unRAID vs. Synology, QNAP, etc.

[Hoopster]

Whenever I can, I extol the virtues of unRAID for those looking for a NAS solution.  Synology, QNAP, etc. tend to be under-powered (especially on the low end) for the price and you can almost always build a more powerful unRAID server for the same price. Their hardware also tends to be very proprietary.

 

The advantage to Synology, etc. is that you don't have to know a lot about how things work and they have a locked down interface where you just click icons to do what you want to do without the need to really understand everything that is going on.  On the higher end in the Synology world, of course, there are more options and they do offer some things not yet available in unRAID.

 

I finally had to give up with my latest attempt and tell the guy to just buy a Synology NAS because he could not comprehend how things work in the NAS world.  The flexibility of unRAID was overwhelming to him. Even though I showed him a server parts list that was much more powerful than a 4-bay Synology NAS, in the end, that's what he needed.  Unfortunately, he would have needed a lot of hand holding with unRAID.

 

I am glad unRAID exists because I like to tinker and upgrade hardware but there are many who just want something that sits on their desk and they rarely have to think about it (what's the fun in that?).  Maybe someday Limetech will offer a locked down/beginner version of unRAID that is similar to the Synology experience but that would not be of much interest to me.

 

I am not dissing Synology, QNAP and the like.  They sell a lot of NAS units for a reason but I am glad there is the unRAID alternative.

Edited January 12, 2022 by Hoopster

[rise4peace]

Hello,

 

I'm looking to make the jump from a 4-bay Synology box over to unRAID and this thread made me smile so thank you!

 

I've been using Synology for well over a decade and it you are correct, it's definitely made for folks who want something that they can setup and forget which has been nice but now that I have more free-time I would like to get into tinkering side of things because of the Synology being so very under-powered.

 

That said, I recently purchased a CyberpowerPC with the following specs:

• AMD Ryzen 5 5600X 3.7ghz
• 16GB DDR4
• Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 12GB
• 500GB PCI-E NVME SSD
• 1TB HDD

AFAIK, the maximum number of drives the case can support is 4 so I'd like to keep the drives in an external enclosure, if for nothing else, being able to hot-swap a drive if it fails would be nice and having them in a separate case would keep the main case a bit cooler.

 

At any rate, you mentioned putting together a server parts list and I was wondering if you've had any experience using an external HD enclosure connected to the server with unRAID and would be willing to provide some recommendations.

 

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

[nunu22]

hello everyone,

 

for 12 years i was using synology NAS (since 2011).
I recently switched to unRaid.

 

Several factors came into play:

• a NAS (synology/qnap etc...) is hardware specific, so out of warranty you have to buy another one in case of failure (very expensive)
• lack of volume flexibility (remove a disk, mix disk sizes - reuse old disks)
• with the use of docker, I was using less and less NAS apps
• limited power at reasonable prices.
• no need for high HDD throughput.

However, I haven't found good alternative to some synology appications:

• hyperbackup (i use virtual DSM)
• photo (i use virtual DSM)
• surveillance station
• business backup 

but I don't regret my choice!