QNAP vs Synology a.k.a. Hardware vs Software

[lbrumbaugh]

Long story short, a couple of friends have a Synology DS410 and a DS411j. They love the interface on the boxes and the functionality of them. I'm in the market for a NAS, and after talking to them had seriously considered picking up a DS411. The problem now is that I've done too much research After reading the various forums and articles (like How to Pick a NAS (shortened and long version)) I now am in a head spin. I want a few of the following:

-Simply file sharing (dlna)
-App support (mainly Plex to stream/transcode to a Roku frontend)
-Possible bittorrenting
-Backups of workstations
-USB3/Esata port for external drive backup (Or as Stevech says, I might just want to do a backup to an internal drive/volume)

So as far as I can tell, both QNAP and Synology does all of those things. What's really started to get under my skin is that it seems that all the QNAP NAS's have dual NIC's in them and the Synology one's do not. While granted, I might not ever need them, it seems that if you're doing backups and you want always on data access, it just makes sense to have that redundant as well.

So to get to my point, is Synology that great of software that it supersedes hardware? I also come to the point that hardware can hardly ever be upgraded, while software you can. So, do people really believe that the Synology is everything and a bag of chips and that I should just suck it up.

I've also read that some people have installed the Synology OS ontop of QNAP. Can anyone comment on that at all?

Thanks for the thoughts/opinions.

 

[travisco_nabisco]

I only have experience with the Synology OS and can testify that it is a very nice piece of software.

However I would recommend you play with both of the OSes using their online web demos.

QNAP http://www.qnap.com/liveDemo.asp
Synology http://www.synology.com/us/products/demo/index.php

Synolgy is currently working on the next version of their DSM OS, so you might want to poke around at the demo for that as well.


One thing to think about regrading the OS is that ideally you want a NAS to be an appliance that you don't and shouldn't have to think about all the time. To me this means that you should not need to be in the OS very often, so is it worth sacrificing a second LAN port in the future just because there is a better OS that you only use once every 6 months?

Just FYI, neither of these NASes will support transcoding, not enough CPU power, to do that you would probably have to build your own.

 

[stevech]

Very pleased with hardware and software in my DS212.
Software DSM v4 has moved from beta to release.

 

[lbrumbaugh]

I only have experience with the Synology OS and can testify that it is a very nice piece of software.

However I would recommend you play with both of the OSes using their online web demos.

QNAP http://www.qnap.com/liveDemo.asp
Synology http://www.synology.com/us/products/demo/index.php

Synolgy is currently working on the next version of their DSM OS, so you might want to poke around at the demo for that as well.


One thing to think about regrading the OS is that ideally you want a NAS to be an appliance that you don't and shouldn't have to think about all the time. To me this means that you should not need to be in the OS very often, so is it worth sacrificing a second LAN port in the future just because there is a better OS that you only use once every 6 months?

Just FYI, neither of these NASes will support transcoding, not enough CPU power, to do that you would probably have to build your own.

MMM, I guess because they had Plex apps that I assumed they'd be able to transcode, but fair enough. I like your point about not really touching the OS. That's pretty valid, I'd think it should be a setup and forget operation. I'll try the demo's out..

 

[lbrumbaugh]

Very pleased with hardware and software in my DS212.
Software DSM v4 has moved from beta to release.

@Stevech, can I ask why you went with a 2 drive system vs a 4 drive system? It's certainly a lot cheaper then say the DS411, but I was wondering if there was any other reason you did that. Thanks.

 

[stevech]

response: My NAS is a simple home server - a couple of PCs, an Android tablet, a home theater. I don't see the need for four drives. Indeed, I use not half the 2TB per drive I have now - and most of that is family photos and keeper-videos. I chose to keep each drive as a separate volume and not use RAID. So I have protection from both drive failure and file system corruption in a 2 drive system.

 

[patrickgerry]

Totally agree with this. I have a QNAP 259 pro+ that I rarely manage. It just simply works. From my android phone I can also access the NAS using QNAP's mobile app which allows streaming video from anywhere.

 

[elcano]

Which company has better attitude towards open source and hacking their systems?

I found a review in Amazon regarding Synology asking for extra fees for activating camera functionality and regarding functionality that is CURRENTLY free, that could change in the future. That turned me off against Synology, leaving QNAP as the next best option.

Being a former Linksys NSLU2 user I am used to being able to install anything on my NAS without artificial (on my opinion) restrictions. Will any of these NAS vendor impose licensing restrictions on the functionality of their system to milk their users after the sale is made?

 

[stevech]

Synology (and I think, QNAP too) give you one or so free camera interface licenses. Beyond that, they charge a fee, as their target is commercial surveillance and they probably spend a lot of $ supporting a myriad of netcam types (there are essentially no standards) - and lots of tech support to mom and pop CCTV companies who don't get "IP networking".

 

[bigboboz]

What's really started to get under my skin is that it seems that all the QNAP NAS's have dual NIC's in them and the Synology one's do not.

I know what you mean, I've been tossing up between the two and have basically made no decision to date but the next gen of Synology boxes seem to have caught up. The new boxes just announced have dual NICs and USB 3.0, so I'm probably leaning towards the Synologies at the moment. The DS-1512+ is looking good for what I want. Doesn't seem to miss anything...

Rob

 

[stevech]

what's the compelling advantage of dual NICs for mere mortals?

 

[bigboboz]

Was wondering the same, just commenting it's there now since the OP mentioned it!

 

[lbrumbaugh]

what's the compelling advantage of dual NICs for mere mortals?

For mere mortals (and I being one of them) probably not necessarily needed, but the benefits are link aggregation; or pushing more bandwidth through them. You'd have to have a decent switch and probably gig NIC's in the clients, but I was thinking of them as more of a future proof type thing. My friend that has a DS410 said that device can be used as a firewall of sorts, which if you wanted to do, dual NIC's would be nice. It doesn't have them, so you'd have to set up vlans with tagging probably.

I appreciate everyone's input, good stuff! Is there a Synology hardware refresh happening? I noticed that they have some with dual nics, but they seem to be more expensive while QNAP's have them at a lower price point.

 

[JoeJoe]

For link aggregation you need to have a powerful NAS for it even to use a single NIC to its full potential, never mind two. Most lower priced NASs can't max out a NIC.

The 2nd NIC can be used to hook it up to a separate network.

It is also good as a back up in case one NIC port breaks.

 

[stevech]

mere mortals like me can't afford/don't need multi-gigaBit LANs!

 

[dbaps]

What about QPKG's?

I have a Qnap SAN that is a few years old. The thing that I've been most impressed with is there continuous support of their software even for retired hardware NAS devices. The software has improved so much that while not as nice looking as Synology's, it shows a real support of their customers.

What I am interested in is if anyone has done a comparison of the software on each companies product line. For example, QNAP has tons of QPKG's both in Beta and in General Release. It's always been my favorite part of using the QNAP NAS. Does Synology offer something similar? If so has anyone done a comparison of the software offerings of both companies. Foe example, Plex, LogitechMediaServer, Subsonic, Twonky, and many many more on the QNAP side. Here's a link to the QNAP offerings.

http://forum.qnap.com/viewforum.php?f=121&sid=6ae83c69c24169476b6d3cf9ad6f6d27

Thanks...

 

[Floob]

I had a similar deciosn to make regarding which NAS to get, a two bay QNAP or the Synology DS211j.

In the end I purchased the Synology. Everything is really good and polished except the backup to USB. Which is a total faliure. Going back to search the forums I found these threads:

One big thread:
http://forum.synology.com/enu/viewtopic.php?f=160&t=32317

and a number of minor ones:
http://forum.synology.com/enu/viewtopic.php?f=160&t=48358

http://forum.synology.com/enu/viewtopic.php?f=160&t=49426

http://forum.synology.com/enu/viewtopic.php?f=160&t=49216
Possibly the QNAP has it's own issues but backup is a pretty important thing to screw up.

 

[stevech]

I have a DS212 with USB3.
Mine works fine. Never had a problem. I use FAT32 on the USB drive so that if need be, I can read it with Windows.

I have had problems with certain SATA to USB3 adapters not working with my PC and DS212 and vice-versa. The problem free pairing is a 1TB SATA drive in a USB3 enclosure from Seagate. I also stick USB2 thumb drives in the DS212 and they work fine too.

 

[lbrumbaugh]

I had a similar deciosn to make regarding which NAS to get, a two bay QNAP or the Synology DS211j.

In the end I purchased the Synology. Everything is really good and polished except the backup to USB. Which is a total faliure. Going back to search the forums I found these threads:

One big thread:
http://forum.synology.com/enu/viewtopic.php?f=160&t=32317

and a number of minor ones:
http://forum.synology.com/enu/viewtopic.php?f=160&t=48358

http://forum.synology.com/enu/viewtopic.php?f=160&t=49426

http://forum.synology.com/enu/viewtopic.php?f=160&t=49216
Possibly the QNAP has it's own issues but backup is a pretty important thing to screw up.

Thanks for bringing this to my attention Floob, that is a pretty serious issue to have..

Being the OP I thought I'd update it just to say that I still haven't bought anything yet but I do appreciate everyone's comments. Maybe by the end of this month I'll pick something up along with a UPS. I figure if I'm going to be backing up my data, I might as well do it properly. Along those lines I'm looking at CyberPower UPSes as they seem comparable to APC's but a little bit cheaper.

 

[JoeJoe]

Thanks for bringing this to my attention Floob, that is a pretty serious issue to have..

Being the OP I thought I'd update it just to say that I still haven't bought anything yet but I do appreciate everyone's comments. Maybe by the end of this month I'll pick something up along with a UPS. I figure if I'm going to be backing up my data, I might as well do it properly. Along those lines I'm looking at CyberPower UPSes as they seem comparable to APC's but a little bit cheaper.

Make sure you get a UPS that is supported by the NAS you select.

APC UPSes work well with QNAP NASes.