Best NAS (without HDD) for ~£200

I don't think the 211+ offers anything extra that is terribly useful. There is no difference in speeds between it and the 211. I think the only difference is more RAM and hot swappable HDDs. The comparison charts on the Synology website show it very similar. The 211+ has an SD card reader and eSata as well.

The speeds of the 211 are great and I would recommend it to anyone. When I first copied over lots of my captured HD video I was getting a constant 48Mb/s write.
 
Spawn said:
Well i went for the 211J as its basically the same as the 211 but with less ram and slower CPU...tbh from what i have researched i dont think it will make much of a difference...the real use for my NAS is streaming my blu ray movies to my LCD via my media streamer as my ext hd is running out of space and i didnt fancy spunking another £100+ on a bigger ext hd, which will then take up more space on my desk in my room.

So at least with the 211J and the 2 1.5tb hds i have, i should have plenty of room...if more is needed then ill just buy bigger hds but at the moment i think im pretty set for some time now. I will be backing up my data as well but then i dont have tons of data to backup...the only things that will reside on the NAS is my movie collection, mp3 collection and a few other bits and bobs.

Have just installed the hds now so am about to connect it up and set it all up....will post back on the read/write performance of the NAS unit.
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Hi spwawn, in that case your Synology will serve you admirably. I use my 207 to stream bluray and ripped.downloaded DVD's to great effect. Also for streaming music to my Roberts stream 83i as well as backup. Its a fantastic device and you will be pleased. Maybe my concerns over write performance are unfounded...

Thinking further out though there is talk of trancodign codec services running on the synology boxes. More CPU and mem will help with that me thinks....
 
Right well finally managed to get round to setting up the NAS box but having major issues with it...the DSM finally installed after about 30mins of tearing my hair out...kept failing when it was formatting the hds...kept saying that i needed to forward port 23, which i did but still failed.

At the moment i have my netgear router connected to a 5 port netgear gigabit switch...which then i have my laptop and NAS box connected into. Now i cant browse the net and synology assistant wont and cant find the NAS box on the network even though in my router i see the diskstation attached with a ip address. When i was having issues installing the DSM onto the box, i ended up connecting the NAS box and laptop back into my router and it worked perfectly fine....so unless my gigabit switch is buggered i cant see why it wont let me access the NAS box through the gigabit switch.

Right now im typing this through the gigabit switch ie have my laptop connected via a CAT5 cable to the switch...but i cannot for the life of me connect to the NAS box...ive tried 3 different CAT5 cables but to no avail...in fact the cable it comes with i tried and no go...but if i connect it straight through to my router then it works perfectly fine ie log on and off etc.

So anyone have any ideas as to why its not playing ball with my gigabit switch...the switch itself is working ie im posting here with my laptop connect to it and the led lights are on and not flashing etc.

EDIT: Ok have connected the NAS box to my gigabit switch but its taking synology assistant a good 2-3 times of me manually searching to find the box then connecting to it takes a good min or so and same with logging in...surely it shouldnt take that long as through the router direct, it searches and logs on within seconds :/
 
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Just a quick question, if I buy the 211 and connect it to my router will I be able to stream to my PS3?

I assume so but would just like to make sure that someone else has done it
 
ringo747 said:
Did you get sorted mate?
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Sadly no, i tried again this morning before i had to go into the office and last night my lappy was connecting perfectly fine through the switch but now takes up to a min or so before my homepage ie google comes up....cant connect to the NAS unit if connected through my gigabit switch...well it does connect but takes forever and it times out at least 3 times before it connects.

Just spoken to OCUK, great bunch of guys and from what i described they think it could very well be my switch thats causing the issue as when both my lappy and NAS are connected direct to the router, i can connect to the NAS box within secs.

So i have ordered a new 8 port gigabit switch from OCUK, wont have it till tues sadly but im hoping that its the switch thats causing the problem....fingers crossed.

I guess for the time being ie till i get the new switch, ill just have to connect the box directly to the router and get it setup that way...at least i can use it to copy my stuff over...have over 700gbs worth of movies, mp3s and other stuff.

Ringo seeing as i have 2 x 1.5tb hds in the box...which is the best volume i should go for??...concerned about speed and reliability but was thinking maybe just having 2 separate volumes rather than RAID 0 or 1.
 
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It does sound like a strange one - I have mine connected to a GB switch and it works no problems. It really was easy to set up and Syn Assistant had no issues finding it.

I didn't have to change anything in the router at all although I have assigned a static local IP in the address reservation table.

The speeds given on the Synology site are based on RAID1 configuration apparently so I'd say that is your best bet.

I set up a custom volume rather than using the Synology Hybrid RAID. I think it is only more useful if you want to RAID disks of different capacities. RAID1 is what you want for redundancy. You should still have all the stuff on the NAS backed up.

I have ordered a 3rd 2TB disk which will live in my main PC. I will run incremental backups from the NAS to the local drive to make sure I have two copies of everything.
 
ringo747 said:
It does sound like a strange one - I have mine connected to a GB switch and it works no problems. It really was easy to set up and Syn Assistant had no issues finding it.

I didn't have to change anything in the router at all although I have assigned a static local IP in the address reservation table.

The speeds given on the Synology site are based on RAID1 configuration apparently so I'd say that is your best bet.

I set up a custom volume rather than using the Synology Hybrid RAID. I think it is only more useful if you want to RAID disks of different capacities. RAID1 is what you want for redundancy. You should still have all the stuff on the NAS backed up.

I have ordered a 3rd 2TB disk which will live in my main PC. I will run incremental backups from the NAS to the local drive to make sure I have two copies of everything.
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Yeh its a strange one but tbh the switch hasnt been used for a good few yrs now....just been sat on my desk gathering dust so perhaps that caused an issue as the guy at OCUK said that it could be the ports in the switch that are faulty and thats why its taking a long time to access the NAS and the internet.

Anyhow ill definitely know by next tues if it is the switch or not....i just hope it is because the NAS box even though its not big is still going to be a pain to pack up and send off if i need to RMA it back to OCUK.

Think ill go for the RAID1 option as it seems to offer the best compromise...cant really see what RAID 0 will offer me but i might just end up having 2 separate volumes at 1.5tb each. Will have to have a play with it tommorrow as im off out tonight for New yrs.

Thanks Ringo for your help and advice..have a great New Year dude:).
 
ringo747 said:
Did you try different ports on the switch? I hope that is the only problem you have. You'll get there eventually!

And the same to you!
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LOL yep tried all the ports...it only has 5 and the same thing happens :/...well worst that wil happen is that the problem will still be there then ill have to re-think my strategy...might get OCUK to RMA the NAS box and get a new one or something but honestly i dont think the NAS box is at fault here because when connected direct to my netgear router it works perfectly fine....it just seems to halt to a crawl when connected to the switch.
 
ringo747 said:
Make sure you download the latest firmware file - you will need it before you start! And make sure that the version supports the model. Each firmware supports different models I think.
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I just installed the DSM off the disk which is version 3.0-1342
Iv done the raid1 setup on my 4tb array.
Can I just update the firmware without touching the array? Or will I have to start again if I upgrade the firmware?
Dont want to sit through that bad sector checking again haha.
 
Spawn said:
I take it that setting up the NAS box is pretty simple??.
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Yeah, it'll come with the manual and first time installation guide but it's just put the CD in, next, next plug it in then you can map drives. That's if you even need to use a CD, it differs.

edit, didn't notice there were two pages. :(
 
Got my new 8 port gigabit switch today and connected it up and everything works perfectly fine...so does seem like my other gigabit switch was faulty...too late to do anything about it as ive had it for a few yrs now...thrown it in the bin.

But am happy that my network works fine...the NAS box responds very fast as it should ie when logging in.

Now i just need to map the drives, transfer over 700+gb of Blu Ray rips and other stuff....should be fun that lol.
 
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Hmmm seem to be having a few problems with the NAS unit.

Anyhow got it all connected up and im currently uploading a 4gb video file and im confused as to why im getting such poor transfer speeds ie at the moment its only transferring at 7mb/sec according to the file task monitor. Im transferring the file from my laptop hd to my NAS...i have both my laptop and NAS connected to my gigabit switch, obviously my laptop is 10/100mb so not a gigabit connection but the NAS is gigabit.

Maybe im being dumb here but is it because of my laptop that im getting such poor transfer speeds??...i mean with my ext hd i got around 15mb/sec transfer speed when transferring the same video file from my laptop hd to my ext hd.

:confused:...anyone shed any light??...i dont know if i have it set up correctly as at the moment ive mapped the NAS drive through the DSM....i havent connected the NAS to my network.
 
Not sure why your speeds are so slow - most of the time I get really good speeds but every so often a particular group of files I copy over will be much slower.

It could possibly be the slow connection from laptop but I'm not sure. How are the download speeds from the NAS to the same laptop?

How did you map the drive through the DSM? Not sure what you mean by the last statement really.

Did you set any network settings in DSM? All I did was plug it into my switch and then I maybe updated the workgroup name but that's it.
 
ringo747 said:
Not sure why your speeds are so slow - most of the time I get really good speeds but every so often a particular group of files I copy over will be much slower.

It could possibly be the slow connection from laptop but I'm not sure. How are the download speeds from the NAS to the same laptop?

How did you map the drive through the DSM? Not sure what you mean by the last statement really.

Did you set any network settings in DSM? All I did was plug it into my switch and then I maybe updated the workgroup name but that's it.
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Cheers ringo for replying to my post.

I dont know about the download speeds from the NAS box to the laptop...i take it u mean that copy that same file back to my laptop right??. Ill try it later tonight when i get a chance and report back if thats what your asking, if not then could you please clarify thanks.

Well i logged into my NAS box and opened up the control panel and clicked on map drive option, which it did then. I havent got it connected to my network but when i log into my router i can see its IP address along with the name of the box ie i named it Server....so from that i imagine its connected to the network but in network places i dont see the box ie i cant browse to it...but thats because i havent set it up yet...still trying to figure that part out lol.

And no i havent set any network settings within the DSM...all ive done is connect it to my gigabit switch which also has my laptop connected to it...mapped the NAS drive then copied the file from my laptop to the NAS box via the file browser within the DSM...where now im getting terrible speeds ie between 7-8mbs/sec whereas copying the same file from my laptop to my ext hd gives me roughly about 15mb/sec transfer speed.
 
Yes I mean if you copy the same file back to the laptop - are you getting anywhere near the advertised download speeds? Maybe it is just upload only that is funny.

When you say you logged into your NAS box I would take that as being logging into DSM but I think you mean different.

I have my drives mapped by clicking on Computer then Map Network Drive, then enter \\server\sharename.

I'm confused when you say you don't have it connected to your network - you do! It's plugged into the switch.

You maybe have hid the shared folders so that they don't appear in my network places. You should manually enter \\server\foldername to see your shared folders.

I think I am able to read between the lines though and I think you have it set up ok.
 
ringo747 said:
Yes I mean if you copy the same file back to the laptop - are you getting anywhere near the advertised download speeds? Maybe it is just upload only that is funny.

When you say you logged into your NAS box I would take that as being logging into DSM but I think you mean different.

I have my drives mapped by clicking on Computer then Map Network Drive, then enter \\server\sharename.

I'm confused when you say you don't have it connected to your network - you do! It's plugged into the switch.

You maybe have hid the shared folders so that they don't appear in my network places. You should manually enter \\server\foldername to see your shared folders.

I think I am able to read between the lines though and I think you have it set up ok.
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Yep sorry i mean im logged into the DSM part which is where i mapped the drives then transferred the file over. I tried copying the file back but it wont let me ie through the file browser in DSM...which leads me to believe that even though its connected to the switch and the network, i cant see it in my network places but i havent messed around with the settings there tbh. So when i say its not connected, i mean i cant see it in my network places but its definitely connected as in my router it shows up with the server name and ip addy.

I think im going to reset the box and start from scratch and see if that sorts out the slow speeds when transferring files over...at the moment ive done the mapping through the DSM and use the file browser to copy the files over etc...ill try doing it through my network places and see if that increases the speed or not...i hope it does or else ill be sorely disappointed...dont get me wrong im not looking 100mb/sec speeds but at least 30-40mb/sec as thats what the NAS unit is capable of and i havent seen any mention that the speed is greatly affected if you only use 10/100mb network on a gigabit switch...my network is connected at the full 100mbps speed according to the network icon in vista.
 
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