2 bay NAS for £150 to £200

psd99 · 23 Oct 2017 at 16:53

Hi I got the drives 2 X 4 TB drives when they were on a good deal but I'm now looking for a NAS to do the following

- Store Music
- Videos (4k possibility)
- Personal document storage
- Backup via Time machine

accessed via a macbook mainly and smart TV's + ps4 pros running on a wired 10/100/1000 network!

Veering towards the synology
Synology DS216J

However, which other options would you NAS geniuses recommend I take a look at?

Scythe · 23 Oct 2017 at 19:19

Got no experience in other NAS but I have the DS216+II and it's great.

I use it as a PLEX server, as a network drive and as a Time Machine drive and it's solid. Time Machine is relatively easy to set up on it and allocate a share and off you go.

bobbarley · 23 Oct 2017 at 19:33

Synology are great, would get my vote. I used one until I outgrew it and moved to a HP Microserver.

Badfish · 24 Oct 2017 at 10:04

You mention "Videos (4k possibility)". With this, do you mean streaming or transcoding? That Synology will be great for direct streaming, backups, storing music, etc, but if you need to transcode movies then something more beefy would be better, specially if you want 4K!

psd99 · 24 Oct 2017 at 10:25

Badfish said:
You mention "Videos (4k possibility)". With this, do you mean streaming or transcoding? That Synology will be great for direct streaming, backups, storing music, etc, but if you need to transcode movies then something more beefy would be better, specially if you want 4K!

hi what does it actually mean by transcoding?

How about this scenario, if I wanted to store 4k videos on my NAS then directly stream to the TV? would something like the
synology ds216 play 2 be a good selection for me?

Badfish · 24 Oct 2017 at 16:15

Video Transcoding is the process of converting a video file from one format to another, which is to make videos view-able across different platforms and devices. If its a 4K TV then it must support DLNA and so you wont need transcoding. However if you want to stream to Apple TV, mobiles, consoles, etc then transcoding is required.

psd99 · 25 Oct 2017 at 19:38

good point, did not think about streaming to phones etc but 4k content will be for TV
no point streaming that to a phone that barely supports 3g lol
i don't want apple tv, doubt i need that!

Randall8686 · 25 Oct 2017 at 21:09

Synology gets my vote. However i have a genuine synology for backup and a Xpenology for the main server. Xpenology is running DMS (their os) on any hardware you like. I picked up a thinkserver ts140 with a quad core xeon for under £200 on one of those crazy cashback deals. Its got enough horsepower to transcode 4k to one device and a good half a dozen 1080p streams. I have 6 hdds installed and its not missed a beat in a good couple of years. Before thay i ran it on a n54l again perfect. BUT ots not supported abd if ot goes t1t5 up your on your own to recover data. A genuine product you ha e synology to help out.

But an equivilent synology would cost thousands as i dont have a limit on bays just add more sata or sas breakout cards for more drives.

I run a cctv server on it, plex witg multiple users, file server, email server, website server etc all fine. I would not however put business email etc on it.

If you like to tinker xpenology all the way. If you just want somthing to forget about synology all the way.

psd99 · 25 Oct 2017 at 22:08

Yes symbology is getting the win here so far but considering I'm wanting 4k that budget doesn't look possible.

the ds 216 has caught my eye but almost £250!

Randall8686 · 26 Oct 2017 at 08:17

psd99 said:
Yes symbology is getting the win here so far but considering I'm wanting 4k that budget doesn't look possible.

the ds 216 has caught my eye but almost £250!

If you **** 4k transcoding on that budget you need to either go xpenology with a xeon/i5 cpu or just use direct stream on compatible devices/use a streaming device on each tv.

psd99 · 26 Oct 2017 at 10:21

Randall8686 said:
If you **** 4k transcoding on that budget you need to either go xpenology with a xeon/i5 cpu or just use direct stream on compatible devices/use a streaming device on each tv.

what does that even mean?

Randall8686 · 27 Oct 2017 at 08:17

psd99 said:
what does that even mean?

It was supposed to be "Want" but some how i managed to replace the T with another letter, I was not suggesting you want to stream 4k adult entertainment hahaha!

But in all honesty if you dont like manually updating products etc then i would go for a genuine synology product. There are plenty of xpenology guides on youtube as well as synology advice.

Thats made my morning but proves i really should proof read before posting.... PMSL.

psd99 · 27 Oct 2017 at 11:22

Randall8686 said:
It was supposed to be "Want" but some how i managed to replace the T with another letter, I was not suggesting you want to stream 4k adult entertainment hahaha!

But in all honesty if you dont like manually updating products etc then i would go for a genuine synology product. There are plenty of xpenology guides on youtube as well as synology advice.

Thats made my morning but proves i really should proof read before posting.... PMSL.

rotfl yer right you really meant "w" and 4k adult entertainment videos
never seen them in 4k tbh lol

Randall8686 · 28 Oct 2017 at 13:49

Try anything once.

There are plenty of alternatives such as unraid but i found that so long winded and the packages and especially ios/android apps lacking. Synology have hit the nail on the head but you pay for it.

I would however avoid a 2 bay nas as it limits you in the future. 4 bay as a mininum these days. Qnap are supposed to be good but i have never really tried one. Alternative is a second hand unit. They seem to last forever i have an old ds108j from 10 years ago thats at my mums backing up her laptop. Works a treat still.