Hi there! It's amazing of you to offer the advice that you do, thank you so much! I'd love to buy you a cup of coffee (really a donation in exchange for your help if you accept USD or BTC.

My situation:
I'm an illustrator/artist, new graduate startin g my freelance buisness and setting up a home studio to work in. As it stands, I have 3 or 4 external hard drives with various important files on them, Plus 1TB of data on my iMac, and 500GB on my laptop that both desperately need backing up. I really need to combine all the files in one place but don't have anything that has enough space for all my data right now. I have probably about 4TB of data right now, and would like it to be a good storage solution for a few years at least...so maybe expandable? or at least 8TB to give me growing space. And I would ideally like the data to be network-shared for access from different devices, as well as have some sort of redundancy to protect my artwork in case of HD failure. In fact, my iMac has just died, and now I'm really realizing how much precious data is on the line when things go wrong....

I 've looked at the WD Cloud series and Synology...Synology is just painfully expensive. But maybe it would be worth it to start with a 2 bay synology and then when I'm a rich and famous illustrator, upgrade to a 4 bay? haha. Dreams.

I'd love your advice. Thank you so much for taking the time to consider my inquiry!

Michelle London

Hi there
Love your work, you are doing a great job with helping the world better understand NASs.

I am looking at buying a Synology 1621+, and was interested in your thoughts on a POE enabled 16 port switch that supports Link Aggregation.
Might be a good article to share with your audience, given that LAG is the path forward to higher data rates. Thanks in advance. Cheers.

Hi mate, thanks so much for your videos. Your page is my main resource for helping me make a decision coming up.
I don't think my situation will be unique, but I can't find anything that is similar to my situation with a diffinitive NAS answer on the internet.

The reason I love my media set up is because I have all my favourite films on hand in the highest possible format at the time. eg. just got LOTR trilogy in 4K and replaced the blueray version- same with Back to the future, Godfather etc. This way I can watch the BEST when I want, not when NETFLIX has them on (plus they are worse quality anyway).

I run my plex server on my gaming PC on an 8TB drive in the study. It's been great for 5 years but I'm worried about:
-disk failure (I think I want to run RAID5 but I keep reading about UNRAID)
-having the pc on all the time to watch media on devices
-Direct play of 4K films (20-80 GB in size) to the main lounge room LG 65 inch C8 TV playing via an Nvidia shield Pro.
-Future proofing including expanding storage and using the NAS for more functionality in the future (security cams etc)
-At the moment I would have a 4K movie running with maybe one other 1080p going elsewhere, but I can see my other family members using this if I set it up properly and it doesn't kill my 100Mb/s internet experience.

I THINK i want to have the NAS in the lounge room cabinet (under my cinema TV) so it can direct play 4k. That however makes my Nvidia Shield Pro redundant but that's ok as it's served me well for 2 years until I got to this point. My router and EERO hub sits in the lounge room too so it can all connect nicely. It would need to be quiet though.

Now, If I could easily afford your #1 choice QNAP I would go there, but I think it's massive overkill for what I need. However I think the Synology 920+ is not high enough in spec for my needs.

What do you think? I was looking at the Syn 1019+ but I'm concerned about it not having 10Gb/s ethernet and no direct play HDMI.

Therefore I have 2 choices:
1. Cheaper NAS that using Nvidia Shield PRo to transcode in lounge
2. Go hard for direct play HDMI in the lounge room

I would REALLY appreciate your help. I have no problems dropping serious coin for functionality, future proofing and ease, but I also don't want to waste money on something I'm not fully using.

Thanks so much.

Hello !thank you very much to propose to write to you it's very kind ! sorry for my english I don't speak very often ! I have 7 hdd basic WD ! I calculated 11tb of data since 2000 ! I use them with a disk station and change them on my xbox as a multimedia platform with kodi ! that's work very well ! obviously each HDD are unic... no clone of back up !... I know ! well last year one of them fall on the floor and... died ! 20 years of music !!! maybe I could repair it ! well since this summer I'm thinking about a nas ! I thought buy a single slot at the beginning ! and put my disk station in his back ! and finally a big promo and I bought the DS420+ ! and put all inside in raid 5 to be quiet ! so for 11tb of data I thought buy 4 x 12tb or 4 x 10tb wd red (wd120efax, wd101efax) ! I thought like that because I know one of them represente the capacity of the back up ! and after format it's not the same thing anymore ! I thought buy normal hdd externe because cheaper and take off the HDD from the case because I use them only when I need ! I think I can if the nas is power on only when I want to use it ! the side nas always power on is fantastic in the idea but I'm so afraid of the noise ! I did'nt find a video with the test of a nas in a living room ! alone the hdd are very quiet and there is no fan ! I read WD red are less decibels than normal one ! I'm lost I don't know how to think, I'm afraid to do a mistake and to see too big ! my living room is with my kitchen in an open space 4 meters by 5 meters ! I try to find these HDD with a good price ! It's complicate !I find 12TB for 300 dollars on www.bhphotovideo.com ! but it's over ! there aren't really a question ! What do you think of this ?! do you have an idea I haven't ?! what do you do to buy hdd ?! in the nas can I only decide 1 hdd is running to read or all are in activity when the nas is power on ?! can we desactivate the fan when I use it occasionnaly ! thank you very much to you to read my message ! have a nice day ! Nico from paris !

Hi there,

I'm currently looking for a new (upgrade) NAS. Currently I use an old 2TB MyWorldBook. But a new child and enforced time at home means that I need more storage (too many baby photos/videos) and film/music storage. Much like most people i suppose. I also require external access to files when away from home and potentially to allow grandparents read only access (if possible) to selected folders.

I was looking at the synology 220j and watched your youtube video and was slightly put off by your comments regarding the on board memory. So i was wondering for the same/similar price point whether the older 218/play might be better value for money?

What are your thoughts.
Kind Regards and thanks for reading.

Adam

Hi, Thanks for some great videos! I currently have a Synology DS213 air and have recently added a single IP camera for security (may add more). Annke 4k with POE injector connected to Fritzbox router. I use an imac computer and my wife uses a windows laptop also various tablets and phones etc

Using Synology Surveillance Station and having trouble getting good quality recordings and streaming to my devices from the camera despite days of experimenting with settings. Backup storage on the current Synology at 75% on the two disk SHR 1 vol.

Looking at upgrading to DS920+ to see me out over the next few years. Any thoughts?

Synology NAS - What They Have In Store for 2021
Synology made the shift to digital for the annual reveal of their plans for the year to come and it became abundantly clear from the outset that they h

I am thinking of purchasing a QNAP TVS872xt 8 bay NAS, but I am wondering if this model, which is two years old, is due for an upgrade. If so, any idea how far off it is, and if it's worth waiting for? I am a still photographer buying a NAS for archiving and access of digital photos, and while this device seems like overkill, it also seems like the best option.

Hi Rob, I have been watching a lot of your videos in the last couple of months and thank you for sharing such good information - it really helps.

I have been using a NAS for about 10 years now (NASDeluxe 7bay, 2700T), to house and store my pretty large collection of movies - mostly 1080p, mkv. Since it has had very poor speeds during the last months, and I can't even watch a 720p movie without stopping the movie about 5 times during the entire movie (and I need to restart my Popcorn hour C200), I thought it was time to get a new NAS. Transcoding the movies sounds nice, but I'm not sure if that is smth for me, as I usually always work from home and in the off chance I am on the road and want to look at a movie, I am in the airplane, so I have no connection to the Internet anyway.

In reading and looking on Youtube, I found that I can also edit straight from the NAS, provided that my Lightroom catalog is on my computer. I have a self-built WIN10 machine with loads of HDD's inside to house my photos and edit them usually off an internal SSD (not M.2 yet, as my PC is about 7 years old). I never thought about putting my images on my NAS, to edit them directly, as I found the speed lacking - but this suddenly became an option.

In my house, I have almost everything wired with cat5e UTP, gigaswitches, an ASUS AC-RT5300, ASUS AC-RT68u and two ASUS AC-RT86u to have enough Wifi coverage in the house - but no 10 Gbe connections or wiring, nor on my PC. I do not have a thunderbolt port in my PC either. My other machine I work off of, is a Dell XPS15 (9550), which does have a thunderbolt, but the machine is so bad for editing, that I'm usually only using it in a pinch, despite it having an M.2 Samsung EVO Plus 1TB SSD and the specs being the best Dell offered at the time of purchase.

Since I am a professional photographer, I want things to run smoothly and would be great to edit off the NAS from both my laptop and my desktop. Next to that, it would be great to share specific folders with clients, so they can download their images too and I can use it during client meetings to show my work, slideshows, etc.

Since I want to futureproof, I would like a NAS with 8 bays, so I have lots of storage going forward. Ideally, I want something fast enough to edit from, that can house my movie collection (and going forward also 4k content). In the future, I might also want to add security cameras outside the house, but I heard that it would not be good to use the same NAS for that, as it would bog down everything?

Although I always thought I would go for Synology (no real reason, just liked the pricepoint and options), I think Qnap has a lot faster performance from what I read, obviously at a much higher price. I had a chat with a Qnap rep, who was suggesting the TVS-873E (8GB) or the TVS-872XT-I5 (15GB). I am not bound to QNAP, I would just like to find the best option for me. I would also go for the biggest affordable HDD's and insert an M.2 SSD.
Not sure about the 10 Gbe connection, or the Thunderbolt - I have been looking for an adapter to USB3.1, as I don't think I can easily get Thunderbolt now (unless I buy a new Mobo, with everything around that). It's usually just me using the NAS, but maybe my girlfriend would want to use it too for viewing pictures and edit Premiere Pro movies of our daughter (though this is limited, certainly not even a weekly operation). If 10 Gb is vital, I can think about upgrading parts of the UTP's and switch in the coming year(s), or can I get to acceptable speeds using linkover from two (or more) cat5e UTP's?

I am paranoid about loosing data, so I have about 5 backups of all my pictures, also off-site and everything is also in a Backblaze account.

Is there something you can recommend or for me to not care about/steer clear of? My current NAS houses about 10 Tb worth of movies and my photo library in my PC is around 15-20 Tb.
Also please make recommendations about the 10 Gbe and Thunderbolt connection.
The TVS872 is over €2.200 and am wondering if it is really that much better (for my needs) or that it is overkill...
Is there an easy way to measure the speed of my current NAS, to see if that really is the bottleneck, not the cables after that? I did a test with Blackmagic Disk Speed Test, which showed 14.3 MB/s write and 25.9 MB/s read speed on my desktop pc, which is downstairs, the NAS is housed on the top floor (3 stories).

Thank you in advance.
Best regards,
Robert

I currently have a DS214Play and am contemplating replacing my existing NAS for a device that can transcode 4K files. The research I underaken so far would suggest that could go for a Synology DS920+. However I'm not getting any clear indication form Synology on this matter since they refer me to a list is of devices which does include the DS918+ but not the DS920+. Given that the DS920+ is a more up to date device than the DS918+ I'm a little confussed on this matter. I'd like to buy a suitable device but it's not clear to me what I should go for. Can you give me some further guidance on this matter please ?