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Deciding Between Synology & QNAP - Take 2
- Thread starter thiggins
- Start date
L&LD
Part of the Furniture
Tim, thanks for the review and the important note too.
After researching for a few months for the NAS vendor I would be endorsing, I ended up going with QNAP. No reason, just a hunch and their hardware seemed better to me when I briefly compared.
This will now be my main selling point to my customers going forward!
I've owned a Synology NAS for a few years. As I do on PCs, I do not upgrade to the latest new release. I wait 6 months or so. Never an early adopter.
With this, I've done several minor version updates and one major upgrade, without impact.
There are ways users devised to downgrade. But I think that's rarely done. And usually by someone who was a to-early adopter. I'm on v4.3 of DSM. V5 came out quite a while ago. I've not upgraded (a) nothing compelling in V5 and (b) wait for bugs to die.
With this, I've done several minor version updates and one major upgrade, without impact.
There are ways users devised to downgrade. But I think that's rarely done. And usually by someone who was a to-early adopter. I'm on v4.3 of DSM. V5 came out quite a while ago. I've not upgraded (a) nothing compelling in V5 and (b) wait for bugs to die.
Hi,
I just don't understand prevailing attitudes in f/w upgrading because there is newer release.
Professionally/personally I just don't upgrade operating f/w without just reason. In the case of Synology I some times upgrade only selected package after newer release is proven by others.
I just don't understand prevailing attitudes in f/w upgrading because there is newer release.
Professionally/personally I just don't upgrade operating f/w without just reason. In the case of Synology I some times upgrade only selected package after newer release is proven by others.
saulos
Regular Contributor
After 3 Qnap I decided to give a try to Synology, now my 713 is up and running fine .
I did not find any plus or minus on the two brand, the only minus is for Qnap fast model change , too many for me also because they drop developping FW of old models .
One of my QNAP is still working after 8 years but no more FW fix/upgrade
hope Synology will du better as this kind of device have a long life span
I did not find any plus or minus on the two brand, the only minus is for Qnap fast model change , too many for me
also because they drop developping FW of old models .One of my QNAP is still working after 8 years
but no more FW fix/upgrade hope Synology will du better as this kind of device have a long life span
For QNAP to become a NAS Multimedia Center, how quiet is it?
Is the data striped across all disks, requiring all disks to spinup even for a small file?
How does QNAP and SYNOLOGY operating system/features/UI compare to NETGEAR? I'm liking the snapshots.
SnapRAID also has my attention.
Thanks,
Jake
Home User
Is the data striped across all disks, requiring all disks to spinup even for a small file?
How does QNAP and SYNOLOGY operating system/features/UI compare to NETGEAR? I'm liking the snapshots.
SnapRAID also has my attention.
Thanks,
Jake
Home User
htismaqe
Very Senior Member
Sometimes required firmware releases (e.g. vuln patches) are released and you really don't have a choice to wait. If that release breaks something and you can't back it out, you have to wait them to release another patch.
Sure, it's prudent to not being an early adopter. There are also cases where it's impossible to just sit on an update and wait to see what other people say about it.
In my view our (NETGEAR's) strengths include the build quality of the hardware and our use of the BTRFS filesystem to provide features such as unlimited snapshots.
Data protection is a key focus for us. Doing what we can to minimise the chances of data loss and looking for ways to reduce the chances of things going wrong even further over time is very important to us. The unlimited snapshots feature is an important part of this. Still it is vital to note whichever device you choose important data must not be stored on just a single device. RAID is very useful, but it is not a replacement for backups.
For your needs I would recommend you consider e.g. the ReadyNAS 300 series or perhaps if you have a need for e.g. 1080p transcoding the ReadyNAS 516.
The snapshots/continuous protection are set at the share/LUN level. It is important to consider in which use cases these are appropriate and not just use them for every share. If you have large files with a huge number of in place modifications made to them (a datastore for virtual machines would be a good example of this) then snapshots wouldn't be appropriate.
Snapshots are great especially for irreplaceable data you can't bear to lose. It provides some protection against accidental file deletions (provided a snapshot has been taken before the file is accidentally deleted).
In my experience users range from those who have never done a firmware update on their units they've had for several years through to those who update as soon as an update is made available.
Never doing an update is very bad in my view. Updates can be required to e.g. fix compatibility issues with hard drives (the hard drives may not have been on the market when an old firmware was released), not to mention to provide bug fixes, new features and other enhancements. Methods to troubleshoot issues can change over time and if you run very old firmware (e.g. multiple years old) then it can be harder to troubleshoot if you run into issues.
Some users think a firmware update is likely to cause major issues. In reality a firmware update is only likely to be associated with major issues if there is already a problem on the system before the upgrade, as firmware updates are tested before they are released.
As for updates to address security vulnerabilities that depends on the use case. If you don't forward ports to your NAS and you have good security on your Wi-Fi and don't let people on your LAN you don't trust then the risk of being affected by a security vulnerability is very low.
If you do need ports forwarded to your NAS for some reason then keeping on top of security vulnerabilities is important.
Some users will setup a test environment to test new firmware to see for themselves how it works for their use case.
The downtime from a firmware update can be a real problem for some. The time it takes if all goes smoothly may not be a big issue, but in the rare case something does go badly wrong and several users can't work and they need to contact a support team or restore from backup that could be a real issue if it happens at the wrong time. A few hours where users can't work could cost a lot of money. So scheduling a time to do a firmware update can be important in some cases.
Best practice in my view would be to:
1. Make sure you have an up to date backup (you should have one anyway, but it's a good time to think of doing one)
2. Look at firmware release notes (and possibly GPL if you are a technical user) and see if there's something there you would benefit from (noting that there may be additional changes in the update you would benefit from that are not shown in either of those places)
3. Check forums etc. for other opinions on the update
4. Assess the impact downtime would have and schedule a time to do the update accordingly
5. Before doing the update, you may wish to check disk SMART stats, download the logs, perhaps even a backup of the configuration
6. Update the firmware
Snapshots complement having backups, but like RAID, snapshots are definitely not a replacement for having backups.
Version control is the primary use case for snapshots.
Say you backup daily, but take snapshots hourly. Snapshots may help you recover a file as it was a few hours ago which a backup from yesterday would not.
Also depending on how you do your backups (e.g. to another NAS), if you accidentally delete a file and don't notice immediately it may be deleted on your backups too. Of course it is good to use a backup option that provides some protection against accidental file deletions, but not everyone does that.
Additional ways to protect against data loss are good in my view, so long as you understand what they can help with and what they can not.
Snapshots can help with version control and some protection against accidental file deletions, but there are plenty of things which they cannot protect against. A good data protection strategy involves using a range of things: Backups being the most important part of it. However things such as snapshots, RAID, anti-virus etc. are also useful.
If you have heaps of free space on your NAS, why not use some of it for something useful like snapshots (for the data for which snapshots are appropriate)?
It is of course essential that you backup your important data. No important data should be trusted to be stored on just a single device, no matter what that device is. You should keep at least three copies of important data (including the copy on the NAS) with one off-site at all times.
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I'm looking at getting a new NAS and am torn between the QNap TS-251 and the Synology DS214Play. They're similarly priced and both two bays. The Qnap has a 2.4ghz Celeron CPU over the Synology's 1.6 Atom, so that gives the Qnap a performance advantage, and also allows for 1 VM to be used (once more memory is installed), which is useful, but not a neccessity.
The thing that's delaying me, though, is the OS. I've been trialling DSM on a VM on ESXi and I do like it. Qnap's current OS does look similar, but potentially needs more manual configuring for some apps.
I've had a Qnap TS109 for the last seven years (it's just died), but it's not had any updates and most of the plugins have not been updated, so they're mostly no longer useable, which has left it used solely as a backup destination for the last two or three years.
I am concerned that if I spend £300 on a NAS (plus disks) I want it to be supported for as long as it stays alive, and I'm not confident of Qnap doing that.
The old Qnap was an ARM device, so hopefully having x86 should keep it supported for longer.
Can anyone give any opinions on these two NAS drives, or their thoughts on the OSs and my concerns?
Thanks
The thing that's delaying me, though, is the OS. I've been trialling DSM on a VM on ESXi and I do like it. Qnap's current OS does look similar, but potentially needs more manual configuring for some apps.
I've had a Qnap TS109 for the last seven years (it's just died), but it's not had any updates and most of the plugins have not been updated, so they're mostly no longer useable, which has left it used solely as a backup destination for the last two or three years.
I am concerned that if I spend £300 on a NAS (plus disks) I want it to be supported for as long as it stays alive, and I'm not confident of Qnap doing that.
The old Qnap was an ARM device, so hopefully having x86 should keep it supported for longer.
Can anyone give any opinions on these two NAS drives, or their thoughts on the OSs and my concerns?
Thanks
I have only a small two drive NAS (Synology). Very pleased. I have heavy automated backups by several methods. Haven't had any failures of any kind in 2+ years with DS212 and consumer drives.
Main things I like in the OS (DSM) are
DSM's Time Backup (not well understood, but it keeps file versions for months). Save my buns several times when I hose up a file. I do software development consulting. Also saved my buns on my financial records - rather complex set of investments types, taxes, etc.
The other automated backups in DSM I use. One sends VIP files to a 2.5 inch. 2TB USB3 drive. And on desktop PCs I use Centered Systems' SecondCopy - a real godsend.
I don't use RAID primarily because with good backups, needed even with RAID, I see the likely fault causes are not drive failure.
Main things I like in the OS (DSM) are
DSM's Time Backup (not well understood, but it keeps file versions for months). Save my buns several times when I hose up a file. I do software development consulting. Also saved my buns on my financial records - rather complex set of investments types, taxes, etc.
The other automated backups in DSM I use. One sends VIP files to a 2.5 inch. 2TB USB3 drive. And on desktop PCs I use Centered Systems' SecondCopy - a real godsend.
I don't use RAID primarily because with good backups, needed even with RAID, I see the likely fault causes are not drive failure.
sfx2000
Part of the Furniture
In a production environment - it's prudent to wait, and if possible, have a dedicate box to run as a Lab environment to soak and extensively test before rolling out firmware updates. Firmware updates, even minor point level releases can be very scary to deal with.
Also, some vendors have rolled out package hot-fixes - QNAP did for the BASH Shellshock bug as an example..
My experience with both QNAP and Synology has been from a consumer perspective.
Had a number of QNAP NAS's - 109, 109II, 210 and 212 until I upgraded to a Synology DS-712+ which lasted me until I purchased my DS-415+ last month.
Reason I moved from QNAP to Synology was a lack of security updates - I recall for a long time me and a number of other users were complaining on the QNAP forum about certain components in the OS being well out of date and security vulnerabilities not being addressed. Moved to Synology and was VERY impressed with the rate of firmware upgrades and them being a lot quicker to address security vulnerabilities in components compared to QNAP.
In terms of features and functions both are very similar, only thing I can think of which I really like on my Synology is Hybrid Raid - a feature not available on QNAP's still. Synocommunity is great too providing quick updates to certain apps I use on the NAS.
Another reason (I'm not sure if this is still applicable) that I prefer and recommend Synology over QNAP for is support - Synology usually support models for 3 years (my 712+ was still getting updates!) - but QNAP used to be lax in this department and stopped providing updates for models after just a couple of years - not sure if this is the case also.
Whilst I appreciate the ability to downgrade / upgrade firmware is required from an enterprise perspective - I'd rather have quick and more frequent updates. Not only for new features but to address security issues as my NAS is always online.
Had a number of QNAP NAS's - 109, 109II, 210 and 212 until I upgraded to a Synology DS-712+ which lasted me until I purchased my DS-415+ last month.
Reason I moved from QNAP to Synology was a lack of security updates - I recall for a long time me and a number of other users were complaining on the QNAP forum about certain components in the OS being well out of date and security vulnerabilities not being addressed. Moved to Synology and was VERY impressed with the rate of firmware upgrades and them being a lot quicker to address security vulnerabilities in components compared to QNAP.
In terms of features and functions both are very similar, only thing I can think of which I really like on my Synology is Hybrid Raid - a feature not available on QNAP's still. Synocommunity is great too providing quick updates to certain apps I use on the NAS.
Another reason (I'm not sure if this is still applicable) that I prefer and recommend Synology over QNAP for is support - Synology usually support models for 3 years (my 712+ was still getting updates!) - but QNAP used to be lax in this department and stopped providing updates for models after just a couple of years - not sure if this is the case also.
Whilst I appreciate the ability to downgrade / upgrade firmware is required from an enterprise perspective - I'd rather have quick and more frequent updates. Not only for new features but to address security issues as my NAS is always online.
I've not owned a QNAP - just Synology. My choice was based mainly on two phone calls to their tech support in California/Bay Area, asking deep dive technical questions on "can it do x, y?" before I purchased. Each time I talked promptly with a technically competent person who spoke my only language (English) well, and was direct to the point and polite.
After purchase, I did file a tech support ticket or two to ask how-to and got a reasonably fast and on-topic response.
Happily, I've needed no support at all for the 2-3 years I've owned this NAS, and that includes 2 major updates to firmware. And the rapid update to correct the Linux-wide security flaws.
Of course, I do a CYA by having a robust and automated backup to cope with whatever goes wrong. So far, zero need for it, other than the Synology Time Backup with file versioning saving my buns many times from my own mistakes in files' content.
After purchase, I did file a tech support ticket or two to ask how-to and got a reasonably fast and on-topic response.
Happily, I've needed no support at all for the 2-3 years I've owned this NAS, and that includes 2 major updates to firmware. And the rapid update to correct the Linux-wide security flaws.
Of course, I do a CYA by having a robust and automated backup to cope with whatever goes wrong. So far, zero need for it, other than the Synology Time Backup with file versioning saving my buns many times from my own mistakes in files' content.
sfx2000
Part of the Furniture
I think we're comparing apples to oranges...
While I'm a QNAP user, I wouldn't hesitate to suggest a Synology device, if the requirements fit the capabilities and needs... for me, a QNAP solution fit best..
Once one gets beyond simple USB sharing on a router/ap, or entry level, it's hard not to suggest one of these two vendors - strong hardware and they've developed a decent third party app community/ecosystem..
While I'm a QNAP user, I wouldn't hesitate to suggest a Synology device, if the requirements fit the capabilities and needs... for me, a QNAP solution fit best..
Once one gets beyond simple USB sharing on a router/ap, or entry level, it's hard not to suggest one of these two vendors - strong hardware and they've developed a decent third party app community/ecosystem..
I was on Qnap years ago, went to Synology for a while and now back to Qnap.
Don't think you can really go wrong either way. Qnap is maybe more focused on adding all kinds of home / consumer stuff that will add more uses beyond having a NAS for storage, Synology is more focused on the storage part (so Synology is possibly more focused).
I think Qnap's UI somehow is more consistent to my head, but then there is some stuff that just feels slapped on (from consistency point of view) like the Hybrid desk station.
Qnap seems to have a lot of backup options but they are really messy to use, Synology was maybe more straight forward (just basic backup to local disk). What always annoyed me with Synology was that it would always do a full backup if the external disk was swapped, and incrementals to an attached disk. This would mean that when rotating external disks you would always get really slow backups.
Don't think you can really go wrong either way. Qnap is maybe more focused on adding all kinds of home / consumer stuff that will add more uses beyond having a NAS for storage, Synology is more focused on the storage part (so Synology is possibly more focused).
I think Qnap's UI somehow is more consistent to my head, but then there is some stuff that just feels slapped on (from consistency point of view) like the Hybrid desk station.
Qnap seems to have a lot of backup options but they are really messy to use, Synology was maybe more straight forward (just basic backup to local disk). What always annoyed me with Synology was that it would always do a full backup if the external disk was swapped, and incrementals to an attached disk. This would mean that when rotating external disks you would always get really slow backups.
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