ASK NC

I'm a professional videographer who enjoys a spot of game development in my spare time. Both of these activities require large amounts of storage capacity for footage, sound effects, textures, and 3D models, as well as archiving the finishing results.

I'm looking to buy my first NAS drive, probably a 4-bay in RAID5. At the moment, only my desktop PC needs access, so I'm planning to use this NAS as a DAS. Ideally, I'd like to be able to edit 4K video footage directly off the DAS.

This is my first foray into NAS drives, so the user-friendly interface of Synology is attractive, but I'm not sure which model suits me best. The 923+ is new and gives me the option to upgrade to 10GbE in the future, but the 920+ has integrated graphics processing, which could be useful. Then there's the 420+, 420j, and 418 models, which whilst older might still be suitable and more cost-effective.

Any advice for a NAS novice?

For editing 4K video footage, you will want to choose a NAS model that has a fast connection such as 10GbE or Thunderbolt. The Synology DS923+ does not have a graphics chip, but this is not necessarily a problem as it is only useful for finished video sharing remotely. If you prefer a Thunderbolt connection, the TVS-472XT might be a good choice as it has both 10GbE and DAS connectivity.