DS415+ upgrade & Migration to DS1522+ or DS923+?

[Enquiries]

Love the channel & support - Kudos to you both first of all!
I have 8TB of data across 4x3TB in a DS415+. I'm due for a migration and want to minimize wasting existing drives and maximize for follow use case:

Plex & moving Photo Station into Syn.Photos to properly have facial recognition.
I also want to run a VM so I can have an always on PC on the NAS that can run photo deduplicate software and I can access and open personal Excel files on the actual software from any browser.

Which has longevity - 1522 or 923? or the 1621? Better CPU, h.265 transcoding etc? Would the NVME Volume pools/cache be possible on all and would they help bring benefit?
Also I'm thinking of moving all data onto BTFS & SHR-2 setup during migration (not sure how yet) from current SHR & ext4 DS415+
Thanks

[ed]

Hey! Thanks a bunch for the love! Moving onto the upgrade scene, considering your needs for Plex, Synology Photos, and running VMs, both the DS1522+ and DS923+ are excellent choices. For future-proofing, the DS1522+ with its AMD Ryzen R1600 processor could offer a bit more power and longevity, especially with tasks like VMs and facial recognition.

Both models support NVMe SSD caching, which can significantly boost performance, and you can set up BTFS & SHR-2 for enhanced data protection. The DS1522+ stands out with a better CPU and can handle H.265 transcoding smoothly, making it a solid pick for media tasks.

If you're eyeing the DS1621+, it's also a strong contender, featuring an AMD Ryzen V1500B processor and supporting NVMe caching.