Which Synology NAS

[Enquiries]

I've spent many hours researching which NAS drive to buy, most on your pages. I'm not tech, as such but I get by. I currently have a Wester Digital Live duo, 'Currys Special', which is about 8 to 10 years old. It has 2 x 2TB HDDs. I bought it long before I knew what NAS drives were. Now I understand NAS drives, I want to make the move to a 'proper NAS'. I'm definitely down the Synology route, and probably looking at the DS425+ or the 925+. I know RAID is not a backup but I am paranoid about a disk failing so would even sacrifice usable storage for increased redundancy. If I wasn't budget limited I'd probably got for a 5 bay, with say, RAID 6. Any advice for my final choice would be helpful. Thanks chaps. Karl D

[ed]

Thanks for the message, and it sounds like you’re making exactly the right move after years with the WD Live Duo. Based on what you’ve described, I’d strongly suggest the Synology DS925+ over the DS425+. It’s far more future-proof and better suited for your goal of strong redundancy and reliable long-term data storage.

Here’s why:
• The DS925+ supports RAID 6, which lets you lose two drives without data loss. The DS425+ is limited to RAID 5, so you’d only have single-drive protection.
• You get four bays instead of two, which is ideal for both redundancy and storage growth.
• The newer model uses a much faster processor and supports 10GbE (with an adapter), NVMe caching, and expansion units if you want to grow later.
• DSM 7.3 runs smoothly on it, but I’d avoid updating to 7.3.1 yet since it removes the hardware transcoding engine Plex relies on. If you do update later, you can reinstall the transcoder via command line using the guide here: How to Reinstall Plex Transcoder.

If you want to really lock in redundancy, use RAID 6 with four identical drives, ideally WD Red Plus or Seagate IronWolf NAS models. You’ll get a mix of protection and performance that’s perfect for a home office.

You can find the DS925+ on:
• Amazon UK
• Box UK
• Ebuyer

If you want to spend a little less and still get good redundancy, the DS725+ (2-bay plus 2 NVMe slots) is a solid fallback, though it won’t support RAID 6.