Home and Office Setups → Re: My Network Setup

Are Synology NAS fast and responsive? How about energy efficiency?
What model do you use or recommend for a home user?

I quickly looked on their site and I was impressed by their selection. I will have to research this further

I use Qnap TS-559 Pro+ and have no issues with speed. The key I have found is to make sure that the NAS has enough ram for access speeds. I have had 2 Qnaps 1. TS-409 PRO and the TS-559 Pro+. The TS-409 is slow when in a raid 5 format while the TS-559 has greatly increased speed when writing and reading.

I would look at a DS412+. I'm not sure what the power usage is, but they are quick unless you try to web manage it over the WAN.

According to their web site, it doesn't look too bad.
Power Consumption : 44W (Access); 15W (HDD Hibernation)

The DS412+ is limited to SATA II HDD. As long as the SATA III HDDs are compatible then it looks like a great NAS.

The two big issues I find with home use of a NAS are simple things if your not careful. Number one is using the NAS with DHCP, as some NAS's have issues with renewing DHCP leases for whatever reason. The second has to do with name resolution, which can be tricky on some of the more complex/segmented networks. If you go to static map your drives, make sure you use the IP rather than device name. iSCSI solves some of the resolution problems, but is more complex than using SMB/Windows File Sharing.