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Synology NAS recommendations


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It depends how you intend to use it. If you plan to use the synology server apps (or apps like Minimserver and Plex) to serve up media files, that's one data point. If you plan to run Roonserver on the NAS, that's a different data point. For Roon, Synology does not have enough computing horsepower and you should look at QNAP with a core i5 cpu instead. RAM upgradability is always a useful feature as well. Get a NAS that can use/support at the very least 4GB of ram.

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It depends how you intend to use it. If you plan to use the synology server apps (or apps like Minimserver and Plex) to serve up media files, that's one data point. If you plan to run Roonserver on the NAS, that's a different data point. For Roon, Synology does not have enough computing horsepower and you should look at QNAP with a core i5 cpu instead. RAM upgradability is always a useful feature as well. Get a NAS that can use/support at the very least 4GB of ram.

Great points. Thank you.

I'm considering using the NAS as a fileserver, so perhaps Minimserver, PLEX, etc. is the upper limit of resource intensive tasks.

I haven't decided on ROON, but from what I've read, it's resource intensive and that task MIGHT be best left to a "real" computer with a minimum of an Intel i5.

So, let's assume that I'm just seeking a 2 bay (or 4 bay) Synology NAS. And, if someone has a good reason to go with another brand, please suggest it. I'm not a computer geek, so I've read Synology is the way to go--simpler; good software.

Thank you.

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I'm seeking to purchase my first NAS; likely a 2 bay Synology.

I'd appreciate any specific model recommendations.

And, are there any specific features to consider? For instance, the ability to upgrade RAM OR the existence of 2 ethernet ports? What's the advantage of the second port?

THANK YOU.

 

I own a Synology and it does the job but I will be upgrading soon. This time around I'm going the FreeNaS route with using an Xi Systems box.

 

A bit more money but they appear to handily outclass the Synology units in many ways:

 

https://www.ixsystems.com/freenas-mini/

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I have a ds216j purchased from Amazon with a wd red pro 6tb internal drive and two external USB for backup. It wasn't too expensive, easy to set up and works well as a shared drive among 4 computers one of which is a mac. I have over 4tb of dsd, flac, MP4, video rips etc. I use various programs and they all pull the files across my local network fine.

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Thank you to everyone who has shared their knowledge. I'm aiming at a 2 bay Synology and thus far the 216j looks promising.

 

The ixsystems units are a great concept and likely could run ROON and a Space Station, but they are outside my current budget. I appreciate the suggestion and will follow ixsystems down the road.

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Thank you to everyone who has shared their knowledge. I'm aiming at a 2 bay Synology and thus far the 216j looks promising.

 

The ixsystems units are a great concept and likely could run ROON and a Space Station, but they are outside my current budget. I appreciate the suggestion and will follow ixsystems down the road.

 

As a very happy owner of the DS213, I can highly recommend the Synology line. The DSM 6.0 software is really quite slick. I use it for file serving and to serve UPnP via MinimServer.

 

However, I am already in the market for a 4-bay unit, so I would caution you to seriously project your long-term needs, and decide if you may want to invest in a 4-bay unit. My cautionary tale: I bought a 2-bay unit with 2x4TB WD Red drives. Configured as Raid-1, I had a ~3.8 TB capacity, which filled up alarmingly fast, as I discovered I could rip my entire SACD collection. The latter is just an example of unexpected storage demand that we all encounter.

 

In hindsight, I should have just bought a 4-bay, since with 4 drives, I can use RAID-5 and get 3x the capacity of a single drive. I'm looking at the DS416 with 4x4TB drives, and I'll re-purpose my existing 2-bay as a JBOD to act as an offsite DR site using Hyper Backup Vault.

 

Anyway, something to think about.

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However, I am already in the market for a 4-bay unit, so I would caution you to seriously project your long-term needs, and decide if you may want to invest in a 4-bay unit. My cautionary tale: I bought a 2-bay unit with 2x4TB WD Red drives. Configured as Raid-1, I had a ~3.8 TB capacity, which filled up alarmingly fast, as I discovered I could rip my entire SACD collection. The latter is just an example of unexpected storage demand that we all encounter.

 

In hindsight, I should have just bought a 4-bay...

 

Thank you, Austin. I appreciate the comment. And, I understand. I MAY still go with the 2 bay unit for two reasons (and I welcome feedback).

1) I plan to do backups as needed to an external hard drive, so I'm not going to use RAID. This way, I also have a backup NOT located within the NAS itself. So, I'll have 8 tb (2 x 4 tb) to start.

2) I'm considering an external power supply, such as an LPS, and from the limited feedback I received (including from Sbooster), some LPS are not powerful enough to feed a 4 bay unit. This is my paramount consideration in 2 bay vs 4 bay.

 

That said, IF I could plan now for an appropriate LPS to power a 4 bay Synology, I will definitely consider a 4 bay unit. And, if using an LPS on a NAS is a foolish waste of funds, then I welcome feedback on that as well.

 

THANK YOU.

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How about a sonicTransporter i5 + an 8TB USB drive

 

https://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Desktop-External-Storage-STDT8000100

 

- Low cost

- huge storage capacity

- runs Roon Server from a fast 128GB SSD

- runs MinimServer

- Plug-and-play almost no configuration

- Fanless design quiet and very reliable

 

RAID? No, I'm not a big fan of RAID and here is why. Modern drives have a 1 million hour+ MTBF. The chance of them failing is very low. The highest chance of data loss is user error. RAID is not backup. If you delete a files from a RAID array it's gone from both drives. Also if you get hit by lightning both drives are dead again your music is lost.

 

You are better off getting another USB drive for backup and keeping it disconnected.

 

Linear supply on your NAS? This may not be necessary. If you use a network player such as a microRendu your DAC is galvanically isolated from your server by the network. Some people have reported that a linear supply on your NAS makes a difference in sound but I would put this very low on the upgrade list. Get a better supply and some good power filters for your DAC and analog components first.

agillis

Small Green Computer

http://www.smallgreencomputer.com/

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I agree with agillis, all good points... Why a RAID at home? Hard drives don't fail like they used to, and cheap NAS boxes don't have much horse power. If you just want to stick a hard drive on your network, a $30 RaspberryPi with openmediavault will work fine. If you want it to do other things, such as Roon, or transcoding, a MacMini or sonicTransporter is far more versatile. Periodically backup your drive (to another), and keep it somewhere safe.

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However, I am already in the market for a 4-bay unit, so I would caution you to seriously project your long-term needs, and decide if you may want to invest in a 4-bay unit. My cautionary tale: I bought a 2-bay unit with 2x4TB WD Red drives. Configured as Raid-1, I had a ~3.8 TB capacity, which filled up alarmingly fast, as I discovered I could rip my entire SACD collection. The latter is just an example of unexpected storage demand that we all encounter.

 

In hindsight, I should have just bought a 4-bay, since with 4 drives

 

This is excellent advice. I too quickly outgrew the DS212j and moved to a DS413. I should have just started with the latter.

Digital:  Sonore opticalModule > Uptone EtherRegen > Shunyata Sigma Ethernet > Antipodes K30 > Shunyata Omega USB > Gustard X26pro DAC < Mutec REF10 SE120

Amp & Speakers:  Spectral DMA-150mk2 > Aerial 10T

Foundation: Stillpoints Ultra, Shunyata Denali v1 and Typhon x1 power conditioners, Shunyata Delta v2 and QSA Lanedri Gamma Revelation and Infinity power cords, QSA Lanedri Gamma Revelation XLR interconnect, Shunyata Sigma Ethernet, MIT Matrix HD 60 speaker cables, GIK bass traps, ASC Isothermal tube traps, Stillpoints Aperture panels, Quadraspire SVT rack, PGGB 256

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I agree with agillis, all good points... Why a RAID at home? Hard drives don't fail like they used to

 

Three of the four Seagate desktop drives I first added to my NAS failed. I replaced them with WD Red drives. Even one of those started going bad, but I was able to get a warranty replacement.

 

Through all this my NAS was never offline. RAID allowed me to continue to listen to music even with one failed drive. There was never a need to restore from backup either. And since my DS413 allows hot swapping of drives, I didn't even have to shutdown the NAS to replace drives.

Digital:  Sonore opticalModule > Uptone EtherRegen > Shunyata Sigma Ethernet > Antipodes K30 > Shunyata Omega USB > Gustard X26pro DAC < Mutec REF10 SE120

Amp & Speakers:  Spectral DMA-150mk2 > Aerial 10T

Foundation: Stillpoints Ultra, Shunyata Denali v1 and Typhon x1 power conditioners, Shunyata Delta v2 and QSA Lanedri Gamma Revelation and Infinity power cords, QSA Lanedri Gamma Revelation XLR interconnect, Shunyata Sigma Ethernet, MIT Matrix HD 60 speaker cables, GIK bass traps, ASC Isothermal tube traps, Stillpoints Aperture panels, Quadraspire SVT rack, PGGB 256

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Three of the four Seagate desktop drives I first added to my NAS failed. I replaced them with WD Red drives. Even one of those started going bad, but I was able to get a warranty replacement.
I'm yet to have a problem with WD... touch wood! But they say there are two kinds of people in this world: those who have lost data, and those who will.
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I'm yet to have a problem with WD... touch wood! But they say there are two kinds of people in this world: those who have lost data, and those who will.

 

Exactly.

 

I never bother to debate the RAID issue. People will believe what they want.

 

For myself, I am paranoid. I run RAID on the NAS, and run scheduled backups to an external drive every night. Every few weeks, I swap the external drive with another one I keep offsite.

 

Once I get my new 4-bay, I plan to use my current 2-bay as a remote offsite target (I love this feature of Synology's Hyper Backup) so I'll have DR (disaster recovery). See this link for more detail:

 

Hopefully I'll never have to use any of these backups. But if I do, it gives me peace of mind.

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Thank you, Austin.

 

You're welcome.

 

2) I'm considering an external power supply, such as an LPS, and from the limited feedback I received (including from Sbooster), some LPS are not powerful enough to feed a 4 bay unit. This is my paramount consideration in 2 bay vs 4 bay.

 

That said, IF I could plan now for an appropriate LPS to power a 4 bay Synology, I will definitely consider a 4 bay unit. And, if using an LPS on a NAS is a foolish waste of funds, then I welcome feedback on that as well.

 

THANK YOU.

 

I am a big proponent of LPSes, but I am honestly not sold on their role for the NAS.

 

I would assert that your efforts are best spent on isolation immediately upstream of your DAC - explore the threads here on CA ON network, USB, power and overall isolation.

 

Some here on CA go nuts putting LPSes and isolators all over their house, but to me that just seems redundant.

 

So I would encourage you not to let LPS choice limit your NAS size.

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Putting a LPS on a NAS is as pointless as tits on a bull. Period! Anyone who says otherwise has absolutely ZERO clue why they are doing what it is they are doing. Harsh, yes maybe, but the truth hurts sometimes. Save your money.

 

You would be much better served by putting a UPS on the NAS to help protect it against surges and abrupt shutdowns which can corrupt the data.

 

Since budget is a concern then any of the Synology units will do the trick. I've had no issues with mine running for over two years 24/7. I'm only straying from my own advice of the Synology in this post in favor of the XiSystems next time because I would prefer a bit more horsepower and better data integrity via ZFS.

 

As others have mentioned, if you can swing a X 4 Bay unit it's probably better to go that route even if you don't fill all four bays with drives from day one. BUT..... if you want to expand later you should probably consider at least RAID 5 out of the gate. Doing RAID 0 only makes sense if you intend to purchase enough disk via other means as a backup target that is of equivilient size as the DATA you want to protect. If you have 6TB of NAS data and only 1TB is worth protecting then you only need a 1TB external drive as backup.

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Putting a LPS on a NAS is as pointless as tits on a bull. Period! Anyone who says otherwise has absolutely ZERO clue why they are doing what it is they are doing. Harsh, yes maybe, but the truth hurts sometimes. Save your money.

 

You would be much better served by putting a UPS on the NAS to help protect it against surges and abrupt shutdowns which can corrupt the data.

 

Since budget is a concern then any of the Synology units will do the trick. I've had no issues with mine running for over two years 24/7. I'm only straying from my own advice of the Synology in this post in favor of the XiSystems next time because I would prefer a bit more horsepower and better data integrity via ZFS.

 

As others have mentioned, if you can swing a X 4 Bay unit it's probably better to go that route even if you don't fill all four bays with drives from day one. BUT..... if you want to expand later you should probably consider at least RAID 5 out of the gate. Doing RAID 0 only makes sense if you intend to purchase enough disk via other means as a backup target that is of equivilient size as the DATA you want to protect. If you have 6TB of NAS data and only 1TB is worth protecting then you only need a 1TB external drive as backup.

Have you tried it?

 

-Peach Audio Balanced Isolation Power Supply, Uptone LPS-1, Sonore Microrendu, Geek Pulse S Infinity, McIntosh MA2275, Paradigm 30th Anniversary Tributes, SVS SB13 Ultra

-Cambridge 752BD Oppomod PSU, Halcro MC50, Sonos ZP90 (Cullen Mod), Cyenne Audio CY-3100 DAC , Denon AVR4520, Aaron ATS-5, Aaron CC-250, Epos Epic 5, Cambridge Audio Azur 551R V2

Peach Audio Iso Transformer, Linn Akurate DSM, McIntosh MA2275 

Paradigm 30th Anniversary Tributes, SVS SB13 Ultra x2, Dynaudio BM5A MKII

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Have you tried it?

 

-Peach Audio Balanced Isolation Power Supply, Uptone LPS-1, Sonore Microrendu, Geek Pulse S Infinity, McIntosh MA2275, Paradigm 30th Anniversary Tributes, SVS SB13 Ultra

-Cambridge 752BD Oppomod PSU, Halcro MC50, Sonos ZP90 (Cullen Mod), Cyenne Audio CY-3100 DAC , Denon AVR4520, Aaron ATS-5, Aaron CC-250, Epos Epic 5, Cambridge Audio Azur 551R V2

 

If your referring to putting an LPS on my NAS then NO. I don't need to try something that I know from a technical/computing standpoint cant offer a sonic benefit.

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If your referring to putting an LPS on my NAS then NO. I don't need to try something that I know from a technical/computing standpoint cant offer a sonic benefit.

So you're an electrical engineer and you haven't tried it.

 

-Peach Audio Balanced Isolation Power Supply, Uptone LPS-1, Sonore Microrendu, Geek Pulse S Infinity, McIntosh MA2275, Paradigm 30th Anniversary Tributes, SVS SB13 Ultra

-Cambridge 752BD Oppomod PSU, Halcro MC50, Sonos ZP90 (Cullen Mod), Cyenne Audio CY-3100 DAC , Denon AVR4520, Aaron ATS-5, Aaron CC-250, Epos Epic 5, Cambridge Audio Azur 551R V2

Peach Audio Iso Transformer, Linn Akurate DSM, McIntosh MA2275 

Paradigm 30th Anniversary Tributes, SVS SB13 Ultra x2, Dynaudio BM5A MKII

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So you're an electrical engineer and you haven't tried it.

 

Why would I? It would have the same returns in SQ as also replacing the internal wiring of the NAS with unobtainium wire and sitting back to hear all the veils that were lifted as a result.

 

Its clear you were not willing to educate yourself on how data is moved from point A to B on a computer network before wasting your money on things that technically cant benefit from such a device so I wont waste anymore bandwidth here trying to convince you otherwise.

 

Happy spending :)

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Why would I? It would have the same returns in SQ as also replacing the internal wiring of the NAS with unobtainium wire and sitting back to hear all the veils that were lifted as a result.

 

Its clear you were not willing to educate yourself on how data is moved from point A to B on a computer network before wasting your money on things that technically cant benefit from such a device so I wont waste anymore bandwidth here trying to convince you otherwise.

 

Happy spending :)

 

I just inadvertently liked this response, an easy mistake to make, I've noticed, with these new features on a tablet. Just wanted to say I wasn't piling on and have no dog in this disagreement.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Computer Audiophile

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Why would I? It would have the same returns in SQ as also replacing the internal wiring of the NAS with unobtainium wire and sitting back to hear all the veils that were lifted as a result.

 

Its clear you were not willing to educate yourself on how data is moved from point A to B on a computer network before wasting your money on things that technically cant benefit from such a device so I wont waste anymore bandwidth here trying to convince you otherwise.

 

Happy spending :)

I have NO intention to do it. Don't make more assumptions.

 

-Peach Audio Balanced Isolation Power Supply, Uptone LPS-1, Sonore Microrendu, Geek Pulse S Infinity, McIntosh MA2275, Paradigm 30th Anniversary Tributes, SVS SB13 Ultra

-Cambridge 752BD Oppomod PSU, Halcro MC50, Sonos ZP90 (Cullen Mod), Cyenne Audio CY-3100 DAC , Denon AVR4520, Aaron ATS-5, Aaron CC-250, Epos Epic 5, Cambridge Audio Azur 551R V2

Peach Audio Iso Transformer, Linn Akurate DSM, McIntosh MA2275 

Paradigm 30th Anniversary Tributes, SVS SB13 Ultra x2, Dynaudio BM5A MKII

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Three of the four Seagate desktop drives I first added to my NAS failed. I replaced them with WD Red drives. Even one of those started going bad, but I was able to get a warranty replacement.

 

Through all this my NAS was never offline. RAID allowed me to continue to listen to music even with one failed drive. There was never a need to restore from backup either. And since my DS413 allows hot swapping of drives, I didn't even have to shutdown the NAS to replace drives.

 

My experience also - and why I have used RAID for many years ....with an offsite backup.

 

I currently am using 14TB for domestic use, audio and film. I am able to expand the space available by moving to larger discs, that are coming down in price over time.

 

I am happy with the Synology. I would advise you to do some digging if you want to use it for Roon, need to ensure it is one with an Intel CPU of a minimum spec.

 

M

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