replacement NAS choice

[Enquiries]

Hi guys. I'm forced to upgrade my old NAS - a very old QNAP TS-559 Pro II which I've had so long I can't remember! - definitely more than 15 years, perhaps going on nearly 20.. anyway, due to company policy my corporate Win11 laptop enforces secure SMB which my old NAS can no longer support, with the result that my main "daily driver" computer can no longer connect to it's shares... So, I have to replace it... since I know QNAP well, I'm looking at the TS-433-4G, but I'm also weighing up the Synology DS425+... where I am the QNAP is about £100 cheaper. I know either will be a night & day improvement... My use case is basic filesharing/backup. anyone have any thoughts on whether the extra £100 is worth it?

[ed]

Hi, upgrading from a 15 + year old QNAP like the TS-559 Pro II is going to feel like a huge leap no matter what you pick, but the choice between a QNAP TS-433-4G and a Synology DS425 + really comes down to your priorities today and what you want five years down the line. The TS-433-4G is a solid 4-bay option with a quad-core ARM Cortex-A55 CPU, 4 GB onboard RAM, a 2.5 GbE port and support for RAID 5/6/10 which makes it perfectly capable of handling basic file sharing, backups and remote access, and has decent hardware-accelerated encryption for secure SMB connections like your corporate laptop needs. The downside is that it is ARM based with non-expandable memory, so if one day you want to run apps, containers or heavier tasks alongside storage it will run out of headroom faster. The Synology DS425 + on the other hand uses an Intel Celeron class CPU with a more mature software stack, more powerful SMB file services, memory expansion and generally snappier performance for multi-user access and extra services as your use grows. Synology’s DSM tends to feel more polished and easier to manage if what you want is a “set and forget” experience with strong SMB support across Windows clients. For basic storage today the QNAP entry model is cheaper and will work, but for long term capability, expandability and smoother day-to-day drives, the slightly more expensive DS425 + is worth that extra £100 in most cases.

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=QNAP+TS-433-4...=ncmail-20
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Synology+DS42...=ncmail-20