I figured that writing down my experience would not only help me make the best decisions but hopefully help others who experienced my same helplessness. Where my knowledge falls a bit short is what the j, xs, slim, play, etc. My servers play an essential role in my daily life and outdo my mobile phone in importance because of their apps. What youre missing, Kent, is why you think you can keep getting free help. Can someone help me understand what is the sequence here. Why cant both be built in and let me have the card slot for something to expand to rather than just getting me part way to table stakes? I've actually organised all my films into genre-specific folders like "Comedy", "Drama" and so on. And we are thinking of getting an outdoor surveillance camera. Or you can get the same model from two years ago that maybe doesn't have everything but it'll suit you just fine. According to the formula, the best file name is "Avatar 2009.avi". That listing for Buffy that has a movie poster only shows two seasons within. You can still use any drive with Synology, they are just not supported if something happens and got get a passive warning the drive health check still works, by the way. Id call that a negative many people lost thousands of files and data. Synology servers tend to be more costly than their counterparts of similar hardware specs. There are also a few suffixes scattered about. Select Video Station and click Edit. Create an account on our community. I totally agree. Many Synology NAS applications have their own mobile versions. You now know everything you need to buy your Synology NAS so go ahead and pull the trigger. They advised me to back it up asap so I fired up hyperbackup and synology c2. My statement above used to be true almost exclusively. Hi Carsten, Im guessing you mean multi-file movies (e.g. Video streaming is quite lenient on local bandwidth since a device can buffer data and therefore will not use a lot of bandwidth in real-time, but if you have 150 folks streaming *at the same time*, you want to use Link Aggregation on the NAS. Hi Mike, I think users are supposed to keep their servers updated. What about QNAP? Are there any particular reasons for Synology over QNAP for you? Like all things, Synology NAS servers are not perfect. I dont know anyone that watches based on alphabetical order of the titles, however I would like to either start at the beginning of the series or watch the 5th episode. Anything Im missing? Very close. All you need to do is register a unique name. I was thinking about buying Synology NAS, but ended up building one myself. I assume the 9 means that it starts with 5 and can add on a 4 bay expansion to get to the 9 in the name. Resellers such as ebuyer.com sell Synology NAS boxes, both with and without hard disks installed. Unless you know what the words "rack mount" mean there is no way you are going to want anything other than the desktop form factor. I am your regular reader. Therefore, put the most important information first. Sure it's not the coolest looking car and doesn't have flashy gimmicks inside but it is a car that will get you from point A to point B. I actually was one of those loving DIY NAS servers for many years. Dong, you helped me upgrade my Wi-Fi router so now Im thinking about an NAS. Not similar to the username or email address . Youre fine right now (good job on the backup!). A DS1515+ is a desk top model, with 5 bays, supports 2 expansion units with 5 bays each, and was released in the year 2015. Any file name that is changed is recorded in the Migration Job Report. Synology DiskStation DS220+ will be weak, I guess. Hi Dong, Subscribe! Hi Dong: And theres one more thing. Other times shows with a title (in the file name) similar to some TV series shows up as that series. Synology makes two basic NAS shapes: rack-mounted and desktop. Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. It's generally faster to get answers via site/page search. Mine gets thousands of attempts a day and I have done quite a few things to mitigate that. How do you Label episode extras and by that i mean there was an episode video but there was a interview video on the Episode. Going back to the car analogy, the J series would be no different than buying a baseline Toyota Corolla. I have several current and 2 older MACs and would love a 5 drive nNAS USING 4 TB SSDs. My big frustration with Synology is that they dont put 10g on the motherboard. Here you will select the naming convention for the actual movie files. Well, for example, Synology DiskStation DS720+ will be able to meet our needs? I hope you can use it and be happy with it! CNAME crimson.example.com. https://www.synology.com/en-us/knowledgebase/DSM/help/VideoStation/category. If someone is using a NAS with a 100BT Switch, I encourage them to consider spending $29 to go buy a 1GBit Switch . I absolutely love my Synology NAS (DS920+ w/ DX517 filled running SHR-2). You can run many downloads simultaneously and queue an unlimited amount of downloads. xs stands for extra storage. This is more of a warning than a mandatory step but don't worry about upgrading the RAM before you turn your NAS on for the first time. Have been lazily delaying finishing my server build on some old hardware and wanting to add a RAID setup, but these honestly seem like theyd be easier to use. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. Using latest Chrome on latest Windows build. Especially when there is additional functionality on top of basic RAID. Shared Folder Sync works locally and over the Internet via VPN or QuickConnect. I would rather not go through and individually edit the information in Video Station, especially as this would do nothing for those files that don't show up anywhere. 2. Read more SynoForum.com is not owned by, or affiliated with Synology Inc. Plus series is the more powerful one with Intel CPUs and more RAM. Asus RT-AX86S vs RT-AX86U vs RT-AX86U Pro: Whats the Deal? Accessing the server directly means you wont need to store data on the computer, which is great if you want to share the same data with others in the network or your computer has limited space. So yes thats the case. I decided to go with an 8 bay NAS and 10TB hard drives. Still, running Synology's DiskStation Manager (DSM) operating system, it shares the Plus notion of non-xs servers, such as the DS923+, meaning it can host . First and foremost, Plex will never alter your actual files because all the data it uses is stored in your Plex Media Server's database. Should the folder be named in Italian or English? Video Type: Select which type of videos you want to put in the folder. This is very true. That is why I said that picking the number of drive bays is going to be the most important decision. For example, Avatar was released in 2009. This is accomplished easily with MakeMKV and using the following steps: Place the Blu-ray disc in the reader, and then open MakeMKV. we all know nas appliance is more secure and data security is necessary. The software is the Synology superpower even if the hardware is just meh. Before getting a Synology, you should remember some possibly unpleasant items below. As for the RAID, check out this portion of the post. Zero issues in two years. Each drive model is put through a comprehensive validation test to assure maximum compatibility, reliability, and stability in our NAS. Deploy Hyper-V over SMB Article 08/31/2016 15 minutes to read In this article Prerequisites Step 1: Configuring file server clusters Step 2: Install Hyper-V Step 3: Create an SMB file share Step 4: Create a virtual machine and virtual hard disk file on the file share Step 5: Migrate virtual machine storage to an SMB file share Bought a QNAP TVS series Performance was stellar and having Thunderbolt 3 connectivity was cool, along with 10GBaseT performance. And yes, if you have a 2-bay server, RAID 1 is a must as I explained in the SHR section. That was true then. The price gap between Value and J is usually quite small and the expansion capabilities of the Value series will always trump the J series. My server is Windows Server 2022 with 12 core Xeon CPU and 24GB RAM. Devices with a 10GB Eth plugged into a 10/100 device (switch, PC, etc.) Per Synology's naming convention, the xs+ signifies this is a high-end desktop server designed specifically for business users.. Hiya, so before I start renaming 64 tv shows of ~ 3TB and ~ 1600 files, I'd like to make sure how to cover both naming conventions of Kodi (or better, the scraper for thetvdb.com) and Synology Video Station simultaneously. Nothing for "value series" (DS414, play series is part of value series). But you can check on their status using the DSMs Storage app. Storage is a WD Mybook attached via USB to a Synology connected to the LAN. Thats it! Another question I have a group of animations in the default Movies folder and the titles are NOT alphabetized. You can use the Video Station video hosting and VLC or the DS Video app (which can use VLC as the default player) on the front end. This is around 40 cheaper than the DS216j, but it has only a single-core 800MHz processor and 256MB rather than 512MB of RAM. I was one of the smart ones who had unattached backups and didnt lose anything. Thank you for the great reviews! Itd be more sensible of Synology to include the number of default camera licenses according to the number of drive bays a 2-bay server has two, a 4-bay server has four, and so on. Especially in case of several SATA to USB adapters which might have the same HW IDs in the system :). The DS920+ is not a 5-bay, Edgar, its a 4-bay, plus the support for a 5-bay expansion unit. Provided you apply the recommended naming conventions ( TV, movies ), Plex is usually good at auto-matching and fetching the right metadata, especially since the new movie scanner and agent were introduced with PMS 1.20. Reconfigured everything..set up the LA on the Synology side to the 2nd option 802.3ad Dynamic LA. Examples are content streaming, surveillance apps, photo sharing, downloading, etc. Im planning on a Synology and photo management is one main reason. There are more than 30 models listed on the companys website, with cryptic names such as RS3617xs+ and DS216+II. It is always best to use a naming convention to describe the contents of the files. Please allow ads when visiting Dong Knows Tech!Ads pay for the sites free and No-Nonsense content. . Imagine always having your data backed up and synced in real-time, no matter where you are, without you having to do anything (other than the initial setup). The drawer below will give you a list of servers and their supported volume sizes. Some are also easier to use, and most are more affordable than those from Synology. Even if a camera is not on the list, as long as it supports ONVIF, you can configure it to work with the Surveillance Station. Things become more clever as you move up to a four-bay NAS or larger. I would recommend changing the recommendation a little: 1. put season and episode before the title of the episode. Supermicro chassis and hardware tend to not be saddles with specific proprietary licenses (Unlike HP or Dell Enterprise models) for example and they will support NAS or Enterprise SAS or SATA drives on their backplanes (usually) and they have the added benefit of IPM and many times multiple 10gbt NICs ECC RAM etc. Youre welcome, Brian. Alternatively, Synology NAS also supports Plex and other streaming platforms. The Replication portion works somewhat like the folder sync mentioned above and requires additional volume (or storage devices.) Compatibility Note: Depending on the DS or RS model that you get, if you need more hard drive bays (i.e. On the other hand, the Snapshot portion is a must-use. In a NAS this is very important because it helps reduce the possible errors that could be getting injected into your data. Youll have to buy additional (and transferable) ones at $60 a pop if you want to use more cameras. As mentioned above, there are more than 100 official apps. i have this labeling issue with bunch of TV Shows. Supports privilege settings of domain/LDAP users' and groups' access to shared folders and applications. Id go with the DS923+ if NVMe as storage is needed and its great, read the review for more. But the server can support subsequent larger HDDs. In general, the first number indicates the maximum number of bays that the unit can expand to. You are incredibly nice to answer so quickly. It protects your data so that if one hard drive fails and you're using the appropriate RAID type you can recover your data. So let's take my criteria, desktop form factor with 8 drive bays, and plug it into Synology's product list I get three models: DS1817, DS1819+, DS1821+. Of all the mesh brands, QNAP is the most similar to Synology, with much better hardware specs at the same price point. Since 2020, the company has slowly transitioned to using AMD chips. Each unsupported character is replaced by an underscore. Synology NAS And Hard Drive Compatibility In 2022 Should I Be Worried? Thank you for all the great reviews. . 35 5.5K views 3 years ago Synology NAS Tips In this video we take a look at the file naming convention you will need to use in Synology's Video Station. As we have not formally heard Synology launch SRM 3 (in beta, provisionally or in RC), that likely means that the RT6600ax will arrive with the current fully-featured SRM software and services, with the newest version with enhanced network management, security, improved intuitive layout and enhanced mobile app soon afterwards. For years, Synology NAS servers (for homes and SMBs) used Intel Atom or Celeron CPUs. Just a lot more headache. I opened up their website and was immediately overwhelmed with options. Beyond that are xs and xs+ models. Ive worked on most Synology home and SMB servers, starting with the first servers released over a decade ago. Or you can use the DS1621+ and have a separate SATA SSD volume. I dont see this in Synology Video Station. Wait a moment? https://community.synology.com/enu/forum/16/post/127155, https://miketabor.com/secure-public-wifi-using-synology-vpn-server/. This is a huge deal, as Synology previously allowed these slotted SSD drives for cache purposes only, limiting their utility. They come with front-facing drive bays, and you can easily replace/install drives. Shows The most common naming scheme for shows is categorizing the files by series and then season. Groundhog Day.mp4. So Im not sure about that negative above. We have a small hotel (for ~150 clients) The hotel is far from civilization, the Internet is only mobile (about 30-50Mbps) so the Internet is only for email and chats, and is connected to our Wi-Fi system (6 EAP265-620-670 access points, network 1 GB) At the moment, a computer with a video folder is installed, clients watch movies via VLC on smartphones (downloaded at low bitrate), in principle, nothing freezes. Now, you know my answer. Funny part is that using XT8 as wireless node is less reliable than using AX92U. I use Artist- TrackNum - Song Title.mp3 as my naming convention for my personal library, and it appears that YTM just stripped off the "Artist - " part of the equation. VMs are fun (even usable) but the real highlight in your article, IMHO, should have been Docker. Specify Geography just as this one will be. But I wouldnt count on it. It will leave you with no room for expansion and barely let you take advantage of the benefits of a Synology NAS. Im in the process of upgrading and again are assessing the two companies. Make sure you confirm via the link in the email. So addressing your comments heres the deal. You express a preference several times for 4-6 bay systems, I assume that is because that many drives gives you the flexibility to choose whatever RAID fits your needs best. Note that Synologys NAS specifications dont always fit the format as neatly as described above: for example, a four-bay DS416 has a different processor to a DS216. Yes, there are things I wished some servers had, but they are all relatively minor. Check out our next video below. You get little in terms of hardware for your hard-earned dough. For example, the latest 10GbEE10G22-T1-Minimodule, available in the DS1522+ and DS923+, costs some $150 apiece. Ive always wondered what the model numbers meantand now I know! NVR (Network Video Recorder): A server designed mostly to work as a video recorder. This format is recommended by Plex itself to ensure the link to TVDB and their metadata crawling app can correctly identify and label media. Finally, the app can also scan your video metadata, to easily detect the media files formats. Also, with a proper hardware controller, you may see performance improvements during the read process. I have been putting my Inspector Montalbano/Commissario Montalbano TV series in a /video/Italian TV/ folder identified in VS as Italian TV library with Italiano as the language. On first look the array of Synology NAS devices and model names may appear bewildering. The following are acceptable file naming conventions, I have emboldened my recommended format: Movie Title (1981).avi Movie Title.avi Movie Title 1981.avi. I manage 6 Synology NAS and have had much better durability and less instance of bad sectors with Exos. Heres my questions We had a ds414j running 3x3TB disks as one SHR volume. For some reason I am frequently getting a connection failed error on the synology assistant and the router does not seem to be recognized for configuring the port forwarding. Don't expect amazing performance, would avoid it if you're planning to do anything more than a single stream of video (without transcoding), but overall it's a good home solution. I just remember I felt in control of DSM and any of the synology apps I tried worked perfectly, whereas QTS has a few issues, including thumbnail generation that did all images on volume not just chosen folders and it did this in an endless loop even as far as ver 5.0.1 if I remember correctly. We would use it to backup our MacBook Air. As mentioned above, the Surveillance Station is one of the most useful apps, and it works well, especially with the latest version available in DSM 7.1. The D is for a standalone "desk top" model and the R is for a rack mountable model. Synology sometimes upgrades a NAS with a faster processor and more RAM, but without changing the model number. It just finished. probably by giving the list of best 2 bay NAS from top to bottom. As for software, NAS servers are generally not for novice users who want something plug-and-play. How can it support 18 hard drives then? a movie split across multiple files)? Try to buy your hard drives from difference places. The former has a faster CPU, more RAM, and two 2.5GbE Multi-Gig ports, which help deliver significantly faster raw throughput speed than the latter. With that, lets start with the naming of Synologys servers. I wasnt much happy with the available apps that rename the video according to the naming convention, so I personally developed a new app for Windows 10. Theres a few Im struggling with, in order here in the importance to me. Diagnosis Proceed to Resolution if all the following conditions are met: The file or folder name is correctly displayed in DSM > File Station. Founded in 2004, Trusted Reviews exists to give our readers thorough, unbiased Ill be looking to run my 4K media contents on an Apple TV 4K with this NAS, hoping it would work. Synology VideoStation Movie & TV Folder Naming Conventions As the Synology Media Server bases its indexing, cover images and descriptions on the filename of your movies and TV shows, its critical to get the format correct. That, plus the QuickConnect feature, means you can use your smartphone or tablet to access your server from anywhere. I would download one of the myriad movie merge applications available online and merge them, tidies things up a bit too. On these hardware restrictions, a representative from Synology recently told me: [] We continue to want to raise the standard for validating compatibility between drives and our units to ensure consistent and reliable operation for our solutions. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/weemple-video-tools/9njrdv6jzn76. How much storage could our NAS potentially have? Working with a Synology NAS server is similar to working with a Windows or Mac computer. Most apps are half-baked and unreliable. Synology DSM7 NAS PLEX DRIVER FIX - H.256 10bit PERFORMANCE (2022). Cause Video Station seem to be fetching the old info still, resulting to episodes not showing up in Video Station. Log in to the web user interface and customize your server the way you want. The most favourable brand seemed to be Synology so I finally decided to take the plunge and purchase one. The numbers after DS or RS is where it gets a bit confusing. There are several series of products: j for junior (DS215j, but SE, air and slim are also here), these are for beginners and home users. There are just too many apps. The DS1019+ should be on your short list, especially if want to use it as a Plex or other video server within the environment. How do I make the first Doc West movie have the correct information? Hi Mitchell, Thanks for this, all good suggestions. For home I just purchased a DS620slim, and I appreciate the well-informed and considered post you dedicated to that device, too. These are enterprise-class machines with at least 64GB of RAM and run DSM 7.0.1 or later. DS1821+ and a guide to hardware upgrades on Synology NAS servers. Would be an event photographer and videographers dream especially with a 10gbit nic. Or could I use 5 drives with 4TB each for a total 20 TB of storage and 10 TB mirrored? So, if you get a new server today, you can safely expect it to last a decade. By accepting all cookies, you agree to our use of cookies to deliver and maintain our services and site, improve the quality of Reddit, personalize Reddit content and advertising, and measure the effectiveness of advertising. I want both 10g Ethernet and 2x NVMe SSD for cache and I have to choose one or the other via a card. Thanks for the article. Yet another excellent article. On a connected computer, download, install, and run. However, in recent years some of the DS2xx and DS4xx can actually use a single expansion unit, meaning that the first number is not accurate in the number of total bays. Log in!Click here if you need help allowing ads! How have you done it ShellDude and are you happy with your solution? Oh wait, let's throw on the tinfoil hat for a moment. You can even use On-demand Sync on a client to save storage space. . If you get a new server, you can keep the existing server as a backup. You can turn on this feature for all the user accounts on the server, and each account will have its own private sync/backup space. Changing this field will change your Synology's Hostname and Server name. If you want to save a bit of money maybe consider looking at an earlier model. Weve found that theres little difference in price between buying a NAS with preinstalled disks and buying the NAS and disks separately, so if you can find a model with the right capacity disks already installed, then that would be the best option to buy. Do the following and click OK . With options ranging from NAS to DAS, Thunderbolt to SAS and connecting everything up so you can access all your lovely data at the touch of button can be a lot simpler than you think. Other than the limitation in RAID configurations, as you have noted, Kent, and performance speed (RAID 1 is slow), a dual-bay server is fine. We manage almost 30 Synology NAS servers. Synology typically upgrades their models every two years so a DS1819+ is really only one release behind the DS1821+. If youre a tech enthusiast, youll have no problem figuring one out. Specifically, a server running a 32-bit CPU, including most standard and low-tier servers, has a volume limit of 16TB. The app don't modify the content of your files. Still, for home users, it remains one of many things that make Synology NAS great today. Explaining a RAID in words is nigh impossible so if you'd like to learn more I highly recommend this video by NASCompares. Suggesting I use Plex is not helpful, as it doesn't answer my question. When I look at a server, say the DS920+, I know it has 5 bays. A lot of the new Synology models tout the ability to install M.2 NVMe hard drives as cache drives under the guise that they will make accessing your data faster. Love your site. So if you're looking for a model that sits on top of a desk (as most home users would), then you want a DS model. I do know that the play versions have a hardware chip for transcoding video on the fly when using the DS Video app on your Synology box for streaming media to your other devices. In other words, you can run within the NAS server multiple virtual computers, including Windows, Linux, and Virtual DSM, allowing you to operate a whole system in a sandbox for all kinds of advanced applications. The only requirement is that the destination server has the same or more drive bays than your existing unit. DSM is robust and has excellent context-based help and description. Essentially what you're doing is trying to avoid buying a whole batch of faulty hard drives that just happened to go to a single retailer. eMLC (enterprise MLC) sustains up to10,000 write cycles, and can reach 35,000 cycles on 3D NAND TLC: Triple-level cells (3-bit) NAND flash is low at 300-1000 write cycles, and can achieve 1500-3000 write cycles with 3D NAND Permission Type: Select Public if you want the library to be accessed by everyone. Please recommend movie naming convention that when alphabetized, all the movies whose titles include the definite article The, for example The Bourne Identity are grouped together. Its safe to say it wont be my last. Over the years I tried various ones and the parser would do a poor job of correctly identifying the episode but my recommendation worked. But if you want to get the most out of network storage, Id recommend Synology. According to Plex, the correct naming convention goes like this: This stands for DiskStation, and is the upright desktop box . Simply enter your requirements below, and this tool will recommend the most suitable NAS server for you. Optionally, to enforce the default branch name for all organizations in the enterprise, select Enforce across this enterprise. Both XT8s are using wired backhaul and 42095 FW. ago u/StorageReview Synology has quietly added support for M.2 SSD volumes. normal i would put it under specials S00E## but i have two problems with that there are extras for every season and the other issue is there where already Special for the TV show, Scroll down to Tips for naming video files. For all of their products Synology publishes compatibility lists but all of the major brands are on there so it doesn't matter that much. A full page refresh fixes the problem for a few moments. A very important point I want to make is that being low on this list does not mean bad. Would the 923+ and 1522+ be about the same except for capacity (Figure I would eventually upgrade memory, so Im not worried about the difference in out-of-box memory)? If you dont want an account with Synology, you can skip QuickConnect and use Dynamic DNS. It may not display this or other websites correctly. The router acts as wireless node of XT8 (wired LAN is not an option in some rooms ). In cases where you group your movie files together (not within individual folders for each movie), you'll need to make sure that the files are named appropriately. That said, I now need to get that QNAP up on eBay. Unfortunately no one has mentioned about alternatives against the lack of Plex hardware transcoding support. For example, DS for DiskStation, their desktop product, or RS for RackStation, their rackmount solution. Undo the bond and try again, this time with a bit of attention. Slide to complete the puzzle * Use 8 or more characters. These are said to have the best price/performance ratio. They were fun and educational but at some point, I gave up. Heres the breakdown of how to interpret them for home and business models: This part has two or three letters that show the types of the server: This part includes three or four digits to indicate: Since late 2020, the Play, J, and SE models have slowly become obsolete. Thank you very much for your information. Contain at least two of the following: uppercase letters, lowercase letters, numbers. One or two digits which represent the maximum number of hard drives the NAS can support. These are designed to stream video over your network, and so have powerful transcoding engines to convert video on-the-fly into a format and resolution playable by the target device, whether its a tablet or a PC. My observation is that over the years, Synology has slowly applied Apples playbook to the NAS world, including removing generic NAS-specific drives from its official supported lists they still work to coerse users into getting its approved alternatives at much higher costs. And you can also set the max download speed to ensure the server doesnt hog all the Internet bandwidth and many other settings options. Drive bays are the physical openings in the NAS where you can insert hard drives. Not sure if that is right. This works fine for me have you enabled the video info plugin? And it survived several hard shutdowns due to electricity problems. We have about 3 tb of family home videos we want to share and send to our TV. We got degraded volume warnings it seems one of the three disks fell out of the volume. Most of the time, the first number denotes how many drive bays are in the NAS. For example as DS415 is a desk top model, with 4 bays, and was released in the year 2015. RAID 1 of two hard drives can be quite slow. Im a newbie to Synology Video Station and want to properly manage the movie titles before putting them into the default Movies folder.