NAS/Storage Questions

[Drew Learns Tech]

Okay, fairly simple question. I'm shopping for a new Nas for myself and my family and I've been assessing my options. I've come down to a few choices, WD because I have had a fairly good time with their products and software. Synology because I've heard good things and reviews about their products, or option 3 I Diy it which I'm hesitant to do because I would like to not tear my hair out with things not wanting to work (I have a freenas right now and I haven't used it in months because it annoyed the crap out of me).

 

Thanks!

[Oshino Shinobu]

Really depends what you're doing with it. If it's just going to be used as a storage device, QNAP, Synology, Asustor, WD and others all have good options for good prices and they're mostly plug and play with consumer friendly GUIs and configuration. If you want to run additional services on the NAS, such as Plex, OpenVPN, Transmission and such, a custom build with FreeNAS is really your best option but it can be quite a bit more involved due to its more advanced nature and the level of control it gives you. 

[Mira Yurizaki]

I have a QNAP NAS. It's probably on par with Synology in terms of features and functionality. But my NAS can be used as a standalone computer. i.e., it has a desktop environment more or less separate from the one you use to log into it for servicing.

 

I'm not sure about Synology, but QNAP also has a basic app ecosystem too.

[Drew Learns Tech]

3 minutes ago, Oshino Shinobu said:

Really depends what you're doing with it. If it's just going to be used as a storage device, QNAP, Synology, Asustor, WD and others all have good options for good prices and they're mostly plug and play with consumer friendly GUIs and configuration. If you want to run additional services on the NAS, such as Plex, OpenVPN, Transmission and such, a custom build with FreeNAS is really your best option but it can be quite a bit more involved due to its more advanced nature and the level of control it gives you. 

Okay, thanks! This has to to be friendly to my non-techie family so I think the first option and hope video playback is pretty good.

[Gavin_j]

Qnap and Synology are the two top brands for your use case in my opinion. I have two Synology products under my care personally and and several others with clients. A lot of DIY type people will point out how much you can do by making your own NAS and how much more cost effective it is only considering horsepower BUT the fact of it is, you're paying for a lot of software development purchasing a prebuilt NAS. Synology has a very intuitive interface that is so feature rich, there is no way any DIY solution could keep up and have it work together as seamlessly. If you're into that kind of thing, freeNAS is fun and I have done it but do not expect everything to work how you want in one sitting. 

Your first step should be setting a budget. On the low side, offerings from WD will share files locally with a few extra features. You probably wont have any issues. If you can afford a bit extra, I highly recommend checking out Synology's feature set to see if you can take advantage of the extra functionality. 
At the very least, having a device (others can do this) that can hold your media collection and send it to a smart TV via something like plex is great at home. 

 

With the better models offering docker support, think of something that you need a server for and someone has put together a docker container to do it on your little NAS.

As a final thought. I know this is completely preference but a dedicated NAS device doesnt look out of place in the entertainment stand either. Whereas a DIY NAS can fit in a smaller case but will be bigger and much more power hungry 99% of the time.

 

Whatever you decide, feel free to ask more questions here.

 

[Drew Learns Tech]

1 minute ago, Gavin_j said:

Qnap and Synology are the two top brands for your use case in my opinion. I have two Synology products under my care personally and and several others with clients. A lot of DIY type people will point out how much you can do by making your own NAS and how much more cost effective it is only considering horsepower BUT the fact of it is, you're paying for a lot of software development purchasing a prebuilt NAS. Synology has a very intuitive interface that is so feature rich, there is no way any DIY solution could keep up and have it work together as seamlessly. If you're into that kind of thing, freeNAS is fun and I have done it but do not expect everything to work how you want in one sitting. 

Your first step should be setting a budget. On the low side, offerings from WD will share files locally with a few extra features. You probably wont have any issues. If you can afford a bit extra, I highly recommend checking out Synology's feature set to see if you can take advantage of the extra functionality. 
At the very least, having a device (others can do this) that can hold your media collection and send it to a smart TV via something like plex is great at home. 

 

With the better models offering docker support, think of something that you need a server for and someone has put together a docker container to do it on your little NAS.

As a final thought. I know this is completely preference but a dedicated NAS device doesnt look out of place in the entertainment stand either. Whereas a DIY NAS can fit in a smaller case but will be bigger and much more power hungry 99% of the time.

 

Whatever you decide, feel free to ask more questions here.

 

Thanks a ton! I don't have much of a budget so I think WD may be a better choice. I think that Synology will be my choice when I've moved out though as I've seen great reviews and I should have a better budget then.

[Gavin_j]

Just now, Drew Learns Tech said:

Thanks a ton! I don't have much of a budget so I think WD may be a better choice. I think that Synology will be my choice when I've moved out though as I've seen great reviews and I should have a better budget then.

Right on. Don't count them out until you see their cheapest offerings though. The smallest single bay unit is pretty affordable and it sucks to buy things twice.
Also consider that there are some available used on kijiji / craigslist / ebay.

 

Good luck

[Dark]

Synology is great but I've grown towards QNAP over the years.

I agree with Gavin in the sense that you'll get more 'ease of use' out of a prebuilt NAS solution considering their integration with apps and other applications.  

 

My QNAP is a file server, secondary plex server, iscsi host, and I've had VM's running on it.  The possibilities are vast.

 

If you're looking to keep costs relatively low, I would recommend something like a QNAP TS-451+, it's a 4 drive unit and should be able to transcode 2 streams with ease.

[Nils3D]

If you want an out of the box experience with no hasstle, get a Synology or a WD or any otther P'n'P solution,
If you like to tinker, DIY
Simple