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Trying to decide on Synology DS418play vs. QNAP TS-453Be - any thoughts?


The Greens

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The Greens

Hi!  With the structure of the forums, it looks like I have to post this in two places...

 

My current Emby server is running on WHS 2011.  I actually love it, but Microsoft is making it harder and harder to run old product.  When it eventually dies, it will be near impossible to get replacement hardware.  Because of that, I have decided to move to a NAS solution.  After looking at every online source available to me,  I have narrowed it down to two contenders, 

  • Synology DS418play - generally, it looks like Emby runs better on Synology, but this unit lacks the extra external capability and expansion port.
  • QNAP TS-453Be - much better external connectivity and expansion capability, but it seems that a lot of people have trouble running Emby server on QNAP.

Price is mostly equivalent and not my primary concern - I'd much rather have a stably systems that performs well.  There is one other complicating factor.  Ultimately, I want to use Emby TV with the HDHomerun Prime 6 and replace my Windows 7 Media Server DVR capability (which I love).  As far as I can tell, I should work equally well with either solution.

 

So, any thoughts?  Is anyone out there running this config?  Do we have a place for people to post their setups for reference?  If so, I couldn't find it.

 

Thanks!

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FrostByte

I have the DS418play and Emby runs great on it.  If price isn't too much of a concern why not look at the 918+, it's expandable and has some other features which probably make the $120 difference well worth it.  There are many users here who run server on that.

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PeteLocky

i actually bought a 453be and returned it, i now have a synology ds918+, the synology dsm is so much better than qnap! plus the ds918 doesnt need no £100 card to add ssd cache

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The Greens

Thanks for the response.  I'm curious...  was there something specific that you found the 453Be bad at?  In general, I think they are both supposed to be good at the basic NAS functionality, so my big concern is using it as my Emby Server.  Do you do that with the Ds918+?

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PeteLocky

yes i use it as my emby server, 2x6tb drives 1x4tb and 1x6tb with 8gb ram and 256gb read cache, docker support on qnap is poor, the interface is shite and also cant modify containers and docker is the main reason i got such a good nas, my emby has thousands of shows a few movies live tb with 7 day epg runs 24/7 with sonarr radarr nzbget xteve nextcloud rutorrent and nzbhydra - the hardware (except connectivity) is pretty much exactly the same but synology DSM really is a LOT better, if you want ssd cache add +£100 to the 453Be, the bays are lockable too on a ds918

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The Greens

Wow.  That's pretty impressive.  Just two follow up questions:

  • Do you think adding the read cache makes a significant difference to the Emby Server performance?
  • For Live TV, what tuner setup are you using?

By the way, I really appreciate this information - looks like you are keeping from making a big mistake - I was about to buy the QNAP.

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PeteLocky

The read only not really but I expect the read write cache (2 m2 ssd) to have quite a good boost (it's not slow, quite the opposite) I use xteve in a docker image to filter thru my providers poorly arranged and named channels I have renamed renumbered etc it's flawless also with emby Premier you marry it up to grace note epg data so you have full 7 day EPG series recording proper pause resume functionality hardware transcoding is a huge performance increase (the qnap has almost identical specs)

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PeteLocky

Ps with xteve I do not use hdhomerun emulation I just use the filtered m3u playlist (I prefer this because of the xepg and channel mapping)

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