I’m in the market for a NAS. I see some comparisons for older models amd versions of Unraid but nothing current. I’m looking to go with 3 6TB drives or 8TB drives with not much need for more than 4 in the next 3 years. I’d setup 1 drive for parity with data backed up offsite. My needs are storage, plex with no need to transcode more than 1 stream, and maybe some lightweight docker stuff. I can buy this synolgy unit that has a dual core celeron with 2gb Ram or build a 4 core i5 with 8gb Ram for about the same price. The Synology has 2 gigE ports for more speed but may not matter with my computer only having 1. The Unraid device would have a tad more for expansion but won’t really matter in my situation. Does anyone have experience with newer units and versions of each that they can share? Any suggestions would be welcome. I’m proficient with tech and used to build my own PC’s. I use a Macbook Pro now. Thanks. 

Hello and welcome.

 

Synology makes a fine NAS but as in your comparison above it typically comes with less RAM and CPU.  So do you want a pure NAS or do you want an application platform where you can (competently) run Plex and other Dockers?  unRAID can do both depending on how you configure your system, but despite a nice ecosystem of lightweight apps Synology will run out of gas when you try to do much with it IMO.

Also be wary as not all Synology's can transcode Plex streams without issues.

You say that expansion won't really matter, in my experience this is an understatement. Once you get going, it's amazing how quickly you begin to run out of space. I've seen people say the same things so many times before only to find the four bay NAS they thought would suit their needs is now too small. Some Synology's allow you to connect expansion chassis, but they are pretty expensive. I own several brand name NAS's from Synology and QNAP, I used to think they were great and building a PC as a NAS was a bad idea. I now have four unRAID servers and don't really use my brand name NAS's at all anymore, in fact I recently transitioned from a 12 bay Synology to a custom built server running unRAID. Hardware aside, unRAID offers so much more then the Synology OS, it's more flexible and responsive. You don't have to start off buying large drives, although it's recommended and you can grow and add drives later. You can also upgrade your components down the road if you find you want to support more Plex users, something you cannot do with a Synology NAS; you can upgrade RAM but not CPU. My advice, build your own, you won't regret it.

Note that the DS418play is powered by a Celeron J3355, which runs 1313 Passmarks .  By itself, this isn't even sufficient to run a single 1080p transcode.  The way Synology addresses this in the "play" series is with a hardware transcoding engine.  This can be a little hit or miss and I'm not sure if it works with Plex or just with their media software.  With proprietary hardware you're now stuck with software implementations that support their hardware.

Thanks for the responses.  It seems the favorite is Unraid.  I'll give it a few more days to see how others chime in.

Given that these are the unRAID forums, that's the expected result .

I think most people here try to be as objective as possible, folks like me have had name brand NAS's so I am speaking from direct experience and giving you my opinion. I think also many people here understand that unRAID isn't for everyone, but that doesn't stop us from trying to convert as many people as we can 

I’ve also seen some replies to this topic from a couple of years ago with older versions of Unraid where they weren’t too happy and were thinking of the name brand NAS units. I wanted something more current which is why I started this tooic. 

Well I have some experience with V5 of unRAID but not anywhere as much as some people around here, unRAID was already at 6 when I bought my first license, but it is light years ahead of what it was from what I can tell. Unfortunately that may make your decision more difficult.

unRAID is a platform under very active development by Limetech, and it has been for the last several years.  In comparison, it might be fair to say it was a little stale for a few years prior to that.  unRAID makes a fine NAS but the people who get the most out of it are probably the ones doing a lot more with it - Dockers, applications, VMs, etc.

12 hours ago, Mlatx said:

I wanted something more current which is why I started this tooic

 

Limetech offers a free evaluation period. You can build a basic system using spare parts and install unRAID v6 to get a better impression of its capabilities. Both the stable version 6.3 and rc version 6.4 can be tested this way.