Hi.
I'm after a little advice re: my next NAS please.

I currently have a QNAP TS212P with 2x 3TB WD Red drives. It's been running about 4years and work fine for what I've wanted it to.
We use the photo auto-back up from 2x Samsungs phones, general home storage(docs/scans/finances etc) and multimedia storage for Sonos, iTunes and, most importantly, Plex. I cuurently run a server on a PC but would be interested in moving this off to the NAS, progressing to 4k/UHD films across the network.
I'm deeply out of space so looking at 24tb in raid5 config(18tb workable). I already have 2x 6TB WD Black drives from a previous project I could use but am open to new WD Red if necessary.
The NAS is situated in a home office and in a wired network. Network Map: Virgin Fibre modem->ASUS Wifi router(AC88U)->Netgear Switch(GS308)->NAS).
All the content has been backed up to an external drive ready to move to a new system so I'm not tied to QNAP although I do know and like the brand.
I would like to start experimenting with VMs and doing more with a NAS, and am interested in having a NAS for the future, not just "for now". All the NAS units I've looked at so far are 1 0r 2+ years old. Can't see me investing in 10GbE just yet, not sure if i need USB-C connectivity, there'll always be a PC wired to the network.

This might be more info than you need but I'd appreciate your opinion.


Thanks,
Richard.

Looking for the best value for NAZ for my Davinci Resolve system. It will only ever be a single system with no requirement for multiple system connections. I'd like to be able to hot-swap drives. I'd like to be able to get 4 to 8 drives in the unit. I'd prefer a rack mount unit, but it's not a requirement. I want to connect via 10gbe from a PC or a MAC. It would be nice if I could raid some drives and others could be hot-swappable.

Discuss: What are LTO Tape Drives and are they better than NAS?

I just want the latest NAS for Plex that can handle 4k. My mind was Seton the Qnap HS 453 DX but the long time reviews say it run very hot. TS 251D is in my opinion too expensive for a 2 bay NAS. Is the TS 453Be my best choice?Is there something new coming out soon to supercede it?Thanks for your help.

Hello

First, thank you for this free help

i am a freelance video editor. i work on a Hackintosh with TB3 port available.

First i wanted to buy a Lacie 6Big 24 TB for 2200 euros. They also provide 5 years warraty on data (you send the unit and try to recover them) which is very good

But my budget is lower and i saw recently terramaster D5 thundebolt 3, 5 disks bay. On RAID 5, the system reach up to 450 500 MB/S with 7200 disks. It's kind of slow. compared to a Lacie 6big (on theory 1GB/s...don't konw if it's RAID 0 or RAID 5 at this speed) , do you think it's because Lacie use One more disk ?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SH8uJzs52YE (here a good test)

5 x 6TB ironwolf pro would cost 1150 euros
terra master D5 700 euros

1850 for this solution or 2200 euros Lacie 6big 24TB

What would you choosse ?

I heard that Lacie use ironwolfpro disks (i imagine that is 6x 4TB in their solution so they can reach this bandwith)

There's also Pegasus R6 which is more expensive but bettter sequential files

Thank you very much

Recently got the Synology DS220J. Prior to this I had researched wireless dongles and ended up buying the TL-WN722N which I now find does not work, probably because Amazon sent me the V3 version and not the V2 as advertised, may return it. Synology were unhelpful saying only that the compatibility list is no longer updated etc. I see no clear answer to which wireless dongles actually work with the latest DSM software 6.2. Can you recommend a dongle that actually works as I do not want to buy another based on old articles and hearsay? Thanks in advance for any help.

I'm trying to decide between the ds120j and the ds118 for home use.
This is what I want to do:
1) Automatic backup of home PC. I would like to automatically backup several PC folders when changes are detected.
2) Automatic Cloud upload of several "sensitive" PC folders to Google (documents) and Amazon (photos) drives.
3) Torrent downloading
4) Movie server. Kodi is going to be the player so I won't need transcoding.

Not considering 2 bay solutions as I will always have three copies of files (home PC, Synology and cloud) and probably an external drive copy too.

So, will ds120j be enough or should I spend 75% more and go for the ds118.

Thanks a lot for your help.

As a solo content creator I'm looking to buy a DAS solution. I have a very old Drobo that is super slow and problematic. Is Drobo better now and reliable? I am looking for speed. Is it a good idea to fill it up with SSDs or is there nothing to be gained for SSDs?. I have 2 uses for this. 1. I will have 4 TB of data that will be long term storage. But I will have about 2-4 TB that I am constantly accessing and working from. Please advise. Thanks!

Discuss: NAS Drive Encryption Explained

Hi. I have watched several of your videos, all of which have been very informative.

I was about to pull the trigger on the purchase of a QNAP 453Be which is meant to replace a Dlink 320L, which apart from being old, slow and lacking plex integration is very noisy. The device sits on my desk and the tiny fan spins along all day and night and i find it very annoying.

So the 453Be was meant to replace that until I checked the web for any comments on it being noisy, and people do seem to be complaining about that.

Just wanted to get an idea about your experience with this NAS and its noise level. I initially plan to put in 3 WD reds (3tb) and scale up when finance permits.

Reviews talk about it running 35db in idle and 46db on load. I am worried that this NAS could potentially be as loud or even louder than the 320L. I can't find data on the 320L to check what the noise level might be, but I am worried about proceeding with this purchase now. I suppose I don't need it to be whisper quiet (I know that's not possible given the fan etc) but I don't want to purchase something which will be worse than what I already have.

Your advice and comments are very much appreciated