What type of NAS do I need?

NAS is completely new to me and having just bought a Cambridge CXN, I wish to stream my music wirelessly.

I wish to to buy a NAS and have been looking at a 2 bay:

Synology DS215j

QNAP TS-251 or QNAP TS-451 (which has 4 bays)

but I've also come across the Western Digital My Cloud Mirror.

At the moment I just want to listen to my music through the CXN, but as I get used to how the NAS works I might want to do other things in the future.

For instance I am thinking of connecting my printer (which does not have wifi) to the NAS to make it easier to print - would I be able to do this with the Western Digital My Cloud Mirror?

Setting up the NAS is also something I'm thinking about - the simpler the better, which is why I was looking at the Western Digital My Cloud Mirror, but don't know if it would be powerful enough or have enough features.

All help will be very much appreciated.

 

I am a Synology fan. I used a 4 bay model for about 4+ years and this summer got the 1815+ (8 bay model).
I use it for music and video streaming and backups and other things I do. It's not all that difficult to setup.
They have very good support and are always updating the software.
I did not have a single problem with the 4 bay NAS (other then hard drives failing a couple of times).
It was pretty straighforward to move the HDs out of my old model to the new 8 bay model.

Plus I had some RAM lying around and was able to upgrade it from 2 GB to 16 GB of RAM!

I also find their mobile apps are very good and useful.

-- Sanjay

 

I agree with Sanjay's post above.

I used NAS drives by Maxtor, D-Link and Buffalo. They were cheap and they worked reasonably well, but I bought a Synology DS214play and it was in a different league. It's superb; fast, feature rich and, unlike some others, the included apps actually work. The down side: it was expensive. If you can afford it, Synology is the way to go.

 

I have a couple of Synology NAS 4 bay units and I think they are really great, I recommend checking out their range they do have everything from entry level on up. Good support.

 

When looking for a NAS, I too had some concerns about my ability to set up and configure it to work on my network, so I opted for the "NAS for idiots" version, the Synology BeyondCloud 2 x 3tb model. It comes with drives pre-installed in RAID 1 and automatic software setup and configuration. It was super easy to get it up and running, see it on my network devices, access and share my content remotely, etc..

I'm sure anyone with a moderate comfort level of network setup understanding could top this configuration in price and performance, but for an intimidated noob it's a near perfect starter solution. You can also swap out the drives for larger capacity as storage needs grow. Link below:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00SSXQNT8?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00

 

Avoid WD--their products are trash now. Last NAS product I owned from them died in six months. I've had a Seagate Central but it is good for little more than an occasional use backup drive. Typical consumer crap, and poor support for additional apps.

Synology is about the only good game out there today. Use enterprise drives (not the consumer junk) and it'll last a long while. (I use HGST 4TB drives--no issues whatsoever.) Their apps work, and there is a whole community of developers with even more. I run mine with Serviio, and there is a port for the Logitech server also. They are worth the money if you are serious about a NAS.

 

I have a Synology 1511+ with Hitachi drives. I have all my music and lots of other stuff on there. I connect to my Cambridge CXN using Ethernet over Power.
I have been experimenting with different music server, namely Synology's and Minim Server. Synology is easy to use but I find Minim to be the better server.
I have had some issues with HRA albums skipping at the start of each track and still following that up with both Cambridge and Synology.

 

I have a synology 215j. Works perfectly for streaming hi res music and HD video.

And as others have said. The apps work flawlessly.

I don't think you can go wrong with synology or qnap.

 

Do the Synology drives play nicely with a Mac, in terms of moving the existing files over and integrating via iTunes &Pure Music? Do they also have a USB hub for me to connect the transmitting end of a wireless DAC into?

 

I've been happy with QNAP NAS 4 bay purchased in 2009. It's still going strong. I use 2.5 inch WD black 5 year drives. Note you must use drives thar are compatible with NAS. NAS and drives run quiet and cool. I connect a 4 antenna high quality Linksys router to it via ethernet. Everything else uses wireless. My squeeze box streams hi rez files directly from NAS effortlessly. Now use Orange Squeeze on Android smart phone to access Logitech Media Server. QNAP provides regular and timely software updates with many apps. The NAS has been my most reliable piece of hardware other than amps. I'm a big fan.

 

Synology works great with Mac. And yes you can put your library(music and movies) on it and point iTunes to it. You just need to make sure that the volume you have your library on automatically mounts whenever your Mac starts up. Otherwise iTunes will default to the internal default location. I'm not at my computer right now but if you need help just ask.

 

I have a QNAP TS-251 with WD drives. I am not a tech person and it was pretty easy to get going, thanks to the set-up video on youtube. After two WD My Cloud failures, I tried a Seagate NAS and after spending an hour with tech support, sent it back. The QNAP is great and does way more than I’ll ever need.

 

Synology comes with an iTunes sever program built in. You just need to activate it

 

I, like some others on here use a Synology DS215J. Not being particularly computer savvy, I bought this after careful consideration on the combination of ease of use, performance and reliability. I've got it to work, so it must be easy to use!

Most of the people I know who have used a NAS device for streaming, use Synology or QNAP, with some Netgear users. Some of this is down to early adaptors and available Twonky trees. There is some great software out there now, such as Minimserver amongst others, so there is more flexibility of choice than a few years ago.

Please use a hard drive designed for use in a NAS (I use WD red) as a hard drive will fail at some time in the future. And back-up. A Raid configuration is not a back-up.

Having spent the last couple of months ripping my CDs, it is the kind of job I only want to do once! So, have I mentioned back-up?!

The performance of the NAS you buy is very much down to your proposed use - do you want to stream hi-def video or only music?

Broadband speeds and Wi-Fi reliability has obviously improved massively in recent times, but if you can use a hard wired connection, I recommend it. Good luck!

Oggy.

 

+1 on Synology. It's my 3rd NAS and has lasted longer than the previous 2 combined. The UI is pretty friendly as far as these things go.

I also like how OSX plays nice with it as a Time Machine destination.

But as Oggy mentions, RAID isn't backup! Make sure you have a plan to back up the NAS periodically! The UI helps here as well, as you can connect a USB-powered external disk to the NAS and set it to automatically back up the NAS on a schedule.

 

I agree. I have a 4 disk Synology 413j and I have had discs fail twice. In both case, two discs went down at the same time and I had* to build everything back up again.

* Note: the first time this happened, I sent Synology an email and it took them three days to respond. They gave me some steps I could try (that didn't work) and said they could take over the NAS if it didn't work, but I elected to just rebuild it from the original files. Now I use two USBs that attach to the NAS for backups.

I thought about Drobo when I bought the Synology, but they didn't seem to have as many features. One cool feature with Synology is the DS Audio app. It has Airplay built in and their version has features you don't even get in iTunes. For example, you can stream two separate songs to two separate Airplay devices.

 

Thanks for all the helpful replies.
I think I am going to buy a Synology DS215j with 2 x 3TB WD red installed, or should I buy the hard drives separately and fit them myself?

One thing I'm thinking about is how powerful does the processor need to be and how much RAM do I really need for streaming?
Will the DS215j have enough power?

The other thing I'm thinking about is 'future proofing': When I start to understand how the NAS works will I want to stream HD movies or whatever else a NAS is able to do?

Until I start using a NAS I won't understand what it's all about.
I don't understand what a 'Minimserver' does, for instance.

I know the basics about computers so hopefully I will pick up on how the NAS works quickly.

I want the sound I will be streaming to be as high quality as it can be.
I have a lot of FLAC files and a few 24/96 files as well.
Is there anything I should be doing concerning how I connect the NAS that could make the quality better or anything else along those lines?

 

The problem with this statement is it's absolutely correct - all drives fail. Expensive ones, cheap ones, red ones, blue ones, etc. Raid is not a backup, but it is a way to account for the previous statement. So while it might be worth paying the extra $20 for the WD Red NAS-specific drives that are built to higher tolerances, you might actually be better off just saying that money to put towards the next eventual replacement array drive.

Personally I wouldn't bother with RAID. It adds a lot of complexity thats worth it in critical enterprise environments, but likely not a home music backup. Most NAS devices support cloud backup services, which gives you an actual backup and piece of mind.

 

If all you're using it for is music, the actual performance likely doesn't matter much. It's if you need it to stream and/or transcode HD video that the performance matters. The one you're looking at has an 800ghz processor, I'd assume that would be powerful enough.

In general there's not much to understand about how the NAS works; it's just a fancy box of hard drives. You'll either use its built in server or point whatever you're using on the playback side to point to it, not much else to know or do.

 

Synology fan here, but I'm told by people who know that Qnap are even better.

 

I have the same nas and same hard drives. If it's cheaper do it yourself. It's really easy. A few screws.

I can stream HD video in one room and 24/192 audio in another simultaneously no problem. All my products are hardwired though

 

The Synology DS215J is a great value, and easy to use NAS. The WD red 3TB has the best price / capacity value in the range. So both great choices and very easy to fit yourself, a 5 minute job.

Do you want 2 X 3TB for 6TB capacity or RAID?

Minimserver is really a more flexible way of organising your music and particularly helpful for classical. Have a look at the Minimserver site and see if it may be any use to you.

For best performance if you can, use a wired connection.

As an aside, how does the Cambridge streamer compare to your CD player?

Good luck,

Oggy.

 

I am very happy with the sound quality of the CXN.
I haven't compared the sound of an album between the two, but the CXN does sound very good when playing FLAC 16/44.
I think the upsampling does open up the sound more.

 

Seems like a very well thought out product, interested to see how you find the sound quality relative to the Roksan CD player.

On the storage front, I would tend to buy an external back-up drive and back up regularly. Cloud storage for 3TB is expensive and whilst it gives you almost the ultimate security, you could buy a couple of drives per year for similar money. You can then keep a back-up off site.

If it came down to RAID or external back-up, I think the latter would give me the greater peace of mind.

Oggy.

 

Lightbulb moment here... I have a Synology with 2x 3TB drives in it - I'd always assumed that the whole point was that I was copying files onto one of the drives and it was backing them up onto the other. But it sounds from this thread like I might have misunderstood?