QNAP HS-251+ vs TS-253A

[oletuv]

I´m thinking of buying my first NAS for home usage, primarily as media player connected to my UHD TV through HDMI, DNLA server and centralized file and backup storage. Since the NAS needs to be placed close to the TV which means in the main living room, I´ve so far been leaning towards the fan-less and quiet HS-251+. I´ve also been looking at the TS-253A which does support 4K video over HDMI.

I´m a movie fan and have a pretty nice library of blu-ray films which I´ve converted to MKV files for digital use. I know there isn´t much 4K stuff available yet, but I anticipate that future additions to my film library will be 4K blu-ray. Therefore, my first choice would be the TS-253A unless it is too noisy to be placed in the living room.

I´d appreciate input from HS-253A users and also from NAS users generally who can comment on the general noise level of 2-bay NAS.

Ole

 

[stevech]

My (Synology) two-bay has a silent fan. It sits 2 ft. away, near my desktop PC. Runs non-RAID which is my preference. Triple backup. Time/versioning backup.
What few movies we watch use the DVD player or streaming over the LAN.
4K ... I would not invest in this now. Too little content. Products too expensive for my taste.
NAS with on-the-fly HDMI transcoding is rather expensive to say the least.

Be sure to experiment with both Synology and QNAP using their on-line NAS login demos.

 

[sfx2000]

The HS-251 is a fairly specialized unit - the focus there is for the HTPC type function with it sitting in your media center - if I recall, the RAM is soldered, but functionally it's the same as the TS-251 (except that the TS model has upgradable memory...)

Reviews suggest that the HS-251 runs pretty warm since it's fanless...

My thoughts are the TS-253A might be a better solution...

 

[oletuv]

Reviews suggest that the HS-251 runs pretty warm since it's fanless...

My thoughts are the TS-253A might be a better solution...

I share the same thoughts. I suppose the 14 nm N3150 processor (TS-253A) runs a bit cooler than the older 22 nm J1900 processor (HS-251+) and with the fan I´d think the TS-253A runs pretty cool. The remaining question is the noise level of the fan. Anyone know if the fan runs on demand or continuously?

 

[oletuv]

Another question regarding a 2-bay NAS:

I plan to populate the NAS with two 4tb or 5tb hd drives. My multimedia library is currently around 4tb, but since I already have the library copied to two separate external harddisks (stored in separate locations) I don´t have the need to back it up on the NAS. Would setting the two drives up as separate volums, no RAID, and using disk 1 for the multimedia library and disk 2 partly for multimedia files (when disk 1 is full) and file and backup storage, be a good idea instead of setting up RAID 0 or 1?

Ole

 

[stevech]

Gotta have a backup strategy. External drives on USB or eSATA.
I use non-RAID and two independent volumes, with #2 as the first-level backup in a 3-2-1 strategy. Backup config backs up only important stuff - e.g., I don't backup drive image files from PCs in the home network.

Don't go wild with TBs of RAID. RAID *will* fail you at some point. Many horror story from people who thought RAID was a backup.

 

[sfx2000]

I plan to populate the NAS with two 4tb or 5tb hd drives. My multimedia library is currently around 4tb, but since I already have the library copied to two separate external harddisks (stored in separate locations) I don´t have the need to back it up on the NAS. Would setting the two drives up as separate volums, no RAID, and using disk 1 for the multimedia library and disk 2 partly for multimedia files (when disk 1 is full) and file and backup storage, be a good idea instead of setting up RAID 0 or 1?

You have some flexibility - JBOD, RAID0, RAID1 - the big thing is to have a backup plan for the NAS box - a big USB drive perhaps, or a cloud strategy (not recommended, except perhaps for important files)...

Folks can get trapped into feeling that a NAS can be the home for all backups, and when drives die (and indeed they do, usually when you need them to restore something else)...

Make damn sure you have a backup of the NAS - it's a just in case kind of thing - fire/theft/inopportune moments...

 

[sfx2000]

I suppose the 14 nm N3150 processor (TS-253A) runs a bit cooler than the older 22 nm J1900 processor (HS-251+) and with the fan I´d think the TS-253A runs pretty cool.

Might consider a TS-251 - the J1800 there runs pretty cool, and it does offer a compute advantage over the N3150 - the only advantage I can see with the N3150 is AES-NI support, which for some folks is important, but for many, it's not...

The J-series tend to be clocked a bit higher, even in idle state, and as such they are a bit more responsive as they take on some load (I've got a small collection of Silvermont based machines, including a TS-453Pro on J1900, a couple of Z-chips (Baytrail-T), and a BayTrail-N)...

Anyways - I'd suggest the TS-253A, followed very closely by the TS-251 (look at prices, if you can get a good price there, perhaps jump at it) - performance on those two should be similar based on your stated use cases... software/capability wise, they're likely very similar unless you're running VirtSta or iSCSI apps...