Help me pick a NAS

I keep reading a lot of great things about the QNAP HS-251. But I haven't tried it yet. But the real alternative to a NAS now might be the Core.

Chag -

QNAP HS-251 Silent NAS. Been running it for 1 year now, with 2 x 6TB drives. Relatively easy to set up - using it primarily with my UnitiServe SSD, but it also has a pre-installed MinimServer (as a backup).

We have a Qnap TS 253A. It's very quiet, very quick, has a little button to press to backup to a USB drive and it can run Asset, which is easier than Minimserver. 

What is the purpose of the NAS - primary music store or backup?

If you want may one day want to run a renderer on the MM to feed Directly to a DAC, whether your present one or something else, and so reap the benefit not streaming files across a network with its attendant risk of degradation or other problems so frequesntly cropping up on this forum, then it would be better to keep the music stored on the MM itself - if you need more than you can fit internally it is best to use the Mac's Thunderbolt interface to connect external drives. 

As for a NAS for backup, virtually any NAS will do, subject to your own physical and noise constraints as well as capacity.

If you love roon take one with enough cpu and memory and a SSD drive to install roon on NAS- i run synology and qnap, you can't go wrong with one of these!

Synology or QNAP is all you need consider.  

spurrier sucks posted:

i have an external HDD connected to my Mac Mini running minimserver but I'm thinking about buying a NAS. Any suggestions on what to consider?

A cheap and effective Netgear Ready NAS 100 series is probably all you need with limited bling and very quiet operation. It also includes a respectable DLNA media server - basic but fully functional - and sounds very good indeed with delivering media to Naim streamers. 

The media server doesn't transcode however... but the less is more here might be helping with SQ

Mike-B posted:

Synology or QNAP is all you need consider.  

.........  I've just looked at Synology's model selection guide & am impressed on how it guides you through whatever suits you. There are 3 model ranges & sub-models grouped into basic, mid & business.  They all have a fan but please don't let that hold you back as in use I find mine to be effectively silent. You only need a 2 bay for basic audio (Synology comes with its own hybrid RAID-1 for 2 bay).     You need to add HDD's,  most peeps use WD Red's,  but other makes are out there & Seagate seems to be a good alternative. ,  the rest is a matter of your choice & your wallet.  

On the subject of transcoding;  Synology's own media server is very good & very easy to set up,  but it does a poor job with transcoding FLAC, ALAC etc.,  (promises of better to come with the frequent software updates)   Unless (like me) you have your music stored as WAV & DSD & you need not bother with transcoding,   Synology's come with 3rd party Minimserver & Java pre-installed & as you already are using Minimserver,  & it does an excellent transcoding job,  that makes sense.     

At the rare risk of disagreeing with S-in-S, I found the Netgear Ready NAS Duo a real pain. I did eventually get it working but it took time out of my life which I could have spent much better. The 100 series may be easier to set up.

I now use a Synology 212+ (a 2-bay model with Seagate drives) running Media Server. Compared with the Netgear, it is simple to set up and it generally works very well.

Thanks for the recommendations. 

Another vote for Synology on the basis of simplicity.

I'm setting up a system for someone who has limited technical knowledge and have chosen a Synology D216j for that reason.  It's also cheap and it's quiet enough for that to not be a problem at all.  All the files will be WAVE or DSD.

Synology here. Stored all files in Wav format and use the app Hi-Fi Cast to stream it to the ChromeCast Audio's. Out of the box DSAudio app is quite often confused to which ChromeCast it needs to send the stream causing hilarious or annoying situations.

Synology (DS416slim), discrete, quiet, reliable, uses 2.5" drives, WD Red Series, or SSD's providing you can live with 4TB max capacity.

KR, J

I use a QNAP HS251 which is quiet in use, other than when the HDDs spin up from rest, which is irritating; would strongly suggest SSDs or location in another room.

My Synology/WD Red is continuously noisy, there's no way it's going in my living room.

It will be located in a different room as is my Mac Mini now. 

I switched from a Netgear Ready NAS Duo to a Synology 213j and prefer it. I was also using a Netgear router and both Netgears were irritating. The Synology on the other hand has been much better and transcodes to WAV no problems. Having said that, if I were to start over, I'd just as likely buy a QNAP as these look great too.

Good topic as I'm also thinking about a NAS in the near future, but do I need a 2 bay one or would 1 bay suffice ? Currently I keep my music, ripped by iTunes (yes I know, wash my mouth out etc.) on a Win 10 PC with an external WD My Cloud HDD back up.  I also keep another back up on a separate laptop.  I run Minimserver on the PC.

My intention intitially would probably be to retain the current ripping / PC storage / back up system and copy stuff over to the NAS for streaming.  My main reason for the NAS is just to avoid having to fire up the PC all the time, although I appreciate there may be SQ advantages with a NAS.

Any thoughts on 1 bay vs 2 bay  ?  Trying to keep costs down.

Always get two bays. If you get a nas where you can hot swap drives, when one conks out you just take it out and replace it, and the music copies across from the healthy drive. This isn't a substitute for a proper backup, but makes life easier. My Qnap has a button on the front that does a differential backup to a USB portable drive, which lives in a drawer and comes out just for backups. It's all very easy. 

Yes I can see that advantage H. but would one NAS drive just be sitting there essentially unused all the time and my back ups would exist on & attached to the PC anyway ?  

Do you rip directly to your NAS ? 

Both drives have the same files, assuming you set them up in Raid 1. You can put the backups where you want, but a USB drive (two actually) made sense for me. You can rip to the nas, but I don't, I rip to the PC, check the metadata and then copy the albums to the nas. I think it's because one downloads to the PC first, so I just do the same for CDs. 

OK - thanks

I just replaced a synology 411j with a 416play and it is great.

very fast interface

minimserver runs fine

transcodes audio without fuss and can apparently transcode 4K video ( not yet tested this)

pleasingly fast at doing an additional backup of entire music library onto separate hdd for offsite storage via usb3

Borders Nick,

You mention that you might get a NAS and wish to keep costs down.

The WD My Cloud you already have is a NAS I believe, and you can stream directly over your network to the Superuniti. The installed streaming software is Twonky which I found works fine but gets slagged off on this forum.

You do not have to spend a fortune on multi-bay NAS, a WD My Cloud 2TB is less than £100. You can back this up to a portable USB drive - these are about £60 I think.