Need a new NAS

Posted by: AMA on 04 November 2014

I'm currently using QNAP TS-412 and I'm not happy with it.

 

Minimserver rescanning is very slow, copying data to/from results in audio-streaming drop-outs.

 

What is the (let it be expensive) "buy-and-forget" solution from QNAP?

 

Like high speed CPU, lots of RAM, 8 slots, faster access etc. ...

 

In terms of storage I can fit 8 TB.

 

And what are the most reliable HDDs at the moment.

 

Quiet performance is a valuable point as well.

 

Thanks in advance !

Posted on: 06 November 2014 by Huge

Mike apart from your lower resting values that's actually reasonably consistent, I think yours has at least 1.5 times the CPU power of mine.

Posted on: 06 November 2014 by Sloop John B

CPU usage does not seem to be the issue, it is the RAM. 

the 214 is 512MB, but I see the 112 is only 128MB.

Mine is in Raid 5 which I presume exerts some pressure on the system. I also think Asset is not releasing RAM  (or some such) as when using asset I had to restart daily to keep the system working but with Minim I'm back to once a week restart. 

 

I miss my replay gain tags being used however. 

 

SJB

Posted on: 06 November 2014 by Huge
Originally Posted by Sloop John B:

CPU usage does not seem to be the issue, it is the RAM. 

the 214 is 512MB, but I see the 112 is only 128MB.

Mine is in Raid 5 which I presume exerts some pressure on the system. I also think Asset is not releasing RAM  (or some such) as when using asset I had to restart daily to keep the system working but with Minim I'm back to once a week restart. 

 

I miss my replay gain tags being used however. 

 

SJB

Mine goes months without a restart, in fact the only reason for a restart was an update to the operating system due to a security patch.

 

The applications should not be leaking memory, something is definitely wrong.  I can't tell you if it's an application or OS issue, but their RAM use should not increase with time.

 

I would be surprised if RAID 5 is implemented in software, normally this is implemented in the storage controller chipset.  Hardware RAID usually imposes very little extra demand on the rest of the system.

 

One further question, how many different albums do you have and how many indices have you created to access them?  The indices are likely to be held in RAM, and with multiple server applications this just might be enough to become a problem.

Posted on: 06 November 2014 by Sloop John B

I have about 2400 albums.

 

I'm not sure what the indices you are talking about are.

 

Thanks for the input but I'm happy to go with the new NAS I've purchased and use the older one as a back-up.

 

 

I'm doing nothing at the moment apart from logging in to the NAS.

 

RAM is at 78%. Everything will work at this but there is very little headroom for a scan or a download or a back-up.

 

 

SJB

 

 

Posted on: 10 November 2014 by steve_lon

I've recently purchased a Synology 213J with 2x3TB Western Digital Red drives.

Running as a 3TB stripe.

Love the Synology interface, and the unit looks nice, and is pretty quiet when in use, and has decent power saving when not.

So far very happy with it for my first home-use NAS.