Hi Rob,
I've been watching your video updates for some time now (they are great by the way, always informative and full of common sense) and wonder if you could advise me on what NAS I should upgrade to next please?

I currently have a four bay QNAP TS-431 with 2 x 8TB Seagate IronWolf drives, configured as RAID1. I purchased the system second hand a couple of years ago for about £150 and I quite like the QNAP QTS O/S so would prefer to stay with QNAP. Having said that I'm happy to look elsewhere if necessary.

I use the NAS as a file server for my photographs and for nothing else. I don't want to run Plex or iTunes or P2P sharing. I just want something that I can use on my home network to store and edit my images. I also use the NAS to access my images remotely via my iPad and iPhone using the QFile app which works wonderfully and is great when I'm out discussing a photoshoot with clients (I'm trying to build a photographic business).

The issue I have is that it's quite slow. Not as bad as the old Buffalo LS520 that I have gathering dust in a corner, but never the less, it is quite slow. It has a slow CPU and a small amount of memory which is not upgradeable so I'm looking for something as a next step up and would appreciate your advice please.

I have quite a limited budget I'm afraid so I can't stretch to a QNAP 451D2 that you reviewed recently much as I would love to, but then of course there would be many features that I'd never use so it may be a bit of a waste even if I could find a second hand cassis for less than £300.

I hope the above makes sense, but if not please do feel free to email me to answer more questions.

Stay safe.

Thanks and best regards,
Howard.

I have a ds920+ for my home office use, but my wife is getting into photography mainly are children in sports and with raw photo's it is taking up a lot of space on the imac. so I would like to set up something simple for her. her basic work flow is to transfer the photo's to the imac and use lightroom to do some simple editing like adjust tone and crop the photos. I was thinking the best way to mange the photo's is to have her download them directly to the NAS and then just edit directly on the nas and then we have some file protection and lots of storage. we could also backup this nas up to a usb drive correct. I have watched many of your video's but my wife's editing is really simple and she used a 2014 imac so I think it has thunderbolt connection just maybe thunderbolt 1. so i was looking at the ds1621+ and adding a 10 gbe pci card then an adapter to thunderbolt so the imac would be direct connected to nas and I could also connect it to network correct? or option two would be just get the qnap tvs 672xt or tvs 472xt and that already has a thunderbolt connection.
thank you for your time

Although your site has been very helpful, thank you, I need a little more help.
I'm looking for a NAS purely for Time Machine back-ups for 5 MacBooks or iMacs.
We have cat 6a in walls, and most Macs are connected via ethernet (but some will be over wi-fi). Will soon be upgrading to a Unifi WiFi 6 APs and possibly and a Unifi router, but currently an ASUS router with unmanaged switch.
I don't want to over-spend on a NAS for this basic need i.e. Time Machine for 5 Macs.
Which QNAP (or other) would you recommend?
Thanks

Hello,

Where could I find information regarding the following situation?
I am planning to change my qnap from TV453A to TVS673e.
Currently, I have raid 10 on 4x10tb HDs. I want to transfer the existing hard drives (10tb-10tb-10tb-10tb) to the new nas and have the following set up on Raid 10 (adding only 2 new 4tb hard drives)
10tb-10tb-4tb-10tb-10tb-4tb

I hope that I gave you a clear idea of what I am trying to achieve.

Please advise

Sincerely
Spyridon Iliadis

I want a UPS that can send a notification to a Synology DS220J as soon as power is lost so that I can shut down the NAS immediately. I am not too worried about trying to keep it running for a time just so long as it shuts down safely as quickly as possible. I am not worried about running other devices off the UPS. I have two laptops that constantly run that may benefit from this but it is not essential. The NAS is the important unit.

Discuss: Best Low Price NAS Drive of the Year <br><iframe width='560' height='315' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/PvUPgZ8-6Lk' frameborder='0' allow='accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture' allowfullscreen></iframe>

I've been browsing through your youtube channel and learned quite a lot. However I was wondering about having fun with my nas. What would happen if I removed all my drives and set them aside, replaced the NAS with new (older drivers) from my drawer, had fun and when I'm all finished could I put back the original drives again and continue like nothing happened in between? would the NAS continue as the previsou setup was left on the original drives? This would be a cool experiment with all your nases there so I wouldn't have to myself :-) I have myself a synology 920+

Keep up the great work.
-Atli

I have my movies, Time Machine and photos on a WD Duo in RAID 1 which I then back up to seperate portable USB drives. All connected to my iMac. All works well but I would like a neater solution and I am thinking about a 4 bay NAS, for example as a cost effective solution and run it as a JBOD with

Drive 0 for Movies and Photos,
Drive 1 as backup for 0
Drive 2 for other stuff like time machine and files
Drive 3 as backup for that

Or a 2 bay and use my external usb drives as backup

So the intention would be to then connect it to my wired intranet in my house and run Plex as I do now from my Fire Cube 4k. I assume I would need to install the Plex server from the app list on the NAS. I dont think I need a RAID anymore for simple file storage and access or do I ? Backing up via Carbon Copy Cloner is my software of choice. This will free up my iMac a bit as it needs to be always on for my current DAS although it more than copes and if I ever need to transcode the processor will cope being an i7 4 core 8 threads. My movie files are 1080p and I stream to a 4K TV with the benefit of upscaling at the TV.

Am I looking at this the right way ? I don’t have any files that I use a lot other than movies and the advantage of a NAS would be always available on the intranet so maybe I’m swapping a DAS for a NAS. Its doing the same thing ? And I’m not a heavy user. So long story short. Should I go 2 or 4 bay NAS and which one ? Or even just stick with what I do now


As always, many thanks

Gary

Hi I just ordered a refurbished Qnap tvs-672n and I ordered 3 exos 12tb (I will order one more) also I need to order 2 nvme for cache. I'm not sure if I'm doing well cause I don't understand about these things and I'm just reading around and watching some YouTube videos as yours. I thought probably enterprise hdds would be better than the regular Ironwolf. Do you think the nvme Sabrent Rocket 2tb would be ok? Also a friend will replace the i3 processor with a i7 8700t. Also I would like to know why I would need to use the 5gb on my computer. Thanks! Luis

Im looking for a nas with at least 8 bays, which I can use primarily for general file storage. I would ideally like the option of installing some ssd internally to use as flash cache. I have no issue with buying an older model of NAS say from 2018 onwards as long as this still comes with full warranty, in fact that would probably be my preference with an eye on cost reduction.

I have drives so looking for bare bones.

This will quite often but intermittently be used for hosting VM disk files and will require NFS and iSCSI connectivity.

Lastly and leastly, there may be times when I want DLNA (but not transcoding) for streaming 4k movies down to the main TV in the house.