Researched NAS and still lost

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Hello Everyone,

I have spent the last few weeks looking into NAS and still cannot figure out which one to buy and would like to know which would work best for my budget. I do not have a lot of money to spend. I considered the WD pr2100, Synology ds218+ or the QNAP TS-251+, which one do you think is better (please also feel free to recommend something that you think is better within that price range)? Also is there a difference between the Seagate green or the wd red for the machine you recommend? I plan to hook it up to a Verizon Fios router and hook up a homerun prime to the device as well. All my current videos and been converted through handbrake to h.264. At max, I could have up to three streams running at once which could be played on either: (a)Chromecast, (b) Roku, © Xbox one, or (d) firestick. I just want to make sure that the device I invest in is going to work well and I do appreciate you taking time out of your schedule to help me. @ChuckPa has been a big help in answering some questions about the WD pr2100, and having me look into Synology and Qnap products (which is the max on my budget).

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I’ve had both QNAP and Synology NASes and find Synology’s software easier to use, especially if you are just getting started. The DS218+ has a pretty good CPU as mentioned above. For Seagate NAS drives go with the Iron Wolf. I have used Red and Iron Wolf and haven’t had issues with either.

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Before you dump a load of money into hardware that will eventually fail you should consider storing your media in the Cloud. G Suite for Business for $10/€8/£6.60 per month gives you unlimited storage on Google Drive (the alleged 1TB limit for <5 users has never been enforced). Then let Google worry about hardware failures, backups, management etc You can just mount up your Google Drive on your Plex server as though it were local storage using rclone or similar. If you have a need for remote access then consider renting a VPS & put all your resources out in the Cloud.

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I think both QNAP and Syno are more or less identical in regards to performance and HW Acc :wink:

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@Gamer234

Both Synology and QNAP have a “Live Demo” you can use. Give them both a try and learn your way around. See with feels the most comfortable to you and how you think. Ease of use is just, if not more, important than pure performance.

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Everyone, thank you for your advice. I picked the Synology DS218+ with a Seagate ironwolf hard drive. I appreciate you taking your time out to answer the question as I have been doing a lot of research and had a hard time getting a clear answer.

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@trumpy81 Thank you for the information and the link to the FAQ. I went through the FAQ in detail and will hopefully be prepared to set up the NAS. If everything goes well, the system will be up and running by Friday night.

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