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I think that people underestimate the important of ease of use as you get older, when time becomes more valuable than money and tinkering.
All these people talking about Unraid setups, custom boxes that use a ton of power, loud fans in a big chassis, etc. just doesn't really appeal to me. This stuff needs to pass the WAF.
I work on enterprise IT architecture every day. I definitely have the skills to do this and have in the past. But I have a wife and kids and a home to maintain, and honestly, Synology does it well, and I don't want to waste my time.
I don't mean the OS config, I mean the apps. Has Synology OS converted to a pure Docker format for apps installed? Traditionally Active Backup only did data, not the OS/config too. This may have changed since my last run with them, and if so I can be corrected.
There's N100/200/305 and Pentium Gold 8505 boxes all over Amazon and Ali that will run circles around the entire line of Synology hardware when it comes to raw CPU performance.
All can be had for under $300 with most hovering around the $200 range and feature multiple 2.5Gb LAN ports (some even have 10Gb SFP+ ports) so that you can actually utilize all this storage bandwidth. They also have QuickSync.
You can connect these right up to an eSATA or LAN based hot swap chassis and have a significantly better NAS with most of the benefits you've outlined within the price range of Synology.
It may not sound easy, but it's about as complicated as if you were trying to explain Synology to someone who just bought an external hard drive for their backup needs.
Got it - now I need two different parts, two OSs, etc. Price all that out for me please?
I have an old WD Live Duo working as RAID 1. Can I move one of the drives to this enclosure (DS220+), setup Synology with only one drive, copy the contents from the remaining single drive on WD Live Duo to the formatted drive on Synology, then move the remaining drive from WD to Synology and turn on RAID 1? Thanks
You will want to use Synology SHR, not RAID1 (but the benefit is the same, mirror) but yes, you can do exactly that.
I think that people underestimate the important of ease of use as you get older, when time becomes more valuable than money and tinkering.
All these people talking about Unraid setups, custom boxes that use a ton of power, loud fans in a big chassis, etc. just doesn't really appeal to me. This stuff needs to pass the WAF.
I work on enterprise IT architecture every day. I definitely have the skills to do this and have in the past. But I have a wife and kids and a home to maintain, and honestly, Synology does it well, and I don't want to waste my time.
I don't suppose anyone would be able to tell me the max hard drive size the DS923+ can use? I have tried to find it, but can't find it specifically listed. Can it take 20TB?
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I don't suppose anyone would be able to tell me the max hard drive size the DS923+ can use? I have tried to find it, but can't find it specifically listed. Can it take 20TB?
would it make sense to run the 4tb samsung ssd drivers in this that are also on FP?
You could, but unless you have a specific need for an SSD (fast IOPs) there's little need for it; just get a cheap, big hard drive. For most things, you're limited not by IOPs but by network speed, and gigabit is "just" 110MB/s or so, a speed at which a hard drive can easily keep up.
An SSD is good for IOPs (running a VM remotely via NFS share) or for 50+ users hammering the server constantly (IOPs, and concurrent access, both of which an SSD excels at); for just home use, there's little to no benefit.
I don't suppose anyone would be able to tell me the max hard drive size the DS923+ can use? I have tried to find it, but can't find it specifically listed. Can it take 20TB?
I'm currently using 4 x 20TB Seagate EXO; works fine. Presents as one volume of 60TB.
I mention that last bit because the old Synology models from 2014 or so couldn't present a volume > 16TB. Annoying when drive sizes got larger...
How easy is it to add a mini PC / NUC to a NAS? There are much cheaper 4 bay models that are purely a NAS, if I bought one of those and then down the road decided I wanted it to run Plex, HTPC, transcoding, etc through an attached PC box is that easy?
I don't mind paying a premium for Synology but none of the models I'm looking at (923+ and 1522+) have an option for hardware transcoding.
I was planning to build an unRAID box but this deal makes Synology very tempting.
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from KRT09
:
How easy is it to add a mini PC / NUC to a NAS? There are much cheaper 4 bay models that are purely a NAS, if I bought one of those and then down the road decided I wanted it to run Plex, HTPC, transcoding, etc through an attached PC box is that easy?
I don't mind paying a premium for Synology but none of the models I'm looking at (923+ and 1522+) have an option for hardware transcoding.
I was planning to build an unRAID box but this deal makes Synology very tempting.
The entire benefit of these, particularly the Intel CPU models (DS220+, DS423+) is that you can do all the stuff you mentioned (Plex, HTPC, transcoding) on THESE. One box for everything. AND you can run all your Docker apps on here too. And more. If you want to do transcoding, you will need to buy PlexPass, at $75-$125 (deals are posted here all the time...) for HW transcoding with the Intel iGPU. The AMD CPU relies on GPU grunt, not iGPU, for transcoding, so the AMD models are not recommended for a (busy) Plex server.
Anything can run a Plex server that never transcodes. But you mentioned it, so it's worth saying again: get Intel, plus Plexpass, for Plex servers in that use case.
I'm not quite sure what you mean by "add a mini PC to a NAS" but mapping a drive within Windows so you can access disk SMB shares on the NAS is trivial. 'net use * \\NAS.IP.Addre.ss\Sharename' will do it, or you can do it all in the Windows GUI.
If you don't wish to run things (like Plex, but there are a hundred or hundreds of apps, plus Docker everything) then getting a basic, cheaper ARM model (the non-plus, or the J-series) is likely more than enough for you, at some cost savings.
Noob question, I purchased the fire tv 4k max and maybe this DS220+....will i be able to watch videos on the hard drives installed in the DS220+ to the fire tv 4k max? tia
Noob question, I purchased the fire tv 4k max and maybe this DS220+....will i be able to watch videos on the hard drives installed in the DS220+ to the fire tv 4k max? tia
Sure; you'll need an app for that. Plex is the one everyone talks about and many of us use. Look into that.
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Unraid has a cost. Use TrueNAS then, its free
The Dell WS has a cost. The one I got was $254
It's loud. Hot. Uses far more power than the Synology. Change fans (cheap), you can put it to sleep when not in use. I gurantee that with three quiet fans, its quieter than a Synology (again, I have one, it's not that quiet even with Noctua fans in it. The spinning drives almost always make the most noise.
Requires a nVidia card, uses even more power.
No 3 year warranty, nor professional support. You can actually purchase this for a small fee
It's not like the list I provided at all!
I am not saying it's the same. I have a 412+ currently and once I got the Dell, I really don't understand the desire for Synology anymore. The use case differences are substantial. You are paying substantial amounts of money for lame tech.
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All these people talking about Unraid setups, custom boxes that use a ton of power, loud fans in a big chassis, etc. just doesn't really appeal to me. This stuff needs to pass the WAF.
I work on enterprise IT architecture every day. I definitely have the skills to do this and have in the past. But I have a wife and kids and a home to maintain, and honestly, Synology does it well, and I don't want to waste my time.
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All can be had for under $300 with most hovering around the $200 range and feature multiple 2.5Gb LAN ports (some even have 10Gb SFP+ ports) so that you can actually utilize all this storage bandwidth. They also have QuickSync.
You can connect these right up to an eSATA or LAN based hot swap chassis and have a significantly better NAS with most of the benefits you've outlined within the price range of Synology.
It may not sound easy, but it's about as complicated as if you were trying to explain Synology to someone who just bought an external hard drive for their backup needs.
The 4-core CPU would have been nice on the DS224+ model, but $60 saved is still an ok trade-off.
All these people talking about Unraid setups, custom boxes that use a ton of power, loud fans in a big chassis, etc. just doesn't really appeal to me. This stuff needs to pass the WAF.
I work on enterprise IT architecture every day. I definitely have the skills to do this and have in the past. But I have a wife and kids and a home to maintain, and honestly, Synology does it well, and I don't want to waste my time.
In for one
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https://www.synology.co
An SSD is good for IOPs (running a VM remotely via NFS share) or for 50+ users hammering the server constantly (IOPs, and concurrent access, both of which an SSD excels at); for just home use, there's little to no benefit.
I mention that last bit because the old Synology models from 2014 or so couldn't present a volume > 16TB. Annoying when drive sizes got larger...
I don't mind paying a premium for Synology but none of the models I'm looking at (923+ and 1522+) have an option for hardware transcoding.
I was planning to build an unRAID box but this deal makes Synology very tempting.
Our community has rated this post as helpful. If you agree, why not thank
I don't mind paying a premium for Synology but none of the models I'm looking at (923+ and 1522+) have an option for hardware transcoding.
I was planning to build an unRAID box but this deal makes Synology very tempting.
Here's the start to finish guide for Plex & Friends on Synology. Scripted and fully complete. https://trash-guides.info/Hardlin.../Synology/
Anything can run a Plex server that never transcodes. But you mentioned it, so it's worth saying again: get Intel, plus Plexpass, for Plex servers in that use case.
I'm not quite sure what you mean by "add a mini PC to a NAS" but mapping a drive within Windows so you can access disk SMB shares on the NAS is trivial. 'net use * \\NAS.IP.Addre.ss\Sharename' will do it, or you can do it all in the Windows GUI.
If you don't wish to run things (like Plex, but there are a hundred or hundreds of apps, plus Docker everything) then getting a basic, cheaper ARM model (the non-plus, or the J-series) is likely more than enough for you, at some cost savings.
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The Dell WS has a cost. The one I got was $254
It's loud. Hot. Uses far more power than the Synology. Change fans (cheap), you can put it to sleep when not in use. I gurantee that with three quiet fans, its quieter than a Synology (again, I have one, it's not that quiet even with Noctua fans in it. The spinning drives almost always make the most noise.
Requires a nVidia card, uses even more power.
No 3 year warranty, nor professional support. You can actually purchase this for a small fee
It's not like the list I provided at all!
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Share your experience with the Slickdeals community
Share information with the community. Please follow our Community Guidelines and be kind!