NAS Drive Recommendation

I'm not sure SSD is ready for our type of NAS use quite yet,  I know someone who moved from HDD to SSD & although its very fast & silent,  it was very expensive & the capacity/sizes that are on the market are limited.   I would be looking for 3TB if/when I make the move.    

Have you tried another UPnP media software on the ReadyNAS ??   agree tWonky is clunky (thats the polite description)

Synology, QNAP are the favourites on the forum,   models vary,  forum search will help.  I'm a Synology user so can only say about that brand in long term use.   

I think I'll be going for the qnap TS 251+ with 2 x 2Tb WD red hdd. I'll run asset on the qnap and dbpoweramp on my laptop. I'm currently demoing both on my laptop and they seem very easy to use. 

Storage is cheqp nowadays - fit as large drives as possible / affordable.

Also - plan for an off-line backup. 

I changed recently from Synology to QNAP (253a) with WD red discs, in part so I could use Asset.

Backup to portable external drive using MS Synctoy.

Finkfan posted:

I think I'll be going for the qnap TS 251+ with 2 x 2Tb WD red hdd. I'll run asset on the qnap and dbpoweramp on my laptop. I'm currently demoing both on my laptop and they seem very easy to use. 

Exactly what I have had for more than a year and I'm totally satisafied with it.

Glad to hear it [@mention:1566878604017764].  What size memory do you use? 

Would go WD 8 or 10 TB red. I have always had better luck with WD vs Seagate

Hi Finkfan - it came with 2GB but I upgraded to 8GB. Not sure that it was necessary but it only cost £24 and took less than 30 minutes.

The TS251 has some nice extras including HDMI out, in fact it's all you really need for a media centre as well as being an excellent NAS. I use it to stream the internet to my tv among other things.

Pev posted:

Hi Finkfan - it came with 2GB but I upgraded to 8GB. Not sure that it was necessary but it only cost £24 and took less than 30 minutes.

The TS251 has some nice extras including HDMI out, in fact it's all you really need for a media centre as well as being an excellent NAS. I use it to stream the internet to my tv among other things.

For your music collection's security I would suggest using the NAS you have as a dedicated 'music only' storage. Disabling all unneeded features also helps.

I use an external usb drive for backup - of course you could use the Netgear NAS you already have but I prefer to keep my backup completely seperate from my network and indeed in a different location to account for house fire etc.

Adam Zielinski posted:

Pev posted:

Hi Finkfan - it came with 2GB but I upgraded to 8GB. Not sure that it was necessary but it only cost £24 and took less than 30 minutes.

The TS251 has some nice extras including HDMI out, in fact it's all you really need for a media centre as well as being an excellent NAS. I use it to stream the internet to my tv among other things.

For your music collection's security I would suggest using the NAS you have as a dedicated 'music only' storage. Disabling all unneeded features also helps.

+1 I would take this philosophy further and invest in a separate audio-grade server such as the Melco range.

This improvement has to be justified against the kit you have of course.

I have a N1ZH but there is an SSD variant for those that want the ultimate (notwithstanding current storage size limitations).

Point to note is that Melco ship with Twonky but one can install MinimSever.

Thanks for the replies

So Asset is a UPnP software?

Do you purchase it over and above the NAS and what about my other "PC files" like personal files and software ?

Asset is a UPnP server.  Yes it's an additional cost licence.

Synology provide a reasonably competent UPnP server included in their package.

Other files from computers (backups of data, install packs etc.) can also be stored on the NAS without compromising the audio media performance (provide there's at least 20% free space on the NAS disk).  This use uses the basic file handling facility that you need to load the audio files anyway, so it doesn't represent any additional load (except increased network load while the backup operation is actually in progress, transferring files),

I have used Synology NAS's for  a long time. They are in my opinion slightly better than QNAP - i.e. I think the software and it's functionality are more polished. Neither is bad, but I would recommend synology 100% of the time. I personally would not pay for Asset. Synology's built in UPnP is as HUGE said ok or competant. If you want something a bit more Minim server is a one click install and it is probably the best of the general purpose UPnP servers. I disagree with ROBGR about splurging for a Melco - it's a fancy Buffalo NAS. I don't really think your going to get any better performance than a Synology out of it - it will however be more plug and play. If you have a NAIM system I can't see a reason to not get a similarly priced Core with S/PDIF output over that. Back to the original question - If you want something very flexible that does a very good job at serving music but can also do a very good job storing files, recording household security cameras, syncing with the cloud etc etc I do not think you can do better than Synology - I highly recommend getting one of the Intel based ones - these are the ones in the + or Plus series if you are going to be adding third party software, running docker or other advanced tasks with the base Linux OS. There are also performance advantages on the Intel x86 based units.

Adam Zielinski posted:

Storage is cheqp nowadays - fit as large drives as possible / affordable.

I remember my first HDD - a Rodime 10Mb (that's right, Megabyte).  $700 and I thought I was getting a bargain!