Should you bother with SSD cache in on a NAS?

Most modern generation network attached storage NAS drives include the option of utilising SSD cache, which promises to improve file access and general system performance in a number of ways. Is by no means a new concept and has existed in one shape or form for more than a decade in modern server utilisation. However, in order to take advantage of SSD caching on your NAS, there are a number of hurdles that will often increase the price point of your ideal solution and potentially lower the capacity that you can take advantage of long-term. This leads many users into wondering whether SSD caching is anywhere near as beneficial as brands like Synology and QNAP would have you believe. So today I want to discuss what SSD caching is, who can benefit from it, who definitely won’t and hopefully help you decide whether you should consider SSD caching on your NAS.

What is SSD caching on a NAS?

The majority of NAS systems are comprised of multiple hard drives supported in a single enclosure that are combined together in efforts to increase capacity, performance and redundancy in a configuration commonly known as RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks). The more hard drives you have, the larger and more advantageous the RAID configurations you can create. However, these only marginally increase the performance available to you, multiplying performance on hard drives by a factor of the total number of hard drives. Ultimately, you are still using hard drives for your file system which will always pale in comparison to the performance available via solid-state drives SSD but this group of HDDs will result in higher throughput than any single hard drive. The obvious alternative of course is to replace all of the hard drives in your NAS with SSD and therefore reap the benefit of both SSD performance and RAID combination advantages. However, in practice, the main reason that no one does this is that the price point of SSD is significantly higher than hard drives and although the performance benefits would be greatly increased, the price would rise 5-10x times higher at least and the total available capacity would be significantly reduced – as general commercial and SMB SSDs currently max out at 4TB capacity, rather than the 18/20TB available in modern hard drives. NAS/Servers being fully populated with SSDs is still done though on less common setups which are highly enterprise and more commonly known as flash servers – fast but fantastically expensive!

RECOMMENDED SSDs FOR SSD Caching
SATA SSD HOME	NVMe SSD BUSINESS	SATA SSD BUSINESS
WD RED SA500 Available in SATA 2.5″ and mSATA Affordable and Large Capacity Options NAS Optimized	SEAGATE IRONWOLF 510 VERY High Durability of 1.0 DWPD Data Recovery Services Included Read Caching Optimized	SEAGATE IRONWOLF 110 Very High Durability SSD Over Provisioning Ready Data Recovery Services Included

SSD caching was designed as a hybrid storage media solution to this dilemma and involves pairing a small percentage of SSD storage space together with a larger area of hard drive storage space. Typically recommended at around 10% SSD to 90% hard drive, the NAS system will gradually learn over time which files on the total storage system are the ones being accessed most frequently. These files can range from tiny system files, indexes, thumbnails, directories and minor background data, all the way through to larger files that are in shared drives between multiple users, OS-related files that live on a central server and website files that are constantly being referenced for your domain (depending on the I/O configuration of your SSD cache). As the system constantly learns which files are the ones being constantly accessed, copies of these files are made on the area of SSD cache and in future when these files are requested by connected hardware clients, these faster-accessing copies will be targeted instead. Although this is a large oversimplification of the process, it is generally accurate. Not to be confused with tiered storage, which moves commonly accessed files to areas of SSD (not making a copy in 2 locations), SSD cache has numerous advantages and disadvantages that many users would do well to learn before embracing this storage media process. Let’s discuss this a little further, as there are multiple types of SSD cache options available from most modern brands.

What is Read SSD Caching on a NAS?

The easiest but least beneficial type of SSD cache for a mass is read-only cache. This can be implemented with even a single SSD and much like the description above, involves the system moving copies of the most frequently accessed data onto the SSD. Read-only SSD cache on a NAS prevents editing or modifying of files that are being accessed on the area of the cache. Read-only cache is only of benefit to users who are accessing larger databases of preset data that is not often modified and although improves access to these more common files, limits the overall benefits of SSD caching in most NAS systems long term. Also known/referred to as Write-around SSD caching, this too writes data to the primary storage first instead of to the cache. This gives the SSD cache time to analyze data requests and identify the most frequently and recently used data. The SSD cache efficiently caches high priority data requests without flooding the cache with infrequently accessed data

What is Write Caching on a NAS?

Write Caching on a NAS can actually be broken down into two types. The first, Write-through SSD caching, writes simultaneously to the SSD cache area and to primary storage. The cache enables faster data retrieval, while the primary storage writes safely retains the data even if a system interruption affects the cache (eg a power failure). Write-through SSD caching does not require additional data protection for the cached data (so you can use one or more SSD in a Single/RAID 0 Config), but does increase write latency (i.e write time). The alternative is Write-back SSD caching, which writes ONLY to the SSD area first, then confirms that a block is written to the SSD cache, and the data is available for usage before writing the block to the main storage RAID array of HDDs afterwards. The method has lower latency than write-through, but if the cache loses data (i.e. critical system failure, power loss, etc) before the data writes to primary storage, that data is lost. Typical data protection solutions for write-back SSD caching are redundant SSDs or mirroring (i.e. MASSIVELY recommended or enforced that SSDs in a Write Through config are in a RAID 1/5 at the very least).

The application and customization of SSD caching in modern NAS software are incredibly diverse and in most cases, you can create a very bespoke SSD caching config for your system that integrates one or more caching read/write methods taht are best suited to your system setup, data types and access routines. So, now you know what SSD caching is and the types that most commonly exist, what are the advantages and disadvantages?

Guide to Seagate SSDs	Guide to WD SSDs

What Are The Advantages of SSD Caching on a NAS?

The benefits of SSD caching on a NAS are often tough to measure, as the resulting improvements are the culmination of multiple smaller improvements at once. So the benefits are more often FELT than actually seen, as latency will be reduced throughout the overall access of the data on your NAS. Compressed data like thumbnails, indexing information and system reference files that a NAS will refer to in a given process will be turned around much quicker in the background and therefore will reduce wait times on instructions given by you to the NAS. Typically larger databases in scale rather than individual file volume will reap the most benefits, and therefore the advantages of SSD caching on a NAS are:

• Faster Access to Larger databases made up for many smaller files
• More cost-effective than an all-SSD system
• Write-Cache/Write-Through Caching benefits more traditional one-way activity
• Cache is largely self-managed, so once set up, will choose/drop important cached data on its own
• The bulk of Porsume/SMB and higher NAS hardware arrive with dedicated SSD Cache bays, so no loss of traditional storage bays
• SSD caching is becoming increasingly available on ARM-powered devices

What Are The Disadvantages of SSD Caching on a NAS?

It is very important to understand that SSD caching is not some kind of magic wand that will suddenly make your NAS significantly faster. Indeed, SSD caching will be of little to no use to the majority of home and prosumer users on a smaller scale, as larger files will rarely be moved to areas of cache and most home users will use a NAS predominantly for multimedia use, large-scale backups and surveillance in home or office environments. Not only do these processes use significantly less frequently accessed data (more likely resulting in the CREATION of new data) but as they are often more ad-hoc in nature, aside from some early write-caching, the benefits of SSD caching will be all but useless to you. Then there is the added cost, added system overhead resource use and more. Here are the main disadvantages of SSD caching on a NAS:

• Increases Costs of your Storage Setup
• Not all NAS M.2 NVMe SSD bays are the same bandwidth, some are capped to 1000-2000MB/s, bottlenecking some SSDs
• Cache Data benefits are HEAVILY dependant on storage user type/files
• Some Cache methods (i.e Write-Back) store data in the cache, THEN move to the system as it is written and susceptible to loss in the event of a power failure

M.2 SSD Vs SATA SSD Caching on a NAS?

As mentioned in the introduction to today’s article on SSD caching, the majority of NAS drives in the market right now support SSD caching. However, though many have adopted NVMe M2 SSD bays to allow users dedicated ports to do this, many other more affordable or smaller scale NAS hardware systems (2-Bays, ARM CPU devices, etc) still require the end-user to occupy existing traditional hard drive media bays for SSD media for caching instead. Obviously, this can be a significant disadvantage to your overall total maximum capacity when losing main storage bays to smaller capacity SSD for caching. But is there any difference in performance benefits by opting for significantly faster M2 NVMe PCIe SSDs for caching over traditional SATA SSD? Well yes and no. The data stored on the SSD cache has the potential to be delivered to the NAS physical interfaces at whatever maximum speed the SSD can output, so NVMe SSD will always technically push that data faster. Likewise, as the library of cached data and metadata is compiled in the system’s usage, its creation will be markedly faster on the NVMes than SATA SSD which is going to be advantageous to numerous types of write-caching. However, if you are only utilising one or more gigabit ethernet connections, then the difference felt by the end-users when read-write caching is applied between either SSD media type will be practically unnoticeable. Therefore the noticeable differences between SATA SSD and M2 NVMe SSD caching only really apply to use us who take advantage of a larger external network interface or are running larger database operations inside the NAS architecture, containers and virtual machines. 

RECOMMENDED SSDs FOR SSD Caching
SATA SSD HOME	NVMe SSD BUSINESS	SATA SSD BUSINESS
WD RED SA500 Available in SATA 2.5″ and mSATA Affordable and Large Capacity Options NAS Optimized	SEAGATE IRONWOLF 510 VERY High Durability of 1.0 DWPD Data Recovery Services Included Read Caching Optimized	SEAGATE IRONWOLF 110 Very High Durability SSD Over Provisioning Ready Data Recovery Services Included

It is also worth remembering that despite many NAS systems releasing with NVMe SSD bays, their architecture might not have sufficient PCIe lanes on the CPU and assigned chipset to allow maximum NVMe SSD performance. In short, not all NVMe slots are created equal and although you may purchase a 3000-4000MB per second SSD for your NAS and its caching, don’t be surprised if that PCIe m.2 physical revision caps your performance much lower (I strip-down of the hardware inside most home/prosumer NAS systems like the DS920+, TS-473A or Lockerstor 4 will show that the M.2 NVMe slots inside can only reach 1000-2000MB/s at most as they are PCIe 2×2, PCIe 2×4 or PCIe 3×2. In short, NVMe SSD slots for caching are a good thing and can certainly provide better performance over SATA SSD in a number of ways, just be aware that sometimes the way you use it or the hardware of the NAS itself will potentially limit this.

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Top 3 NAS Drives for Plex Media Server for £2000

How many of us have decades of media in our homes? Somewhere between hard drives and USB that are full of cinematic enjoyment, collections of boxsets, music cluttering up CDs and hundreds of DVDs all over the place has led to most users sitting on hundreds or thousands of their favourite bits of media. Nevertheless, the convenience of services like Netflix and Amazon Prime video has led many users to abandon this hardware media in favour of watching the same multimedia streamed online. However subscription-based streaming services are far from perfect, with available media rotating and the availability of TV shows changing from month to month, results in a multimedia experience that can be at best diverse and at worst rigidly controlled. This is one of the main reasons that many users have made the switch from paying monthly for the likes of Netflix and switching over to their own Plex media server on a NAS. Aside from the ability to enjoy the media that they already own and grow that collection organically, Plex media server also provides the slick and attractive graphical user interface (GUI) found on those streaming services. Rather than traditional file folder access, a Plex media server NAS will scrape online databases for information such as thumbnails, cast information, trailers, reviews from reputable websites, extra behind the scenes footage and does this using the media that you own! The one barrier that stands between you and your perfect Plex media server is the amount you are prepared to pay for the hardware that the server utilizes and, in short, the scale of the NAS drive you purchase. NAS Drives have fast become one of the most popular ways in which people create their own ‘set-up and forget’ Plex media server and previously we have discussed the best Plex Nas for £500-1000. However in order to truly have a uncompromising Plex media server that will comfortably stream 1080p and 4K media to multiple client devices at once (at a variety of scalable quality levels) requires a noticeably larger investment and today I want to discuss my top 3 NAS drives for £2000 THAT will provide the very best Plex media server for you, your family and friends in 2021. Let’s take a look.

Note – it is worth bearing in mind that a NAS drive will still require you to purchase hard drives and although all NAS drive servers for Plex can run with as little as a single hard drive (and then add more later) this still means that you have to factor this into your budget.

NASCompares Top 3 Plex NAS for £2000 and Above
QNAP TVS-672X Intel i3 8100T 8-64GB DDR4 = $1700+	Synology DS1621xs+ Intel Xeon D-1527 8-32GB DDR4 ECC = $1600+	QNAP TVS-h1288X Intel Xeon W 6-Core 16-128GB DDR4 = £2500+

What should I be looking for in a Plex NAS?

• An Intel or AMD based CPU that is 64-bit x86 in architecture
• Support of at least 1080p and 4K regular playback, as well as the support of 1080p transcoding to Plex client devices
• Embedded graphics or transcoding support (hence that CPU range)
• At least two Bays of storage (for greater storage and redundancy, AKA – Disk Failure Protection)
• A frequently updated and stable graphical user interface (such as Synology DSM or QNAP QTS)
• Support and compatibility for the plex media server application (not all NAS support it, weaker ARM CPU and Unbranded NAS might not)

• Quiet and stable storage
• RAID functionality for hard drive failure or combined storage
• 24/7 reliability and efficiency
• Software and Graphical user interface (GUI) that is easily accessible from a desktop or mobile device
• Network and Internet access for hundreds of simultaneous users

Best Plex Media Server NAS for Price vs Performance – QNAP TVS-672X NAS

Best Plex Media Server NAS for Expandability and Scalability – Synology DS1621xs+ NAS

Best Plex Media Server NAS for EVERYTHING 4K and 1080p – QNAP TVS-h1288X NAS

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Need Advice on Data Storage from an Expert?

We want to keep the free advice on NASCompares FREE for as long as we can. Since this service started back in Jan '18, We have helped hundreds of users every month solve their storage woes, but we can only continue to do this with your support. So please do choose to buy at Amazon US and Amazon UK on the articles when buying to provide advert revenue support or to donate/support the site below. Finally, for free advice about your setup, just leave a message in the comments below here at NASCompares.com and we will get back to you. Need Help? Where possible (and where appropriate) please provide as much information about your requirements, as then I can arrange the best answer and solution to your needs. Do not worry about your e-mail address being required, it will NOT be used in a mailing list and will NOT be used in any way other than to respond to your enquiry. [contact-form-7] Terms and Conditions Alternatively, why not ask me on the ASK NASCompares forum, by clicking the button below. This is a community hub that serves as a place that I can answer your question, chew the fat, share new release information and even get corrections posted. I will always get around to answering ALL queries, but as a one-man operation, I cannot promise speed! So by sharing your query in the ASK NASCompares section below, you can get a better range of solutions and suggestions, alongside my own.   This description contains links to Amazon. These links will take you to some of the products mentioned in today’s video. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases

Top 3 NAS Drives for Plex Media Server for £1000

Buying a NAS for a Plex media server can be a very intimidating purchase. The technology behind network-attached storage has evolved dramatically in recent years and has far surpassed the simple ‘file and folder hard drive over the internet’ image that many associate it with. Modern NAS drives have a huge array of software applications, services, customisable fully featured graphical user interfaces, numerous applications to access your data in the best possible way and, of course, full integration with the popular private multimedia server software plex. That said, not all NAS servers are created equal and much like any piece of hardware, the amount of money you spend on a solution will result in better hardware and performance overall – and a NAS for Plex is no different. Previously I have discussed the best NAS drives for plex for under £500, which all provided an excellent base level of multimedia support but when it came to the handling of particularly dense media, HEVC and in particular 4K, would either reach full resource utilization OR just fail on playback entirely. So today I want to look at the NAS drives for Plex that, although up to twice the price of those mentioned previously, will give you a significant increase in your multimedia playback! Let’s take a look at the best Plex NAS you can buy in 2021.

Note – it is worth bearing in mind that a NAS drive will still require you to purchase hard drives and although all NAS drive servers for Plex can run with as little as a single hard drive (and then add more later) this still means that you have to factor this into your budget.

NASCompares Top 3 Plex NAS for £1000
QNAP TS-473A AMD Ryzen V1500B 8-64GB DDR4 = $800	Synology DS1621+ AMD Ryzen V1500B 4-32GB DDR4 ECC = $900+	QNAP TS-h973AX AMD Ryzen V1500B 8-64GB DDR4 = $990+

What should I be looking for in a Plex NAS?

• An Intel or AMD based CPU that is 64-bit x86 in architecture
• Support of at least 1080p and 4K regular playback, as well as the support of 1080p transcoding to Plex client devices
• Embedded graphics or transcoding support (hence that CPU range)
• At least two Bays of storage (for greater storage and redundancy, AKA – Disk Failure Protection)
• A frequently updated and stable graphical user interface (such as Synology DSM or QNAP QTS)
• Support and compatibility for the plex media server application (not all NAS support it, weaker ARM CPU and Unbranded NAS might not)

• Quiet and stable storage
• RAID functionality for hard drive failure or combined storage
• 24/7 reliability and efficiency
• Software and Graphical user interface (GUI) that is easily accessible from a desktop or mobile device
• Network and Internet access for hundreds of simultaneous users

Best Plex Media Server NAS for Affordability – QNAP TS-473A NAS

Best Plex Media Server NAS for Expandability and Scalability – Synology DS1621+ NAS

Best Plex Media Server NAS for All-Purpose Use – QNAP TS-h973AX

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This description contains links to Amazon. These links will take you to some of the products mentioned in today's content. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. Visit the NASCompares Deal Finder to find the best place to buy this device in your region, based on Service, Support and Reputation - Just Search for your NAS Drive in the Box Below

 

SEARCH IN THE BOX BELOW FOR NAS DEALS

Need Advice on Data Storage from an Expert?

We want to keep the free advice on NASCompares FREE for as long as we can. Since this service started back in Jan '18, We have helped hundreds of users every month solve their storage woes, but we can only continue to do this with your support. So please do choose to buy at Amazon US and Amazon UK on the articles when buying to provide advert revenue support or to donate/support the site below. Finally, for free advice about your setup, just leave a message in the comments below here at NASCompares.com and we will get back to you. Need Help? Where possible (and where appropriate) please provide as much information about your requirements, as then I can arrange the best answer and solution to your needs. Do not worry about your e-mail address being required, it will NOT be used in a mailing list and will NOT be used in any way other than to respond to your enquiry. [contact-form-7] Terms and Conditions Alternatively, why not ask me on the ASK NASCompares forum, by clicking the button below. This is a community hub that serves as a place that I can answer your question, chew the fat, share new release information and even get corrections posted. I will always get around to answering ALL queries, but as a one-man operation, I cannot promise speed! So by sharing your query in the ASK NASCompares section below, you can get a better range of solutions and suggestions, alongside my own.   This description contains links to Amazon. These links will take you to some of the products mentioned in today’s video. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases

Review of The Synology DSM 7 Software and Services

It’s been more than 3 years in development but finally, users are getting the chance to experience the full and official version of Diskstation Manager 7 (DSM 7) on their Synology NAS drives. Many users chose to invest their money and their data in a Synology NAS because the brand has an incredible reputation in the industry for their software and services, included with the hardware purchase – with DSM being one of the biggest draws. What once started as a slightly rudimentary network file manager tool, has now evolved dramatically over 20 years into its own fully-fledged equivalent operating system with applications, multi-user management and a wide range of inclusive software and services. The latest full version, DSM 7, was first previewed way back in 2018 at Synology’s annual launch event and has been in constant development all this time. With numerous massive changes between DSM 7 and DSM 6.2, ranging from the way applications are handled and backend tweaks to performance and security throughout, DSM7 is the equivalent of upgrading from Windows 7 to Windows 10 for many users, and I am pleased to say that it accomplishes ALMOST everything it promises. Today I’m going to give a full and detailed review of Synology’s DSM 7.0 system software update, the highs, the lows and ultimately whether now is the time to upgrade your Synology NAS to this new and impressive version.

Synology DSM 7 Review – The Quick Conclusion

Let’s not mince words, the Synology DSM 7 software is easily the best experience you are ever going to have when accessing your decades of data! From huge upgrades in the graphical user interface, the layout of options and even managing to improve the already exceptionally user-friendly design, DSM 7 is unquestionably the king of network software right now. Aside from a few areas of design conflict between DSM 6.2 services and DSM 7 UI, questionable changes on USB compatibility and contention over migration between in photo station and Synology photos, DSM 7.0 still very much rules the roost when it comes to the best you can get in network-attached storage software in 2021/2022.

Synology DSM 7 Review – The New User Interface

DSM 7 makes a very early positive impact on the user after the update has been installed, with the new login screen and improved login options. The previous DSM 6.2 login screen was clear and functional, but might have been a bit tame (though customization was possible to a small degree). Synology has scaled up the new login screen on this new diskstation manager software to remember a much more modern and slick UI, with the username and password entry being separated across slides – rather than together. Whether this is a layered security measure or this was necessitated by those using OTP login (2 step authentication etc) or Synology’s own secure signin application, it’s still a very, VERY clear UI straight off the bat!

As mentioned, Synology has released together with DSM 7, the secure sign-in application for Android/iOS to allow ‘in-house provided’ 2 step authentication into the NAS. Although this is a nice extra and I can see a lot of larger businesses who use the Synology NAS platform for their teams/staff using this, I think most other users will continue to use their existing authentication tools (e.g Google Authenticator) for simplicity across their own software environments. However, these are still very much supported in DSM 7 (as they are in DSM 6.2) with increased OTP support on this update.

The login speed of DSM 7 is still something I think deserves ALOT of attention. The localized feel of DSM 7 is something that is impossible to ignore. It is easy to forget that when you are interacting with the Synology NAS via your web browser (Chrome, Mozilla, Safari, etc) that you are only accessing a portal/tunnel to the NAS via the network/internet – which given the responsiveness of the GUI, moving windows, changing tabs, crisp quality of the layout and low latency is easily where a lot of work in DSM 7 development went. Not just reducing any delays, but doing so whilst still maintaining the same/higher level of secure and encrypted transmission. A quick look at the range of supported applications on DSM 7 shows that pretty much all of the applications that people use on a Synology NAS are available here (with a few applications being renamed e.g iSCSI Manager>SAN Manager, whereas others have been merged together, e.g Synology Photos).

The applications listed in the Synology Application center are all where you would expect them to be for the most part, though HybridShare still remains in the Beta category (which is actually quite advantageous when I was reviewing the final version as the Synology C2 Cloud Beta capacity was still available for testing). Much like DSM 6.2, in DSM 7 you can install numerous applications at the same time and still use the rest of the system, with a few minor exceptions where key background services needed to be installed/downloaded and this prevents simultaneous app installation for a period.

The only gripe I could find with regard to DSM 7 and application installation was first that Plex Media Server (currently version 1.22) was still in the Beta applications list and installation was not quite as clear cut as other applications (understandable for a 3rd party app) and some users have raised complaints that their existing Plex Media Server setup in DSM 6.2 was in need of fix/repair during migrations to DSM 7.0 (I did not experience this personally, but I have used DSM 7 in beta for a while and larger changes may have occurred in other versions of this software. Additionally, the range of 3rd Party applications that are supported has been noticeably trimmed down. This might well be because DSM 7 is such a modified/changed platform over DSM  6.2, that these applications are in need of re-tooling by their respective brands, but still – some of the lesser-known apps were still used in the absence of docker/container alternatives.

The control panel of DSM 7.0 is very similar to DSM 6.2, with a few small changes in where options are located (both in the primary menu and sub-menus), and once again the simplicity, ease and user-friendly design of the Synology Diskstation Manager Settings menus are top-notch – however, I can still see more seasoned storage professional having gripes with more customizable and configurable options being heavily buried or unavailable outside of SSH. Nevertheless, it is a VERY clear layout and intuative.

The resource monitor in DSM 7 has also received an update and is now a fraction more information than its predecessor, with more historical data options and ways to par down the stats to get more information. It’s a smaller upgrade over DSM 6.2 resource monitor, but always a change for the good to have more system health and consumption of the hardware info at hand.

Talking of system hardware, it is worth discussing another area of DSM 7.0 that some are less happy with. The USB support (i.e the range of compatible USB devices) that you can connect to a DSM 7 enabled NAS is far less than previously, with numerous network adapters, office hardware and lite client devices no long being supported. Synology has highlighted that in some cases this is because they need updated drivers/software from manufacturers to work with DSM 7.0, but in other cases, we have already seen a trend of reducing compatible USB devices on Synology DSM. Luckily the majority of USB storage devices are compatible (2 connected in the image below), but EXT3 is no longer supported in DSM 7.0.

The system also has improved logs/records windows that are available to track the goings-on within the system and has incorporated a lot of this into the security center – providing updates/notifications to the end-user to pre-empt any potential vulnerabilities that open up.

Along with numerous backend improvements in DSM 7 and the improvements of encryption in a bunch of areas, the system still has the same Security Advisor and Antivirus scanning systems built into the software. These can be set up the first time and then can do their high on a schedule, regular as clockwork. They seem a little thin on details, but they do their job and that’s what counts.

All in all, the user interface and interaction with Synology DSM 7.0 is a big, big upgrade over DSM 6.2 in design and responsiveness, though there is the occasional blip where you can see the layout/structure of DSM 6.2 at odds with DSM 7.0 – but this will likely be ironed out as the bulk of Diskstation development shifts over to DSM7 exclusively. When we first explored the DSM7 GUI and system interaction at the beta stages (video below) the clear improvements in operation speed and latency were clear:

Synology DSM 7 Review – Storage & File Management

Moving aside from shiny graphics, modern UX and responsive browser access, let’s take a good look at the storage and file management of DSM 7 and what has changed from DSM 6.2 The storage manager in DSM7 has been given a lot of attention, with the overview being given a large graphical overhaul. The more topographical list of storage pools, volumes and SSD cache bays is exceptionally clear and gives you the bulk of important information you need to know immediately. On the whole, I much prefer this new UI in the storage manager, however, I did notice that the layout of the NAS storage bays and SSD cache bays would only display correctly if I was using a web browser at 90-100% screen size. Anything less (as I believe most people use 70-80% on Laptops and MacBooks) and the SSD cache bay would display incorrectly.

Changing the zoom (tested on numerous browsers) to closer to 100% would resolve this, but it does seem like an odd thing to have missed at the design stage. Still, it is an incredibly pedantic point I know!

The drives tab shows us a slightly more familiar list that shows us the available storage drives on the system, along with SSD caching bays (as appropriate to the NAS hardware) and from here you can find out a wealth of information on each drive.

Information on each drive includes its health, SMART tests, temp, initialization status, model ID, serial, RAID group and much more. Once again, if you use Seagate Ironwolf Hard Drives, you have the option of utilizing the Health Management tool too.

Once Hard drives are configured to a RAID (and yes, Synology Hybrid RAID is still an option on plus series devices and below), you can then examine a lot of the newer options of DSM 7 with regard to RAID management and how extra drives are handled. The has already been a lot of mention of the RAID 6 performance when degraded/rebuilding in DSM 7 (video tests coming soon), but there is also the new fast repair option that allows users to only have to factor the build of areas of the drives where data resides. In practice, that means that during a RAID rebuild, the areas of the drives (As dictated by the parity blueprint etc) that contain data are built, and the rest is just zero’d (whereas a normal RAID rebuild would build each block one by one, even the empty ones). This is also joined by the already available RAID resync/rebuild priority control to allow the scaling of resources as needed.

In the event of a new drive being inserted into a NAS with DSM 7, there is an improved display of options of what you can do with this drive with the existing RAID array, making the initialization of a drive to the system much more intuitive and easy to conclude.

Outside of the storage manager, when it comes to interacting with your NAS, its volumes and contents at a file/folder level, the File Station application still provides all the functionality you are going to need. Perhaps looking a tad dated compared with other DSM 7 improvements in UI and the Synology Drive application, but still a very functional tool.

You can still create, control, modify and clone shared folders very quickly and this is still especially true on BTRFS systems – as well as when mounting C2 cloud storage using the Hybrid Share application (covering later). Though I would also highlight that DSM 7.0 requires at least 1GB of memory to fully utilize the system software smoothly and although it IS available as an update to more modest hardware systems like the DS120j (512MB memory), if you are running a DS218play and above (2GB memory) with DSM 7 and BTRFS, I would expect resource utilization to rise up notably.

Another change that is mostly cosmetic is the change by Synology in making the iSCSI Manager tool (for creating logical targeted storage on the NAS that can be added to remote client systems much more natively) into SAN Manager. The integration of SAN tools into NAS in recent years has grown dramatically and although SAN manager and iSCSI Manager are mostly the same in utility and layout, they have made a few changes to the available options and defaults that make it easier to create your next business target and LUNs.

Synology Drive is another application that has changed very little in design between DSM 6.2 and DSM 7, but that is more likely because it has already evolved significantly in the last few years. Originally promoted as the Synolgoy NAS based alternative to the 1-portal UI available in Google Drive and Dropbox (i.e 1 window, can option all/most file types), but has now become a behemoth of a tool for home and business users to backup, sync and access their NAS in a far, far more native way. As mentioned earlier, its design is far, FAR more preferable to that of File Station and it would have been nice to see a similar level of design and access be afforded to File Station in DSM 7.0 as found in Synolgoy Drive.

The client application for Synology Drive (that you install on your client computer) allows you to sync folders between your NAS and your system and allows you to interact with your NAS data (multiple users can share team folders too) without the web browser and inside your own native computer OS. However, the popular file pinning and file streaming on-demand feature is still only available on Windows client machines and although there was mention of support of Mac OS in DSM 7 in 2021, this is still yet to arrive (also the same for Mac OS support in Active Backup Suite).

For those users who have made the jump from Google Drive and DropBox and onto Synolgoy NAS, the Synology Drive Client app and those additional file management services in Windows context menus are incredibly popular and it is a shame that the Mac OS functionality was not ready at release. Here is a video below (base don DSM 6.2) that gives you a better idea of how file pinning and file streaming on Drive works.

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If you are looking at buying a NAS drive (whether it is to move away from the likes of Google Drive or Dropbox, or to just have all of your data in a single controllable location), then it can be a rather intimidating task. For many users, the very, VERY first hurdle they encounter is the price tag! NAS systems, although not massively expensive, do always seem a little more expensive than you think – especially given the modest internal hardware used inside sometimes when compared again DIY PCs. Add to this the fact that these devices ALSO need to be populated with storage media and you can be looking at a price tag that can easily spiral out of control. Add to this that a lot of users simply do not want/need all the enterprise features and just want a system that can be used as a backup for all of their desktop and mobile devices, is as secure as possible, can support a good level of 4K/1080p media over DLNA/Remotely (e.g Plex), feature a little bit of camera connectivity for security, Provide a intuative and user-friendly photo album access and all the while having a system that runs smoothly and quietly in the background! Although most NAS systems support all these features to a small/large degree, you will all too often find that the price point and scale of these NAS systems are wildly different! So, today I wanted to highlight the BEST three NAS drives in 2021 that not only provide ALL of the features mentioned (and can run them all at once with ease), but also allow you to purchase the NAS and Hard drives for less than £500. Each solution has its own particular advantages and although each one might better suit a different kind of user, all three are by far the best that each brand can provide (including Seagate Ironwolf NAS hard drives) for this modest price point.

IMPORTANT – Most home users who look at buying a NAS and Hard Drive media at this price point are usually quite focused on Plex Media Server support, as although they will use the myriad of other features and software that these devices arrive with, the lion share of its use will be for a Plex Media Server NAS for their friends and family to connect and enjoy movies, boxsets, albums and their photos. So I have focused a little more on these system’s multimedia abilities than most other services.

If you just want to skip to the end, all three NAS are below, otherwise, scroll through my top 3 NAS for the buyers on a budget! I would recommend you purchase one of the following Three NAS drives:

— Short Version —

Synology DS220+, NAS – Designed to be network/internet-only access, VERY user-friendly, most expensive of the 3, good for Mac users and excellent first Party Software

QNAP TS-251D NAS – Designed to be Network/Internet/HDMI, pretty user-friendly, PCIe upgrade option for a later date, Good for Windows/Android users

Asustor Nimbustor 2 NAS – Quite user-friendly, Best CPU, Best Memory, Network/Internet/HDMI 4K, 2.5Gbe connection (the rest have 1Gbe), Good for Android/Windows users

NASCompares Top 3 Budget NAS for £500 (including Drives and Tax)
Synology DS220+ NAS + Seagate Ironwolf NAS Hard Drive (2x 2TB) = £472 TOTAL	QNAP TS-251D NAS + Seagate Ironwolf NAS Hard Drive (2x 4TB) = £495 TOTAL	Nimbustor 2 NAS + Seagate Ironwolf NAS Hard Drive (2x 2TB) = £465 TOTAL

— Long Version —

All three have their own dedicated browser software access, dedicated mobile applications, backup applications and surveillance software. Below is alot more information about each device.

Best £500 Synology NAS for Beginners – DS220+ and Seagate 4TB Seagate Ironwolf

Synology DS220+, Intel J4025 2.0-2.7Ghz CPU, 2/6GB DDR4 2666Mhz Memory, BTRFS, SHR, 2yr Warranty, Seagate Ironwolf NAS Hard Drive (2x 2TB) = £472 TOTAL

The DS220+ NAS is one that budget buyers have been using as a Plex media server for a lot of 2020/2021. Although the device might look a little modest compared with the more powerful DS920+ or even DS720+, even at this price point it features multiple ports and connections. It is the surprisingly powerful and efficient Synology software that the DS220+ arrives with that means that you are getting a number of key plex options covered by this NAS drive. Arriving with the popular Intel Celeron J4025, the DS220+ from Synology is one of the most popular NAS drives that they have released in a very long time. If you want to stay within the £500 budget, including hard drives and tax, you will be able to find this device for just over £300 tops and that gives you another £200 that you should be able to get a couple of 2TB or 3TB Seagate Ironwolf hard drives for your NAS.

What makes the DS220+ such an impressive device is that it gives you everything you need in a modern device for plex, at a remarkably affordable price. Featuring a transcoding engine (embedded graphics) on that CPU, that Plex pass users will be able to utilise, the performance of media on the DS220+ is pretty impressive for such an affordable NAS drive. Add to that the fact that it is a two-bay device with support of BTRFS as its file system for stability, SHR for a more fluid RAID system that allows you to mix and match drives to increase storage later down the line and an overall sense of stability and user-friendliness in this device. Sure, there are more powerful Synology NAS drives out there for use as a larger scale backup or powerful Plex media server, but at this price level, it is not only the most affordable fully-featured NAS you can buy, but also one of the best examples of what Synology is all about – all for under £500 that includes storage and tax.

 

NAS Review	Where to Buy	YouTube Review

NAS Review	Where to Buy	YouTube Review

---

 

Best £500 Asustor NAS for Performance – Nimbustor 2 and Seagate 6TB Seagate Ironwolf

Asustor AS5202T, Intel J4005 2.0-2.7Ghz CPU, 2/8GB DD4 2400Mhz Memory, HDMI 2.0a, BTRFS. 2.5G, 3yr Warranty, Seagate Ironwolf NAS Hard Drive (2x 3TB)= £465 TOTAL

One NAS brand that has REALLY accelerated it’s customer awareness this year is Asustor. The release of the Nimbustor series really shook up the NAS world with its incredibly affordable price point, despite featuring some of the very best hardware available on this list. At our £500 price point for a Plex NAS, you can buy the Nimbustor 2 and 4TB of storage (including TAX) with £30-40 leftover, which really does make this tough to beat. from a hardware point. Arriving with an Intel Celeron dual-core processor, the J4005 at 1.5-2.7Ghz per core and 2GB of DDR4 memory, in PLEX that translates to some fantastic performance, supporting 1080p and 4K playback, along with a good chunk of 1080p transcoding and lower-end 4K.

What makes the Nimbustor 2 so much better than the TS-251D or DS220+ for Plex power buyers is that despite me including it in my budget Plex NAS list, it actually provides a great many features that even £1000+ NAS drives do not. That powerful Gemini lake dual-core processor promises that you will get great plex performance (though less than a modern Pentium Gold or higher i3/i5/i7). Alongside this, all of the file system or hardware features from the TS-251D and DS220+ are here in one form or greater. Such as BTRFS support and that HDMI 2.0 output, that lets you playback 4K Plex media locally to your connected TV at 60FPS. However, it is in terms of future connectivity that the Nimbustor 2 really succeeds. Although it is the most affordable NAS on the list today, this device arrives with two 2.5Gbe ports. These ports are completely backwards compatible with regular 1Gbe RJ45 connectivity (found in all homes and offices), but allow your Plex media server NAS to take advantage of greater network speeds in your network environment as your surrounding network and internet equipment evolved over the years. With file sizes getting bigger and bigger, yet our demand for data getting faster and faster, options like 2.5Gbe in the Nimbustor 2 and PCIe upgraded NICs (network interface cards) on the TS-251D are definitely worth consideration. The Nimbustor 2 NAS, despite its low price point, even arrives with a fully-featured and gamer inspired graphical user interface and operating system, ADM. So notwithstanding some great performance as a Plex media server, it also arrives with a myriad of backup and file streaming options available to you.

NAS Review	Where to Buy	YouTube Review

If you interested in how each NAS system and its software perform/present themselves, take a look below at my video review of the Synology DSM 7, QNAP QTS and Asustor ADM NAS GUI and system software:

I hope this helps you with choosing the right NAS for your home and family. Thanks for reading!

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Synology DSM 7.0 Now Available – 7 Reasons to Upgrade from DSM 6.2

As many of you might well have heard, after several long years of waiting, Synology DSM 7.0 (the NAS software, GUI and storage services platform from the brand) has finally been officially released. It’s been a long road and one that I have been following on and off for almost 3 years since its initial reveal, with DSM 6.2 receiving several key updates in the meantime and many users are pondering whether to upgrade their existing Synology NAS server to the latest version. Synology will continue to maintain DSM 6.2 (as some systems are not able to use DSM 7 yet), though obviously, this will decrease over time as DSM 7.0 becomes the Synology’s focus. so, today I wanted to discuss 5 reasons why you should upgrade to DSM 7.0 on your Synology NAS today. If you are still on the fence about it, worried about how some applications or services will deal with the migration, below is the latest videos and articles on DSM7 from NAS Compares that will convince you whether to proceed or play it safe.

Recommended DSM 7.0 Articles:

The Synology DSM 7.0 FULL REVIEW – https://nascompares.com/synology-dsm-7-0-full-review/

How Well Does DSM 7.0 Run on Different Synology NAS – https://nascompares.com/2021/06/18/synology-dsm-7-0-how-well-does-it-run

Synology 2021 – Focus on DSM 7.0 – https://nascompares.com/2020/12/07/synology-2021-focus-on-dsm-7

DSM 7.0 Early Impressions – https://nascompares.com/2020/12/17/synology-dsm-7-0-beta-early-impressions

Synology DSM 7.0 – The Responsiveness and Fast Login Speed

Synology DSM and their NAS platform, in general, has always been praised for its responsiveness. Whether accessing your NAS through a web browser, mobile application or general network device, DSM has always managed to give you a tremendously confident sense of ‘local’ when accessing the system GUI. It can be all too easy to forget that when you are interacting with a Synology NAS and DSM through the web browser, that you are not accessing anything connected directly – it is all being conducted via the network, local WiFi or Remotely via the Internet. Synology DSM 7 was always very responsive and (unless you are connecting on a weaker network or using a particularly weak system heavily) it only ever seems to have the slightly larger latency than the PC I would be using to access it on. However, DSM 7 has really managed to find some extra hears in there and one of the first things you will notice when you make the upgrade to DSM 7 on your NAS is that the system is even more responsive.

As mentioned, DSM 6.2 was no slouch, but DSM 7 manages to tweak a number of back end settings and responsive input points (such as the login screen verification, sub/context menus when in use, moving between multiple windows) to make general navigation significantly higher in feedback/reaction. Although this is clearly at its most noticeable when you first log into the system (and this was featured at its initial preview back in 2018), it is a speed of access that persists pretty consistently and only really starts to dip when the system is under particular stress. Also, DSM 7 has a recommended memory minimum of 1GB, however, it can still be downloaded officially from Synology for systems like the DS115j and DS220J that feature 256MB and 512MB respectively – with comparable performance still maintained. So, although it feels less important than the rest of the reasons here, a good reason to upgrade to DSM 7 is to enjoy a much more responsive and reactive Synology NAS GUI!

Synology DSM 7.0 – Much Clearer and Intuative Storage Manager

For many users, the intimidation of managing their storage system on day 1 or day 1000 never really goes away. As robust as a Synology NAS system might appear, the fragility of your storage, once it is displayed as ‘all your data spread across many hard drives’, can be rather disconcerting – especially when your data is mission-critical! Over the years, many brands have gone one of two ways about their storage management GUI – either they have gone SUPER technical, in order to make sure the end-user has all (too much?) information at their fingertips. Otherwise, many brands and their software (including Synology DSM 6.2) provide a more generalized display of the information of their storage architecture. This will include largely text-based displays, but presented as tabs and blocks of information that relate to individual disks, storage pools and volumes (with context menus for maintenance). Synology DSM 6.2 has always had a little bit of an identity crisis when it comes to the storage manager and this si something that DSM7 has resolved by providing a much better selection of graphical representations of the NAS, Drives, SSDs and makes the whole display about 10x more intuitive to the data storage novice.

This way of displaying storage information more graphically is something that Synology had already begin to integrate with the SSD caching bays, displaying how the cache was being utilized, displaying hit rates and utilization – but in a much more visually understandable form and it is good that this has been implemented across the system in a much broader way. If you have been using your NAS for a few years already, then chances are that the benefits of this newly designed storage manager will be a little lost on you, but for those setting up a brand new Synology NAS or are still a little green on the subject of RAID, storage pools and volumes – it will be massively useful.

Synology DSM 7.0 – Improved Cloud Connectivity and Storage Mounting

There was a time when users would have to make a choice between NAS or cloud services (such as Google Drive and Dropbox) for where their data would live, with one inevitably being more suitable than the other. However, in more recent times, the benefits of having BOTH in place has been heavily emphasised, with the ease of access globally of a cloud combined with a centralized local server to ensure constant connectivity and security where it matters most. Although cloud connectivity existed in Synology DSM 6.2, it has to be noted that it has been substantially improved in DSM 7.0. A great deal of these improvements are focused on the use of Synology’s C2 platform, as well as how this storage appears to a local NAS user.

One that we already knew about but is nice to see a move from beta to full release is the Hybrid Share application. Hybrid Share, which combines C2 storage flexibility and synchronization capabilities with on-premises bare metal (NAS) solutions, and C2 Identity, a hybrid cloud directory as a service to simplify cross-site domain management. Together with platform improvements such as supporting up to 1 Petabyte volumes for super-large tasks, DSM 7.0 also introduces security improvements in the form of Secure SignIn. A 2 step verification tool similar to Google Authenticator, but dedicated to Synology NAS solutions. Other new additions to the C2 cloud platform (that can be used within DSM 7.0) are C2 Password, C2 Transfer, and C2 Backup are standalone solutions that address modern needs to protect passwords, share sensitive files, and back up any endpoints and common SaaS cloud services – which were already well supported in DSM 6.2 in Active Backup 365/Google Workspace.

Although a few of these features are still accessible in DSM 6.2, the full complement of services is only available on DSM 7.0 and rolling out one by one between now and mid-July. So, if you already factor Synology C2 into your storage setup, you will be improving the access and security of your storage environment by upgrading. Though do remember that at the time of writing, several of the enterprise-grade XS, SA and FS systems are still awaiting the DSM 7.0 upgrade choice, so you may be forced to wait.

Synology DSM 7.0 – Much, MUCH Better RAID 6 Handling & Fast Repair

Anyone that has ever lost data from a NAS will have learnt two very important things, 1 – RAID is not the same as a Backup and 2 – Sometimes 1 disk of failure protection is not enough! Synology has always provided RAID 6 support to any NAS system with more than 4 Bays (even the more modest J series), but even if you are prepared to overlook the capacity drop of switching from RAID 5 to RAID 6, there is the added negative of the performance drop that you can endure. RAID 6 requires the system to create double parity architecture in the configuration/storage pool, which can result in the CPU having to work a little harder to write data, reducing the performance AND increasing resource use. Likewise in the event of a single drive (or even two) drives failing, this results in much slower system performance as the RAID configuration need rebuilding with new drive media. Synology DSM 7.0 however not only provides a much more rapid RAID rebuild system but also promises vast improvements on performance on a RAID 6 during its degraded state whilst you await rebuilding too!

Although the improvements to degraded RAID performance are good (especially appealing to integral business data users), the faster rebuild option is a much more universally appealing addition in DSM 7 to considering upgrading now. Unlike normal RAID rebuilding in DSM 6.2 (which incidentally also can have its priority scaled up as needed to marginally increase build time) which rebuilds the data block by block, regardless of whether there is data in that area of the array, the new Synology Fast Repair will only need to rebuild the areas of the storage pool where the data actually resided. So if you have a 4 Disk RAID, that is only 20% full/used, the fast repair option will only need to build that area and not the empty area of space. Although no one likes to dwell too much on RAID failure and it’s an odd reason to consider upgrading from DSM 6.2 to DSM 7.0, it’s still a very interesting feature that will significantly reduce the lesser performance associated with RAID rebuilding.

Synology DSM 7.0 – It is Much More Secure

Although I have already partially touched on this, Synology has really ramped up the security settings and default parameters of DSM 7.0 noticeable. That is not to say that DSM 6.2 isn’t safe but given the increased cloud connectivity and improvements in control that is present in DSM 7 (as well as the improvements made with their C2 platform), you definitely get the feeling that the ways and means of accessing your system have been tightened considerably. These include:

• Enhanced the password policy. Passwords must exclude username and description, include both upper-case and lower-case letters as well as numerical digits. The minimum password length is eight characters.
• Added the ability to delegate predefined administrator roles to non-administrator user accounts and allow them to manage certain services and system settings, offering more flexible permission management.
• Added the ability to require imported users to change their passwords after their initial DSM logins.
• Enhanced LDAP client authentication performance by reducing the number of queries sent with a caching mechanism.
• DSM 7.0 also introduces security improvements in the form of Secure SignIn. This brand-new authentication system makes two-factor effortless and straightforward to use (FAST FORWARD IN THE VIDEO BELOW TO 01:40)

• The following services and packages now support UPN logins: Synology Assistant, Hyper Backup, Synology Mail Server, Synology Calendar, and Shared Folder Sync.
• Enhanced domain database synchronization performance by syncing only altered data.
• Added the ability to block USB and console ports.
• Enhanced QuickConnect connection process to strengthen security.
• Provides only TLS 1.3 support for the Modern Compatibility option for TLS/SSL profile level.
• Added the ability to set 2-factor authentication is mandatory for specific users or groups.

So, as you can see, it’s a good combination of making existing working practices with your NAS much stronger AND introducing more system security defaults. With an increased concern in 2021 about ransomware and intrusions on public/private clouds becoming ever more lucrative to hackers – this impressive pile of security improvements on your NAS might tip you over the edge from DSM 6.2 to DSM 7.0

BONUS Reason to Upgrade – DSM 7.0 is Widley Supported!

Although this one doesn’t really count, I DO think it is worth highlighting. Namey that the support of DSM 7.0 as an upgrade from DSM 6.2 is very, VERY widely available. It came as no surprise that it would be supported on Plus series devices, such as the DS918+, DS218+ or DS1821+. However, the fact that much, MUCH older J series devices (with 32bit ARM processors and 256MB memory are also eligible for the upgrade is massively impressive! Below is the current range of Synolgoy NAS that can now be upgraded to the fully released DSM 7.0 official upgrade:

21-series: RS2821RP+, RS2421RP+, RS2421+, RS1221RP+, RS1221+, DS1821+, and DS1621+.
20-series: RS820RP+, RS820+, DS1520+, DS920+, DS720+, DS620slim, DS420+, DS420j, DS220+, DS220j, and DS120j.
19-series: RS1219+, RS819, DS2419+II, DS2419+, DS1819+, DS1019+, DS419slim, and DS119j.
18-series: RS2818RP+, RS2418RP+, RS2418+, RS818RP+, RS818+, DS1618+, DS918+, DS718+, DS418, DS418play, DS418j, DS218+, DS218, DS218play, DS218j, and DS118.
17-series: RS217, DS1817+, DS1817, DS1517+, and DS1517.
16-series: RS2416RP+, RS2416+, RS816, DS916+, DS716+II, DS716+, DS416, DS416play, DS416slim, DS416j, DS216+II, DS216+, DS216, DS216play, DS216j, DS216se, and DS116.
15-series: RS815RP+, RS815+, RS815, DS2415+, DS1815+, DS1515+, DS1515, DS715, DS415+, DS415play, DS215+, DS215j, DS115, and DS115j.
14-series: RS2414RP+, RS2414+, RS814RP+, RS814+, RS814, RS214, DS414, DS414slim, DS414j, DS214+, DS214, DS214play, DS214se, and DS114.
13-series: DS2413+, DS1813+, DS1513+, DS713+, and DS213j.

As mentioned earlier, a lot of the enterprise-level hardware will have DSM 7.0 upgrades rolled out in Q3/Q4 of 2021, but if you are curious about upgrading your 2020/2021 Series PLUS NAS to DSM 7.0, below are four videos showing how the DS220+, DS920+, DS220j, DS1821+ and DS1621+ handle DSM 7.0:

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Recommended 3 NAS Drives for Plex Media Server Under £500

The growth in popularity that Plex media server has enjoyed these last few years is genuinely outstanding. Multimedia has gone through several phases as the common household media technology in our homes has evolved, from local media boxes, to popular subscription-based streaming services and now onto the re-emergence of owning your own media server. Privately owned media servers are not exactly new, but the way that this multimedia that you own on a NAS or spare computer system is presented to the end-user is where the real difference lies. Plex media server allows you to turn your decades of multimedia from a rather unappealing array of files and folders and turning into a beautifully presented graphical user interface, that scrapes metadata from numerous online resources for free in order to present you with your very own personal Netflix. With streaming services often costing users £100 a year (not including multi-device licences), lacking the choice of playing content in your own multimedia collection and little or no control over the shows you have available month to month, you can see why a lot of users are taking that money that they would spend on a subscription service and plough it into a NAS drive for Plex media server. That said, a privately owned NAS is going to cost you a few hundred $/£/€ at day one and you want to make sure that you are spending wisely. So today I am going to talk about the top 3 NAS drives for Plex media server that you can buy for less than 500. Each one is guaranteed to playback and transcode 1080p standard media and even some mid to high 4K media too. So what are we waiting for, let’s take a look at my recommended NAS in 2021 for Plex.

Note – it is worth bearing in mind that a NAS drive will still require you to purchase hard drives and although all NAS drive servers for Plex can run with as little as a single hard drive (and then add more later) this still means that you have to factor this into your budget.

NASCompares Top 3 Plex NAS for £500
Synology DS220+ Intel J4025 2.0-2.9Ghz CPU 2/6GB Memory = $330	QNAP TS-453D Intel J4125 2.0-2.7Ghz CPU 4/8GB Memory  = £500+	Synology DS920+ Intel J4125 2.0-2.7Ghz CPU 4/8GB Memory = £475

What should I be looking for in a Plex NAS?

• An Intel or AMD based CPU that is 64-bit x86 in architecture
• Support of at least 1080p and 4K regular playback, as well as the support of 1080p transcoding to Plex client devices
• Embedded graphics or transcoding support (hence that CPU range)
• At least two Bays of storage (for greater storage and redundancy, AKA – Disk Failure Protection)
• A frequently updated and stable graphical user interface (such as Synology DSM or QNAP QTS)
• Support and compatibility for the plex media server application (not all NAS support it, weaker ARM CPU and Unbranded NAS might not)

• Quiet and stable storage
• RAID functionality for hard drive failure or combined storage
• 24/7 reliability and efficiency
• Software and Graphical user interface (GUI) that is easily accessible from a desktop or mobile device
• Network and Internet access for hundreds of simultaneous users

Best Plex Media Server NAS for Budget Buyers – Synology DS220+ NAS

Best Plex Media Server NAS for Upgrades and Scalability – QNAP TS-453D NAS

Best Plex Media Server NAS for Beginners – Synology DS920+ NAS

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Need Advice on Data Storage from an Expert?

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Cool Things You Can Do With Your NAS other Than Backup Storage

The main motivation for most users who purchase a new network-attached (NAS) storage device is often a means to create an alternative to Cloud services, backup several devices safely and really just to make sure that there is a mean to keep their data safe and sound, but also within reach when needed. The majority of NAS brands perform this function well and if you are looking for a NAS just to do these functions, then you will always be successful, regardless of the unit you choose. However, there is actually a huge number of things that a NAS can do and with the evolution of modern NAS hardware from brands like Synology and QNAP, most users do not even realise the cool things they can do with their system to maximize their investment or simply to have a little fun. So today I want to go through some of the best things you can do with a NAS drive that are more than just using it as a simple backup storage system. Let’s go!

Important – All of the things below that I recommend for your NAS drive are available on the majority of NAS systems from Synology, QNAP, Asustor, WD My Cloud or Terramaster. However, the extent to which they can be done and the overall performance that you will achieve will be based on the power of the NAS drive that you own and the number of simultaneous processes that you run. So if you are already using more than 90% of the existing hardware to run a large-scale simultaneous backup operation, that will not leave a vast amount of resources to run anything else. So just bear in mind that the extent to which the below fun things you can do with your NAS also depend on the hardware resources at your disposal.

Use Your NAS to Build Your Own NetFlix

Probably the most well-known thing about NAS that is popular for home users is that you can use the system to watch media over DLNA in your home. However, a lot of users do not realise the extent to which you can enjoy movies and box sets on your NAS. It’s one thing to have a big pile of files that you can access in a breadcrumb file/folder level over the network. It is another thing entirely to create a complete slick and well-designed user interface, with all of your decades of TV shows and movies displayed in a form similar to the likes of Netflix and Amazon Prime Video. However, this is exactly what you can do if you take advantage of PLEX media server or Synology Video Station. These applications allow you to index (ie scan and catalogue) your existing collections of media, then they search online databases for box art, reviews, cast lists, trailers and more, which then allows you to automatically present this information on your smart TV, tablet, console or phone in beautifully designed and intuitive software menus. Indeed, Plex Media Server and Synology Video Station are available on the majority of everyday internet-connected media devices and both of these applications are free or included in the cost of your NAS. Find out more about Plex media server on your NAS using the media you own, as well as connecting online multimedia services, in the video below.

It is also worth highlighting that your own personal Netflix on your NAS experience is not limited to just been connected to by you, as you can allow family and friends to access your NAS with this sleek and intuitive user interface anywhere on the network or remotely via the internet too.

Use Your NAS to Build Your Own Google Drive Shared Cloud

Most users think of a NAS as a giant hard drive that they connect to their devices remotely in order to back up their data. In most cases, a home user who purchased the NAS did so to move away from Cloud services like Dropbox and Google. However, some users are still blissfully unaware that you can use a NAS to host your very own version of Dropbox or Google drive for hundreds or thousands of users if you choose. Taking advantage of the file and space management services of a NAS in conjunction with online browser-based access and you can present areas of storage on your NAS to users with their very own login information, area of space that can be changed on the fly, controlled file types/sizes and the whole thing presented as an easy web browser-based cloud platform. Although this is available on the majority of NAS brands using their own software and client, Synology Drive provides this in the best way and is by far the most similar in design, ability and execution to DropBox and Google Drive. Find out more about Synology drive below:

The number of simultaneous or concurrent user that you can provide individual private cloud space to is only really limited by the NAS and the total available capacity, but even very very modest NAS systems at a few £100 can support hundreds of users at once. 

Use Your NAS to Setup a Enterprise-Grade Surveillance System at Home or Work

Most people who are even vaguely aware of modern NAS will hear the word surveillance thrown around quite a lot. They sort of know that they can have some cameras about the place that can send recordings to their NAS drive, but above and beyond that, they don’t really know much about it, don’t know how easy it is and ultimately decide not to really look into it. However in the most modern examples of network-attached storage, not only do the big brands all include surveillance software that is genuinely on par with the best and most premium grade NVR and CCTV software (Milestone and Axis Nvr), but also the cost of IP cameras that connect to your home or office network cost way, WAY less than you think. Even the compatible range of cameras that you can use that are supported arrive in the thousands of models and as long as the camera supports ONVIF, it will work. Many affordable Wi-Fi cameras and even solar-powered cameras that connect to your NAS over the network internet can be purchased for as little as £30 and once connected to the NAS surveillance software, with its remote access architecture and easy-to-use graphical user interface, you can set up a surveillance and protective security system in your home/business for very little money than you already spent on the NAS. Here is how Synology Surveillance station and QNAP’s QVR Pro software compare. Just remember that both of these programs are included with the cost of your NAS, which brings any expense on your NVR setup even lower:

The maximum number of cameras you can run at any one time, the total picture quality and the size of recordings generated will depend on the power and size of your NAS, but even affordable one day NAS solutions can be quite effective as a surveillance network video recorder.

Use Your NAS to Create a Virtual Machine for Work, Rest and Play

The use of virtual machines (VMs) used to be something that was only deployed and understood by big business. However, in 2021/2022, they are now being used to a highly productive and effective degree by even small home users as remote connecting systems. In essence, a virtual machine is a digital image of a physical computer. It needs to live within the confines of another computer, in this case a NAS, but its hardware specifications are represented as digital equivalents and this virtual version of a computer can be accessed remotely via the network or internet. Many users who purchased network-attached storage devices simply for backups will one day find out that they are using a mere fraction of the total available hardware inside their NAS. A great way to take advantage of this hardware available and put it to better use while your NAS is on 24×7 is to create a virtual machine within the NAS and then use it for business use, for personal centralised computer use or even or numerous fun tasks. These can include testing an operating system that you’ve never used before, running a legacy operating system like Windows 98 or XP in order to play old games or software, or even create light Linux VMs to deploy bespoke custom applications and retro games via emulation software like Retroarch and LaunchBox. Virtual machines are now painfully easy to deploy and all of the current modern NAS brands include their own first past the VM software. Take a look below at how Synology and QNAP compare in virtual machine support on their mass.

A particular stand out of this is QNAP with three separate virtual machine tools (Virtualization Station, Linux Station and Container Station) and within each of them, the ability to simply download numerous virtual machine images (from within the software GUI) for near-instant deployment in around 2 clicks of the mouse. Taking care of the entire setup and allowing you to just start having fun or doing business with your new virtual machine.

Use Your NAS to Farm and Plot Chia Coin Cryptocurrency

Although many people would agree that the latest change in the cryptocurrency market towards more environmentally friendly methods is a good thing, there are plenty who would argue that the Chia cryptocurrency wave that is massively affecting the storage market right now is pretty dreadful. The appeal of taking advantage of high-performance SSD and high durability hard drives in order to plot and farm potential Chia coin is constantly growing in popularity and for those users that want to jump on this potentially lucrative bandwagon, many are not even aware that they already have the hardware to do so. As long as you have a NAS that supports multiple hard drives in a RAID storage array and allow the installation of containers, then your NAS can be used in the Chia crypto processes. Executing it is by no means straightforward and although it is easier on some NAS browns than others, it still does require you to have a decent amount of available storage space and a fairly decent array of default resources in the NAS at your disposal. Nevertheless, once you overcome over the initial steeper learning curve, afterwards your NAS is largely self-governed and you don’t have to interfere with the system in the running of Chai based processes. Take a look below at how to set up your chia machine on a QNAP NAS (QNAP UK have a great video on this):

It is also worth highlighting that QNAP even has a third-party app that you can install on your system to marginally make this process even easier. It is available in the unofficial app center, but worth a look:

Use your NAS for Medical Science and Human Innovation

Sometimes users can tend to feel a little guilty that the NAS they use simply for storage and backups is left on for days, weeks or months at a time. There is of course the matter of when your electricity bill arrives, which is arguably quite a small some thanks to modern efficient design, but there is nevertheless the feeling of the environmental impact and the fact that you are leaving a system to run idle between the sporadic times that you need access to its resources. NAS drives are not alone in this (though there is arguably more wasteful resource computer hardware out there) but to combat this there are actually several more altruistic ways in which you can use your NAS to help others and maybe the betterment of society. Currently, there are several different installable apps or deployable containers that you can install and run on your NAS system that (although modest in their power consumption) will allow the idle time that your NAS is left on to be used for a better purpose. From research into deciphering genetic and DNA coding to algorithms breaking and medical research, there are numerous different charitable and positive organisations out there that are able to take advantage of the aggregated extra hardware of hundreds and thousands of different machines remotely in efforts to achieve their goals.

If the idea of donating the unused resources of your NAS for more human benefiting methods interests you, use the links below to find out more (Click Below):

This description contains links to Amazon. These links will take you to some of the products mentioned in today's content. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. Visit the NASCompares Deal Finder to find the best place to buy this device in your region, based on Service, Support and Reputation - Just Search for your NAS Drive in the Box Below

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QNAP NAS Bargains and Deals this Prime Day 2021

Yes, it is that time of year again when those of you who have an Amazon Prime subscription have the chance to score some sweet tech deals during their Prime Day 2021 event. Many users will take this opportunity to finally make the jump from their subscription-based cloud serviced and onto something a little bit more robust and secure, with numerous diverse QNAP NAS systems appearing in the annual sale. Of all the brands that I talked about in network-attached storage, few are quite as diverse as QNAP and with a portfolio that covers everything from NAS and DAS, to network switches and routers now, there is plenty of hardware to choose from and a good few pieces were likely to appear in the Amazon Prime Day sale. Below I have detailed a number of recommended QNAP solutions to watch out for during Prime Day 2021 which will be on sale and this post will be regularly updated with new deals as they appear in the orange box below. So what are you waiting for, go ahead and see if there is anything from QNAP worth your data this Prime Day.

QNAP TS-230 NAS Amazon Prime Day Deal #1

One deal that appeared quite early on Amazon Prime day 2021 was the cost-effective but rather capable TS-230 NAS that arrived on the scene a little over a year ago. This rather compact and modern designed NAS server arrives with a quad-core Realtek processor and DDR4 memory. Also, though the processor is an ARM-based chip, it is still quite capable and allows for support of the bulk of QNAP NAS applications in QTS. Likewise, the DDR4 memory that this system arrives with cannot be upgraded but is 2GB in size, which is spectacularly generous for a NAS at this price point (especially when compared to the recently released Asustor Drivestor 2 and Synology DS220j) even without the Prime Day price drop. If you are looking for a RAID enabled NAS system that is good for backing up your photos, streaming your media, sharing your files and creating a multi-tiered backup strategy – the QNAP TS-230 is by far one of the most affordable solutions available from the brand to provide all of this and an absolute bargain this Prime Day 2021.

QNAP TS-230 NAS Drive – Find Deal Realtek RTD1296 Quad-core 1. 4GHz Fixed 2GB DDR4 RAM 2 x 3. 5-inch SATA 6Gb/s 1x RJ45 LAN 2x USB 2 Yr Warranty

QNAP TS-451D2 NAS Amazon Prime Day Deal #2

This 4-bay NAS solution arrived halfway through 2020 and despite its arguably more modest specification, it does manage to tick a lot of boxes for the modern NAS buyer. Arriving with a dual-core Intel Celeron processor with embedded graphics for transcoding everything from 1080p to 4K, it also arrives with upgradable DDR4 memory and twin gigabit LAN for increasing ethernet connectivity down the line. Alongside this, the system also features KVM support in the form of an available HDMI connection, and USB ports that can be used for external storage, expansions, peripheral devices and network adaptors to increase external bandwidths even further. By far the most affordable RAID 5 enabled NAS from QNAP for the likes of Plex and fully-featured surveillance, the TS-451D2 allows access to the entire range of QNAP applications and services in 2021. Equally, for those looking to experiment with virtualisation, this is by far the most affordable QNAP NAS to allow the VMs in a more modest form, with three separate applications that all allow virtual images to be downloaded directly within just three clicks of an app. It does not try to be the most powerful 4-Bay NAS in QNAP’s portfolio, but it does try to be the best value and if you are still making your first tentative steps into the world of network-attached storage this Amazon Prime Day, the TS-451D2 might well be the NAS for you:

QNAP TS-451D2 NAS Drive – Find Deal Intel Celeron J4025 dual-core 2.0 GHz (burst up to 2.9 GHz) Intel HD Graphics 600 4GB SO-DIMM DDR4 RAM (Max 8GB) 4 x 3.5-inch SATA 6Gb/s 2 x Gigabit Ethernet Port (RJ45) 4 x USB 3.2 Gen 1 1 x HDMI 2.0

QNAP TS-130 NAS Amazon Prime Day Deal #3 (TBC)

Easily one of the best value QNAP NAS drives I have seen in years, when I heard that the TS-130 was going to be available as a deal this Prime day 2021, I had to let users know as soon as I could. Let’s be honest, one-bay solutions have always been something of an anomaly. Brands rarely invest much R&D in the technology of a 1-Bay solution, as the single SATA storage bay will ultimately be a bottleneck to whatever the system can do. However modern generations of 1 HDD servers have arrived on the scene that thanks to intelligent caching internally and improvements in SATA storage media by Seagate and WD, are able to produce much better internal and external performance and the QNAP TS-130 is a great example of this. Much like the Prime Day deal on the QNAP TS-230 NAS mentioned earlier, the TS-130 is an incredibly good value NAS even without a deal on it and although it’s not exactly going to break the speed limit with the hardware it has, it certainly provides an impressive level of support to home users and is one of the best first NAS choices for tentative buyers I have seen in recent years. The QNAP TS-130 plus and a 4TB hard drive will cost you about the same as 100GB of storage on Google drive for 2 years, with the obvious benefits of being considerably larger incapacity and the fact that you own the storage. Add to that the wide range of software that arrives in QTS with your QNAP TS-130 and what you have is a fantastically good value solution and one that I would say is worth more than a glance on Prime day 2021, but also serious consideration to existing NAS users who want to add a layer to the existing backup strategy.

Hot Tips when you Buy a NAS this Prime Day 2021

In order for you to get the very best NAS deals this Prime day, here are some hot tips that I have personally used for the last few years to get the very best deals.

Amazon Warehouse Deals are 20% lower

For those that aren’t aware, Amazon has a whole section of their website that is dedicated to pre-owned and opened items. This includes both NAS, hard drives, SSD and more for your storage. During Amazon Prime day 2021, the discount on these broken-seal items will be increased by an additional 20% and for those looking for an insane bargain, this will be irresistible.

Another tip when buying NAS or Hard Drives from Amazon Warehouse is that although (as they are broken seal/used/returned items) they have a shorter warranty from Amazon, you will almost certainly be able to claim the FULL warranty coverage from Synology, QNAP, WD or Seagate. They just want your serial number and a receipt of purchase – this will not state the amazon reduced warranty.

Amazon Warehouse for different countries can be found below:

Amazon Warehouse USA

Amazon Warehouse UK

Amazon Warehouse Germany

Latest Deals Update and Notifications

If you want to make sure you see the LATEST Prime day deals for NAS (as new ones are added every hour) then I would recommend checking the official Amazon Prime page regularly. It will also include the very latest Lightning Deals too

US Amazon – Amazon Prime Day Page

UK Amazon – Amazon Prime Day Page

Amazon Prime for FREE

The prices listed on Amazon for NAS during the Prime Day event are only available to Prime members. If you are not a member, don’t worry, as you can use the 30-Day free trial to sign up for a Prime, or just pay for 1 month of Prime as a student and get it at 50% off. Then after you finish your purchase, you can cancel your subscription. The other bonus of this is that you will qualify for fast, next day delivery for free. I would recommend however that you do not cancel your subscription until you have received your order and tested your item.

As then you will still be able to take advantage of the fast and free return policy extended to Prime members. This is especially useful when buying NAS Hard Drives and you are worried about broken drives!

Improved Delivery on your NAS Prime Day Deal

It is a well-known fact that Amazon Prime membership includes free next day delivery and Amazon has even upped the stakes by stating that they will be providing the fastest-ever Prime Day delivery of just 14 minutes between the cart and the courier, last year we saw and heard numerous examples of delivery issues with Prime day deals, adding 2-3 days on supposed next-day shipping.

If any of your Amazon Prime delivery dates are not the 24 hours turn around that they promise, then definitely complain to Amazon after you receive your goods (not before) as they will almost certainly have a deluge of customer enquiries after Prime day 2021 and  in an effort to conclude the matter, you might get an additional discount, a gift vouchers or more. Currently, the trending ‘gesture of goodwill’ gift is a free month of Prime membership.

This description contains links to Amazon. These links will take you to some of the products mentioned in today's content. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. Visit the NASCompares Deal Finder to find the best place to buy this device in your region, based on Service, Support and Reputation - Just Search for your NAS Drive in the Box Below

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Synology NAS Bargains and Deals this Prime Day 2021

Yes, it’s back again. Amazon Prime Day has come around again and for those of us with that Amazon Prime Subscription making it a little dent in our bank account each month, this seems reason enough for us to take the plunge and investing in some new IT hardware. A Synology NAS was once a rather niche item, however, in 2021 the ability to have your very own cloud storage for home and business storage has fast become something that can be very affordable, very useful and very appealing. Buying a NAS has many advantages to those of you who want to ensure the pictures of their friends and family are safe from accidental loss, that their records are backed up, that their boxsets are accessible and that their IP cameras are protecting their home from burglars. The growing use of NAS drives by families, students, small offices, shops and professional industries are now at a point that you can really find some great bargains if you shop around. If you are looking for a Synology NAS deal this Amazon Prime day 2021, I recommend that you check out the bargains below. I have even separated them into different uses, so you can be sure to get the right NAS drive for your needs. Be quick though, as Amazon Prime deals can be fantastically brief, often have limited stock or are on strict time limits.

Amazon Prime Day 2021 – Lowest Priced Synology NAS Drives

If you are new to Synology NAS and don’t want to spend much this Amazon Prime Day, then that’s ok. Synology has a great selection of fantastically low price NAS available to buy this Prime Day in 1 hard drive, 2 hard drive and 4 hard drive sizes. Below is the best 3 Budget NAS that Synology features this Prime Day 2021:

Synology DS120J 1-Bay NAS With the release of the new DS120j NAS, when it comes to buying your first network-attached storage device there are several reasons why the Synology range appeals to many. With a diverse range of hardware and storage options across a wide series of uses, as well as an impressive range of first-party applications, Synology has fast become one of the biggest names in the NAS. However, so many users have one tiny problem with most Synology devices, namely the price tag. In terms of overall price, you will find that a Synology NAS typically is around 15 to 20% more expensive than most other brands with the same hardware (we will leave software out of the equation for a bit). Added to this is the fact that most buyers looking to buy their first unit are nervous in spending large sums of money on a largely unexplored area of technology. Luckily Synology has already addressed this problem before with the inclusion of a budget range of devices that serves as a fantastic introduction point to network-attached storage and the Synology Diskstation Manager (DSM) system software.

Synology DS220J 2-Bay NAS The Synology DS220j NAS is not the most powerful NAS drive, or the most fully-featured NAS drive – but the point is that it is not trying to be! Synology has held an exceptionally good reputation in the world of network-attached storage for a decade and if a new NAS buyer wanted to cautiously invest in a new piece of equipment in this area, then despite their modest budget, they will want to get the best they can for their money, from a brand with an established pedigree – THAT is what the Synology DS220j NAS is trying to achieve and for the most part, it completely succeeds! Aside from the memory being a touch light on the ground and the white chassis not being to everyone’s taste, in almost every other regard the DS220j is a great little NAS drive that any first time NAS users, or those making the jump from subscription cloud services like Google Drive and DropBox, are going to enjoy. Just keep an eye on the number of active users and tasks at any given time and you will be on to a winner here.

Synology DS420J 4-Bay NAS Although this device will only cost you around £485 ex.VAT with 4x 2TB hard drives (Seagate Ironwolf NAS Drives) included, it can still perform the bulk of the standard tasks that are available in modern NAS and if you are looking for a universally supported DLNA or backup device, this is the one for you. Though definitely not aimed at the NAS experienced or 2nd-time buyers, or those looking for a solid foundation to build a business around where the customer data is critical. If you are looking for a network-attached storage device to act as a network backup or just want a simple NAS to do basic tasks such as media and protecting the data on your other devices, I recommend the Synology DS420j NAS

Amazon Prime Day 2021 – Synology NAS Drives for PLEX

One of the big appeals of a Synology NAS drive is to use it as a Plex Media Server. Plex (if you didn’t know) is just as slick, fast and beautiful in design as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and HBO Now, but instead of streaming/renting your content, you play the movies, tv shows and music that you own! Having your own Plex Media Server Synology NAS is fantastically appealing and a much more financially appealing choice than paying monthly for content you do not get to own. Below are the best 3 Synology NAS deals this Amazon Prime Day for a Plex Media Server in 2021.

Synology DS920+ 4-Bay NAS The DS920+ NAS is something that Synology should be proud of. It is a great entry into their already impressive range of Diskstation NAS devices. If you are looking for a brand new NAS to consolidate your home media, to support your relative as the ‘IT whizz’ of the family, or move your business away from Google Drives and DropBox’ onto something safer, more scalable and dependable – then the DS920+ has alot to offer you. It gives you a great base to start using the DSM platform, as well as a good means to upgrade your storage internally at a later date (expansions in memory, expansions in storage, expansion in NVMe). If you are an existing DS918+ or DS916+ owner, this might not seem like the jump you were waiting for.

Synology DS1821+ 8-Bay NAS I have always been a long-term fan of the Synology brand as a whole, applauding their recent moves towards Ryzen processors and range-wide adoption of dedicated M2 NVMe cache bays. However, the Synology DS1821+, much like the DS1621+, is a giant leap in many ways and the smallest of stumbles in others. The switch from Atom to Ryzen embedded processor needs to be recognised for both the big jump it is from a brand that typically errs on the side of caution in hardware. Likewise, the inclusion of ECC memory, massive potential-filled PCIe expandability at PCIe 3 x8 and support of popular services like Synology Hybrid RAID (SHR) are certainly a plus. But many buyers will be put off by the continued adoption of 1Gbe as standard and the limitation of those NVMe bays to caching ONLY and not raw storage pools. With a price tag without storage media at around £1,000 (give or take), this is a big ask to pay for something that has lucrative software potential but arguably lesser hardware potential. In short, I do really like the Synology DS1821+ NAS, I just don’t know how long I could be in love with it long-term, as the rest of my network hardware environment embraces faster connectivity.

Synology DS1621xs 6-Bay NAS Whatever way you look at it, you cannot what question the sheer level of hardware value present in the DS1621xs+, especially compared with other similarly priced Synology NAS. In the DS1621xs+, you find one of the best performing internal and external NAS systems in the entire Synology portfolio, as well as providing you with an enterprise rackmount grade solution in a desktop form. I know it seems like a big statement, but this could genuinely be one of the best examples of what Synology provide to business users and certainly reorganises the portfolio for small and medium business users for the better in 2020/2021. Is it perfect, of course not, few things ever can be. But if your budget can extend to it, the Synology DS1621xs+ easily represents the very best of everything that Synology has to offer, while still maintaining a fantastic high standard to third-party software users worldwide.

Amazon Prime Day 2021 – Synology NAS Drives for Photo and Video Editing

Storing your photography or Video Editing archive for post-production on a Synology NAS is something taht has grown in popularity in the last few years. Now in 2021, not only can a Synology NAS be used to store your photos/video, but with upgraded connections to 10Gbe, Thunderbolt 3 to 10Gbe Adapters and link aggregation becoming more affordable, buying a Synology NAS this Prime Day 2021 for your post-production and live editing is easier than ever before Below are three great options for editors looking for a Synology NAS Deal from Amazon today.

Synology DS1520+ 5-Bay NAS Although this is not the first 5 drive NAS that Synology has ever produced, you can clearly see that the brand has seen what was popular in previous generations and cherry-picked those areas to build the DS1520+. Arriving perilously close to the DS920+, in both release date and primary architecture, chances are that the benefits of buying the DS1520+ are far more long term. I do think that the DS1520+ is a great example of Synology hardware and certainly merits the additional spend over said four-bay. What complaints I can make about it still echo those of the DS920+ and although the additional memory is a welcome thing indeed, as is double expandability and 4 LAN ports, this system still seemingly prioritises internal performance over external performance. Surely, the DS1520+ may lead to the odd bit of buyers regret those that purchased the Synology DS920+ a couple of months ago, but the DS1520+ is a system that asks you to invest today on long-term benefits down the line and for some, it might seem a touch unwarranted. Overall though, I like it and would happily recommend the Synology DS1520+ NAS to most users, especially those who want a more balanced and 4K ready solution than those before.

Synology DS1621+ 6-Bay NAS The Synology ‘Plus’ series of devices has long held a reputation for providing mid-range hardware to mid-range business customers. Because of this, the DS1621+ needs to balance a fine line between providing fast and reliable hardware, whilst still maintaining a price point that won’t intimidate the average small-medium business user. In this regard, I think the Synology DS1621+ NAS gets it right, finding an impressive halfway point between these two factors. However, it is important for buyers to understand what they are buying and where the price point for the Synology DS1621+ is being aimed. Although it seemingly lacks some of the multimedia and prosumer features of ‘cheaper’ NAS devices in the Synology portfolio, it doubles down on more business and enterprise-level features in efforts to support that core audience. It’s about getting the right tool for the job and in that area, Synology almost completely succeed. The lack of above gigabit connectivity afforded to a NAS unit at this price point, compared with their competitors, may put some users off, but on the whole, you are getting good performance and excellent value on this combined hardware and software solution with some excellent scalability.

Synology DS3617xsII 12-Bay NAS Meet the 12-bay desktop NAS that allows instant deployment with scalability up to 36 drives, delivering outstanding 2,358MB/s sequential throughput reading. DS3617xs is certified for VMware, Citrix, Hyper-V, and OpenStack, ready to bring superior agility and efficiency to businesses. Synology DS3617xs is backed with Synology’s 5-year limited warranty. With technical support and hardware replacement service, the 5-year warranty maximizes your enterprises’ return on investment.

Amazon Prime Day 2021 – Synology NAS Drives for 4K Video

4K TVs and High Definition media production have now reached a point that buying the right Synology NAS for storing, watching and adapting 4K Ulta High definition media in 2021 can be alot of work. True 4K media arrives in HUGE file sizes and you will need a more powerful Synology NAS drive to handle this kind of media all the way from the hard drives inside, to pumping it out to your 4K Display. Luckily a few of the more powerful Synology NAS solutions are on offer this Amazon Prime Day and if you are lucky enough to get a deal on one of these three, you will have a great NAS to enjoy 4K in your home or business environment.

Synology DS920+ 4-Bay NAS The DS920+ NAS is something that Synology should be proud of. It is a great entry into their already impressive range of Diskstation NAS devices. If you are looking for a brand new NAS to consolidate your home media, to support your relative as the ‘IT whizz’ of the family, or move your business away from Google Drives and DropBox’ onto something safer, more scalable and dependable – then the DS920+ has alot to offer you. It gives you a great base to start using the DSM platform, as well as a good means to upgrade your storage internally at a later date (expansions in memory, expansions in storage, expansion in NVMe). If you are an existing DS918+ or DS916+ owner, this might not seem like the jump you were waiting for. There are always areas of improvement, the USB ports, the 1Gbe, that 1 memory slot – but these are things that Synology no doubt feel should be pushed into a higher price/hardware bracket – Allowing the DS920+ Price to be as close to its predecessors it can be. Whether you agree or disagree, I think that we can agree that this NAS is still giving you alot of bang for your buck in 2020.

Synology DS1520+ 5-Bay NAS The DS1520+ NAS is something that Synology should be proud of. It is a great entry into their already impressive range of Diskstation NAS devices. If you are looking for a brand new NAS to consolidate your home media, to support your relative as the ‘IT whizz’ of the family, or move your business away from Google Drives and DropBox’ onto something safer, more scalable and dependable – then the DS920+ has alot to offer you. It gives you a great base to start using the DSM platform, as well as a good means to upgrade your storage internally at a later date (expansions in memory, expansions in storage, expansion in NVMe). If you are an existing DS920+ or DS1019+ owner, this might not seem like the jump you were waiting for. Although this is not the first 5 drive NAS that Synology has ever produced, you can clearly see that the brand has seen what was popular in previous generations and cherry-picked those areas to build the DS1520+. Arriving perilously close to the DS920+, in both release date and primary architecture, chances are that the benefits of buying the DS1520+ are far more long term

Synology DS1621xs 12-Bay NAS It is fair to say that the Synology DS1621xs+ NAS makes a bold statement in what it is bringing to the table. Synology has been a brand that up until a few years ago traded significantly more on its software than it does on its hardware. Devices like the DS1621xs+ go a long way to dispel this myth in 2020/2021 and what we find here is an exceptionally well-equipped desktop NAS system. Obviously, at this price tag, you would expect it to deliver a lot and as a combined hardware and software package, the DS1621xs+ certainly achieved this. What issues you can make with the hardware are of the DS1621xs+ are more a question of the brands own decisions on what users want in storage right now. Small factors such as the NVMe bays not being accessible for RAW storage, the lack of Synology hybrid RAID and the use of CPU seen in 2017 and 2018 release hardware might put some potential buyers on the fence. But ultimately if you’ve committed to a desktop Synology solution because of DSM, the brand’s high reputation and that spec sheet – you will genuinely struggle to find a more powerful and equipped desktop NAS from this company right now.

Amazon Prime Day 2021 – Synology NAS Drives for Business

Businesses in 2021 are producing so, SO MUCH DATA! Customer information, Web site images, legal documents, online marketing, internal communication, surveillance and security – it all adds up! With the majority of this data being highly confidential, copywrite or both, it is imperative that a business has a secure place to keep this data. Synology NAS drives have been used in business for a number of years and Diskstation Manager (DSM) arrives with every NAS, packed with applications and licenses for those enterprise applications (Synology Active Backup, Surveillance, Virtual Machine Manager, Drive, Office, Chat, Calendar, mail and more). Below are the best Synology NAS drive deals this Amazon Prime day for those who want to invest in a business class server to protect their data and ensure high productivity in 2021.

Synology DS1821+ 8-Bay NAS DS1821+ is an 8-bay desktop NAS providing superior performance with great expandability, allowing for seamless expansion and upgradability to satisfy your growing business needs. DS1819+ comes with four Gigabit Ethernet ports and one PCIe expansion slot, providing great configuration flexibility, thereby satisfying your intensive workload demands. Synology Office is a collaboration package combining the convenience and usability of public clouds with the data privacy and security guaranteed by private clouds. It allows you to work seamlessly together on documents and spreadsheets in a protected environment

Synology RS1619xs 4-Bay NAS RS1619xs+ is a high-performance and scalable 1U rackmount NAS designed with upgradable memory and M.2 SSD cache configuration to meet the needs of modern businesses that require a flexible, reliable, and efficient storage solution. Synology’s 5-year limited warranty provides hardware replacement and technical support via email and telephone services, maximizing your enterprises’ return on investment.  Synology iSCSI storage supports most virtualization solutions including VMware vSphere, Microsoft Hyper-V, Citrix Xen Server, and OpenStack Cinder, to enhance work efficiency. Create and manage virtual machines running multiple operating systems such as Windows, Linux, and DSM using Virtual Machine Manager.

Synology RS2421RP+ 12-Bay NAS It is reasonable to say that when it comes to having a huge storage array, competent hardware and business class software, that the Synology RS2421RP+ does deliver on a number of its promises. Indeed, despite the huge similarity in internal hardware between the RS2421RP+ and other recent rackmount releases in 2021, the RS2421RP+ manages to still stand out with its unparalleled level of storage against the majority of solutions in the Synology portfolio. The price tag, edging closer to a number of Xeon powered solutions, may seem a touch high for some and given the difference between this 16-bay and the £1200+ 12-bay being relatively small – that price tag does seem a tad overly ambitious. That said, much like other rackstation NAS solutions of late, the jump from Intel Atom C3538 to embedded Ryzen V1500B was long overdue and although may seem fairly predictable and pedestrian now in, still remains a firm favourite. If the software and services of Synology Diskstation Manager appeal to you, you need storage in the hundreds of terabytes and you need a solution that is both scalable and centralised, you would be hard pushed to find a better solution from Synology right now without spending £5,000-10,000 without drives.

Hot Tips when you Buy a NAS this Prime Day 2021

In order for you to get the very best NAS deals this prime day, here are some hot tips that I have personally used for the last few years to get the very best deals.

Amazon Warehouse Deals are 20% lower

For those that aren’t aware, Amazon has a whole section of their website that is dedicated to pre-owned and opened items. This includes both NAS, hard drives, SSD and more for your storage. During Amazon Prime day 2021, the discount on these broken-seal items will be increased by an additional 20% and for those looking for an insane bargain, this will be irresistible.

Another tip when buying NAS or Hard Drives from Amazon Warehouse is that although (as they are broken seal/used/returned items) they have a shorter warranty from Amazon, you will almost certainly be able to claim the FULL warranty coverage from Synology, QNAP, WD or Seagate. They just want your serial number and a receipt of purchase – this will not state the amazon reduced warranty.

Amazon Warehouse for different countries can be found below:

Amazon Warehouse USA

Amazon Warehouse UK

Amazon Warehouse Germany

Latest Deals Update and Notifications

If you want to make sure you see the LATEST prime day deals for NAS (as new ones are added every hour) then I would recommend checking the official Amazon Prime page regularly. It will also include the very latest Lightning Deals too

US Amazon – Amazon Prime Day Page

UK Amazon – Amazon Prime Day Page

Amazon Prime for FREE

The prices listed on Amazon for NAS during the Prime Day event are only available to Prime members. If you are not a member, don’t worry, as you can use the 30-Day free trial to sign up for a Prime, or just pay for 1 month of Prime as a student and get it at 50% off. Then after you finish your purchase, you can cancel your subscription. The other bonus of this is that you will qualify for fast, next day delivery for free. I would recommend however that you do not cancel your subscription until you have received your order and tested your item.

As then you will still be able to take advantage of the fast and free return policy extended to Prime members. This is especially useful when buying NAS Hard Drives and you are worried about broken drives!

Improved Delivery on your NAS Prime Day Deal

It is a well-known fact that Amazon Prime membership includes free next day delivery and Amazon has even upped the stakes by stating that they will be providing the fastest-ever Prime Day delivery of just 14 minutes between the cart and the courier, last year we saw and heard numerous examples of delivery issues with prime day deals, adding 2-3 days on supposed next-day shipping.

If any of your Amazon Prime delivery dates are not the 24 hours turn around that they promise, then definitely complain to Amazon after you receive your goods (not before) as they will almost certainly have a deluge of customer enquiries after prime day 2021 and  in an effort to conclude the matter, you might get an additional discount, a gift vouchers or more. Currently, the trending ‘gesture of goodwill’ gift is a free month of Prime membership.

This description contains links to Amazon. These links will take you to some of the products mentioned in today's content. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. Visit the NASCompares Deal Finder to find the best place to buy this device in your region, based on Service, Support and Reputation - Just Search for your NAS Drive in the Box Below

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How Well Does Synology DSM 7.0 Run on Different NAS Drives

It’s been a long road and we’ve waited close to 3 years since its initial reveal, but the release of the DSM 7 RC, the latest generation of Synology software and services, is here and Synology users new and old are getting ready to upgrade to significantly improved software platform. Unlike previous firmware updates that predominantly focused on improvements in stability, tweaks to security and adding features to existing services, this new Synology firmware update is genuinely massive by comparison (a tad like moving from Windows 8 to Windows 10). Of course, even though the software will be near enough the same for all Synology users, the extent to which it will perform, the applications available and how well DSM 7.0 runs on your NAS will depend a great deal on the NAS system you own and it’s hardware. One look at the download section from Synology reveals that the software is available across most NAS servers, big and small, released in the last 6 or 7 years, which is quite impressive given that even the lowly DS115j support it. So today I am selecting many of the latest and most popular NAS solutions from Synology and testing the extent to which they use DSM 7. From 1-bay dual-core ARM to Quad-Core 8-bay Ryzen, there is a huge degree of options to go through, so let’s get started.

How DSM 7.0 was Tested for Each Synology NAS

In order to make sure that each NAS was tested with a fair degree of comparison, each NAS tested below is using the same version of DSM 7.0 (Version: 7.0-41882). Additionally, each system used the exact same test files and were distributed throughout the system indexes identically. The following parameters for tests were measured:

• The speed with which the user’s login was verified and access to the DSM 7 GUI was granted
• How responsive the desktop GUI was and how quickly the system allows access & configuration via the control panel
• How quick and responsive file management in file station was conducted
• The performance and responsiveness of photo media in Synology photos
• The indexing and playback speed of Synology Audio Station media
• The playback and responsiveness of videos in the Synology Video Station Player (plus transcoding where supported)
• Access and responsiveness of two live camera feeds in Synology Surveillance Station
• Performance and Responsiveness from the NAS in DSM 7.0 when most/all of the above services and actions are conducted simultaneously

So, as you see, a fairly standard range of software and services to measure how different NAS systems from Synology handle and operate DSM 7. As tempting as it might be too to measure DSM using virtualisation or ISCSI benchmarks, the range of different capacity NAS, CPU choices and network connectivity in all these systems make any comparison between them largely incomparable. I consider the above services an acceptable benchmark for most home and prosumer users who want to take advantage of the DSM 7.0 and are curious about whether to upgrade or not. Let’s get started.

Synology DSM 7.0 on the DS120j – Should You Upgrade?

The Synology DS120j is a remarkably modest NAS system in size, capacity and internal hardware. This is precisely why it really surprised me when I saw that it too would feature a DSM 7.0 upgrade.

It performed surprisingly well and below you can find the video detailing how well it performed:

Synology DSM 7.0 on the DS220j – Should You Upgrade?

By far the most popular cost-effective entry in the Synology desktop portfolio is the DS220j 2 bay NAS box. Arriving with the popular Realtek CPU, but just 512MB of DDR4 memory, it is a fairly low powered server drive and despite the clear need for Synology to look after this popular tier of affordable solutions, even here I am surprised that it supports DSM 7.0 – but in a good way. 

Indeed, Synology themselves do highlight that DSM 7.0 operates at its best when using at least 1GB of memory to ensure that all of the system services operate to the best of their ability, which is double that of the default memory in the DS220j. Nevertheless, despite a few limitations in Synology Photos and the system slowing down a pinch when simultaneously using surveillance cameras, it performed surprisingly well and you can find out more below in the video.

Synology DSM 7.0 on the DS220+ – Should You Upgrade?

For many users, the Synology DS220+ is the entrance point for those who are looking at multimedia use or who were looking to migrate away from Cloud services like Google Drive, Google Photos and Dropbox, in favour of their own private cloud that is still rather capable. The DS220+ is also the most affordable solution in the brand’s current modern releases to feature an Intel Celeron processor and DSM 7.0 is definitely able to take advantage of this.

Although there are numerous individual apps and services built into Synology DSM 7 that are available on pretty much any NAS, there are several more SMB (Small-Medium Business) products on the platform that require an x86 64-bit processor minimum. Services and features such as Virtualisation and more enterprise level backups from Active Backup Suite immediately become available at this tier of Synology NAS hardware. Unsurprisingly, DSM 7 ran well on the DS220+, multitasking beautifully even with the default 2GB memory. Likewise, the Synology Photos application performed very well, even when it was live recording from two IP cameras in surveillance, transcoding a 1080p video file, playing back an audio file and duplicating 50GB of data – all at the same time. For more information on how the DS220+ performed with DSM 7, watch the video below.

Synology DSM 7.0 on the DS920+ – Should You Upgrade?

The Synology DS920+ 4 bay NAS system is BY FAR the most popular desktop NAS in the brand’s portfolio. This NAS is also considered the last genuinely prosumer grade solution in the portfolio, before things get a little bit more business and enterprise at the higher tiers. The system hardware on offer in the DS920+ give you access to the entire range of Synology software and services available in DSM 7.0 that you find in all other NAS systems in this article so far, but also so provides additional information, settings and functionality in the storage manager. 

DSM 7 alongside general improvements in access time and responsiveness of the system compared with DSM 6.2, also makes vast improvements in caching in a number of ways. From the general intelligent memory utilisation of the system and in the case of the DS920+, its 4GB of memory and how DSM 7.0 takes advantage of the NVMe slots. DSM 7 should run perfectly on a Synology DS920+ and in our comparison testing, this was well established with the system performing all tasks incredibly quickly and simultaneously with little to no aggressive increase in hardware resource consumption. As before, I recommend you check out the video below for more information on just how the DS920+ performed with DSM 7.0:

Synology DSM 7.0 on the DS1621+ & DS1821+ – Should You Upgrade?

Synology introduced the AMD embedded Ryzen processor to their range of SMB solutions in late 2020 and despite the development cycle of DSM 7.0 taking several years prior to this, it is completely supported on these newer gen CPU devices. The V1500B processor is found on the DS1621+ and DS1821+, among many others in the last year or so and given the business class services and and office collaboration tools included in DSM 7.0, its performance on these new small-medium business class servers is remarkably important for Synology’s continued growth into pre-existing SaaS integrated environments (whether to replace or exist in parallel as bare-metal)

Although only the 6 bay NAS was tested in the video below, it shares a near identical hardware architecture to the 8-bay desktop alternative and several rackmount Ryzen powered rackstation solutions. This was the best example of DSM 7 that I tested in the videos and it was easily the least resource impacted NAS of all. Although CPU utilisation spiked briefly during video playback, this was largely due to the non-embedded graphics CPU of this system than anything to do with a DSM7. Below is the video of how how this NAS handled DSM 7.

Choosing A Synology NAS – Need More Help?

So, there you – DSM 7.0 is currently in Release Candidate with a full and stable release coming VERY soon. Stay tuned for more extensive content on Synology DSM 7.0 when the full official release lands and if you need any further assistance on whether to upgrade, or if you still need help choosing the NAS solution for your needs, use the NASCompares free advice section below. It is completely free, is not a subscription service and is manned by real humans (two humans actually, me and Eddie). We promise impartial advice, recommendations based on your hardware and budget, and although it might take an extra day or two to answer your question, we will get back to you.

Learn More About Multiple Backup Strategies on your Synology NAS in the Guide Below:

This description contains links to Amazon. These links will take you to some of the products mentioned in today's content. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. Visit the NASCompares Deal Finder to find the best place to buy this device in your region, based on Service, Support and Reputation - Just Search for your NAS Drive in the Box Below

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Synology DSM vs QNAP QTS NAS Software & Hardware Comparison

We continue with our comparison of the two biggest brands in Network Attached Storage (NAS) and after comparing how each brand presents their platform, how they differ in releases and hardware, then finally the web-based GUI. Today we are going to cover how Synology and QNAP NAS systems storage/configure your data storage, how they can be accessed via mobile devices and how each brand handles multimedia, shares files and presents that information in their range of applications. Both brands have evolved MASSIVELY in these areas as the hardware and software demands of NAS buyers have increased, with Synology once again choosing the streamlined, user-friendly and premium feeling (if a little limiting at times) approach, whilst QNAP is taking the customizable, configurable and wider supporting (if occasionally confusing for newbies) approach. So, let’s crack on with Part 2 in this Synology DSM and QNAP QTS NAS comparison.

If you missed part I or Part III, you can find them here below:

LINK to PART I – The GUI, Control, Customization and Brand Focus

LINK to PART III – Backup Tools, Surveillance, Virtual Machines and Conclusion

Synology DSM vs QNAP QTS NAS Software – Mobile Based GUI and Apps

Both Synology and QNAP have a wide range of mobile applications for iOS and Android – this should not be at all surprising! However, we are not just talking backup tools to make sure you do not lose your photos (although both have that backup tools, sync tools and file management tools that make mobile phone-based NAS access exceptionally easy and intuative), as both Synology and QNAP have applications that allow you to have tailored access to the NAS system depending on your access needs at the time (i.e a app specifically for photos, music, video, surveillance etc. The most popular apps are:

NAS Access Type
System Management	DS FInder	QManager
NAS File Management	DS File & Synology Drive	QFile, QSirch
General Phone Backup	DS Cloud	QSync Pro
Photography	DS Photo, Moments & Synology Photos	QPhotos & QuMagie
Video Streaming	DS Video	QVideo
Music Streaming	DS Audio	QMusic
Surveillance	DS CAM & Synology LiveCam	QVR Pro Client,
Downloading	DS Get	QGet
eMail	Synology MailPlus	QMail Client
Notes & To-Do Lists	DS Note	QNotes3
NAS-VPN Manager	Synology VPN Plus	QVPN
NAS Router Manager App	DS Router	QuRouter
Other/Misc	Synology Secure Sign in – Login 2 Step Authentication Synology Chat – Synology Chat Service App	OceanTV Client – Karaoke Mobile Client QContacts – Contacts and Connections Database QRemote – HDMI enabled NAS Remote Control DJ2 Client – Livestream NAS Manager QMiix – Alternative to IFTTT client KoiCast & Koi Talk – Video and Internet Call Client

Over the years, I have reviewed the majority of the core applications for system management, file management, backups, photos, music and video. Here are how each one faired and each video should give you a better understanding of how Synology DSM and QNAP QTS allow you to access your NAS drive o nthe go via your mobile in a much for data relevant way (click the video title to open in a new window on Youtube or watch them here in the article)

NAS Control and Accessibility	NAS Control and Accessibility
NAS File Management	NAS File Management
Photography	Photography
Video Media	Video Media
Music Media	Music Media
Surveillance and Camera Access	Surveillance and Camera Access

Even at a casual glance, it is clear that the Synology applications are more uniform across the board and have a greater degree of similarity to 3rd party applications (eg Synology Drive and Google Drive, Synology DS Video and Plex, Synology Chat and Skype), whereas QNAP applications (more recent apps are similar) seem to have noticeable differences in GUI and layouts that then require a pinch more time to learn individually. However, the QNAP mobile applications are almost all more customizable and allow a greater degree of control and customization – both in the individual applications and how they allow the end-user to control the NAS too. Despite the pros and cons in how each NAS brand has developed and executed their mobile applications, I would say the BIGGEST deciding factor for the end-user will be which platform they will predominantly access the NAS with – Desktop users will find the QNAP platform more geared towards desktop access, whereas the Synology Platform has spent more time bringing the mobile and desktop application experiences to the same standard and an exclusively mobile-based user or even one who will access 25% vs 75% mobile vs desktop will find the Synology platform considerably more intuitive and smooth.

Why Choose Synology NAS? – Intuative and Streamlined UI

Why Choose QNAP NAS? – More Apps and Greater Control

Synology DSM vs QNAP QTS NAS Software – Storage Options and GUI

Synology and QNAP are both storage targeted platforms. Sure, they have different ways of displaying that information, different ideas on how the user can control and access it and even differ pretty wildly on the whilst storage trends they choose to support in their ecosystems BUT they are both going to give you a remarkably evolved and capable network storage system for keeping your data safe. Much like the apps, GUI and access discussed up to this point, Synology and QNAP have shaped the storage options and configurations on their system very different in recent years and now have several unique and brand-specific factors to their systems that might well make the decision between them 10x easier.

Both QNAP QTS and Synology DSM NAS Drives Provide the following Storage Features:

• Both NAS Systems Support Snapshots
• Both NAS Systems Support Rsync, RTRR and Multi-Platform Backup Setups (Cloud, USB, NAS, etc)
• Both NAS Systems Support Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID) on all hardware (Brand Differences though)
• Both NAS Systems Can Connect to the Cloud
• Both NAS Systems Support USB Drives
• Both NAS Systems have Varied Expansion Options (Brand Differences though)
• Both NAS Systems support SSD Caching (Brand Differences though)
• Both NAS Systems Support SATA Hard Drives up to 18TB and 20TB
• Both NAS Systems SATA SSDD Storage Pools
• Both NAS Systems Support EXT4 amoung others  (Brand Differences though)
• Both NAS Systems support RAID Hot Spare Automation, which is when a spare HDD/SSD is initialized by the system but is unavailable for storage. Then, in the event of a drive failure, the system will automatically integrate the spare drive into the RAID for rebuilding

So, regardless of whether you buy Synology or QNAP NAS, you have a great deal of storage support available. However, there are a large number of brand SPECIFIC storage services and options that ONLY one brand of the two have. Let’s start with the Synology NAS DSM exclusive options.

Synology NAS, its Services and Features Provide the Following:

• Synology Hybrid RAID – SHR is the fluid RAID system that allows you to mix the drive sizes and types in order to get the best possible capacity and storage as you upgrade the drives in the system lifespan
• Synology systems for the most part (CPU and Memory dependant) arrive with BTRFS that is a file system that supports lower resource-consuming background snapshots, file self-healing and faster-shared folder cloning (other benefits too)
• Synology C2 – Synology has its own first-party cloud service that can be synced with your Synology NAS with HybridShare (DSM 7.0) and allows a disaster recovery backup (subscription-based)
• Synology Active Insight (Subscription Based) allows intelligent storage health and Synology monitoring send to admins and appropriate users with recommendations on resolution, repair or replacement
• Synology has its own range of HDDs and SSDs in the HAT5300 (SATA 3.5″ hard drives), SAT5200 (2.5″ SATA SSDs) and SNV3400/SNV3500 (M.2 NVMe SSDs) that feature east firmware updates, high endurance. Some recent 2021 systems have compatibility largely reduced to just the Synology HDD range

So, as you can see, a large range of first-party prioritize storage that is still quite a capable list of support services, formats and hardware in terms of storage in a Synology NAS. None fo the above is currently supported/available from QNAP NAS, however, they have their own range of very unique and QNAP-ONLY available storage options. They are as follows.

QNAP NAS, its Services and Features Provide the Following:

• QNAP NAS QTS and QuTS allow users to use NVMe SSDs for storage pools and volumes
• QNAP NAS QuTS here allows ZFS as a file system choice which includes triple parity RAID, RAID 5/6 builds that take minutes, RAID ReSilvering, inline data compression (space saver) and inline data deduplication (saves 1 copy of files that are located in multiple locations in realtime)
• QNAP Hybrid Mount and vJBOD allows you to connect many, many cloud storage providers (Synology HybridShare only allows Synology C2 cloud at the time of  writing)
• QNAP allows installation of HDDs/SSDs from Seagate, WD, Toshiba, etc on ALL of their NAS systems
• QNAP has DA Drive Analyzer for real-time storage hardware health reports and automated background RAID repair with connected media drives (still in beta at the time of writing)
• QNAP NAS QTS allows QTier, which allows the user to create a single storage pool that is comprised of HDD+SSD media and then the NAS system learns which files are accessed most and moves them to the fast storage media internally (not the same as caching with copies the files and more suitable to smaller files)
• Much, MUCH larger degree of storage expansion chassis on QNAP, both in terms of the number of NAS hardware systems that CAN be expanded AND the range of expansions that arrive with USB 3.2 Gen 1, USB Gen 2 and a range of external SAS based connections that can go up to 5,000MBs+ externally

The QNAP Storage options unsurprisingly are a great deal more open (wider HDD/SSD support on all their hardware, wider cloud support on their cloud gateway software, expansion chassis and connections), however, Synology and its focus on the 1st party R&D results in stronger and more evolved ‘in house’ results (such as Synology Hybrid RAID, their own range of media that has unique options, btrfs integration on all apps, etc).

Why Choose Synology NAS? – BTRFS, Synology Hybrid RAID and Ease of Use

Why Choose QNAP NAS? – ZFS, Better Encryption Options, HybridMount/vJBOD and Better Expansion Options

Synology DSM vs QNAP QTS NAS Software – Multimedia

Alot of home user and Prosumer users will look at purchasing a NAS for their multimedia collection. With digital media being largely mainstream and the decline of optical media in the last 15-20years (with the ease of transferring your DVDs and Blurays being incredibly easy and affordable), the appeal of buying a NAS as your very own ‘Netflix’ is pretty appealing! Unsurprisingly both Synology and QNAP have evolved a great deal in the area of multimedia streaming and sharing in recent years and although the core business of ‘playing files on your DLNA Smart TV, Amazon firestick, phone, home cinema, etc) is technically very similar on both QNAP and Synology, each brand has definitely gone their own way with regard to presentation, 3rd party hardware support and how photos/music/video are handled internally. I will also add that both Synology and QNAP support Plex Media Server, Emby, Jellyfin, iTunes and traditional file/folder level DLNA media streaming to a largely identical degree (with a few differences simply down to the hardware in each NAS release). Below are guides on both Synolgoy and QNAP and how they compare in terms of photography, music playback in the GUI and video streaming.

First, here is how Synology DSM and QNAP QTS compare with Photography:

Next, this is how Synology DSM and QNAP QTS compare with Music and the browser GUI:

Finally, we have how both Synology DSM and QNAP QTS compare with Video Media in the GUI:

There is no avoiding that QNAP (for the most part) have a more ‘meat and potatoes’ user interface when it comes to music and video media, which is something that Synology have really poured money into with Synolgoy Video Station and Audio Station being comparable to Freemium services like plex Media Server and Whatsapp (thanks to enhanced metadata scraping and 1st party apps on Amazon FireTV and Alexa voice support in DS Video and DS Audio). In Photography, I think QNAP overall do a better job with their QuMagie platform allowing a greater degree of control, recognition, file/folder access and keeping it as 2 separate apps – at least at the time of writing!). Likewise, the multimedia console application on QNAP QTS is an absolute winner for me as the means to completely control ALL multimedia indexing, sharing and transcoding from a single portal point. It comes down to simply what kind of media you plan on watching, what device you want to watch it on and how much customization you plan on making!

Why Choose Synology NAS? – Video Station, DS Audio Alexa Voice Support – Choose for Amazon FireTV, Alexa and ‘Netflix-level’ video streaming

Why Choose QNAP NAS? – Multimedia Console control is Unparalleled, QuMagie provides better AI recognition and Custom Directories as standard. Also, H.265/HEVC 10bitplayback better with CAYIN player option

Click Below for PART III – Backup Tools, Surveillance, Virtual Machines and Conclusion

Why Choose Synology NAS? Better Surveillance Software More Intuative and User-Friendly Design EXCELLENT 1st Party Alternative Apps to Existing 3rd Party Tools (including Synology Chat, Mail, Office, Drive, Calendar and more) Greater Support/Migration with VMware & Hyper-V Better Redundant System Options (SHA) Greater Support on Amazon Home Hardware Synology Hybrid RAID for flexibility in Media Upgrades BTRFS on Most systems Longer Warranty Available on More Systems First Party SSD and HDDs Available Typically Quieter Operation If you are thinking of buying a Synology NAS, please use the links below

Why Choose QNAP NAS? Better 1st Party/Hosting Virtual Machines Better Plex Media Server NAS More Adaptable and Customizable Wider Support of Surveillance using AI Recognition EXCELLENT KVM Support More Camera Licenses ZFS or EXT4 File System Choice on many systems now 2.5Gbe Network Interfaces at 1Gbe Cost Allows NVMe SSD Storage Pools and Volumes Support of QTier for intelligent Data storage for Access Greater 1st and 3rd Party Hardware Upgrade Compatibility (including Graphics Cards, WiFi 6 and Thunderbolt) If you are thinking of buying a QNAP NAS, please use the links below

Need More Help Choosing Between Synology or QNAP NAS?

Choosing the right data storage solution for your needs can be very intimidating and it’s never too late to ask for help. With options ranging from NAS to DAS, Thunderbolt to SAS and connecting everything up so you can access all your lovely data at the touch of a button can be a lot simpler than you think. If you want some tips, guidance or help with everything from compatibility to suitability of a solution for you, why not drop me a message below and I will get back to you as soon as possible with what you should go for, its suitability and the best place to get it. This service is designed without profit in mind and in order to help you with your data storage needs, so I will try to answer your questions as soon as possible.

This description contains links to Amazon. These links will take you to some of the products mentioned in today's content. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. Visit the NASCompares Deal Finder to find the best place to buy this device in your region, based on Service, Support and Reputation - Just Search for your NAS Drive in the Box Below

SEARCH IN THE BOX BELOW FOR NAS DEALS

Need Advice on Data Storage from an Expert?

Plex Vs Synology Video Station on a NAS in 2021/2022

One of the most popular reasons that users choose to buy a network-attached storage (NAS) device is for use as a media server. The appeal is pretty clear. With most users now owning decades of media (either in digital form or ripped from optical media at home), the ability to enjoy these box sets and Movies on the latest devices can be complicated. Despite this, streaming all of your multimedia from a NAS to all of your TVs, phones, tablets and other devices are growing increasingly popular and a lot of this is thanks to the increasing affordability of NAS from brands like Synology and QNAP and free software from companies like Plex and Emby. The most popular NAS for home media tends to be Synology, with its support of numerous media server applications and its own premium video service app too. This combined with the oversaturation of third-party online streaming services that ask you to pay a subscription (such as Netflix) with little control or right to ownership of the media you watch means that many users just want to enjoy their own unique media collections. So now that a lot of users are choosing to switch from the likes of Netflix and Prime Video towards an in-house media server, the next question is which piece of software they should choose. The most popular private media server app right now worldwide to counter the likes of Netflix is Plex Media Server, software available in host and client form that allows you to transform your media collection into a glossy, slick and informative UI that genuinely rivals big online streaming platforms. Synology on the other hand would likely prefer users to stick with their own fully-featured media server application, Synology Video Station, which they have invested well in and developed to an impressive standard that easily rivals that of Plex. So today I want to compare these two media server choices and help you decide which one is the ideal media server choice for you.

Important – ‘Free’ Vs Paid Media Server Services on a NAS

Before going any further, it is worth addressing the elephant in the room, namely that a number of key media server services that are included with Plex Media Server are locked behind a paid subscription service known as Plex Pass. Whereas Synology Video Station is an application that is included with your NAS on Day 1 at no additional cost. All that said, neither service can technically be called free, as both still require you to purchase a Synology NAS. Additionally, it is still worth highlighting that some more recent Innovations in Plex online services and utilisation of hardware transcoding (the ability to use the CPU’s embedded graphics or an available graphics card to adapt files on the fly to make them better suited to a client) is not available on the free tier of Plex, but ARE available by default in the Synology Video Station application. You can still utilise software transcoding on Plex for free and this will deal with a large degree of transcoding requirements, but the fact that you have to pay extra within the Plex app to utilise the hardware already available on your NAS is something a number of users find difficult to accept. Throughout this article, any feature that is only available as a paid Plex Pass feature will be highlighted as such.

Plex VS Synology Video Station – Installation and First Time Setup

Installation of either the Synology Video Station or Plex Media Server application is near enough identical. Both are readily available in the Synology app centre and can be installed within two clicks. Both media server applications do not require your multimedia files to be stored in a pre-designated/directory location and the sources for TV shows, Movies and more can be scanned and indexed by each media server application after they are installed. In fact, the initial installation on both is incredibly straightforward and there is really only one main difference between them. That difference is that whereas the Synology Media application uses your original NAS login credentials, Plex will require you to set up an account with them online in order to use the software, even if you only intend to use your Plex Media Server on the local network/DLNA. As Plex is a third-party application, this is a little understandable if a tiny bit annoying for some. 

It is also worth highlighting that both media server applications will receive regular updates during their lifespan and this is treated slightly differently too. As Synology Video Station is a first-party app, as soon as an update is available, you will be notified immediately in the app centre and even have the opportunity to apply these firmware updates automatically. Plex updates on the other hand will almost always need to be installed manually, as the available default Plex application on the Synology app centre is updated considerably less frequently and as soon as you setup Plex for the first time, it will ALWAYS inform you that there is a new update available straight away. The Plex Media Server application itself will tell you when an update is available regularly at the top right and in the settings menu, but requires you to download the latest Plex server update to a connected computer and then you need to upload this update directly to the Synology NAS app centre manually. It is only a small inconvenience really, but does mean that regular updates on your media server of choice are handled more easily and with likely more frequency on Synology Video Station rather than Plex.

Plex VS Synology Video Station – GUI, Media Support and Browsing

The user interface of Synology Video Station and Plex Media Server are quite similar when viewed on a client device, such as a console, TV and Amazon Fire TV stick. With all of your available Movies and Boxsets clearly shown and the metadata collected by each media server application creating a great user interface for your connected users. 

However the back end/server view of each media server application is considerably different and where the Synology Video Station application is designed exclusively around video media options and configuration (as Synology have a wide range of applications for different Media types and general NAS server maintenance already available), Plex, on the other hand, is a far better equipped tool for a complete server, with the bulk of server maintenance and customisation options built into the single Plex GUI. If you are something of an IT novice, the wide range of options that Plex Media Server throws at you for system maintenance can be a touch intimidating and because Plex is designed around many different kinds of media support (something we will touch on later) it’s configuration needs to be noticeably broader than the video-centric options in the Synology official video application. These additional options, if you take the time to go through them, will definitely lead to a better media server user experience and a far better multimedia streaming system overall, it’s just a question of how bespoke and how elaborate you want your media server to be.

As mentioned, there is a clear difference in the multimedia types supported in Plex Media Server or Synology Video Station. In terms of handling of video Media, they are near enough identical with some exceptions with regard to specialist audio handling for certain dense Media. However, much like the back-end server control mentioned earlier, Synology Video Station only handles video media and relies on alternative applications such as Synology moments, photo station, Synology photos, audio station and download station to play and obtain other kinds of multimedia. Plex Media Server is a much more diverse multimedia tool with support of your photo collections (AI-assisted too), album collections, podcast streaming and several online video streaming services included. In both cases, it makes a lot of sense why they are designed this way, but some users may prefer their media server to be more of a Swiss army knife and others may want their video streaming, music streaming and photo streaming to be different services for different devices and clients. Neither Plex or Synology Video Station really gain any advantage here but simply show how they are different in their architecture. If you want simplicity in the user interface, go with Synology Video Station. If you want simplicity in your media server as a whole, go with Plex Media Server.

Plex VS Synology Video Station – Meta Data Scraping

The scraping of metadata in a media server is precisely what separates a bog-standard selection of files and folders on your screen from a slick graphical user interface that is engaging, informative and a joy to use. When we talk about metadata, we are talking about thumbnails, box art, media descriptions, cast listings, review scores, trailers and more. When we say scraping, that is the process of the software accessing numerous online databases to retrieve and store this information locally to the NAS. The result is your years of TV and movie collection being transformed into something near identical to Netflix and Amazon Prime video in presentation. Metadata ultimately benefits connected users and their client hardware devices, with both Plex and Video Station being very similar in how they look to a client device, albeit with a few branded differences in colour and config.

However, on the server-side, both Synology Video Station and Plex have gone a different way with metadata scraping at a setup level. Of the two, Synology Video Station is definitely the less option-heavy and although this is thanks in many ways to a lot of key options being found in the general server GUI outside of the app, it is still pretty thin on the ground for configuration of your video media server. This is not an enormous surprise given how Synology have generally erred towards keeping things as user-friendly as possible and this is often done by simplifying configurations and sitting numerous settings to system default. The options for scraping metadata on the Synology are surprisingly thin on the ground and some more advanced options require you to sign up to some resource database websites to obtain a two-way key. Despite this, Synology still manages to scrape a tremendous amount of metadata without this key and resource linking. Indeed, although the number of supported databases for metadata listed on the Synology Video Station app is few and far between, it was still able to find the same level of metadata found on the Plex Media Server application and displayed all of the test media perfectly. 

Plex Media Server has access to significantly more online databases and although the system will generally ask you to select which one individually you wish to scrape for metadata in each library, it does do it with a high degree of accuracy. It also manages to scrape this metadata for more than just your Movies and applies this also to your music collection and podcast collection too within the app. Metadata scraping via Plex Media Server also does not require any kind of log-in to these individual databases and is largely automated off the bat, with users being able to switch designated databases for each Media type and folder on the fly. Of course, this all doesn’t guarantee accuracy and will still always be based on the format and layout of your Media in many cases (tv shows listed as S01E01 for season 1, episode 1, etc), but nevertheless, it has to be said that with more available resources and less configuration required for each of them, that Plex Media Server has the broader and more likely to succeed position on metadata scraping.

Plex VS Synology Video Station – Playback and Transcoding

This is one of the most important parts of any media server in the grand scheme of things – multimedia playback and transcoding. This is typically the action of changing a media file into a version that is more acceptable to the client device that you are enjoying it on (TV, Phone, Console, etc). This extends to but is not limited to, changing the resolution, changing the bitrate, changing the file format and ultimately compressing a file into a smaller version in most cases. Because Plex and Synology Video Station are available on the same NAS system, it means that media variations with regard to codecs, compressions and file types will be equally supported at the default level. If a file can be played back in its original version on Plex, it can be played back on Synology Video Station. However, it is when these files need to be adapted with transcoding that we see clear distinctions between each of them. Transcoding is something that remote accessing client users will likely use without even realising it, as they might well be on a limited data connection (speed or coverage at the time) or using a smaller device (such as a phone) to playback a monster 4K 60FPS movie that is overkill on that hardware. So, transcoding is at its best when you do not notice it is being done OR it is adaptable in as many ways as possible to cover all your likely scenarios.

When the NAS needs to perform a transcode on a file on the fly (eg, so you need to convert a video file into a better-suited version for the client watching device upon request and without delay) it will typically do it with software transcoding or hardware transcoding. Software transcoding is when the system uses the raw resources of the CPU and memory inside the NAS to convert the file. Hardware transcoding is when the NAS system features a graphical component (such as embedded graphics featured on a CPU) or an available graphics card that is installed – as these are designed for handling video files and/or graphical manipulation tasks, and will therefore utilise considerably fewer resources. Plex Media Server only provides hardware transcoding in the paid subscription service Plex Pass and then needs to be enabled in the encoding section by selecting the option ‘make my CPU hurt’. Software transcoding is available for the free version of Plex Media Server but is far less efficient and will result in much higher-end Media in 4K and 1080p playback consuming the majority of hardware resources to transcode or will simply not play at all. 

Synology Video Station on the other hand, because it is a native first-party app, has full access to the hardware transcoding element of the NAS and therefore allows users to take advantage of it easily and immediately, and at no additional cost. This has been one of the driving forces behind the popularity of Synology Video Station application, as although the majority of NAS brands have their own video player, Synology is the only one that manages to merge the slick meta-data supported graphical user interface found in Plex but still manages to provide the free and unlimited limited access to the hardware resources you would expect after spending several $100s on a NAS. That said, the way that Synology handles the subject of transcoding in its user interface is a little peculiar, especially for users who are trying to balance the best possible playback vs the most appropriate transcoding level on the fly/manually. 

When you wish for the NAS system to transcode a file in the Video Station user interface, you are presented with the options for adjusting the picture quality to high, medium, low, very low, etc. This is exactly what one might expect from a brand that wants to consistently keep things as simple as possible, however, for those who want to select a specific quality level to playback the file or want a better idea of the best quality level in future should be for other files, this will be extraordinarily limiting. Plex Media Server on the other hand allows you to switch between an automatic transcode option that changes the file to the recommended quality level for the client and connection, or you can specifically switch one of numerous video quality levels that break down into both resolution and bitrate in several places. Overall, the ability for Video Station to be able to take advantage of hardware transcoding at no additional cost and with little or no intervention from the end-user is still ultimately the best thing here. I just wish they gave uses a better degree of control and choice as found in Plex Media Server.

Plex VS Synology Video Station – Client Support

Having a slick and well-performing media server is always good, but if you cannot watch the media inside it on the devices you regularly use, then it’s all a bit pointless. Most people are already well aware that the multimedia collections they have on a NAS can easily be streamed over the local area network via popular methods such as DLNA and UPnP (digital living network alliance and universal plug and play). However, they are much more file and folder, breadcrumb level streaming and in order to enjoy the pretty GUI of Plex and Synology Video Station, an official client app needs to be available on the respective app centre or made unofficially and manually installed. This is an area where Plex Media Server almost completely wins over Synology Video Station, as it simply cannot compete with the variety and accessibility of the Plex client availability in popular app centres. 

Full credit to Plex, they have really taken the time to make sure their platform is available on pretty much any modern device, in what multiple client or media server application forms. They also take the time after an official update of services and then push these updates across each available downloadable client. This is largely impossible for Synology to compete with and they instead opt for a much more targeted client support regime, supporting all modern mobile phone OS’, desktop operating systems and some of the major sofa accessible app centres on TVs and streamers like Amazon fire TV. In  8 out of 10 cases, your device will support both Plex and Synology Video Station, but this is by no means total and sometimes a hardware client (such as an off-brand Android phone, tablet or media box) that you hope to support Video Station will sadly not. 

It is once again worth mentioning that Synology separates different multimedia types towards their own individual client apps, for example, DS Audio or Audio Station for music and DS Photo for photography. Indeed, some of these apps are quite advanced with practically unique connectivity to the likes of Amazon Alexa (something currently impossible on any other NAS platform without a 3rd party application like ‘my-media’ Alexa skill. But this, unfortunately, does not make up for being truly overshadowed by the wider degree of support available on Plex across numerous clients and smart Home devices – though the latter does require a Plex Pass. For sheer volume of connectivity on the clients, Plex wins by an absolute landslide.

Plex VS Synology Video Station – Conclusion

Throughout this comparison of Plex Media Server and Synology Video Station, it has become abundantly clear that one tool is designed around being a Swiss army knife of features and functions, whilst the other performs a smaller but key range of services exceptionally well. Those who have been using Plex Media Server for a number of years are highly unlikely to make the jump to Synology Video Station, as it may feel less feature-rich and perhaps a tad bare-bones. However, those users who are new to the idea of private NAS based multimedia streaming would do very well to try out Synology Video Station first, as I genuinely believe when it comes to concentrating on video streaming services, it is genuinely one of the best platforms out there – albeit clearly restricted to just Synology NAS devices. Plex Media Server attempts to do many things in its pursuit of being the go-to media server of choice for those jumping ship from Netflix and succeeds in most cases, it is just worth remembering that in recent years the platform has perhaps tried to diversify a tad too much. 

PLEX MEDIA SERVER	Synology Video Station
Best for Mixed Media Best for Ease of Access on Client Hardware Best for Transcoding Control Best for Add On Services Best for Metadata Sources	Best for Price Best Performance for Transcoding Best for Ease of Use Best for Ease Setup Best for Updates & Firmware Revs

Thanks for reading and I hope this guide helps you choose the perfect multimedia server for streaming with your friends, family and colleagues. If you are still lost on the right NAS, multimedia software or ideal backup system for your needs, then take advantage of the free advice section below. This is a completely free and unbias service to help work out their ideal data storage solution for you. It is manned by my myself and EddieTheWebGuy, so although replies may take an extra day or so, we will answer your email and have your best interests in mind! Have a great week.

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What is the Best QNAP NAS for a Plex Media Server?

Plex has fast become the most popular media server software for home users in 2021. With a slick user interface, smart organization, relevant media images and descriptions sourced from many online sources applied automatically and clever show recommendations and watched records, it is easy to see why Plex challenges many of the online streaming platforms such as Netflix, Amazon Instant and Hulu. Another attractive feature of Plex is that the software is available free (or a more feature-rich paid version), whereas online streaming sources have monthly subscriptions, do not let you play your own content and change/rotate available media content on a monthly basis. With Plex, you play the media that you own and it is organized in an attractive and easy way. However in order to take advantage of Plex, you need a device for your media and the Plex media server to live, and this is where the money part comes. The best means with which to host a plex media server is a Network Attached Storage device (or NAS server). One of the biggest NAS server providers in the world right now is QNAP and they have a large range of NAS devices that support Plex in many, many ways (transcoding, smooth running, 4K, etc). However which QNAP NAS should you buy for your Plex media server, what is transcoding on a QNAP Plex media server like and what is the best QNAP NAS for a Plex Media Server (PMS)?

What is Software Transcoding on a QNAP Plex Media Server?

When media lives on your QNAP NAS, often the device a that you are playing back your plex media (Smart TV, iPhone, Laptop, iPod) onto cannot support the media file type, the resolution or audio codec. In this case, the Plex Media Server on your QNAP NAS will try to change the file to a more suitable version, on the fly, to ensure you can enjoy your media in the best way. This is known as transcoding and though the Plex application is actioning this with the software, the actual work is being done by the QNAP NAS CPU. Software transcoding takes a heavy toll on the CPU and you will need a relatively powerful processor in order to support this feature. Typically the CPU will need to be:

• In Intel or AMD Based Based CPU that is 64bit (x86) in Architecture
• Higher than 1.6Ghz in Frequency
• More than 2 Cores

It is important to highlight that transcoding for Plex on a QNAP NAS only really needs more power in the case of converting/changing video files. Audio and Image files will not require much support from the NAS.

Choosing the Right QNAP NAS for a Plex Media Server

When it comes to choosing the right QNAP NAS for your Plex Media Server, below I have broken down the entire currently available NAS you can buy. I have broken them down into the following areas:

Model ID – This is the Name of the QNAP NAS Device

CPU – This is the central processor of the QNAP NAS server and this will be what decides the performance of your Plex Media Server

SD 480p / 576p –Most likely the lowest point at which you will need transcoding of a video media file, 480p was used for many early Plasma televisions, whereas 576p is considered Standard Definition in many countries worldwide

HD 720p – Otherwise known as ‘HD Ready’ or ‘Standard HD’, it is generally considered the lowest starting point for watching HD media and starts at 1280×720

HD 1080p – Widely regarded at ‘Full-HD’, it arrives at 1920×1080. Most media listed at high definition in 2021 will be 1080P

4K SDR 2160p – 4K SDR is the entry point into 4K Media. An SDR 2160p supported TV has around 4,000 lines of resolution (the lines across the screen that form the rows of pixels) but is not capable of completely showing the depth and richness of colours spectrum and contrast of 4K HDR. It is by no means a compromise and still an excellent picture, but rather this is due to the physical differences in the construction of the screen and not just how the images are processed, just like the differences between and SD and HDTV.

4K UHD HDR 2160p – The current top end of 4K Media file formats in popular commercial media. A 4K HDR TV has the same 4000 lines of resolution as those that support 4K SDR 2160p, but is physically capable of rendering an image with increased contrast and richer colours\separation thanks to the physical build superiority.

Be sure to check the kind of media you own (or plan on streaming from your QNAP NAS), as well as the devices you will be playing back on for a better idea of what kind of plex media transcoding support you will need from your NAS server from QNAP. Be sure to check the supported file types (most common modern files types you find for 1080p and 4K are .MKV .MP4 .MOV and .AVI).Below is the entire current QNAP NAS range and how well they perform in the Plex Media Server Application with a single Stream.

Guide for the Chart Below

Software Transcode = Uses the NAS software and CPU Power to alter a file to a more suitable Plex Playback type

Hardware – Accelerated Transcoding – Uses Embedded Graphics that are Integrated into the CPU to Alter a file to a more suitable version for Plex Playback

RED BOX – Recommended Synology NAS for Plex Media Server. Could be based on Performance, Price or Value between both

Use the FREE ADVICE Button to contact me directly for a recommendation on the Best Plex NAS for your Setup/Budget. Please bear in mind that this is a one-man operation, so my reply might take a little bit of time, but it will be impartial, honest and have your best interests at heart.

Latest 2021 QNAP NAS Releases:

Previous 2020 and Older QNAP NAS Releases:

What is Accelerated Transcoding with Plex on my NAS?

Some QNAP NAS arrive with a CPU that has improved rendering or graphical embedding enabled. This means that is Plex can utilize this hardware for transcoding, it will require much, much less of the CPU processing power to transcode a video file. In order to take advantage of Plex hardware transcoding on your QNAP NAS, you will need to first check which NAS supports the transcoding to the extent you need by checking below. Next, you will need to upgrade your Plex Membership from the free version to the paid ‘Plex Pass’ subscription, as the option of Accelerated Transcoding with QNAP NAS hardware is not included in the plex free subscription. However, below has included all the current available QNAP NAS and to what extent they support Hardware transcoding with a Plex Pass:How to Enable Hardware Acceleration with Plex Media Server on a QNAP NAS

To use Hardware Transcoding on your QNAP NAS in a Plex Media Server, you need to enable it using the Plex Web access (head over to your Plex User interface on your browser.

1. Open the Plex Web app.
2. Navigate to Settings > Server > Transcoder to access the server settings.
3. Turn on Show Advanced in the upper-right corner to expose advanced settings.
4. Turn on Use hardware acceleration when available.
   
5. Click Save Changes at the bottom.

The changes should take place straight away and there is no need to reboot your QNAP NAS. Be sure to have updated to the latest version of the Plex Media Server application on your NAS and that Hardware Transcoding is listed as supported in the list above.

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