Purchasing my first NAS (home use)

[hybridE4t]

Hi there. First post.

Please forgive the rambling below. TLDR; QNAP TS-231 or Seagate Personal Cloud 2-bay or something else?

Background
We have some old data on a hard drive plugged into our router. Accessing the data is a pain so we rarely bother. We also have existing photos and files scattered over a number of places that I'd like to organise and centralise.

We have 2 Windows laptops, 1 MacBook Air, 1 iPad, 2 iPhones, the external drive (that I'll be happy to decommission), some data in DropBox and some more photos in iCloud.

Requirements
- Ease of use is important as is a pretty UI if my wife is going to use it.
- I'd like to take the opportunity to upgrade to a 2-bay model so we can start backing up our data locally.
- Apple TimeMachine support would be useful.
- Currently I only backup our most important files to the cloud. Cloud integration would be nice so we can continue to replicate some files to DropBox or similar
- I'd like to be able to easily search for and swipe through photos stored on the drive so a good iOS app is important.
- We don't store that many large files. Most of our files are photos or documents
- Most of the time we will be connecting over wi-fi rather than direct
- We have an AppleTV so integration MIGHT be nice but don't currently use anything for movies other than NetFlix
- Offsite access to my files
- Unlikely to need any advanced networking features

Choosing a consumer NAS
Synology seems to be the GoTo brand, especially for strong software integration. However the QNAP devices announced at CES seem to indicate that the current generation of Marvell SoCs are outspecc'd by newer alternatives. For that reason the QNAP TS-231 seems like a good bet, and whilst not as powerful as the new "+" edition, still more powerful than Synology's 2 bay offerings at that price point.

The value option seems to be a WD or Seagate NAS which they obviously bundle with their own hard drives. Is the WD MyCloud Mirror worth considering? As far as I can tell it contains an Atom CE5315 @ 1.2GHz which I would have thought would be snappier than the Synology home/consumer models. The soon to be released Seagate Personal Cloud 2-bay looks promising but I can't find any information on specs. 1Gb RAM would be nice. All the others have 512Mb.

So...
Maybe I'll go for the Seagate Personal Cloud 2-bay if the reviews are good and it has some futureproofed hardware. Otherwise the QNAP TS-231 which at least gives me the option of WD Red hard drives.

Any thoughts, wisdom or better alternatives?

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Not owning either one (so, you know - grain of salt), I would go with the QNAP for two reasons:

1) I can use any HD I want.
2) I read positive things about QNAP's software stack.

I've read a lot MORE positive things about Synology. But you know. Just sayin'.

I wouldn't buy an ARM-based NAS if I were concerned about processing power, but I wouldn't be concerned about processing power if all I needed was a home NAS to do the tasks you outlined.

 

[ronbo613]

I've had a pretty basic Synology NAS for a while now, I think it would do everything you need. The interface is easy to use, the software is updated regularly, there are a number of third party packages and you can use just about any hard drive. They've got a few models, check which one might be right for you. The Synology forum can be helpful.

When I was researching NAS units, it came down to Synology or QNAP. I think you'll find that both companies have very similar units at the same price point so it comes down to your preferences. I don't think you can go wrong either way.

If you can afford it, I would go with a Synology or QNAP instead of an HD company's "cloud" drive solution, you get a lot more for your money. Remember to plan a little into the future, buy hard drives that will take care of your needs not just for today, but for some time to come.

 

[nk215]

I have a 4 NAS, 3 QNAP (including TS-239Pro2+ somewhat similar to the one you are looking at) and 1 Synology (DS3612sx – which is beyond what you have in mind)
People said the advantage of the Synology is in the software, not hardware (QNAP do not use ECC memory, Synology high-end NASs do but this is more than what you are looking at). To be honest, I can’t tell the different between the two as far as your needs go. Both can saturate a 1Gbit network.

As far as software is concern, I don’t see the advantage of the Synology. Their mobile Apps is actually behind QNAP IMHO. Synology advantage only comes in when I actually use the web browser to get to the NAS which then connect me to the mobile version of the admin website. I like the way Qmanager (QNAP) presents the data to me better using the native iOS apps.

Synology SHR (their RAID configuration) is nice but you won’t see its benefit in a 2-bay models.

You will love the integration of NAS+ipad/iphone+ATV via airplay. This will be a feature that dictates your NAS CPU power – transcoding takes a lot of CPU power (hence the Synology in my “collection&#8221. You may want to search on how flex is performing on your TS-231.

For what you stated as your need, I recommend QNAP.

 

[hybridE4t]

Thanks very much for the responses. Interesting to hear that QNAP may have caught up with Synology's software experience. I think I will wait for the imminent pricing info of the new TS-231+. Maybe there will be more information on the Seagate NAS by then too but it sounds like the recommendation is to stick with the tier 1 NAS box manufacturers. If the new QNAP is quite pricey it will likely be down to either the QNAP TS-231 (non-plus edition) or the more expensive Synology DS214. In the meantime I'll have a play with the online demo environments to compare the software.

 

[Eug]

I haven't checked recently, but when I checked last year, I liked the GUI better for Synology.

Also, dunno about 2015, but in the past Synology was more Apple friendly than QNAP. (I have several Macs in the house.)

I don't bother with transcoding NASes. It seems like a total waste of time considering that even mobile devices now include full 1080p H.264 decode support, so I just access everything via SMB directly on my mobile device. For example, on iOS I use Infuse Pro to play my MKV files.

Synology does support Apple Time Machine. It apparently works well, but I don't use it. Dunno about QNAP.

 

[bwbob]

I got to the same place deciding QNAP vs Synology, I can say the the Synology has been great - I got a DS-412+