Drobo-FS alternative with best apps and redundancy

I love watching your video’s, you seem to know a lot about the NAS market. I have an old Drobo–FS, with 9 TB available. I’ts been reliable but I’m moving to Synology because the apps seem better. I use the NAS for home media, (itunes, plex, tivo, kodi) as well as windows backup, and simple file share for small home biz. Only 2-3 users at a time. I would like to add security video NVR, as well as add backups of photo’s from several mobiles. (iOS) Dual redundancy is critical. I would consider single redundancy with a hot spare. I prefer 5 bay unit over 4 bays because 4 are needed for raid-6 and its nice to have a spare bay for upgrading disks. I prefer a rack mount unit, but wouldn’t pay a big premium for it. it seems that the DS units are tuned for home media, and the RX units are tuned for VMs and file servers. I can’t tell if this is marketing, and that hardware transcoding is required for HD video, or if it’s only required on the low end processors. I was looking at the DS918+, but started to read about the 2019 models. hoping there might be a 5+ bay or rack mount equivalent.

Yes, rackmount units from Synology are not made for multimedia. The smallest suitable rackmount would be RS1219+ but it has 8 bays. You could keep 3 bays free for later expansion but otherwise, you need to look at desktop solutions. The transcoding function might sound like a marketing thing, but it might become handy if you great time away from the home. This allows you to stream videos even when you are far away on a slow internet like phone or friends laptop. The 1080p is not very power demanding resolution, so it can be transcoded on this very same rack or desktop like DS1618+. If you intend to stream only locally, transcoding is pointless and you don’t need it. The DS918+ is the best selling NAS of all time I think and for a good reason. It literally does everything you want it to do. You can even start with 4 drives on raid6 or shr2 and add extra 5 drives and expand your raid. All the NAS models I have mentioned will easily cope with all media apps you have mentioned, as well as surveillance. Synology Moments app will backup all your photos and videos to a NAS and organize them in an incredible way. Synology will give you some nice emotions with its apps and usability.

Find regulary updated NAS offers here
Of course I would prefer you choose AMAZON UK AMAZON USA to buy your perfect solution, however, if you would rather buy locally, please use the links used above to take you to your local Amazon store and help support this free advice service with ad revenue. More ways of supporting the blog are described HERE  
Home: https://www.backblaze.com/cloud-backup.html#af9rgr Business: https://www.backblaze.com/business-backup.html#af9rgr Comparison with other service providers: https://www.backblaze.com/best-online-backup-service.html#af9rgr