What all do you use the 918 for? Do you use the surveillance software with video streaming? Curious if it will have enough power to do what I want ...
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Synology NAS for Security and PLEX?
- Thread starter doobybiggs
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What all do you use the 918 for? Do you use the surveillance software with video streaming? Curious if it will have enough power to do what I want ...
I don't use Surv Station. I do however stream movies and run Docker containers (virtual machines) and it does that effortlessly. Cameras constantly writing to the HDDs will shorten their life though, so I'd consider dedicating whichever HDD that is to be only used for security cams.
I think the 918+ will more than suit your needs.
Here is a Reddit user chiming in:
https://www.reddit.com/r/synology/comments/8zp666/vm_performance_on_the_918/e2lvvgo
Have a look at QNAP. They have the edge over Synology these days in terms of hardware although the software for both is fairly evenly matched. Both will do plex, security and a whole load of other stuff and as they are effectively appliances it's a lot easier than setting up a Mac Mini to do the same thing. They also have inbuilt RAID, something the mini doesn't have.
I've had Plex running on a QNAP NAS for a couple of years and it just works. It only gets rebooted for security updates, but otherwise has been running non-stop for over 3 years.
I've had Plex running on a QNAP NAS for a couple of years and it just works. It only gets rebooted for security updates, but otherwise has been running non-stop for over 3 years.
While there is nothing wrong with Synology or QNAP, if you're the least bit capable of building and/or managing your own hardware, do some research and consider going with a FreeNAS box. I struggled with consumer grade NAS products for a couple of years, none of which were that great as far as my expectations. I looked into FreeNAS, and after building a fairly inexpensive PC to run it on with six 2GB hard drives, I've never looked back. It sits next to my desk and runs flawlessly, providing Time Machine volumes for my Mac Pro, Mac Mini and two MacBook Airs. I also run Plex on it as a media server.
I will say that I run the "old" version of FreeNAS (9.x) rather than the current version. Nothing wrong with the current version, I'm just happy with the older version and more comfortable working with it.
Just something to consider if you're "handy". Setup and configuration is really simple, and there's a very broad and accomplished user community out there that does a great job supporting it.
MacDann
I will say that I run the "old" version of FreeNAS (9.x) rather than the current version. Nothing wrong with the current version, I'm just happy with the older version and more comfortable working with it.
Just something to consider if you're "handy". Setup and configuration is really simple, and there's a very broad and accomplished user community out there that does a great job supporting it.
MacDann
I am really happy with the Synology 918+ I just got. Compared to my previous NASes (Netgear) it is amazingly quiet and light.
Setup was dirt simple. The biggest thing was waiting for it to build my storage volume that contained 2 - 4TB WD Red drivers and 2-8 TB Red drives. That took 2 days before the full storage was available. Luckily you can use the unit, sans the extra space of the 3 additional drives, after about 10 minutes of setup.
Setting up Time Machine was under 5 minutes and 5 more minutes for file shares and users
I upgraded mine to 8 GB of memory and did not install any nVME cache drives. Some people have installed 16 GB of memory but that is not officially supported with the processor.
If you trying to decide on QNAP versus Synology (don't use Netgear) check out YouTube. SpanDotCom has some good comparisions that clarified things for me.
Setup was dirt simple. The biggest thing was waiting for it to build my storage volume that contained 2 - 4TB WD Red drivers and 2-8 TB Red drives. That took 2 days before the full storage was available. Luckily you can use the unit, sans the extra space of the 3 additional drives, after about 10 minutes of setup.
Setting up Time Machine was under 5 minutes and 5 more minutes for file shares and users
I upgraded mine to 8 GB of memory and did not install any nVME cache drives. Some people have installed 16 GB of memory but that is not officially supported with the processor.
If you trying to decide on QNAP versus Synology (don't use Netgear) check out YouTube. SpanDotCom has some good comparisions that clarified things for me.
I put 16GB RAM in my 918+. It's officially supported by the processor, just not officially supported by Synology.
Would you point me to the source from intel, because I already bought 4GB to get me to 8GB supported?
The CPU is Celeron J3455.
The AsRock J3455 board shows 16GB max ram: http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/J3455M/
The Gigabyte J3455 board shows 16GB ram max: https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherbo...-rev-10#sp
The Asus J3455 board shows 16GB ram max: https://www.asus.com/Motherboards...ductPrint/
Intel NUC with J3455 is available in two configurations: no ram or 16GB ram https://www.newegg.com/Product/Pr...-_-Product
People are misinterpreting the Intel page that shows 8GB. It's 8GB per channel.