Synology NAS for serving up stuff round the house and some backup needs

menthel

menthel

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Currently using a last gen time capsule for sending music to my sonos setup but need something a little bit more flexible to stream music pictures and video to various devices (xboxes and Apple TV as well as sonos), as well as providing backup. I would then demote the time capsule to time machine duties. I also have a separate USB hard drive with my iMac for further backup and storage.

So, would this do?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00G6DJ6KA/ref=noref?ie=UTF8&psc=1&s=computers

Good? I think somewhere around 6tb will be enough? I want something simple and without faffing about building etc.
 
Very expensive and limited. Ebuyer have the HP microserver at £129 after Cashback. That plus a couple of large drives and a copy of Windows Home Server 2011 would be much cheaper and way more powerful. Can also do media streaming and backup.
 
neil_g said:
Yes. Synology are very good boxes.

Remember its 6tb raw so 3tb in raid1.

What are you going to do in regard with backing it up?
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I will be keeping stuff on other external hard drives connected to my iMac. That will be the main work storage with time machine and then the NAS as backup. It's main job would be to serve up media so not planning to use it in a raid configuration.
 
landwomble said:
Very expensive and limited. Ebuyer have the HP microserver at £129 after Cashback. That plus a couple of large drives and a copy of Windows Home Server 2011 would be much cheaper and way more powerful. Can also do media streaming and backup.
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Faffy though, I used to have a whs and it didn't really suit. I want something small, quiet and discrete that doesn't have to do much more than sit there being backed up to and pumping out various media to sonos, Xbox etc.
 
I've got two Synology NAS boxes, one is used for the "networky" stuff & the other is used for weekly backups.
 
The synology is not really that limited. Sure it's no windows server but it's packed with neat addons, such as dnla (my ds1010 was better at this than servio is on my win server), native AFP, photo server, VPN and all the normal networking services (dns, dhcp etc), built in backup to USB/rsync/cloud.. To name a few. More can be downloaded too.
 
Does the synology interface have a connection to google drive, Dropbox or crashplan so it can back itself up to there autonomously?
 
I have a DS213+. I wish I'd gone for something more powerful, or even the HP microserver above (it was recommended to me at the time). Basically it can't decode on the fly. So if I have a TV episode in mp4, I can stream to my iPhone using the app. But if it's in say AVI, it's not powerful enough to transcode into MP4 for the iphone, whereas using a laptop is fine as it can handle the different file formats.

It's fine for back ups. It doesn't interact with Google Drive, but there is a dropbox app. I think the developers are planning on a cloud-back up storage and that's one of the advantages of Synology - they're continuously creating new apps.

I use my NAS for back ups, and for streaming - I can stream to my PS3, my iPhone (certain file formats), and to my desktop and laptop.
 
Thanks all. Looks like the 214play will do. Will just have to look around for a good price. What drives are people using for this kind of storage at present?
 
was using Samsung (whos drive manufacturing has been bought out by Seagate I believe). at the moment im looking to step up to 3-4tb drives which is really owed by WD or Seagate. whether you put any stock into the premium attracting "NAS Specific" drives is up to you, personally ive had no bother running my samsungs 24/7 for years.

whoever you choose I guarantee someone will come along with a horror storey..
 
Jim

I bought Neil's 'old' Synology NAS drive and it is a great piece of kit.

Currently I have two 3TB WD Red drives in it with RAID1 and then a rotating off site back up solution. They were ~£95 ea from CCLonline

It's a very accomplished bit of kit that runs my Sonos, Photo Library and other bits and has lots of potential through their DSM softwre interface to allow for much more. I am impressed how much quicker and slicker it is compared to my old Buffalo NAS.
 
If you are interested, I have a couple of Seagate Barracuda 3TB drives I was about to put up for sale. Year old and removed from a QNAP I upgraded.
 
inkiboo said:
If you are interested, I have a couple of Seagate Barracuda 3TB drives I was about to put up for sale. Year old and removed from a QNAP I upgraded.
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Thanks. Am trying to use up amazon vouchers I got for Xmas but if they appear in the classifieds for an unbeatable price I may not be able to say no...
 
I run a Windows Server 2012 box but am probably going to retire it since getting my Synology 214....only reason I might keep it because I like running a home domain and a decent spotify client.

I use 2x 3tb WD Reds and they are extremely quiet.

Only thing that hacks me off about NAS is the cartel that refuses to sell 3bay models :P
 
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omens said:
So if I have a TV episode in mp4, I can stream to my iPhone using the app. But if it's in say AVI, it's not powerful enough to transcode into MP4 for the iphone,
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Check out nPlayer - it can access WebDAV devices and can play avi files.
 
Been thinking about this- perhaps the 213j would be better. I don't need transcoding- just a repository for music, photos and some backup. I would need 4tb drives though as I have only just realised that they work in raid 1 and I will need the space as a future proofing.

So, without the need for transcoding does the ds213j make sense?
 
214 is the current model. Ticks all the boxes for me. Don't stream to iDevices so no need for transcoding.
 
The 214 models are all substantially more expensive than the 213j, by at least £60-70. If the 213j will stream happily and perform the required dnla duties I will be happy!
 
I got the DS414 a few months ago and it's a great little machine. So simple to set up and not particularly more expensive than the HP microserver when you add all the extras you need to buy. The extra is certainly worth it for the ease of setup and use. I chose the 414 over the versions with two disks for futureproofing, making it much easier to add storage when needed. For the difference in cash over the 214 I'd recommend the 414, unless you really need the extra speed of the Atom to convert films on the fly.

The biggest problem I have with my box is that I can't hardwire it to the other computers. I'm currently running a powerline system but even with the gigabit versions I don't get much more than 10MB/s which is the limit of the system... I'm looking into getting an ac wifi network setup instead, maybe them I'll be able to get anywhere near taxing the throughput of the network adaptors in the NAS...
 
I ended up going for the 213j in the end. Substantially cheaper, I didn't need transcoding and it is smaller and perhaps quieter than some of the others. Have gone for 2x 4tb seagate drives too, they have good reviews and are on the synology recommended list.

I will report back once its installed and working!
 
It turned up. Disks installed in moments. IT is just formatting/installing the latest os via the interwebs as I type. Good looking package for the £150 the bare box cost.
 
Just to confirm, setup, stuff transferred across, backups set up and streaming sorted. Even as a bare box and separate drives this was so easy to set up. Am going to look at it a little more to see about setting up external access and the range of apps that are available for iOS.

Highly recommended!
 
Glad to hear that, am trying to decide whether to for the 214play or a 213j like you.
 
Mad Badger said:
Glad to hear that, am trying to decide whether to for the 214play or a 213j like you.
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If you need it to transcode then get the 214play. If you don't then the213j is ~£100 cheaper and is the difference between 2x3tb and 2x4tb drives.
 
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