Home / small business NAS advise (Synology / Qnap)

[HollywoodX0]

Ok so I am looking to upgrade my current Synology with something that has the hardware to get my through the next few years.

I use it for data backup, VPN, Plex media, and in the future going to host a website from it as well (Low traffic).

With the Synology the software has been easy to use and setup wasn't complex. However from what I have read Qnap has had some difficulties in that area in the past.

What do you all recommend between these two options and why?

 

#1 - QNAP TS-473A-8G-US 4 Bay High-Speed

#2 - Synology 4 bay NAS DiskStation DS920+

 

Both have the Dual M.2 PCIe Gen 3 NVMe SSD slots enable cache acceleration or SSD storage pools for improved performance which is one of the reasons I want to make the switch.

[Electronics Wizardy]

What synology do you ahve now?

 

Id stay away from hosting a web site on it, much easier, cheaper and more secure to just get a web host for you.

 

What network speeds do you need and how much storage? I don't think you will need the ssd cache here for your uses.

[Aaron_T]

@HollywoodX0 I have a Synology DS918+ and it's solid, works greats and I have no real complains, save one. And it's the same reason I'd tell you to go with the QNAP. I hate that synology doesn't give you 2.5 GB Ethernet, or an expansion slot to add better connectivity.

 

The Synology works great, but I can really only do one thing at a time on it because of the limited connection speed. I run a movie server, file share for myself and friends, a GitHub repo, and I would host some containers(docker) if I had better connection speeds but 1gbe just doesn't cut it.

 

If I had it to do over I'd get a QNAP with 2.5gbe.

[Bandetto]

Personally, I think Asustor is a good brand for some NAS.

Take a look at NIMBUSTOR 4 (AS5304T) and see what features it offers, you may like it.

 

The Synology NAS is actually my preferred option out of those two mainly because it has good features and is known for being less buggy than other competitors. I personally like that you have a VM manager, you can run a pi-hole straight from your NAS! In terms of websites though, I would never host a site on your own network, instead use it as a development website, otherwise you really should get a dedicated host, it will greatly increase the website speed and stability.

 

The QNAP is very nice if you are planning on installing a low-scale GPU to encode and decode things on the go, like a plex server, but I don't think Synology will be missing that feature in some of their products.

 

In conclusion, a NAS is something that is tailored to you and it depends on what you want to do.

[Bandetto]

1 minute ago, AaronThomas said:

@HollywoodX0 I have a Synology DS918+ and it's solid, works greats and I have no real complains, save one. And it's the same reason I'd tell you to go with the QNAP. I hate that synology doesn't give you 2.5 GB Ethernet, or an expansion slot to add better connectivity.

 

The Synology works great, but I can really only do one thing at a time on it because of the limited connection speed. I run a movie server, file share for myself and friends, a GitHub repo, and I would host some containers(docker) if I had better connection speeds but 1gbe just doesn't cut it.

 

If I had it to do over I'd get a QNAP with 2.5gbe.

Correct me if I am wrong, but I don't think home/small businesses will typically have 2.5GbE connection speeds. At best, it will likely be 1GbE. 

[FloRolf]

Going from 918+ to 920+ won't really be worth it. I still think however, that Synology makes the best "plug and play" NAS solutions. I suggest something more high end, like a 1621+ and then keep your 918+ for backups and maybe offload some processes to it as well. 

[Aaron_T]

@BandettoThe QNAP option the OP listed has 2.5Gbe ports and an expansion slot you can add 10Gbe to. Routers and switches for home use are down to a few hundred bucks now. I believe TPlink makes a 2.5/10 gbe switch for $200 or less.

 

@FloRolfI'd never consider that upgrade. My point was to the OP that the faster connection speeds of the QNAP option would be the way to go IMO.

[HollywoodX0]

On 9/26/2021 at 11:10 AM, Electronics Wizardy said:

What synology do you have now?

 

Id stay away from hosting a web site on it, much easier, cheaper and more secure to just get a web host for you.

 

What network speeds do you need and how much storage? I don't think you will need the ssd cache here for your uses.

 

On 9/26/2021 at 11:45 AM, Bandetto said:

Personally, I think Asustor is a good brand for some NAS.

Take a look at NIMBUSTOR 4 (AS5304T) and see what features it offers, you may like it.

 

The Synology NAS is actually my preferred option out of those two mainly because it has good features and is known for being less buggy than other competitors. I personally like that you have a VM manager, you can run a pi-hole straight from your NAS! In terms of websites though, I would never host a site on your own network, instead use it as a development website, otherwise you really should get a dedicated host, it will greatly increase the website speed and stability.

 

The QNAP is very nice if you are planning on installing a low-scale GPU to encode and decode things on the go, like a plex server, but I don't think Synology will be missing that feature in some of their products.

 

In conclusion, a NAS is something that is tailored to you and it depends on what you want to do.

 

My current NAS is a Synology DS218 which tends to be slow if my son is streaming movies from it and I am transferring files etc.

That's why I like the option for the M.2 SSD caches to help take some of the load off the hard drives and run multiple processes with less impact. 

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 hour ago, HollywoodX0 said:

 

 

My current NAS is a Synology DS218 which tends to be slow if my son is streaming movies from it and I am transferring files etc.

That's why I like the option for the M.2 SSD caches to help take some of the load off the hard drives and run multiple processes with less impact. 

What is the cpu and disk uage when its slow?

 

I don't think the disk is the issue, id guess cpu first, but the nas should be able to handle that workload just fine.

 

You will be network limited well before disk limited, you won't need ssds here.