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Replacement for DS211J? Main problem is that DS211J is too slow.

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aviphysics

Occasional Visitor
I am looking for a replacement for a Synology DS221J. I run this with a pair of 2TB HDD in RAID 1.

I mainly use the NAS to backup our laptops at home and away, using Synology's CloudStation software and periodic file dumps.

The problem is that it is painfully slow to sort through 2 TB of data with the DS211J meager performance.

My budget is around $300 or less. I would like to replace it with something that...
1) Will be as reliable as the DS211J has been (The only time I have had to reboot it is for software upgrades or to move its location)
2) Has easy to use Cloud software that works at home and over the internet and can keep multiple file iterations.
3) Is a lot faster
4) Preferably same or lower power consumption.
5) I think I would prefer to go with an intel based NAS (Let me know if I am being unfair to the ARM based CPUs)
6) Our IP address doesn't change often, but it isn't static and I don't want to rely on it staying the same. It would be great if the NAS company took care of syncing up my home IP address with the cloud software on the laptop (like Synology does for Cloud Station).

Our internet is a pretty reliable 100 Mbit/s symmetric connection and the house is wired for 1Gbit/s ethernet.

I have been thinking about maybe one of the following options, though am open to other options.
1) The DS216+II seems like an option. I liked how Synology seemed to provide long term support for even the lowly DS211J.
2) I have seen the QNAP TS251 recommended, and it has the merit of being cheaper, though I don't know a lot about their software situation compared to Synology.
3) The WD My Cloud Mirror seems like a potential value option, though I don't need a new pair of drives right now. I once again don't know a lot about their software situation or if it would do everything I want.

I have thought about rebuilding our media computer/video game server to double as a NAS, but that seems like it wouldn't be nearly as reliable.

Any helpful advice would be appreciated.
 
I happen to have a DS211j and a couple of years ago I bought a DS214+ as I was feeling the same way, I guess an 800Mhz processor and 128Mb of RAM just doesn't cut it anymore, lol
The DS214+ is much zippier and only really lags in the interface when its doing some serious file management / data work. As it happens I am now looking at a further upgrade to finally retire my DS211j which is doing backup duties.
I love Synology stuff, my plan is to keep using the DS214+ for critical stuff and do non-critical stuff on a homebuild, probably running Xpenology this way I get the interface and UI I like so much.
So if you want faultless plug and play then of course get the DS216+. If you're a geek like me, then you probably have the makings of 4 DIY NASes lying around in your junk-pile. Personally I am going to cobble something together from bits and see how it runs, if it goes well I will DIY build a Synology clone - I know I can build a reliable PC with the same power draw for half the price and probably 4 x the horsepower.

GL with your decision!

Chunks
 
I happen to have a DS211j and a couple of years ago I bought a DS214+ as I was feeling the same way, I guess an 800Mhz processor and 128Mb of RAM just doesn't cut it anymore, lol
The DS214+ is much zippier and only really lags in the interface when its doing some serious file management / data work. As it happens I am now looking at a further upgrade to finally retire my DS211j which is doing backup duties.
I love Synology stuff, my plan is to keep using the DS214+ for critical stuff and do non-critical stuff on a homebuild, probably running Xpenology this way I get the interface and UI I like so much.
So if you want faultless plug and play then of course get the DS216+. If you're a geek like me, then you probably have the makings of 4 DIY NASes lying around in your junk-pile. Personally I am going to cobble something together from bits and see how it runs, if it goes well I will DIY build a Synology clone - I know I can build a reliable PC with the same power draw for half the price and probably 4 x the horsepower.

GL with your decision!

Chunks

Thanks for the reply Chunkers.

I keep going back and forth between the DS216+II, TS-251+, TS-451+, and TS253A. I can find them all in the range between $300 to $400 after tax and shipping.

There are so many variables
BTRFS vs Ext 4, Dual link Gb ethernet, NI-AES vs AES, dual core vs quad core, higher frequency vs lower frequency, 2 bay vs 4bay, 1GB vs 2GB vs 4GB RAM, HDMI...

This is where I am currently at in my search.
+ We do need to access files from over the internet, so it seems like encryption performance is important
+ We want to keep file revision histories (which seems like BTRFS is best at?)
+ I care about folder copy and write performance, which seems like maybe a big differentiator, but I can't find direct comparisons for all the systems and there seems to be a lot of variation in the SNB charts among devices that you would expect to perform very similarly.
- The HDMI stuff isn't hardly important at all
- Realistically, Dual link ethernet isn't that important to me. Though we have 4 users, I don't see everyone trying to grab gobs of data at the same time very often, and most of them are connected over wifi.
- We only use PCs for media streaming, so we don't need the transcoding stuff.

The feature I feel like I don't know enough about are
+ The current quality of Synology's CloudStation software vs QNAPS equivalent. I wish there was a really quality comparison of this feature.
+ I am not sure if NI-AES, clock speed, or cores is more important for transmitting encrypted folders over the internet and handling Cloud storage for multiple users.
+ I am not sure if Synology's BTRFS is worth giving up the larger RAM and better CPU in the equivalently priced QNAPS. I also wonder if QNAPS is likely to add BTRFS in a future update.

My friends in the IT business outright recommended QNAPS, which makes me feel like I should ultimately lean in that direction, but I really don't know yet.
It seems like there are people out there putting Xpenology on their QNAPS devices, which also make me think that maybe I should try them out, see how it goes, and install Xpenology if it doesn't work out (though it looks like Xpenology isn't updated to 6.0 yet)

That still doesn't answer the NI-AES vs raw CPU performance question.
 
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QNAP is good - but if one is comfortable with Synology's DSM interface, I would suggest sticking with them - the latest DSM looks pretty good..
 
I think I decided to focus on units with AES-NI support, as it seems like it makes a pretty big difference when encryption is enabled (from what few benchmarks I have found.)

Looking at the available Intel powered models with AES-NI support...
For Synology
2 bay
  • DS216+ and DS216+II are dual cores with AES-NI support.
  • DS716+II is quad core with AES-NI support
4 bay
  • DS416play is dual core with AES-NI support
  • DS916+ is quad core with AES-NI support
For QNAPS
*where x = 2 for 2 bays and x = 4 for 4 bays
  • TSx51A is dual core with AES-NI support
  • TSx53A is quad core with AES-NI support

If you are using encryption, like for sending data over the internet, it seems like AES-NI support is pretty important. Some of the ARM NAS with hardware encryption actually perform better in this way than the Intel NAS without. The chips with AES-NI support also seem to have lower power consumption, though they are also clocked lower (which is only slightly offset by a 5% clock for clock performance advantage.)

In terms of bang for the buck hardware/features
  • QNAPS seems put about twice the base RAM in. You aren't officially allowed to upgrade the RAM in the Synology units, but you can on the Intel based units.
  • QNAPS puts dual ethernet ports on lower end units than synology does
  • QNAPS puts HDMI ports on most of their units, for people that want to use a NAS like a computer or miniserver (which they seem a little under-powered for to me)
  • QNAPS tends to put more USB 3.0 ports on their units
  • Synology has BTRFS
Otherwise, they are pretty similarly equipped for the price (if you only look at units with AES-NI support)

Breaking down the competition by price, these are the units that I think are the most interesting to me.
(~$300 2-bay) DS216+II vs TS251A. For my purposes, all the multi-media stuff isn't so important and I don't see dual-link ethernet being that useful in the near future. On the other hand BTRFS sounds really cool, which would make me lean towards the DS216+II.
(~$430 4-bay) DS416play vs TS451A. I think the DS416play wins for me for the same reasons as the DS216A, though this time both units have dual link ethernet.

I think the TS253A and DS716A are too expensive for me to justify, as I am not sure how much those extra cores are really worth to me.
The TS453A and DS916+ are both totally just way outside the amount I am willing to spend.

P.S. I saw the AMD TS-563A on sale for $400, but the power consumption for that thing is pretty insane for a NAS.
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I think I decided to focus on units with AES-NI support, as it seems like it makes a pretty big difference when encryption is enabled (from what few benchmarks I have found.)

Again - both are good - but still recommend going with what you know...

AES-NI is nice, but it's not the end-all/be-all many would suggest...

Syno has been fairly consistent with improvements - QNAP has been rolling in stuff hot and heavy with QTS 4.2 (major changes sometimes) which has made their WebUI a bit scattered - App Store vs. Container Station vs. Virtualization Station vs. business and home configs (yes, there are two, business is the lightweight version actually)...

It's not a big deal actually - and one gets used to it - supposedly QTS 4.3 is going to unify some of this stuff and make it easier for end-users...

If one has QNAP now, I would suggest a QNAP moving forward - if one has a Synology now - same thing - Syno has done a bit better job with their management UI carrying things forward.
 

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