NAS options QNAP Synology or Asustor

Rapp

Rapp

Rapp

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6 Dec 2008
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61
Hey everyone

I having difficulty trying to decide which NAS box I should go for? I am currently looking at the following models.

Qnap TS-469L 4 Bay £559.99
Synology DS1513+ 5 Bay £649.99
Asustor AS-608T NAS 8 Bay £667.99

Most of it seems to come down to what is the better software but then I came across the Asustor which is a bit of a new comer to the game but gives me and additional 3/4 disks over the others.

They all have almost the same apps/hardware spec I just need to have a at least 4 drives for storage space the ability to play videos from my Samsung TV and option to be able to configure it for remote access so I can get to my files from anywhere.

I have had a look at the online live demos for all of them which are very similar making it hard to choose between them.

Anyone have strong views on any of these? Especially if you have any experience with an Asustor?

Thanks

Rapp
 
My personal preference is the Synology, I have the smaller DS214 and DSM is great to use. Have you checked out any online reviews for those units?
 
I'm on my second Synology and though I really don't use most of the features (it's mainly just a place to dump data for me) I've never had any issues with either of them. I only really replaced the fist one as I wanted a bit more performance out of it (also they had stopped adding some of the newer features as the h/w spec was getting old) and needed to upgrade the HDDs to get more space on it. The old one I then sold on and as far as I know that is still running fine for the guy I sold it to.

The old box sat in the corner of my room and was on 24/7 from the day I got and I was a heavy smoker. I must admit it was filthy inside when I stripped it down to clean it before selling it on but it was still running along without issue.

The DSM software is decent to use and has loads of features these days, plus there are repositories for downloading extra s/w. Bit like a stripped down app store I guess. There is the official one but you can find 3rd party ones and just add them as a location to check for software install packages.

One thing I did find recently and played about with was getting Java on it and a 3rd party package that installed a Minecraft server. Works quite nicely, though a bit of *nix command line knowledge helps as I need to SSH/Telnet to it to copy over the newer versions of MC when they release them.

They also have apps for your phone, so if you setup remote access etc you might find those useful.

So... probably not the most helpful post for your questions as I really don't use the features of it but just to say that at least I have no horror stories to tell.
 
Don't have any experience of the Asustor series though some of them seem to be rebadged units as per the Synology and QNap ones, bit too new still to the market I think for anyone to have really put them fully to the test.

QNap and Synology from my experience are much of a muchness - Synology have the most feature rich software but I find QNap to be a little more straight forward software wise or atleast work more in a way thats intuitive to me - I buy them for my personal use but reccomend/buy Synology units for most other people.

I have the QNap TS-412 for my personal backup solution and would be unreserved in reccomending it or other units based on that chassis.
 
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I've personally got an old synology nas so if it had to be one of those then it would likely be the synology one, having said that I've read good reviews of the asustor and the qnap too. I doubt you'd go wrong with any of them.

I am going to suggest another option, it's cheaper and a LOT of the forum has one, the hp microserver, it's 4/5 drives and is about 200 quid (or less if you get it during a discount period). It should cover what you need to do with a linux/windows os.

Main thread about it
 
I did have a synology but now I have a HP N54L running synology 4.3. The N54L is cheap so I have the best of both worlds :)
 
deuse said:
I did have a synology but now I have a HP N54L running synology 4.3. The N54L is cheap so I have the best of both worlds :)
Click to expand...

This is the way I would go to I have a N36L with Xpenology. Why buy a Synology low cpu powered model. When you can have a Microserver with 4 bays for half the price or lower. The Micro servers are extremely well built too. it offers so much flexibility you can put ESXI on it and have Xpenology in a VM so you can do other things with it.

Xpenology is Synology OS on different hardware virtually no difference. Same packages available also.

http://xpenology.com/forum/
 
Some very interesting idea's in this thread I hadn't thought about the microserver option. I may have to try out Xpenology on a VM and see how I get on with it.

With the HP Microserver are you able to configure the disks into raid 6? Also does anyone use theirs to stream to a Samsung TV?

I think that the I am liking the Synology over the QNAP and like the fact you can buy a 5 disk bay extender and easily add it into the array if you did ever run out of space. But then the Asustor has a lot more drive bays at almost the same price.

Found this review for the Asustor AS-608T but not sure there is enough information out there about it for me to bite when you consider the amount of support for the Synology models.
 
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deuse said:
I did have a synology but now I have a HP N54L running synology 4.3. The N54L is cheap so I have the best of both worlds :)
Click to expand...

Thank you so much for this idea I have just looked into XPEnology and it would be great to have the Synology DSM running on the N54L just need to flash it with a custom bios to enable me to use 6 disks and we are good to go.
 
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