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Original 10% off Eligible Items ($100 Min Spend, $500 Max Discount) @ eBay Coupon Deal
Synology DS918+ 4 Bay NAS $666 Delivered @ Smarthomestoreau eBay
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Trips check'd
Only a few dollars more ($672.30) at Computer Alliance if people would prefer to buy from them.
yes that price is much more comfortable
Ive tried my hardest to try and justify purchasing a NAS - but ive just got too many alternatives to part with this much money.
Username checks out
Cool story bro
What are some alternatives? I've been hesitant to pull the trigger and would like to know if I'm overlooking something.
I'm guessing he might want to build something on a budget. I used a HP Gen 8 micro server and loaded Xpenology onto a USB stick. NAS on the cheap without the Synology pricetag.
Or he would like something on the higher end, and get himself a nice Drobo unit.
Xpenology seems very unstable for me. Lack of support from community. I find freenas is better. I am evaluating Ubuntu server now, because I think it can be more flexible than freenas.
NOT BUFFALO! Great build quality (Japanese) but their UI is so cumbersome and clunky with limited features.
Best option would be to build your own either using a HP Microserver or your own mini case.
Ah ok, I thought the power draw from the custom builds was supposed to be too cost heavy compared to these types of builds? I might look into it
@Dingleberry: That's definitely the case (e.g. DS918 is ~30W while my N40L is ~36W idle and ~60-80W usage) but it's also dependent on what hardware you have. CPU, GPU, number of drives, HDD vs SSD etc.
Also, bear in mind a HP/custom build is far more functional and can be plugged into TV to playback HD/4K content directly. NAS can only transcode media to something else.
If you only want something as pure networked storage unit and/or prefer the UI and apps ecosystem they offer then this is a really good choice.
@Hybroid: As per above.
HP/Small servers are more versatile but there's more configuration involved as you'd expect, they're physically bigger and higher power draw.
NAS' are great for ease of use, smaller sizes and the lower power draw. It it's running 24/7 this will add up over time (depending on what you pay for power).
I have a QNAP TS453A and it can be plugged into a TV via HDMI for 4k playback as a bonus.. It also does Kareoke 😂
It all comes down to what you want to initially spend vs the overall running costs and what you want it to do.
I'm overall happy with mine, i do wish I got a 6 or 8 bay NAS but it's OK.
Whatever you do, don't cheap out and get regular desktop drives. Make sure you're getting WD Reds or equivalent other brand drives (some of the external drives are shuckable with decent drives for NAS usage but ymmv).
Lastly - RAID is not a backup, don't rely on it and if you do have important data you should be able to have it backup to an external and preferably online (likely just photos and documents, movies and music are too big).
@Matt86: Completely agree with everything you said except the WD Red/shucking part with the emerging allegations that these drives are actually SMR so not actually ideal for NAS. There's a huge furore online about it so I think that advice is now outdated unfortunately.
@Hybroid: I did have 2 previous 8tb Reds with bad sectors last year, got swapped over thankfully with only some big shipping expense.
Those went on and off in a WDPR2100, can't help but think the constant on and off every night damaged em.
I currently have 4 8tb Reds in this NAS. My externals are all WD Reds too….
@Matt86: Be careful with buying WD Reds nowadays. They are now shipping them as SMR drives, not PMR.
https://blocksandfiles.com/2020/04/14/wd-red-nas-drives-shin…
@metalslaw: wow, total scumbags. It seems that seagate aren't doing this yet in the lower capacity drives, is that the case?
@Larwood: Yes, Seagate has been doing the same thing as WD. The newer barracuda's are SMR.
https://blocksandfiles.com/2020/04/15/seagate-2-4-and-8tb-ba…
@metalslaw: Yeah I'm aware of this.
Which is why I'd suggest to do your own research on current drives, it seems that other manafacturers are doing this as well. :(
I’m still running my N40L with clearos and it’s been flawless for 6 years or more, Id like to upgrade but really don’t know what the microserver equivalent nowadays is though…the gen 8 is quite old tech it seems to me and very expensive…gen10 even more so. Any suggestions for cheap NAS boxes without imbedded OS ?
@Pug: Mine's still running Windows Home Server 2011 which isn't widely popular but has also been flawless for 8 years. It's basically Windows 7 with all the functionality & versatility you want. I do tend to keep it offline more than being online.
I guess it depends what you're after for an upgrade and use scenario. If it's purely a NAS i.e. a box attached to network to store stuff on then Synology is pretty much the go-to. QNAP also decent but generally inferior OS and app support.
If you're after a media server machine then you're better off upgrading N40L with RAM/GPU/RAID card etc where required as it's still very capable. Agree that the new gen10's offer a lot more than features then we would really need so seem expensive. Build your own mini box would be the preferred route if you want a true powerhouse and flexible upgradeability.
What does your N40L not do well enough that you would like it to do?
@Hybroid: thanks! Yes, you're probably right - in fact I see people asking a lot for used N40L even now! In general hardware costs seem to have inflated unjustifiably even allowing for our devalued dollar. I guess ideally I'd like to go Synology because the idea of setting up and tuning another Linux box and enabling software RAID etc daunts me a bit (life's different nowdays), but it just seems too much outlay for me. The N40L seems to choke serving up bigger files over Plex, but I assume that's perhaps as much to do with my network as anything. I invested in a tenda Nova 6 mesh network but it doesn't really seem to have helped.
depends what you want it to do.
you could grab a cheap used desktop, whack some drive in & run freenas…much cheaper. but it'll consume more power & it just stores data. modern NAS boxes have additional features which people might like, such as run apps like plex, dockers, dns, vpn, etc.or use an actual linux distribution and you can then also run apps like plex, dockers, dns, vpn, etc. :)
I've recently set up an Unraid server
Very simple to setup and nice GUI. I have a few dockers running on it.
I picked up some old computer parts and it's running nicely.
i5-3470s, 4gb memoryalso consider OMV (open media vault) and xpenology/freenas as others have mentioned here.
What I'm worried about is the power consumption vs Synology at the moment. I have spare old parts before I moved to Ryzen. Thinking if I should sell them or convert it to an UnRaid box. UnRaid has a lot of benefits vs Synology but I'm worried about long term usage. What's your opinion on it?
I haven't done a whole lot of research into this, but there seem to be some RaspberryPi NAS solutions.
Not sure how great they are, but could potentially be a decent low cost alternative.
@Dingleberry, first of all, what a username haha. I built a home server, includimg NAS, 24 hot swappable bays etc, with 16 disk RAID card running RAID50 configuration, it really comes down to what you are wanting to solve for. If you just need a storage solution with some put of the bix redundancy then something like Synology will do the trick. If you want something more custom, you would build your own rig.
I quite like the look of the Asustor AS5304T, not so much the price but the specs are a higher than the DS918. I have a small, older Asutor NAS and have had ZERO problems with it.
I got a DS218play, it's cheap, low power, quiet, fantastic for media streaming.
Tell me more…..
yeah, I was umm'ing & ahh'ing a few months ago, but then Amazon had a deal on the cheap 10gb ext drives and a 4bay QNAP 453be was under $600….suddenly my CC balance went up $1k ooops. But who am I to deny a gift from the bargain gods?
I was kind of similar so went with a two bay Synology.
I bought this model a while back trying to simplify my life. The price was steep but it’s so worth it. Just buy it and set it up and don’t look back. This is one of the best tech investments I’ve made in a long time. Significant improvement to my life.
What are your use cases? Do you set up vm, plex etc?
This model seems ancient now, it was announced in 2017. Surely a new version can't be that far away.
yeah both Synology & Qnap were supposed to release models late 2019, then mid-late this year. but who knows now. I suspect many expensive electronic toy will be delayed
'Synology DS920+ NAS is indeed happening and perhaps soon'
https://nascompares.com/synology-ds920-nas-early-information…
Doesn't hold me back with Plex… Can't see what else I'd need but I'd probably still look lol
Is there any point in waiting for the new models? I presume that they'll be at a price point decently higher than this. Sitting on the fence on whether I might as well just get it now, or wait for the new one to be released, and then a subsequent sale months afterwards…
The cheapest from my memory was slightly below 600 bucks.
Yep. I paid around $595 from Amazon in Feb last year plus 10% back from cashrewards.
I paid 671 at amazon with 10% cashback. And claimed price protection on my credit card for the recent $305 price error on amazon. If my claim goes through, this would end up costing me less that $250 :D
I got mine from the Synology course with a 4tb Seagate for $550 https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/361089
Have seen on here ironwolf 8tb go for <300 https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/502611 - with the link above its around 377 after 10% off…
Bought mine for $285 from CA. This is not the best time to upgrade your toys.
thats a HELL of a price
Certainly is.
For the devil sends the beast with NAS, because he knows the time is short?
did u just assume his gender ?
Is a NAS like this able to run 80GB+ movies smoothly with Plex or would you need Plex Premium?
You should get Kodi.
Agreed. Haven't looked into plex but can't understand why people use it. Kodi plays my 60gb rips fine over Ethernet.
Edit: just looked into it. Plex can share libraries. Very cool.
:) whole Fam loves plex server…but 1080 is best I can muster over network… Server is free so worth giving a try
I have had a 4k local stream and two 1080p remote streams happening at the same time with no issues
Personal preference and different use cases.
I started with xbmc and stuck with it when it changed to kodi.
But switched to plex years ago and for my use case, works brilliantly.
- streaming to mobiles
- family sharing
- remote viewing (holidays over 4g)
- local 4K playback
- single library on multiple devices
For sure if you don’t transcode. I run plex from an ancient ReadyNAS 104 and that is slow!!
But handles 4K HDR easily 40gb plus images. Heck during Covid Netflix Streams 4K at about 7mbps, with a real crappy bit rate.Transcode 4K, forget it
Plex Premium has no features that the average user would need unless they bought a specific plex based DVR.
I bought mine last month for $719 from Budget pc :(
real ozbargainer would have free credit card with price protection
I do have a credit card from CBA but it doesn't cover me for price protection.
one more reason to move away from CBA hahaWe have a card with price protection (ANZ FF Black). We had a scenario where the price changed the following day and called the insurance company that do the price protection… They only cover printed catalogue prices, not online/digital catalogues or price changes on a site. Told them that was absolutely pointless and useless, who holds on to printed catalogues, let alone businesses who still do them frequently… The operator seemed to agree but what can you do, scam to be advertising price protection as a perk of the card with big clauses like that in the digital age…
@sghetti: Yes I agree. The CC I have with CBA is pretty much useless. I only got it for the 30,000 points which converted to $119 when I redeemed them. Used $59 out of that to pay the annual fee and used the rest for online shopping and parking infringements. Planning to cancel it around October/November because I have already paid the fee for the year haha
@bargainbuyer11: We got 90k points through the ANZ card on a deal posted here. Forgot to cancel at the 12 month mark and got charged the $400 odd annual fee. Called them and was offerred a 50% refund on the fee which I reluctantly agreed to, once he looked in to it he said I had to call back once the fee was settled on the account (it was only pending at the time).
When I called back, I didn't mention my previous discussion and asked the same question, this operator refunded all of our fees (we spend a lot on the card per month so I was expecting something close to a full refund).
Depending on how often you use the card it might be worthwhile pushing the point, I basically said I'd be looking to cancel the card once the annual fee was due again if that was the case.
@sghetti: Yeah that's the plan. I am honestly not a fan of the way CBA does things so cancelling the CBA CC is definitely happening but then I might move to NAB or Macquarie and see what they have to offer.
What do you recommend for one that covers online shopping?
Storage needs to be under or at $40 per TB to be cost effective and to qualify as a real bargain
The deal isn't on the storage, you can buy HDD's another time.
It would be a pretty useless NAS then.
Is this much better value than the DS718+? or the DS218+?
I just bought a 218+ for $423 and I’m happy, but by comparison this does seem a good price.
cc789: Are you able to share a link for your purchase for the 218+ at $423?
It was Ninjabuy ebay, think it has sadly sold out now. I bought and shucked two 4tb drives ($99 each) so all in $622.
It's a very good price, so yes.
What sort of integration with Apple can you get on this? Eg, time machine backups and offloading the photo library?
Can you link folders to OneDrive?
I am using it as a time machine backup server apart from all other things. I have a DS216 which is a base model but works like a charm. I am backing up my macbook and iMac. Just restored my iMac through it the other day.
Great, thank you!
Tempting upgrade from my DS412+… Starting having issues with it with Photostation now dead, Downloadstation refusing to run (and then refusing to reinstall), but still running fine with Kodi. Troubleshooting took me nowhere and am tempted to just start over with a newer model!
Sounds like you had a few problems with your one, would you still stick with Synology?
To be honest, I probably would go Synology again, simply for ease of use/setup - which is very important to me with lack of time.
I've had it for a good 5 years or so now, so I think it's had a good run. It worked well until last few months… although it does concern me why/how it suddenly stopped working. Hardware wise it seems fine, so I think it's probably a driver or bug that I ran across - a format and reinstall would probably fix it but I haven't looked into how that would work and what I would lose doing that
I just want to stream bluray rips from a local media centre to a tv, is it worth getting something like this or just have a plex/raspberry pi with mounted drive setup?
Get a 218play, much cheaper, only 5W in standby, great transcoding, quiet, and far more simple thank r-pi.
I'm so tempted by this, but I'm still running my HP N36L which is happily serving up all of our shared media needs to our Shield TV's Plex server.
I do, however, have a separate PC running Home Assistant in Docker, and ANOTHER PC running Blue Iris, so perhaps some consolidation would be a good thing.
Price isn't that great. It was $636 just last month from futu and computer alliance on ebay.
Thanks OP just bought one… also an 8gb crucial RAM stick @ amazon dropped $15 since yesterday to $77 but only one left after I purchased so can't post it.
https://www.amazon.com.au/gp/product/B01979WD4UI only have a DS218J. Are there any good numpty guides for Plex?
I can't seem to get the app seeing anything on my drive. The syn apps work fine.
Thanks
Hail Satan!