Cant Decide Between DS214SE and DS214

[castlefox]

First time NAS buyer here. I just purchases two WD Red 3TB drives since they were on sale on amazon.

I cant decide between getting the DS214SE for about $150 and the DS214 for $300. I know that he DS214 has USB 3.0 and has more RAM and a faster CPU but.... I am having a hard time justifying the DS214 for twice the amount of money since I have never owned a NAS so I dont really know how often I will be using what and how often.

I am assuming the DS214 would hold up for longer since it has better hardware but... then again I could just buy the SE version and then buy another 200 dollar NAS in like 2 years if the SE is getting too slow.

I have a bunch of music/photos I am going to have on my NAS. I would also like to keep a bunch of videos on it so I could watch them on my PS3 that I have on the network. I would also like to set up a bunch of podcasts to download automatically to the NAS. I would also have it do a weekly back up to connected USB drive(s)

EDIT: I forgot to say that I will be using this NAS with various version of Ubuntu. No Windows or Mac OS X

Does anyone have any words of wisdom to help my weary mind?

 

[L&LD]

For the uses you outlined; buy the cheaper option and if you need the data it contains backed up; buy two.

When your needs grow, the available options at that time will need to be researched then - right now, bang for the buck you're not getting any benefit from paying 2x the price.


And since they both support the latest DSM 5 build of the firmware...


http://www.synology.com/en-global/support/download/DS214se


I would suspect that any compromise one had (for your Ubunto setup) would be mirrored in the other.

 

[castlefox]

Thank you for the reply L&LD

Would I be able to watch 1080p video from the DS214se ? I am not sure what kind of speeds I would need for that.

I plan on mirroring the 2 drives on RAID 1 to protect my data in case one of the drives die.

 

[L&LD]

I don't think that would be a problem (just streaming them, of course).

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/nas/nas-reviews/32259-synology-ds214se-reviewed?start=1

But be aware that the performance of this NAS is very dependent on the services you have running on it.

It turned out that we ran our tests with a browser logged into the Synology admin "desktop". Even with the System Health / Resource Monitor widget closed, there apparently is enough processor load to limit read throughput to the mid 80 MB/s range. So if you want top performance, stay out of the admin interface! That's what we did when we retested to post updated results that now reside in the NAS Charts.

As for RAID, that is not a backup. No version of RAID is.

A backup is a physical copy on a different device at a different location.


That said; I would not recommend a RAID0 either. RAID 5 or 6 is useful with enough disks, but for a two drive NAS? I would rather buy two NASes and put a drive in each (with one backing up the other) and preferably at different locations too (by location; I mean physical address).

 

[stevech]

...
As for RAID, that is not a backup. No version of RAID is.

A backup is a physical copy on a different device at a different location.

That said; I would not recommend a RAID0 either. RAID 5 or 6 is useful with enough disks, but for a two drive NAS? I would rather buy two NASes and put a drive in each (with one backing up the other) and preferably at different locations too (by location; I mean physical address).

My two-bay: two drives, two independent volumes (RAID is imprudent for 2 drives, IMO). Volume 2 backs up volume 1 and provides a time backup (prior versions of selected folders' files). USB3 backs up VIP folders. SD card backs up VVIP folders. All automated. For me, drive failure last 10 years has been near zero among the PCs/NASes here. Risks I see are (1) theft; (2) file system corruption; (3) human error

 

[castlefox]

That sounds like a good setup stevech !

I will look into doing something similar to that.

 

[castlefox]

What about the DS213j VS the DS214SE

The 213j seems to have a faster CPU and 2 times as much RAM. Is it worth the extra 50 bucks?

 

[L&LD]

To me, double the RAM and 50% higher cpu speed is worth the extra money. If it brings a performance advantage (not how it works out all the time).

Are they aimed to the same market segment?

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/rankers/nas/ranking/view/0?rank=39


In the link above which I have sorted by price for 2 bay NASes (I don't know if it will link like that), there are seven NAS above the DS214se but only one that is better (slightly) at the ~$150 mark.


When you move up to the ~$200 range though, the choices expand greatly. But there is still no better choice than the DS214SE of the NASes Tim has tested. Not even my preferred Qnap (the TS-220 in this case) can beat the performance of a system with half the cpu and ram (this should be telling for you).



In this review,

http://www.storagereview.com/synology_diskstation_ds214se_review


The differences seem to be spelled out pretty clearly between the two:

says the "se" stands for "single-role edition," which generally means it's targeted to single-user environments.

...

Overall for a base model NAS with a huge featureset, we were quite impressed with the DS214Se for the price.

...

If you're looking for an affordable file server with some features to go with it, the DS214se is a viable choice; however, users shouldn't expect it to perform on the same scale as the DS214 or DS214+.

With that said above, although it might seem that the DS213j might be a smart buy (or any other NAS with better paper spec's in the ~$200 range), it may also prove to be the worse choice.

The following link may help you further.

http://us.hardware.info/comparisont...294-202205-194056-204822-152538-177879-204096


A quick look at the table above would dissuade me from spending the extra $50.

 

[stevech]

What about the DS213j VS the DS214SE

The 213j seems to have a faster CPU and 2 times as much RAM. Is it worth the extra 50 bucks?

As said above.. nice to have if you wish to spend.
My humble DS212 rarely max's out the CPU usage and has never shown high memory usage. File serving is I/O intensive, not CPU intensive.
But this is in a home setting - not in an office with dozens of active users.

The big CPU hog is when using my iPad to print via the DS212 to a LAN-connected Epson printer. Lots of re-imaging/conversion to do this thanks to Apple's ever-goofy schemes. But with high CPU usage, the web browser admin interface is still nicely responsive.

 

[castlefox]

Thanks for that break down L&LD
I endup getting DS213j but I really I wish I would have seen that last link you sent me before I ordered it. Oh well, maybe it will last a little bit longer with the extra cpu/ram.


stevech - Good to hear your DS212 is still responsive when your doing a print job. Thanks for that basic info on File serving is I/O intensive not CPU intenisve.


I am very excited for it come in the mail on Tuesday so I can start setting up everything like I have wanted for a very long time.

 

[stevech]

when it comes, experiment a bit before you decide on 1 vs 2 volumes, RAID, SHR, and all that. Experiment before spending a lot of time loading up data such that you won't want to erase the disk and experiment with some other config.

 

[castlefox]

My two-bay: two drives, two independent volumes (RAID is imprudent for 2 drives, IMO). Volume 2 backs up volume 1 and provides a time backup (prior versions of selected folders' files). USB3 backs up VIP folders. SD card backs up VVIP folders. All automated. For me, drive failure last 10 years has been near zero among the PCs/NASes here. Risks I see are (1) theft; (2) file system corruption; (3) human error

I think I will doing this same exact set up you have but with 2 USB drives to do backups, since my NAS does not have a SD card slot.

I was reading the DS214SE review again and I came across this part: "RAID 1 NASes are for folks who want a bit more insurance against inevitable drive failure. With a single bay NAS, you'll be without your data until you replace the drive and restore from your backup. But with RAID 1, you can keep on going while the volume rebuilds."

stevech- Could you please clarify why RAID is imprudent for a 2 drive NAS?



I will make sure to play around with everything before I start copy and pasting huge folders. Thanks for the reminder.

I also plan on looking into do a cloud backup and purchasing a UPS like this one http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002QAUN2M/?tag=snbforums-20

 

[MoInSTL]

SHR (Synology Hybrid RAID) is what I chose. May want to read about it more. But basically it can use two different size drives and as you mentioned, if one drives fails it can rebuild the replaced drive.

http://forum.synology.com/wiki/index.php/What_is_Synology_Hybrid_RAID?

"The Synology Hybrid RAID (SHR) is an automated RAID management system, designed to simplify storage management and meet the needs of new users who are unfamiliar with RAID types. SHR can combine different sized hard drives to create a storage volume with optimized capacity and performance, wasting less hard drive space and providing a more flexible storage solution. When sufficient hard drives are included, SHR allows for 1- or 2-disk redundancy - meaning the SHR Volume can suffer up to one or two failed disks without suffering data loss."

http://www.synology.com/en-us/support/tutorials/512
The above link outlines what RAID types are available.

EDIT: Have you picked out your drives yet?

 

[castlefox]

Yes, I purchased two WD Red 3.0 TB drives.

 

[Deleted member 28741]

213j is superior

I think you made the right choice to get the 213j.

Apart from double the RAM and a speedier CPU, the 213j is also able to utilise wake on LAN and be scheduled to wake /sleep.

The 214se can't do these for some reason .. Probably just a marketing ploy so they don't cannibalise the sales of the other 214 line.

The 213j maxes out its ram 98 or 99% when just doing a backup and having the admin GUI open so how the 214se copes I don't know.
The 214se is also stuck in SATA I land.

What I can't understand is why Synology is continuing to sell last years 213j .. Unless they have a ton left in the warehouse.