10-03-2025, 05:18 PM
Thank you for the kind words and for following the channel. It sounds like you’ve already done a lot of homework and narrowed things down well. Let’s break this down clearly.
Synology – Their biggest strengths are ease of use, polished apps, and excellent backup features. DSM (their software) is unmatched for simplicity and stability. The trade-off is the higher price and tighter ecosystem – especially with the newest models that prefer Synology’s own branded drives. If you want something that “just works” and don’t want to tinker much, Synology is worth the premium.
TerraMaster and Asustor – Both offer much stronger hardware per dollar. TerraMaster’s F6-424 Max and Asustor’s Lockerstor Gen2 are very powerful 6–7 bay systems with 2.5GbE/10GbE options, NVMe cache, and more open drive compatibility. Their software isn’t as refined as Synology’s, but it has improved a lot in recent years. For someone with your PC-building background and patience, you’d have no trouble making them work well.
QNAP – They sit in between. More polished than TerraMaster/Asustor in many ways, broader app support, excellent hardware, and still allow third-party drives. The trade-off is a steeper learning curve and more things to configure out of the box.
For your use case — Plex/Jellyfin, storage, PC backups, and file access with around 100TB planned — the most important things are good RAID (RAID 6 ideally), multiple 2.5GbE or 10GbE ports, and NVMe slots for cache/tiering. Synology doesn’t really have a great 6–8 bay solution with that much power unless you move up into their very expensive XS series. That’s why TerraMaster, Asustor, or QNAP tend to make more sense at this scale.
So, in short:
• If you want the simplest setup and best apps → Synology.
• If you want maximum hardware and open drive choice for the money → TerraMaster or Asustor.
• If you want a balance of both → QNAP.
Synology – Their biggest strengths are ease of use, polished apps, and excellent backup features. DSM (their software) is unmatched for simplicity and stability. The trade-off is the higher price and tighter ecosystem – especially with the newest models that prefer Synology’s own branded drives. If you want something that “just works” and don’t want to tinker much, Synology is worth the premium.
TerraMaster and Asustor – Both offer much stronger hardware per dollar. TerraMaster’s F6-424 Max and Asustor’s Lockerstor Gen2 are very powerful 6–7 bay systems with 2.5GbE/10GbE options, NVMe cache, and more open drive compatibility. Their software isn’t as refined as Synology’s, but it has improved a lot in recent years. For someone with your PC-building background and patience, you’d have no trouble making them work well.
QNAP – They sit in between. More polished than TerraMaster/Asustor in many ways, broader app support, excellent hardware, and still allow third-party drives. The trade-off is a steeper learning curve and more things to configure out of the box.
For your use case — Plex/Jellyfin, storage, PC backups, and file access with around 100TB planned — the most important things are good RAID (RAID 6 ideally), multiple 2.5GbE or 10GbE ports, and NVMe slots for cache/tiering. Synology doesn’t really have a great 6–8 bay solution with that much power unless you move up into their very expensive XS series. That’s why TerraMaster, Asustor, or QNAP tend to make more sense at this scale.
So, in short:
• If you want the simplest setup and best apps → Synology.
• If you want maximum hardware and open drive choice for the money → TerraMaster or Asustor.
• If you want a balance of both → QNAP.