Which Synology product? Suggestions please ...

[wmarson]

Hello all. About to jump into the NAS world and have pretty much narrowed down my choice to Synology (based on all the positive feedback around the net). But, being a newbie, I'm not sure which one is right for me. Can you guys help????

So, here are my requirements (and current computer landscape):

1 Windows 7 desktop (where all of our dSLR post processing/photo editing occurs)
2 MacBook's (my wife and I have separate iTunes accounts)
2 iPad's
2 iPhone's
1 Apple TV (the new one)

We are currently backing up all of our data to the Cloud (Amazon S3 via JungleDisk). However, I am very interested in a local backup solution (primary desire) that doubles as a central media server (secondary desire). We are not a power media couple -- but, my wife has a decent iTunes library, and I have something decent as well. We love to stream music and photos to our ATV -- but currently, we both have to log into iTunes on our separate machines for Home Sharing to work and for the ATV to 'see' both MacBooks. Same goes with our Windows PC for photos.

So, knowing this -- can someone recommend the best possible Synology solution for my above home computing environment?

Thanks in advance for your input, comments, and advice!

 

[ntm1275]

All the Synology models use the same 'software', so all the features are the same on all their models

This means that you just need to decide how much storage space you want and choose the relevant size of the unit along with the performance

As probably you know from your own searches, each size of unit has different spec models

1 bay
DS112j - 1Ghz CPU 128MB RAM
DS112 - 1.6Ghz CPU 256MB RAM

2 bay
DS212j - 1.2Ghz CPU 256MB RAM
DS212 - 1.6Ghz CPU 256MB RAM
DS212+ - 2.0Ghz CPU 512MB RAM
DS712+ - 1.8Ghz CPU 1GB RAM

4 bay
DS411j - 1.2Ghz CPU 128MB RAM
DS411 - 1.6Ghz CPU 512MB RAM
DS412+ - 2.13Ghz CPU 1GB RAM

5 bay
DS1512+ - 2.13Ghz CPU 1GB RAM

8 bay
DS1812+ - 2.13Ghz CPU 1GB RAM

12 bay
DS2411+ - 1.8Ghz CPU 1GB RAM

The choice is yours really

You may want to pop over to the official Synology forum, as your kind of question gets asked a lot, so you may find the answer you are looking for

 

[stevech]

Hello all. About to jump into the NAS world and have pretty much narrowed down my choice to Synology (based on all the positive feedback around the net). But, being a newbie, I'm not sure which one is right for me. Can you guys help????

So, here are my requirements (and current computer landscape):

1 Windows 7 desktop (where all of our dSLR post processing/photo editing occurs)
2 MacBook's (my wife and I have separate iTunes accounts)
2 iPad's
2 iPhone's
1 Apple TV (the new one)

We are currently backing up all of our data to the Cloud (Amazon S3 via JungleDisk). However, I am very interested in a local backup solution (primary desire) that doubles as a central media server (secondary desire). We are not a power media couple -- but, my wife has a decent iTunes library, and I have something decent as well. We love to stream music and photos to our ATV -- but currently, we both have to log into iTunes on our separate machines for Home Sharing to work and for the ATV to 'see' both MacBooks. Same goes with our Windows PC for photos.

So, knowing this -- can someone recommend the best possible Synology solution for my above home computing environment?

Thanks in advance for your input, comments, and advice!

read reviews here.
Search for SmallNetBuilder users' posts re Synology and QNAP.
Try-before-buy, feature set, of Synology and QNAP via on-line demos.

 

[nutz77]

Hello all. About to jump into the NAS world and have pretty much narrowed down my choice to Synology (based on all the positive feedback around the net). But, being a newbie, I'm not sure which one is right for me. Can you guys help????

So, here are my requirements (and current computer landscape):

1 Windows 7 desktop (where all of our dSLR post processing/photo editing occurs)
2 MacBook's (my wife and I have separate iTunes accounts)
2 iPad's
2 iPhone's
1 Apple TV (the new one)

We are currently backing up all of our data to the Cloud (Amazon S3 via JungleDisk). However, I am very interested in a local backup solution (primary desire) that doubles as a central media server (secondary desire). We are not a power media couple -- but, my wife has a decent iTunes library, and I have something decent as well. We love to stream music and photos to our ATV -- but currently, we both have to log into iTunes on our separate machines for Home Sharing to work and for the ATV to 'see' both MacBooks. Same goes with our Windows PC for photos.

So, knowing this -- can someone recommend the best possible Synology solution for my above home computing environment?

Thanks in advance for your input, comments, and advice!

It depends on your storage requirement, if you will be having 10-15 tb of data, a 5 bay like 1512+ would be suitable, if you just need a nas for backup, speed and size capacity isn't a requirement, go for 212+, but with current hdd maxing out at 3-4 tb, running it with raid 1, that's the capacity you will have.

IMHO 5 bays is a good size, but the cost with 5 hdd is 2-3 times greater then a 2 bay.