The original post: /r/datahoarder by /u/aimforsilence on 2025-03-29 15:52:26.
I'm in the market to buy a new NAS for mainly storage and PLEX use. I know I want a 6-bay model (using 6 x 10TB drives) but am not sure which brand/model to go with. I'm currently looking at the following;
QNAP TS-664-8G - I like that this model supports QuTS which allows me the ability to use the ZFS filesystem and have my drives in a Z2 array. I like the expansion options for memory, M.2 and PCI-E. I also like the inclusion of 2 10Gb/s USB ports and the 2.5G ethernet ports. I'm less a fan of the older Celeron chip powering this NAS
TerraMaster F6-424 Max - I like that this model has much more modern hardware including a 12th gen Intel Core i5 CPU. I like all the expansion options and also that it's future proof with having 10G ethernet. Honestly, this is the model I'd most likely buy for the hardware alone but I'm not familiar with TerraMaster's TOS software. I assume it's more or less similar to QNAP and Synology's OS's?
Synology DS1621+ - This NAS I tossed on here because I like Synology's DSM OS. Beyond that this model is very lacking in hardware compared to the other 2 options here.
Some things to note:
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I live in Canada so I'm only able to get whatever I can find here for MSRP so my options aren't as wide as what someone living in the US would have
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I don't use PLEX transcoding. I have DVD, Blu-ray, and 4K UHD Blu-ray's ripped in their native quality and play them direct from my NAS to my Apple TV 4K box. That's the PLEX setup. Very basic.
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I have two 22TB external drives that I use to make backups of my data already, and critical data is also saved to cloud storage.
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I'm currently using a Lenovo ThinkStation as my home NAS. It's running Windows 11 with the drives connected together using Windows Storage Spaces (yes, I know, not the greatest solution). I have tried Unraid and TrueNAS and honestly just got to frustrated with them both. I don't want to spend the amount of time needed to learn those OSs and instead just want something that essentially is easy and just works...thus why I'm looking at a new off the shelf NAS... that and also to save space and potentially be quieter too.
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I'm not a pro when it comes to drive filesystems by any means, but I do understand how RAID and ZFS work as far as how the drives are split up depending on what type you use. I think for me I'd likely either use RAID 6 or ZFS Z2 (if I had a NAS that supported it)... not sure if for TerraMaster's TOS I'd want to use "TRAID" or "TRAID+" and the same can be said for Synology's DSM's "SHR" and "SHR2" as I'm not familiar with them so any info about them would be great.
If I missed anything please let me know, I tried to give as much detail as I could. Thanks folks