Can someone explain to me why you would use one of these NAS boxes over throwing together a cheap desktop box given the pricing?
Is it just the convenience/plug-n-play nature of it?
For businesses I could see it, saving time and having an obvious place to point to if things go wrong. But for home use ... if you have 1 system you could just throw some drives in something like this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8... or if you have multiple systems you could just turn filesharing on on one of them with the external enclosure(s) attached.
These devices are not designed for home use. It's a turnkey solution for businesses. Put this in and they don't need to spend much money setting it up and maintaining it.
One can save money on hardware, but for a well-put-together system, you need to make good hardware decisions, which requires knowing a fair amount about your hardware options, which change a lot over 2-5 years, which is how long one hopes a server solution lasts before requiring upgrade or replacement.
Even if you're enough of a hobbyist or tech worker that you're familiar with hardware, you're going to spend a bit more to get a comparably power-efficient, quiet, compact system.
I started speccing a tower PC to do this sort of work, but once I took power use into account, noise, space, etc, I just ended up getting a RAID enclosure to connect to an existing old Mac mini I had (those things are very power efficient). If I hadn't had that laying around, I would have gone with one of these NAS boxes.
Yes, it's convenience, but not just "plug-n-play" in terms of software, it's also "don't need to be a hardware expert, don't need to design and build a hardware configuration that also takes energy use and noise into account," etc.
"which change a lot over 2-5 years, which is how long one hopes a server solution lasts before requiring upgrade or replacement." I've read a few NAS forums and websites when I was building my own stuff and I would disagree with that. Many people there ran their server on old PIII hardware that gave them enough juice to stream HD content at 10MB/s. I bought a Quad Core AMD CPU and am saturating my GigE network. What more do I want? SATA will be around for many more years, so I don't need to upgrade because of changing connections. My CPU is fast enough to saturate my network, so I don't need to upgrade because of performance issues. The only reason to upgrade is if something breaks which happens to prebuilt stuff as well. Unless you start using your server for more than file hosting, you can live with something pretty old in terms of performance and still be happy as long as the HDDs still fit it (having an IDE-only system around now would be quite expensive). I'd even debate the power efficient, quiet and compact statement of yours. If you only run a few HDDs (sub-4), then that might be true. But as size increases, self-built stuff gets cheaper and the extra money can be easily spent on reducing noise and getting more frugal hardware (the new Kabini stuff looks great). :D
I'm someone who's currently in the market today for a 4-5 bay home NAS and who spent the last several days comparing Synology vs getting my own parts in terms of OS ease/capability and quietness/power usage/discreteness.
Honestly, the benefits of a handbuilt NAS feels like the benefits of a 1999 desktop Linux system vs a present day Mac Mini. That can be good or bad depending on who you are, but the key point is that the best option is far from clear, even for one who's comfortable with tinkering his way around a computer.
I understand when people want to have less than 4 drives for example. But if you get above that, I'd go with a discrete PC. My setup cost me 930€ and allows for 16 3.5" HDDs in RAID0/1/5 (software card, but enough performance to saturate GigE). It is a mid tower with 3x backplanes with 5 3.5" spaces in 3 5.25" slots, 2 8x RAID cards, AMD Quad Core x4 840 with 8GB ECC RAM. I could have saved money by increasing the footprint and decreasing density, but I like it that way. I haven't tweaked the loudness, because it is in another room. I could make it silent by spending another 50€ or so for better fans and heatsinks. I use Linux as an OS and even as a novice Linuxer I got it set up in a day, even though the RocketRaid card is quite temperamental. As long as you can build your own desktop, you can build your own NAS. And once you get to a certain size, it becomes much cheaper as well. Otherwise, those prebuilt things are okay for you parents or grandparents etc. :)
Shame about the lackluster encrypted write performance(only 22MB/s). I'm looking forward to when they upgrade to processors with built-in encryption support.
May be it's too late but I hope my comment will help someone. I was about to buy a pre-built 4 bays NAS box for around $500. The price is pretty steep and I wanted to compare with a self built NAS Server. Here are the summary of my observations:
1. In terms of quality build, a self-built NAS server will beat by far these Synology or QNAP boxes. Better in everything, CPU, case, silence, component quality.
2. Using NAS4Free (the open source distro), ZFS has better quality and performance compared to physical RAID card.
3. Unfortunately, you'll need to spend time to learn how to install, configure and maintain your NAS Server. The reward is that your NAS Server will beat these pre-built NAS boxes, even the pro version, on every factor: performance, quietness.
4. CPU power is not the main criteria. Actually repurposing old hardware is a bad idea. Their inefficient power supply, energy sucking CPU will cost you in operating cost. For example, a P4 3 GHz running non stop for a year may cost you $100+ in electricity bill compared to a 17W CPU + Bronze PSU.
Hope NAS gurus will agree with these observations.
I purchased a Synology 1511+ a few years ago and have been very happy with it. Prior to that, I had been building my own storage servers.
Obviously I cannot speak for everyone, but my personal experience of the advantages of buying this device vs. building are as follows:
1. Built in applications for Synology DSM software. Numerous apps, including some for Android, iPhone and Windows Phone. I make extensive use of their music streaming audio app; I don't even use a dedicated MP3 player anymore because of this. There are countless other apps both officially supported by Synology and other 3rd party apps. I even run Sickbeard right on my DS1511+. I find this central management of these apps very convenient vs. installing a hodge-podge of separate apps and managing them all.
2. Support. I've only had to contact Synology support once. When I did, they set up a remote session for an engineer to log in and help me out. Even for people comfortable with maintaining an open source NAS device, support can become an issue at times.
3. I like the small footprint and power usage of the device. Not saying you can't find something comparable in a case but you would be hard pressed I think.
In conclusion, the main value for me was in the additional apps and support. I make heavy use of the device. It is back-end storage (both iSCSI and SMB) for both a Hyper-V cluster and an ESX server. I also make extensive use of many of the other apps including virus scanner. I am certainly not knocking the people who go the open source NAS route; for me it was about picking my battles and where I want to focus my energy. After owning my Syno device for about 3 years now it has cost me very very little in man hours to support, allowing me to focus on other things.
Ok what I would like to see is some proof. What can you put together that can hold (nicely not crap) 8 drives, has GOOD Raid for said 8 drives, is power efficient and can do just as well or better than this for the SAME or CHEAPER. Quit with opinions show us actual facts (an actual build with pricing)...
Oh and I am sure your "build" will include hot swap bays where you can easily replace any of the 8 drives if one fails. Make sure it is a complete build and lacks nothing compared to this unit. (I will believe it when I see it)
I agree. I priced a 12 bay, quiet, build you own solution.
It was hard to find a small case that would hold 12 drives. It did not have easy to access hot swap drives, it was big and you would have to invest time to build and manage it.
I build all my PCs and I was really convinced that a build your own NAS was the way to go but for an extra couple of hundred dollars ended up with a Synology 2413+
So glad I bought the Synology, small, quiet, convenient, so easy to tell which drive has failed and swap it. All the software and apps just work with no maintenance. Best thing ever.
Im with you, except I dont think you can build it for any cheaper than a synology. If you build something decent, low power, and capable (decent raid, etc) it costs quite a bit...
Performance The Synology can deliver real 120 MB/s transfer speed with one LAN Cable or even more with two LAN Cables attached, even when using RAID-5 or RAID-6 (cpu has to split up and calculate). I had pretty bad experience with a Netgear NAS, which made max 40 MB/s, on Raid-1 :-\
Functionality The Frontend is nice to configure and also offers site to site sync. If you have importand data you might be happy of having a mirrored NAD somewhere esle (at home, other site, basement).
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glugglug - Tuesday, May 28, 2013 - link
Can someone explain to me why you would use one of these NAS boxes over throwing together a cheap desktop box given the pricing?Is it just the convenience/plug-n-play nature of it?
For businesses I could see it, saving time and having an obvious place to point to if things go wrong. But for home use ... if you have 1 system you could just throw some drives in something like this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8... or if you have multiple systems you could just turn filesharing on on one of them with the external enclosure(s) attached.
Flunk - Tuesday, May 28, 2013 - link
These devices are not designed for home use. It's a turnkey solution for businesses. Put this in and they don't need to spend much money setting it up and maintaining it.Damek - Tuesday, May 28, 2013 - link
One can save money on hardware, but for a well-put-together system, you need to make good hardware decisions, which requires knowing a fair amount about your hardware options, which change a lot over 2-5 years, which is how long one hopes a server solution lasts before requiring upgrade or replacement.Even if you're enough of a hobbyist or tech worker that you're familiar with hardware, you're going to spend a bit more to get a comparably power-efficient, quiet, compact system.
I started speccing a tower PC to do this sort of work, but once I took power use into account, noise, space, etc, I just ended up getting a RAID enclosure to connect to an existing old Mac mini I had (those things are very power efficient). If I hadn't had that laying around, I would have gone with one of these NAS boxes.
Yes, it's convenience, but not just "plug-n-play" in terms of software, it's also "don't need to be a hardware expert, don't need to design and build a hardware configuration that also takes energy use and noise into account," etc.
Death666Angel - Tuesday, May 28, 2013 - link
"which change a lot over 2-5 years, which is how long one hopes a server solution lasts before requiring upgrade or replacement."I've read a few NAS forums and websites when I was building my own stuff and I would disagree with that. Many people there ran their server on old PIII hardware that gave them enough juice to stream HD content at 10MB/s. I bought a Quad Core AMD CPU and am saturating my GigE network. What more do I want? SATA will be around for many more years, so I don't need to upgrade because of changing connections. My CPU is fast enough to saturate my network, so I don't need to upgrade because of performance issues. The only reason to upgrade is if something breaks which happens to prebuilt stuff as well. Unless you start using your server for more than file hosting, you can live with something pretty old in terms of performance and still be happy as long as the HDDs still fit it (having an IDE-only system around now would be quite expensive).
I'd even debate the power efficient, quiet and compact statement of yours. If you only run a few HDDs (sub-4), then that might be true. But as size increases, self-built stuff gets cheaper and the extra money can be easily spent on reducing noise and getting more frugal hardware (the new Kabini stuff looks great). :D
mavere - Tuesday, May 28, 2013 - link
I'm someone who's currently in the market today for a 4-5 bay home NAS and who spent the last several days comparing Synology vs getting my own parts in terms of OS ease/capability and quietness/power usage/discreteness.Honestly, the benefits of a handbuilt NAS feels like the benefits of a 1999 desktop Linux system vs a present day Mac Mini. That can be good or bad depending on who you are, but the key point is that the best option is far from clear, even for one who's comfortable with tinkering his way around a computer.
Death666Angel - Tuesday, May 28, 2013 - link
I understand when people want to have less than 4 drives for example. But if you get above that, I'd go with a discrete PC.My setup cost me 930€ and allows for 16 3.5" HDDs in RAID0/1/5 (software card, but enough performance to saturate GigE). It is a mid tower with 3x backplanes with 5 3.5" spaces in 3 5.25" slots, 2 8x RAID cards, AMD Quad Core x4 840 with 8GB ECC RAM. I could have saved money by increasing the footprint and decreasing density, but I like it that way. I haven't tweaked the loudness, because it is in another room. I could make it silent by spending another 50€ or so for better fans and heatsinks. I use Linux as an OS and even as a novice Linuxer I got it set up in a day, even though the RocketRaid card is quite temperamental. As long as you can build your own desktop, you can build your own NAS. And once you get to a certain size, it becomes much cheaper as well. Otherwise, those prebuilt things are okay for you parents or grandparents etc. :)
mooshroom - Tuesday, May 28, 2013 - link
It's the large capacity, features, backup, and the point and click setup. All = convenience.btb - Tuesday, May 28, 2013 - link
Shame about the lackluster encrypted write performance(only 22MB/s). I'm looking forward to when they upgrade to processors with built-in encryption support.DanNeely - Tuesday, May 28, 2013 - link
Their large business xs family uses more capable processors. Those ones have prices that make anything less than a SAN look cheap though.Peroxyde - Thursday, May 30, 2013 - link
May be it's too late but I hope my comment will help someone. I was about to buy a pre-built 4 bays NAS box for around $500. The price is pretty steep and I wanted to compare with a self built NAS Server. Here are the summary of my observations:1. In terms of quality build, a self-built NAS server will beat by far these Synology or QNAP boxes. Better in everything, CPU, case, silence, component quality.
2. Using NAS4Free (the open source distro), ZFS has better quality and performance compared to physical RAID card.
3. Unfortunately, you'll need to spend time to learn how to install, configure and maintain your NAS Server. The reward is that your NAS Server will beat these pre-built NAS boxes, even the pro version, on every factor: performance, quietness.
4. CPU power is not the main criteria. Actually repurposing old hardware is a bad idea. Their inefficient power supply, energy sucking CPU will cost you in operating cost. For example, a P4 3 GHz running non stop for a year may cost you $100+ in electricity bill compared to a 17W CPU + Bronze PSU.
Hope NAS gurus will agree with these observations.
CosmoJoe - Friday, May 31, 2013 - link
I purchased a Synology 1511+ a few years ago and have been very happy with it. Prior to that, I had been building my own storage servers.Obviously I cannot speak for everyone, but my personal experience of the advantages of buying this device vs. building are as follows:
1. Built in applications for Synology DSM software. Numerous apps, including some for Android, iPhone and Windows Phone. I make extensive use of their music streaming audio app; I don't even use a dedicated MP3 player anymore because of this. There are countless other apps both officially supported by Synology and other 3rd party apps. I even run Sickbeard right on my DS1511+.
I find this central management of these apps very convenient vs. installing a hodge-podge of separate apps and managing them all.
2. Support. I've only had to contact Synology support once. When I did, they set up a remote session for an engineer to log in and help me out. Even for people comfortable with maintaining an open source NAS device, support can become an issue at times.
3. I like the small footprint and power usage of the device. Not saying you can't find something comparable in a case but you would be hard pressed I think.
In conclusion, the main value for me was in the additional apps and support. I make heavy use of the device. It is back-end storage (both iSCSI and SMB) for both a Hyper-V cluster and an ESX server. I also make extensive use of many of the other apps including virus scanner. I am certainly not knocking the people who go the open source NAS route; for me it was about picking my battles and where I want to focus my energy. After owning my Syno device for about 3 years now it has cost me very very little in man hours to support, allowing me to focus on other things.
ap90033 - Saturday, June 1, 2013 - link
Ok what I would like to see is some proof. What can you put together that can hold (nicely not crap) 8 drives, has GOOD Raid for said 8 drives, is power efficient and can do just as well or better than this for the SAME or CHEAPER. Quit with opinions show us actual facts (an actual build with pricing)...ap90033 - Saturday, June 1, 2013 - link
Oh and I am sure your "build" will include hot swap bays where you can easily replace any of the 8 drives if one fails. Make sure it is a complete build and lacks nothing compared to this unit. (I will believe it when I see it)thesmithfamily - Saturday, June 1, 2013 - link
I agree. I priced a 12 bay, quiet, build you own solution.It was hard to find a small case that would hold 12 drives. It did not have easy to access hot swap drives, it was big and you would have to invest time to build and manage it.
I build all my PCs and I was really convinced that a build your own NAS was the way to go but for an extra couple of hundred dollars ended up with a Synology 2413+
So glad I bought the Synology, small, quiet, convenient, so easy to tell which drive has failed and swap it. All the software and apps just work with no maintenance. Best thing ever.
ap90033 - Saturday, June 1, 2013 - link
Im with you, except I dont think you can build it for any cheaper than a synology. If you build something decent, low power, and capable (decent raid, etc) it costs quite a bit...ap90033 - Thursday, June 6, 2013 - link
Thats what I thought. No one with a comparable build. So I guess I'm right in my assumption that you CANT build for cheaper.nofear2k - Wednesday, September 17, 2014 - link
PerformanceThe Synology can deliver real 120 MB/s transfer speed with one LAN Cable or even more with two LAN Cables attached, even when using RAID-5 or RAID-6 (cpu has to split up and calculate). I had pretty bad experience with a Netgear NAS, which made max 40 MB/s, on Raid-1 :-\
Functionality
The Frontend is nice to configure and also offers site to site sync. If you have importand data you might be happy of having a mirrored NAD somewhere esle (at home, other site, basement).
:-)