NAS - Synology - Differences

LupoLover · 18 Jan 2016 at 15:29

Hi all

I want a Synology after my friends seems to do everything I need:

Bit of VPN protection built in for torrents
Torrents - Can start them from an android tablet
Sharing for various machines around house

(Yes Im a basic User)

He has a 214SE, I know the first number is number of drives and second 2 is release year, however I was looking for a 2nd hand one one Ebay and wondering which one I can go to. For example would a 2011 do?

Any advice guys? Does a 2015 model have a useful feature I might use? USB3?

Cheers

Avalon · 18 Jan 2016 at 17:55

Before you buy anything have a look at xpenology which is basically Synology software on conventional hardware. You can buy a sub £100 Dell T20 server inc 500GB HD that will take 6 drives and is significantly more capable than an entry level Synology and costs only slightly more than a bare 216SE.

Synology operate a support cycle of planned obsolescence for software support which I don't get along with - if you buy a top end NAS now that's more than capable of running the later DSM's because it's still way ahead of the entry level stuff, then you should have some option to upgrade to the newer DSM, paid or otherwise. Synology don't see it that way.

dessimpson · 18 Jan 2016 at 18:05

I've got a DS415+. It's running a few web sites and a shared database for Kodi.
It's a brilliant bit of kit and now that I've had it for a year or so, I don't know how I got by without it.

My mate's got a 414 and the only real difference is it's on the older CPU's and only has one Ethernet adaptor. It runs everything mine does, just a tad slower at times.

LupoLover · 19 Jan 2016 at 07:26

I can get a DS216SE for £102 new so might pull the trigger on that and get a 4TB drive.
Any objections?

Or DS216 Play for £181?

I do have a 4k TV so it might be useful

Cheers

Cadbury · 19 Jan 2016 at 08:09

Avalon said:
Synology operate a support cycle of planned obsolescence for software support which I don't get along with - if you buy a top end NAS now that's more than capable of running the later DSM's because it's still way ahead of the entry level stuff, then you should have some option to upgrade to the newer DSM, paid or otherwise. Synology don't see it that way.

You what? Where on earth have you got that idea from? From my experience they're totally the opposite.

I bought a DS410 5 years ago and it's on the latest DSM. They did announce that this DSM will be the last supported version but given the age of the hardware that's inside, 5 years of free DSM upgrades is certainly not something to shun.

Are you telling me that 5 years isn't long enough?

Avalon · 19 Jan 2016 at 11:41

Cadbury said:
You what? Where on earth have you got that idea from? From my experience they're totally the opposite.

I bought a DS410 5 years ago and it's on the latest DSM. They did announce that this DSM will be the last supported version but given the age of the hardware that's inside, 5 years of free DSM upgrades is certainly not something to shun.

Are you telling me that 5 years isn't long enough?

You ask where I got the idea from yet mention you're aware you won't get the next DSM officially, where do you think I got the idea from? 5 years for main support would be reasonable, add legacy patching for critical stuff for say another 1-2 and i'd call that reasonable.

Now go and look at the DSM 4.3 launch, it was September 2013, so you'd expect 2009 hardware onward to get it, especially if for example a DS409 was still being sold in 2011 as the DS411j with only an esata port having been added. Synology thought otherwise and it was left to users to devise a way to patch the firmware to run. Only reason ever offered was it was too much work to QC it on older hardware, strange then that it'd already been built to run on near identical hardware. Once you're not on a supported DSM package support starts to be sketchy as time goes on.

For example I paid under £100 for an HP Microserver with 250GB HD, I added 4x2TB drives which brought me up to £400ish and gave 8.25TB of un-formatted capacity or 6TB of redundant storage (250GB was used as scratch at the time before being replaced with another 2x2TB). A DS410 was circa £400 disk-less at the time. It's hard to make a case that a DS410 represents a better buy when it's £300 more expensive for the bare unit and they both run the same software, a micro server is more expandable and CPU wise significantly quicker, it'll also have current software support on an ongoing basis for many years to come and I can change that software as I find something that better suits my needs (it's run two versions of WHS, Xpenology and Unraid so far).