Need Some NAS advice

nilepez

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I've been looking at buying a NAS for a few weeks and I think I'm going to go with Synology (but I'm open to QNAP)

Originally I thought of the TVS-882, but I've got concerns about drive and fan noise (80mm fans) from that unit.
What I like about it is the slots dedicated for an SSD Cache (though not sure it's needed either).
I then went back to Synology. Right now I'm looking at the DS1817+ or the ds3018xs.
The latter has a faster CPU, but it has less drive slots.

The pros on the 1817+ are that the extra slots could be used for some SSD cache drives (I've got extra SSDs that could be used), it uses less power and I'm assuming it's quieter, though it seems like no sites actually report on these things :(

The 3018xs has the better CPU, but if I believe Synology it uses almost 2x the power (not sure about noise).

The Qnap obviously has a much better CPU and slots for caching, LED status indicator, but in the only video I've seen of it in action it's audible from several feat away.

So my questions for this moderate use home environment (where I'd most likely run at most 1 VM), with 6 8TB WD Reds (technically 2-3 of them are white label),
  1. does a SSD Cache help?
  2. Is the faster CPU more important
  3. Anyone have real world Power stats on any of these units
  4. Noise levels?
Right now I'm leaning towards the 1817+, but before dropping almost a grand the NAS and memory (probably pick up 16gb of this.

Thanks all. Never thought buying something prebuilt would be harder than deciding on hardware for a build.
 
I got stuck supporting a synology due to one of my clients merging and one of the companies having one. I'd personally just have the storage on a real windows server. This one is a few years old. I will say I had some issues with it connecting to the active directory despite it connecting to the old one before.

Past that it has been a good little unit. Their interface overall is pretty good and their app support seems nice.
 
My 4bay qnap has a single 90mm fan in it that is mostly quiet. You'll hear the hard drives during a transfer more than it at about 1.5-3 ft away.
 
I got stuck supporting a synology due to one of my clients merging and one of the companies having one. I'd personally just have the storage on a real windows server. This one is a few years old. I will say I had some issues with it connecting to the active directory despite it connecting to the old one before.

Past that it has been a good little unit. Their interface overall is pretty good and their app support seems nice.
I'm converting my server back to a PC and giving it to my parents and I've decided I want to give a dedicated NAS device a shot. The only reason I might run a VM is to run windows (but only if there's no way around it for a given task). And if it uses less power, as I hope it will, then if I really need PC power, I can just grab a nuc.

My 4bay qnap has a single 90mm fan in it that is mostly quiet. You'll hear the hard drives during a transfer more than it at about 1.5-3 ft away.
Do you mean you can't hear it from 3 ft? What model are you running?
 
I've got an older DS412+, I'm very happy with it.

It has a fan, it's behind my monitors, I can't hear the fan, but I can hear disk activity faintly when it's busy.

CPU/RAM - depends on what you are doing with it. Mine is mostly just hosting my Plex library and Time Machine backups - low duty, and it's plenty fast enough for that.

I have an older Qnap 2-bay unit at work we use for nightly server archiving and light duty shared storage for computers around the office. Being that they are pretty far apart from each other in age, I couldn't speak to performance. But interface-wise... both get regular updates. Both are pretty similar to use their web interface, both have SSH root access available, both can do light duty server jobs (mySQL, pop/imap, httpd, etc), both support common connection methods (SMB, iSCSI, NFS, FTP, SFTP, AFP, etc).

I don't know that either brand is hands down better - both are pretty solid choices, as long as what you are doing is within the realm of what those niche platforms are built to do.
 
I've got an older DS412+, I'm very happy with it.

It has a fan, it's behind my monitors, I can't hear the fan, but I can hear disk activity faintly when it's busy.

CPU/RAM - depends on what you are doing with it. Mine is mostly just hosting my Plex library and Time Machine backups - low duty, and it's plenty fast enough for that.

I have an older Qnap 2-bay unit at work we use for nightly server archiving and light duty shared storage for computers around the office. Being that they are pretty far apart from each other in age, I couldn't speak to performance. But interface-wise... both get regular updates. Both are pretty similar to use their web interface, both have SSH root access available, both can do light duty server jobs (mySQL, pop/imap, httpd, etc), both support common connection methods (SMB, iSCSI, NFS, FTP, SFTP, AFP, etc).

I don't know that either brand is hands down better - both are pretty solid choices, as long as what you are doing is within the realm of what those niche platforms are built to do.
Thanks. The TVS-x82 line all use skylake processors and apparently the cases magnify the hum of the drives (but nobody that owns one has replied in various inquiries I've made).

Now I just need to find out if caching drives matter for my use case. I figured 16GB of ram is cheap enough that I might as well get that either way (though I suspect 8GB is plenty).
 
Your network will have more performance impact than the NAS box.
I've used QNAP and Synology in creative focused studios.

Get a ubiquity router, or roll your own out of an old box with some Intel 10Gbps nice.
UAP Pros are good if you want wifi access.

Take a dry run at rolling your own NAS with a VM to test features, there isn't much that a prebuilt box can do your own build can't.

Find an older Fractal R4 case if you need something quiet.

User count, how you setup your array vs type of access, and drives you select all stack tolerances.

An SSD cache is nice, but won't fix a build if you're trying to push/pull uncompressed video across a janky 1Gbps dumb network with an array built from 5400rpm drives in Raid 6.
 
Do you mean you can't hear it from 3 ft? What model are you running?

ts-453 pro. You can hear the fan, its slightly more noisy than my PC at idle/light load with 4 140mm case fans (5v so 800rpm?) and a 600 rpm noctua 120mm cpu fan. When working the NAS HDD's are louder than the fan.
 
What is the NAS being used for...that would likely determine if caching/better CPU could potentially be beneficial.

I doubt power draw difference between the two is more than a couple of watts...so even 24/7 for the year is negligible....figure $1 per year per watt difference.
 
What is the NAS being used for...that would likely determine if caching/better CPU could potentially be beneficial.
I doubt power draw difference between the two is more than a couple of watts...so even 24/7 for the year is negligible....figure $1 per year per watt difference.

For now, mostly serving up files, video and audio...oh and backups. I'm undecided about transcoding (video, I will xcode audio via Subsonic), since I generally just download stuff from Amazon/Netflix if I'm going to be traveling.

I'm undecided on running a VM, but I suspect it'd be 1 at most, but maybe I'm missing a reason to run more VMs. As of now, my thinking has gone from get a nas that does it all to get a nas that does NAS stuff and maybe a bit more and if I need much more than that, then I'll get a NUC.
 
Your network will have more performance impact than the NAS box.
I've used QNAP and Synology in creative focused studios.

Get a ubiquity router, or roll your own out of an old box with some Intel 10Gbps nice.
UAP Pros are good if you want wifi access.

Take a dry run at rolling your own NAS with a VM to test features, there isn't much that a prebuilt box can do your own build can't.

Find an older Fractal R4 case if you need something quiet.

User count, how you setup your array vs type of access, and drives you select all stack tolerances.

An SSD cache is nice, but won't fix a build if you're trying to push/pull uncompressed video across a janky 1Gbps dumb network with an array built from 5400rpm drives in Raid 6.
I understand that, but my goal is to have a small appliance. I may change my mind at some point, but for now, a self built NAS isn't going to happen. If it was, I'd just build my Dada a new machine and keep the box I already have.
 
Multimedia functionality is better served by pushing the data to higher IO smaller volumes.

Last studio I worked at was a cluster F bc they kept trying a monolithic build to serve conflicting use cases.

Networking was a topic that was misunderstood, dedicate pipes and you'll be happier when backup traffic kicks off during a content consumption event.
 
Multimedia functionality is better served by pushing the data to higher IO smaller volumes.
Last studio I worked at was a cluster F bc they kept trying a monolithic build to serve conflicting use cases.
Networking was a topic that was misunderstood, dedicate pipes and you'll be happier when backup traffic kicks off during a content consumption event.

Not sure I follow. What does "higher IO smaller volumes" mean? Are you saying you put it on a different NAS or that you force the files onto specific drive within the nas?
 
Synology 918+ with external drive bay if you need more drives
 
Not sure I follow. What does "higher IO smaller volumes" mean? Are you saying you put it on a different NAS or that you force the files onto specific drive within the nas?

Your drives at whatever speed in whatever volume config are appropriate for a given set of use cases.
Sometimes you want to present the volume in a different way for a streamed content file vs a lossless compressed audio archive after transcoding.

Hot and ready to serve, compressed and highly durable are difficult to keep on the same volume and have either use case best served.
 
As a set-it-and-forget-it NAS the synology choices would be my recommendation. That being said, make sure you don’t choose one with a C2000 series Atom processor. This is an Intel failure and not a Synology error, just beware if you choose a older model. There are dozens of manufacturers getting hit with these failures. Here is a list of all Synology NAS’s and the CPU they use.
 
As a set-it-and-forget-it NAS the synology choices would be my recommendation. That being said, make sure you don’t choose one with a C2000 series Atom processor. This is an Intel failure and not a Synology error, just beware if you choose a older model. There are dozens of manufacturers getting hit with these failures. Here is a list of all Synology NAS’s and the CPU they use.
Synology did extend the warranty on any product using the C2000 Atom generation. I believe failures are still very rare and I'm personally not worrying about it too much.
 
Yeah, they gave an extra year but there has been an uptick in the failures there and especially Netgear has been hit. Supposedly the resistor fix that Intel has them doing on the refurbs mitigates the problem to some extent but unless the price is really right on an older model why take the chance?
 
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