QNAP TS-251+ or TS-253A?

[Knaledge]

I've taken the time to go through the related reviews and read through these forums - but something I'm not seeing is a plain and simple recommendation for one or the other.

Here is my goal:
- Take first step toward centralizing my media and essential data (photos, videos, documents)
- Develop a habit for best-practice re: personal backups (for all of my devices)
- Take those lessons learned after a few years time and upgrade to whatever is the borderline-overkill solution for in-home use (4+ bay solution)

Here is what I want:
- Store all data centrally (.mp4, .cbr/.cbz, .epub, .dmg/.apk/.proj)
- For media, DLNA playback on PS4, Xbox One, Mac, iPhone, iPad
- "Thoughtless" playback of above media (so like... transcoding if it's a fresh .mp4 or .avi)
- Stream comics to iPad
- Utilize Time Machine within macOS (two laptops)

Additional Info
This will be in my living room next to my other electronics, connected to the modem-router via ethernet, and accessible via 5GHz 802.11ac

The TS-251+ seems.. newer? ... than the TS-253A. I won't be consuming much 4K but the future capability would be nice.

Question
I realize it seems this question has been asked to death - but I haven't found anything that outlines things like the above and just asks:

which is best overall, and why?

 

[sfx2000]

Kind of a wash...

TS-253A - Braswell N3150 Quad
TS-251+ - Baytrail-D J1900 Quad

The 253A has a better GPU, hence the 4K support, and better QuickSync video speed for transcoding - also that GPU can handle 4K display - the other benefit of Braswell is that it includes AES-NI support, which might be important if one is encrypting the filesystem or using VPN (yes, QTS has VPN support)

The 251+ is baytrail, and it's clocked a bit higher (2.0GHz vs. 1.6GHz on the 253A) - otherwise with the exception of the GPU enhancements and AES, it will be a bit better at single thread performance, but not enough to notice...

The 253A has two HDMI, and twice as many USB3 ports

If it were my money, I would go with the 253A - as one won't notice the different in clock speed much between the J1900 (faster) and the N3150 (fast, but better GPU, 4K support, AES-NI, and more ports)

(disclosure, I have the 453Pro)

 

[sfx2000]

Couple of tips...

Buy the 2GB RAM model, QNAP charges crazy prices for RAM, and you can get much better deals - they use DIMM's, and one can get a Crucial 8GB kit (2 4GB dimms, same kit as for the 2012 MacMini DDR3L-1600) for much less... QNAP has a technical manual on line with how to replace memory, it's fairly easy to do, but one does have to open it up...

These things are not whisper quiet - they're about the same as a small form factor PC noise-wise... so that might be a consideration for your A/V room...

 

[Knaledge]

Couple of tips...

Buy the 2GB RAM model, QNAP charges crazy prices for RAM, and you can get much better deals - they use DIMM's, and one can get a Crucial 8GB kit (2 4GB dimms, same kit as for the 2012 MacMini DDR3L-1600) for much less... QNAP has a technical manual on line with how to replace memory, it's fairly easy to do, but one does have to open it up...

These things are not whisper quiet - they're about the same as a small form factor PC noise-wise... so that might be a consideration for your A/V room...

This and your other reply is exactly the type of reply I was hoping for, in terms of the content. Thank you! Please feel free to add more here, as it sounds like there may be other nuance.

Full disclosure: I've already purchased a TS-253A, 2x 3TB WD red, and 8GB crucial DDR3L-1600 (4GBx2). Total cost was about $630.

That said: I had been using a 2009 MacBook Pro 13" (2.26 GHz Core2Duo, 8GB DDR2) to host UMS (a much better fork of PMS - as PMS proper has been dead for quite some time).

720p~ (and middling bitrate 1080p) transcodes were more or less fine when streaming on-the-fly (or.. so it seemed?) to the PS4. I say "so it seemed" because I can't be too sure what the media format support is truly like on PS4 , as it hasn't really been disclosed in detail. That said, I grab a thing, it plays fine on the PS4.

Will I encounter hiccups with the TS-253A? Hiccups I might not have encountered on the 2009 MBP?

Or is the TS-253A just brute-force like more modern, and therefore a likely improvement?

Will the noise be audible in a generally quiet room, and it's sitting about 5-7 feet away in a corner? Perhaps it will sound like the PS4/Xbox One when they are running?

 

[sfx2000]

Full disclosure: I've already purchased a TS-253A, 2x 3TB WD red, and 8GB crucial DDR3L-1600 (4GBx2). Total cost was about $630.

That said: I had been using a 2009 MacBook Pro 13" (2.26 GHz Core2Duo, 8GB DDR2) to host UMS (a much better fork of PMS - as PMS proper has been dead for quite some time).

720p~ (and middling bitrate 1080p) transcodes were more or less fine when streaming on-the-fly (or.. so it seemed?) to the PS4. I say "so it seemed" because I can't be too sure what the media format support is truly like on PS4 , as it hasn't really been disclosed in detail. That said, I grab a thing, it plays fine on the PS4.

Will I encounter hiccups with the TS-253A? Hiccups I might not have encountered on the 2009 MBP?

Or is the TS-253A just brute-force like more modern, and therefore a likely improvement?

Will the noise be audible in a generally quiet room, and it's sitting about 5-7 feet away in a corner? Perhaps it will sound like the PS4/Xbox One when they are running?

Performance wise - depends... I don't do transcode on the fly, I tend to prefer doing a more tailored approach with content and optimize both bit-rate and file size... so that NAS is just basically pushing the file across the local network...

Noise levels - probably about the same as the PS4 when putting some effort into things...

The 453Pro I have is definitely noticeable, and I would not have it in the main viewing room, most of that noise is not the primary system fan, but the 1U form factor power supply (the 453Pro has internal PSU, not a power brick)

 

[Knaledge]

Performance wise - depends... I don't do transcode on the fly, I tend to prefer doing a more tailored approach with content and optimize both bit-rate and file size... so that NAS is just basically pushing the file across the local network...

Noise levels - probably about the same as the PS4 when putting some effort into things...

The 453Pro I have is definitely noticeable, and I would not have it in the main viewing room, most of that noise is not the primary system fan, but the 1U form factor power supply (the 453Pro has internal PSU, not a power brick)

So if you have a tiny bit of time, I'm running into an issue with the QNAP TS-253A.

I have 2x 3TB WD Reds and I chose "20% snapshot" and RAID1. I'm only seeing 1TB of useable space. What gives?

[~] # df -h
Filesystem                Size      Used Available Use% Mounted on
none                    200.0M    177.3M     22.7M  89% /
devtmpfs                  1.9G      8.0k      1.9G   0% /dev
tmpfs                    64.0M    328.0k     63.7M   1% /tmp
tmpfs                     1.9G         0      1.9G   0% /dev/shm
tmpfs                    16.0M         0     16.0M   0% /share
cgroup_root               1.9G         0      1.9G   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
/dev/md9                493.5M    105.3M    388.1M  21% /mnt/HDA_ROOT
/dev/md13               355.0M    275.1M     79.9M  77% /mnt/ext
/dev/mapper/cachedev1     1.0T     16.1G      1.0T   2% /share/CACHEDEV1_DATA
tmpfs                     1.0M         0      1.0M   0% /mnt/rf/nd

 

[sfx2000]

So if you have a tiny bit of time, I'm running into an issue with the QNAP TS-253A.

I have 2x 3TB WD Reds and I chose "20% snapshot" and RAID1. I'm only seeing 1TB of useable space. What gives?

/dev/mapper/cachedev1 should show the size of the RAID set...

Check how your storage pools are set up perhaps... you can see this in the QTS dashboard in the "Control Panel" and then select "Storage Manager"...

 

[sfx2000]

Case in point - four 3TB drive in RAID10 on a TS-453Pro on the most recent QTS4.2.2 release...

[~] # df -h
Filesystem                Size      Used Available Use% Mounted on
none                    200.0M    180.1M     19.9M  90% /
devtmpfs                  3.8G      8.0k      3.8G   0% /dev
tmpfs                    64.0M      1.0M     63.0M   2% /tmp
tmpfs                     3.9G     20.0k      3.9G   0% /dev/shm
tmpfs                    16.0M         0     16.0M   0% /share
/dev/md9                509.5M    133.0M    376.5M  26% /mnt/HDA_ROOT
cgroup_root               3.9G         0      3.9G   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
/dev/mapper/cachedev1     5.2T    927.2G      4.3T  17% /share/CACHEDEV1_DATA
/dev/sdf1                 4.5T    882.6G      3.7T  19% /share/external/DEV3302_1
/dev/md13               371.0M    295.9M     75.1M  80% /mnt/ext
tmpfs                     1.0M         0      1.0M   0% /mnt/rf/nd
/dev/mapper/cachedev1     5.2T    927.2G      4.3T  17% /lib/modules/3.12.6/container-station
none                    200.0M    180.1M     19.9M  90% /lib/modules/3.12.6/local_modules
none                    200.0M    180.1M     19.9M  90% /lib/modules/3.12.6/misc
/dev/md13               371.0M    295.9M     75.1M  80% /lib/modules/3.12.6/vpn
/dev/mapper/cachedev1     5.2T    927.2G      4.3T  17% /share/CACHEDEV1_DATA/.qpkg/container-station/system-docker/devicemapper
/dev/mapper/cachedev1     5.2T    927.2G      4.3T  17% /share/CACHEDEV1_DATA/Public/container-station-data/lib/docker/devicemapper
/dev/mapper/cachedev1     5.2T    927.2G      4.3T  17% /share/CACHEDEV1_DATA/.qpkg/CodexPack/mnt/share/CACHEDEV1_DATA/Multimedia
/dev/mapper/cachedev1     5.2T    927.2G      4.3T  17% /share/CACHEDEV1_DATA/.qpkg/CodexPack/mnt/share/CACHEDEV1_DATA/Download
/dev/mapper/cachedev1     5.2T    927.2G      4.3T  17% /share/CACHEDEV1_DATA/.qpkg/CodexPack/mnt/share/CACHEDEV1_DATA/Recordings
/dev/mapper/cachedev1     5.2T    927.2G      4.3T  17% /share/CACHEDEV1_DATA/.qpkg/CodexPack/mnt/share/CACHEDEV1_DATA/Web
/dev/mapper/cachedev1     5.2T    927.2G      4.3T  17% /share/CACHEDEV1_DATA/.qpkg/CodexPack/mnt/share/CACHEDEV1_DATA/Public
/dev/mapper/cachedev1     5.2T    927.2G      4.3T  17% /share/CACHEDEV1_DATA/.qpkg/CodexPack/mnt/share/CACHEDEV1_DATA/homes
/dev/sdf1                 4.5T    882.6G      3.7T  19% /share/CACHEDEV1_DATA/.qpkg/CodexPack/mnt/share/external/DEV3302_1
/dev/mapper/cachedev1     5.2T    927.2G      4.3T  17% /share/CACHEDEV1_DATA/.qpkg/CodexPack/mnt/share/CACHEDEV1_DATA/.system
tmpfs                    64.0M      1.0M     63.0M   2% /share/CACHEDEV1_DATA/.qpkg/CodexPack/tmp
none                      3.9G         0      3.9G   0% /share/CACHEDEV1_DATA/.qpkg/CodexPack/sys/fs/cgroup
udev                      3.8G      8.0k      3.8G   0% /share/CACHEDEV1_DATA/.qpkg/CodexPack/dev
tmpfs                     3.9G         0      3.9G   0% /share/CACHEDEV1_DATA/.qpkg/CodexPack/run
none                      3.9G         0      3.9G   0% /share/CACHEDEV1_DATA/.qpkg/CodexPack/run/shm
none                      3.9G         0      3.9G   0% /share/CACHEDEV1_DATA/.qpkg/CodexPack/run/lock
none                      3.9G         0      3.9G   0% /share/CACHEDEV1_DATA/.qpkg/CodexPack/run/user

 

[Knaledge]

So I think it's this static/thick/thin stuff. I chose "Thick" during setup because of the way it was described during set up (better performance, more flexibility).

It seems there may be some way to expand the "thick" volume to be a single, large-butt volume consuming all of the space within the pool/group (i.e. "3TB"). I don't know why it chose 1TB as the size - or why it didn't prompt me. But hey.

So, that said - does that sound like the culprit? Is there an advantage to using storage pools/thick/thin volumes vs. static? (or whatever the "static" naming convention in QNAP is).

I do have a TS-253A at the moment but do plan on eventually getting comfortable with all of this and expanding to a 4+ (like 5-6) bay option. And I definitely have 3TB hard drives, which cut back on cost *now*. I will definitely be looking to maximize storage space, respective to cost, when that "4-6 bay" time comes.

In other words - did I goof it, but happy accident? I can/should keep using storage pools/thick volumes, seeing as how I will absolutely be expanding in the future?


If so, how do I get it to be the whole span of space?

This is what it's showing me now.