups, connection to UPS (assuming they support that)), and maybe another one for a printer (is there a printer server?)

[Chris Hinds]

I have a DS214 which I picked because unlike the 214 play it has a little more power which allows me to run Crashplan directly from the NAS. I don't use the USB ports but it can act as a pint server. Overall I'm happy with the unit which serves music and video all round the house as well as file storage.

[NiceCupOfTea]

Just updating this for anybody interested, as it is quite confusing!

eg. DS-214+

DS = deskstation, RS = rackstation
2 - (max) no of drive bays
14 - model year

Then after that is the "level" of spec

j = cut down entry level
(nothing) = standard number
se = higher spec
+ = top spec

There is also a "play" which is designed to be good at serving media!

So, not sure what I'm looking at really. Not worried about whether it's a 2014 or 2015 model. Want someting that's going to be a little future proofed. Just general fileserving and storage, but the ability to serve media would be good if I ever rip my DVDs/blurays.

Considering the 214play (may be overkill) but it's £430 populated with a couple of 3TB WD Reds which is a bit more than I wanted to pay. Like the idea of a bit more built in memory and processor speed though.

215j with 6TB is £100 cheaper but will I miss the spec?

Other thing I want to do is use it for my IP cameras which I understand they can do...

Any thoughts?

[irocfan]

another thread revival here... I've heard good things about this (Asutor AS302TE)

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?pro...


has anyone got one/tried one etc and has any thoughts either way?

[dmsims]

I recently bought a Synology 215j to replace an ageing Readynas

Compared to that the build quality is shockingly poor:

Cheap plastic case
No drive caddies
Have to disassemble to replace a drive

The speed with the HGST drives is superb (which was the main purchase factor)

The WD reds have high failure rates

[sparkyhx]

dmsims said:

I recently bought a Synology 215j to replace an ageing Readynas

Compared to that the build quality is shockingly poor:

Cheap plastic case
No drive caddies
Have to disassemble to replace a drive

The speed with the HGST drives is superb (which was the main purchase factor)

The WD reds have high failure rates

I don't disagree, but the software and internal hardware is very good. I use that 24x7 I used the box and bays once in 4 years. it happily sits on top of my subwoofer quietly going about its business. I ncan forgive the apparent lack of build quality for the brilliant stuff that matters.

[davek_964]

mattyn1 said:

I have a QNAP TS-210 - an old model but has let me down twice when we suffered power cuts. The support from QNAP customer service is superb and were able to rebuild the drives over the net.

But once bitten as the saying goes, I wanted something else - so I bought a cheap Buffalo Linkstation with two 4TB drives in. It is superb - rock solid and feeds two Mede8er players simultaneously through homeplugs with no stuttering on 1080P movies.

QNAP and Synology are good - Buffalo Linkstation performs just as well in real world mode, and is far, far cheaper!

I have 3 Linkstations - two have failed in the past year. One was only just over a year old, the other a couple of years old. The one that still works is the oldest of the lot.

Given the failures in the last year, I will be moving to something else - probably Synology.

[dmsims]

sparkyhx said:

dmsims said:

I recently bought a Synology 215j to replace an ageing Readynas

Compared to that the build quality is shockingly poor:

Cheap plastic case
No drive caddies
Have to disassemble to replace a drive

The speed with the HGST drives is superb (which was the main purchase factor)

The WD reds have high failure rates

I don't disagree, but the software and internal hardware is very good. I use that 24x7 I used the box and bays once in 4 years. it happily sits on top of my subwoofer quietly going about its business. I ncan forgive the apparent lack of build quality for the brilliant stuff that matters.

Hmmm would you be happy with a V8 in a Metro ?

The software is also poorly thought out in parts - the Time machine stuff is not as slick as the Readynas

Netgear can produce this for 50% less:

[legzr1]

I'm with Sparky on this - no, the Synology isn't made of 3" thick polished aluminium and inserting drives takes around 100 seconds rather than 50 (!) but they're reliable, come with decent software, great backup and have an active support website.

Even their pre-installed media-playing software via dlna shows up almost all third party and manufacturer efforts.

A polished performer.
Highly recommended.

[Oakey]

sparkyhx said:

I don't disagree, but the software and internal hardware is very good. I use that 24x7 I used the box and bays once in 4 years. it happily sits on top of my subwoofer quietly going about its business. I ncan forgive the apparent lack of build quality for the brilliant stuff that matters.

You keep your hard drives on top of an electromagnetic speaker?

[Murph7355]

I have a couple of ReadyNAS units which were the pre-cursors to the Netgear devices (Netgear bought ReadyNAS out I believe). I've been using them for 9yrs and the original unit is still working nicely. They're easy to set up and the software's been very good.

Ref backups etc, a single RAID unit is not a backup solution as someone mentioned. Though having two separate units does give solid protection if one is used to cover the other and disk rebuild times are, IMO, a small price to pay - there are few other solutions around that can handle the volumes of data it's easy to accumulate. I have a separate NAS in a different building to my primaries that I copy my really important stuff to (documents and photographs) automatically each evening.

That said, I wouldn't advocate sticking massive disks in them. I currently run no bigger than 2Tb drives in my units (I have 3). I prefer to spread the load by using additional chassis, which also gives some resilience to chassis failure.

I'd advise avoiding Seagate drives. I used these for a good while without issues but then started getting failures very frequently, even with quite new drives. The Western Digital drives I now use have yet to fail (but it's relatively early days).

I'd also advise keeping a spare disk at home. They're cheap, and it means you can swap them out as soon as the NAS reports issues on them (warranty replacements can be a ball ache to sort out).