Deciding on QNAP TS110, TS112, Synology DS110j, DS211j to stream media and torrent

[mamba888]

Hi,
I'm looking at getting a NAS primarily for media storage and bittorrent downloading, as well as backing up my music and photo collection. I have a Mac laptop, not a desktop, so performance isn't really an issue on a daily basis, as I'll be limited by my wireless connection speed, not the speed of the NAS. Of course on the initial transfer I'll use a wired connection.

I bought a Buffalo Linkstation at Fry's just to get familiarized with a NAS, to see what I liked and what I didn't. (I'll be returning it shortly.) I was disappointed with the bittorrent functionality in particular. The Linkstation lacked RSS support, and you had to load each torrent one by one. I'd prefer a way to select and load multiple torrents, or even better, for the NAS to be able to monitor a folder and automatically load any new torrent in that folder to the queue.

In looking through this site and the forums, I've narrowed my choices down to QNAP TS110 or TS112 or Synology DS110j or DS211j. They're close in price, and in features, but I can't decide. The DS211j has two bays, which is nice from a future-proofing standpoint. I'm going to start off with a single 2 or 3 TB drive whichever NAS I get.

So here are my questions:

1) Is there any way to connect a NAS directly to a computer, without a router as intermediary? I don't have a gigabit router, just a 10/100, so any file transfer that has to go through my router would be limited to 100 mb/s. It's

2) Of the NAS units I'm considering, which has the best bittorrent support? In particular, I'm interested in RSS, scheduling, bandwidth control, remote (web or smartphone app) control of BT client, in-client torrent searching, and general ease of use. Being able to use different clients, like Transmission, instead of just the default client is a plus.

3) Which has the easiest remote access over the web?

4) Best media streaming? Audio and photo streaming seem to be supported by both QNAP and Synology, but which one does video streaming better? Can either stream to an iPad or iPhone? Can they transcode a .avi to an iPad-compatible format on-the-fly, or at all? I know that will be the tallest order, and I've heard there are other ways to stream video (AirVideo) but I think that needs a computer running, not just a NAS.

Any help you can offer would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

 

[stevech]

You said your access is via WiFi - so that's the speed constraint. The router's 10/100 ports are quite likely faster than your client device via WiFi.

But if your computer has gigabit ethernet, as will the NAS, then buy a gigabit ethernet switch ($30 or so). Connect the PC and the NAS to this switch for gigabit speeds on wire. Connect a LAN port on the WIFi router to a port on the new switch - that'll run at 100Mbps but won't slow down the PC or NAS.

 

[thiggins]

You can check the web demos for Synology and QNAP to try to answer your BitTorrent question. My limited look at them says they are relatively basic. There may be add ons that do what you want, though.

Neither product has a hosted portal remote access. You'll need to forward ports through your router. QNAP has introduced a "MyCloud NAS" service that lets you assign a sub-domain with dynamic DNS service. See this review for more detail on MyCloudNAS.

Synologies offer limited streaming transcoding for audio. QNAP does not transcode. Again, there may be add-ins that do what you want.

I know NETGEAR ReadyNASes have some options here. But we generally were not impressed by them. Check the Skifta and Orb reviews on SmallCloudBuilder.

 

[NetworkStorageTips]

Tim,

Nice review on the Orb Live. I have had similar issues and still not had time to test on the Ultra +'s, but hopefully the dual core will make the difference.

---

As for Bittorrent, I have not had great success on NAS units downloading torrent files. They all say they will work, but my experience has been frustrating.

Roger.

 

[mamba888]

stevech,
Thanks for the tip on the ethernet switch. I didn't know they were so inexpensive.

Tim,
Your rundown of the QNAP Turbo NAS Firmware V3.3 features includes this line:

DLNA server transcodes AVI, M4V, MPG/MPEG, RM/RMVB, WMV

I took that to mean that the QNAP could transcode video. Am I reading it wrong?

I also think I'm confused about remote access. What does "hosted portal remote access" mean and how is it different from MyCloud NAS? Will MyCloud NAS work for me if all I want to do is to be able to view and/or copy files from the NASover the internet when not on the local network?

Thanks,
Mark

 

[thiggins]

Sorry, I mixed up QNAP and Synology. Synology transcodes only audio formats. QNAP does the formats you describe. Don't expect miracles, though. And expect throughput hit for other NAS functions while transcoding.

"Hosted portal remote access" means that you don't have to open any router ports. The vendor provides a website that you log into to access your NAS. Pogoplugs and Buffalo NASes have this feature, among other NASes.

You can copy/view files with QNAP and other NASes. But you'll need to open ports in your router firewall for it to work.

 

[stevech]

stevech,
Thanks for the tip on the ethernet switch. I didn't know they were so inexpensive.
Thanks,
Mark

An 8 port gigE switch for $25 might be too good to be true...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...=8_port_gigabit_switch-_-33-181-098-_-Product

 

[stevech]

"Hosted portal remote access" means that you don't have to open any router ports. The vendor provides a website that you log into to access your NAS. Pogoplugs and Buffalo NASes have this feature, among other NASes..

I'd like to find one of these that Websense does not have blacklisted. My employer, typical of Fortune 1000+, uses Websense to block employee access to web mail of all kinds (gmail, yahoo...), on line storage services, social networking, and a giant list of risky web sites (in Websense's opinion). So often now I see service vendors (like VoIP vendors) saying they'll use Twitter or some such to announce outages, etc. Not.