Drobo vs Synology vs dedicated computer

[DomRynk]

Hello there everyone. Long time LTT viewer but have never needed to post in the forum before.

 

I have recently seen a YouTube video regarding the new Synology DS918+ (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OIDPoA83rU) and think it would be a great upgrade from my current Drobo 5N. However I have recently been gifted a cheap computer from an elderly relative, and around 12 months ago bought a workstation tower from work that they would otherwise have thrown out, for a whole £1 !!! I also bought a rack mounted PC from work at the same time (also £1...!) with dual CPU's and a shed load of RAM, but that's out of the question for this build.

 

The first computer that was given to me is a very basic machine, with a Celeron 1037U CPU soldered onto an mATX board, no dedicated GPU, with 1 4GB stick of DDR3 (1 spare slot for easy upgrading). This PC has only 1x SATA3 and 3x SATA2 connectors, and currently just a single 500gb WD Blue inside. The main bonus of this system is that it was free to me, and uses 30 watts max, it's currently connected up to a mains wattage meter and while typing now it is using 26 watts.

 

The second system is a workstation tower that work were throwing out. It houses a W3520 Xeon chip with either 16 or 32gb of ECC memory, an unknown (can't access it at the moment) LSI hardware raid card and a Quadro FX3800. Complete overkill I'm sure you'd agree, however it is literally sitting doing nothing so I think it would make a perfect home server. The main down side with this is of course it will be power hungry.

 

I currently use a Drobo 5N, with 2x 4TB WD Red drives. I use it for PLEX, and to back up my data from my other computers. However I find PLEX a bit sluggish and problematic on the Drobo at times as it cannot support encoding of certain videos. Backing up onto it takes an age as well. And for some reason I can't seem to easily access music off it directly into a media player.

 

Ultimately I would like to be able to set up a surveillance system, as well as use the new NAS as a 'home server' type storage device, for things like all my music files to save me having all my music on every computer in the house, and videos, etc.

 

Thank you for reading this far! The big question is: Should I use the Celeron system, with the LSI raid card from the Xeon system? Would this be powerful enough to do on the fly encoding? Or does it need a graphics chip to be effective. Or Should I use the Xeon workstation system entirely. Or.. Would the new DS918+ system do everything I want of it? While consuming as much power (if not less than) the Celeron system. I know that the Synology system has a 'surveillance station' which sounds fantastic - however you only get two licenses included in the box. The economist in me thinks I should use the Celeron system as it's free and low wattage, the snobbery in me thinks I should buy the DS918+ (but it is £500+ with no drives), and the tinkerer in me thinks I should use the Xeon workstation - however the power draw of this system will be a killer!

 

Thank you for any advice, apologies about the length of the query but it's quite a complicated question I have! Thanks all, Dom.

[JusticeBeaver]

I have no issues with my Drobo5n when it comes to plex. I am running Plex Server on an old gigabyte brix (AMD-A8) and I have no issues with it transcoding to my mobile device or laptop. I play 1080p over Wifi to my Roku with no issues what so ever.