should i get QNAP TS-251+ 2-Bay Next Gen Personal Cloud NAS, Intel 2.0GHz Quad-Core CPU with Media Transcoding or Synology 2 bay NAS DiskStation DS218+? i plan on upgrading the one i get to 8gigs of ram i only use it for plex what is my best option or is there something better out there im over looking i currently am using a mycloudex2 ultra with 1 gig of ram and have plex lifetime pass just want to make sure i buy the best unit in the price range
A machine which is only used for Plex, with no subtitle burning, up to 4K transcoding … Either manufacturer. They both have machines with the Intel J3455 CPU.
The QNAP TS-453Be and the Synology DS918+ are functionally equivalent to Plex.
To figure out which vendor, each offers a “Live Demo” site. Take some time and learn each OS. Whichever makes the most sense to you is now top candidate.
Lastly, look at the price. That’s the bottom line.
im willing to pay more i just want a nas that can transcode and stream to multiple tvs my roommate cant use our current nas says not powerful enough i want a solid system fast and powerful
Do you want it to have the ability to burn / handle subtitles?
How many streams must it handle concurrently ?
would all the streams be 4K, all at the same time?
no more then likley there will only be 1 person streaming at a time just want his vizio tv to play our movies my 60in samsung streams everything fine his 42in vizio says server not powerful enough i do not burn or need subtitles
As an additional data point, which NAS do you have now which isn’t powerful enough?
i have a mycloudex2 ultra it only has 1 gig of ram
yeah.. that’s lucky it can even load plex. 
Ok.. then the Synology or the QNAP as I suggested.
Both have 4 drive bays. The Synology is more flexible with storage management right now (QNAP is catching up). Synology has the more Mac-like UI. QNAP is more Windows-like (IMO).
If you get a 4 Bay machine, you will have room to grow. This as the foundation, the Synology will let you start with 2 drives AND have RAID protection of your data. This might be the better option.
The DS718+ (the + designator is important on Synology models) is the smaller version (2 bays) of the DS918+ (4 bays). Your WD has 2 bays.
The QNAP TS-453Be is, as I said the same as the DS918+.
Give both a try. See which one feels better to you
Thanks watching demos now leaning toward the Synology and upgrading ram to 8gigs
Upgrading either of them is trivial. when you are ready to take that step , there are plenty here who have done it.
so either 1 is a huge step up from my dam mycloudex2 ultra
huge step up yes but about as future proof as you define your needs.
You will be adding bigger drive at some point.
Synology Hybrid RAID (SHR) just lets you put them in and it’s done. It will take time to finish but you can still use it with a bit reduced top-end performance. It won’t stop 1 Plex stream from playing perfectly at all.
Here is from one of the videos. you can see both SODIMMs on the right side by drive 4. The installed one is the factory 2GB
ok so easy access to install ram upgrade im gonna order it on amazon now although i do like the qnap gui a little more im gonna go with sysnology
Thanks for your help
Remember. 2x 4GB. It doesn’t matter what anyone says. it can only use 8GB of what’s installed.
ok Thank You
i ended up paying the extra money and going with the qnap system and got the 8gig upgrade liked the demo better and liked gui interface more thanks for all your help im new to all this i added overnight shipping so ill be playing with it tomorrow i hope
Now that you’ve made your choice and I won’t influence you, I will tell you what I have.
- Synology DS-1815+ (yes almost 4 years old but works great with 8x 6TB drives)
- QNAP TVS-1282-i7-32GB. I added the 10 GbE nic and USB 3.1 card to it. 8x 8TB. 2x 1TB Samsung 860 EVO (as OS/App volume), 500 GB SSD as “plex” metadata volume.
The QNAP is my primary driver. I have multiple VMs on it I use for Support (all the LInux distros) as well as QNAP PMS development. The Syno sits there quietly until I run backups to it once a month.
This topic was automatically closed 90 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.
