Recommend NAS

[crosswind]

hi all,

saw a lot of NAS out in the market. can anyone recommend the best bang for buck NAS. Mainly is to store files and stream Full HD/4K videos to tv.

Budget: $200-$300 w/o hdd? not too sure if that is achievable

 

[seePyou]

hi all,

saw a lot of NAS out in the market. can anyone recommend the best bang for buck NAS. Mainly is to store files and stream Full HD/4K videos to tv.

Budget: $200-$300 w/o hdd? not too sure if that is achievable

Your budget cannot even stream Full HD
If you want 4K, you need to buy x86 CPU models, expect at least $1300 for one

 

[hairymonster]

If you are directly streaming to a device and taxing on the NAS resources den 200-300 sgd nas cannot achieve that. However say you want to play off the 4k movie on your tv, you can consider a msi cubi (i3) as an intermediate and using it to play movie off the NAS.

 

[crosswind]

Your budget cannot even stream Full HD
If you want 4K, you need to buy x86 CPU models, expect at least $1300 for one

Hi, so what are the specs i should be looking at, cos i browse through NAS such as ds216play, asustor1002t etc. All those mentioned indicated they are able to play 4k/Full HD videos.

 

[crosswind]

If you are directly streaming to a device and taxing on the NAS resources den 200-300 sgd nas cannot achieve that. However say you want to play off the 4k movie on your tv, you can consider a msi cubi (i3) as an intermediate and using it to play movie off the NAS.

Hi Hairymonster, sorry dont get you on your last part. So you are suggesting i get a msi cube, plug direct to tv and play videos via the cubi instead of streaming videos through the NAS to TV?

Is that what you meant?

 

[hairymonster]

Yes. That's exactly what I meant. But for that setup you need both NAS and the cubi. The reason for a powerful nas is for transcoding (home user).

I don't think is necessary to buy x86 models if you use want it for storage.

 

[crosswind]

Yes. That's exactly what I meant. But for that setup you need both NAS and the cubi. The reason for a powerful nas is for transcoding (home user).

I don't think is necessary to buy x86 models if you use want it for storage.

ic, that would be taxing on the pocket haha...and yes my main purpose is for storage, watching Full HD movies are secondary....

so ****, that means i can't kill two birds with one stone now unless i fork out more.

 

[hairymonster]

ic, that would be taxing on the pocket haha...and yes my main purpose is for storage, watching Full HD movies are secondary....

so ****, that means i can't kill two birds with one stone now unless i fork out more.

I'm on QNAP TS251 with MSI CUBI i3.

Cost of TS251 costs 600
2 x 4TB cost about 400+
MSI cubi i3 600 (with ssd and ram)

I don't like the idea of streaming movies directly of NAS. For me i prefer to do it on the MSI cubi. The cubi is connected to my TV and reads the movie file directly off the NAS.

 

[seePyou]

Hi, so what are the specs i should be looking at, cos i browse through NAS such as ds216play, asustor1002t etc. All those mentioned indicated they are able to play 4k/Full HD videos.

I m only focused on the 2 giants of NAS, so I dont know about Asustor
Don't be sold by the Synology gimmicks. DS216play has NO HDMI out. The CPU is not even powerful enough to transcode Full HD.
https://www.synology.com/en-global/products/DS216play#spec

When you say you want to watch Full HD (not to even talk about 4k), you want your NAS to be able to TRANSCODE the video ON THE FLY. DS 216 cannot do that.

If you insist on FULL HD, look for NAS with HDMI out. (lets not discuss MSI Cube if you want a NAS)
If you insist on a Synology, take DS716. It has a Celeron CPU and HDMI out.
I would recommend QNAP instead because 80% of their range are Intel/AMD CPU based, it is perfect for video transcoding. Spec for spec, it is still cheaper than Synology.

If you insist on 4k transcoding, the lowest spec you want to look at is Intel i3 processor. (even AMD ones don't cut it). That would be the QNAP TVS series. I helped my friend who runs a film company customized one. It costed him around $1388 just for the machine and he had ZERO complains.

 

[seePyou]

Yes. That's exactly what I meant. But for that setup you need both NAS and the cubi. The reason for a powerful nas is for transcoding (home user).

Don't you think it is a bit cluttering to have 2 devices? You have a limited amount of power sockets.

 

[hairymonster]

Don't you think it is a bit cluttering to have 2 devices? You have a limited amount of power sockets.

Yes, it is cluttering which is why I added additional power sockets when I moved into my new place. Moreover, all of my devices at home runs on small SSD capacity (128GB). The purpose of my NAS serves as an external storage to all devices.

TS251 comes with HDMI out. I picked this mainly for 2 reasons.

HDMI out (which unfortunately i did not use)
Fast read/write with port trunking

By fast read/write i mean fast combining of part files and unrar via Jdownloader.

You on QNAP too?

 

[hairymonster]

I m only focused on the 2 giants of NAS, so I dont know about Asustor
Don't be sold by the Synology gimmicks. DS216play has NO HDMI out. The CPU is not even powerful enough to transcode Full HD.
https://www.synology.com/en-global/products/DS216play#spec

When you say you want to watch Full HD (not to even talk about 4k), you want your NAS to be able to TRANSCODE the video ON THE FLY. DS 216 cannot do that.

If you insist on FULL HD, look for NAS with HDMI out. (lets not discuss MSI Cube if you want a NAS)
If you insist on a Synology, take DS716. It has a Celeron CPU and HDMI out.
I would recommend QNAP instead because 80% of their range are Intel/AMD CPU based, it is perfect for video transcoding. Spec for spec, it is still cheaper than Synology.

If you insist on 4k transcoding, the lowest spec you want to look at is Intel i3 processor. (even AMD ones don't cut it). That would be the QNAP TVS series. I helped my friend who runs a film company customized one. It costed him around $1388 just for the machine and he had ZERO complains.

Agreed. Minimum processor required is i3 for transcoding. Alternatively, you can try Gentium G3258 (if I recall correctly). You can also DIY NAS but it is easier for you to just buy off the rack. Really depends on what you need.

 

[seePyou]

You on QNAP too?

I have both Synology and QNAP. (slowly, converting to QNAP fan)
QNAP is so much more powerful than Synology (that's if you are doing heavy duty stuff)

I am running a Virtual Machine, mail server, ftp server and firewall off my QNAP TS-251Pro at my work for data crunching. Really impressed with the performance.

 

[hairymonster]

I have both Synology and QNAP. (slowly, converting to QNAP fan)
QNAP is so much more powerful than Synology (that's if you are doing heavy duty stuff)

I am running a Virtual Machine, mail server, ftp server and firewall off my QNAP TS-251Pro at my work for data crunching. Really impressed with the performance.

Ahhh...Yes. VM is another feature from the ts251. Looks like qnap is the way to go. TS just buy the 1200$$ one and hooked it to your 4k tv. Problem solved.

 

[crosswind]

I have both Synology and QNAP. (slowly, converting to QNAP fan)
QNAP is so much more powerful than Synology (that's if you are doing heavy duty stuff)

I am running a Virtual Machine, mail server, ftp server and firewall off my QNAP TS-251Pro at my work for data crunching. Really impressed with the performance.

so what would be the QNAP model you would recommend in that sense? Storage primary and video streaming secondary

 

[evildoctor]

But software part, I think Synology is better

 

[nwh_sg]

I m only focused on the 2 giants of NAS, so I dont know about Asustor
Don't be sold by the Synology gimmicks. DS216play has NO HDMI out. The CPU is not even powerful enough to transcode Full HD.
https://www.synology.com/en-global/products/DS216play#spec

When you say you want to watch Full HD (not to even talk about 4k), you want your NAS to be able to TRANSCODE the video ON THE FLY. DS 216 cannot do that.

If you insist on FULL HD, look for NAS with HDMI out. (lets not discuss MSI Cube if you want a NAS)
If you insist on a Synology, take DS716. It has a Celeron CPU and HDMI out.
I would recommend QNAP instead because 80% of their range are Intel/AMD CPU based, it is perfect for video transcoding. Spec for spec, it is still cheaper than Synology.

If you insist on 4k transcoding, the lowest spec you want to look at is Intel i3 processor. (even AMD ones don't cut it). That would be the QNAP TVS series. I helped my friend who runs a film company customized one. It costed him around $1388 just for the machine and he had ZERO complains.

DS716 doesn't have HDMI out. I think all Synology NASes don't have HDMI out.

 

[hairymonster]

Take TS251
It has HDMI out and you can install VM. Serve as a mini PC + NAS. 600 i think (without HDD), 2 bays

 

[crosswind]

Take TS251
It has HDMI out and you can install VM. Serve as a mini PC + NAS. 600 i think (without HDD), 2 bays

There are various models of ts251...which model is recommended?

 

[hairymonster]

There are various models of ts251...which model is recommended?

The model is qnap ts251