DS918+ or TS-453B Best for RAID and Video streaming

Been watching your reviews on NAS, i’ve come down to 2 model as per “subject” – DS918+ or TS-453B

I’m a first timer with NAS, looking qnap they seem to have the HDMI output which is a good thing i guess to watch your movies directly to your TV without having to use 3rd party device to play from?

I’ve read in some reviews that the qnap does not actually play 4k movies?

Does qnap offer the same raid solution like synology hybrid raid?

Am i actually getting more bucks for money spending on qnap?

End of the day all i want is to safeguard my data across devices and be future proof, having HDMI outputs is a bonus which can easily connect to my TV but if there are issues playing media files then its not a deal breaker.

Qnap is better valued for money for a reason. Knowing that Synology is a leader in the market they had to offer a little more. And they did a good job as they are adding features what others don’t. But the only disadvantage is that Qnap does not invest in the software much. So Qnap does not have its own hybrid RAID. You have to choose from standard RAID options available on any other NAS. Synology though allows you to mix different size drives. So if your NAS is filled with 2TB drives and you run out of space- you can replace one drive with 10TB hard drive and now you still have RAID protection and more space. This is not possible with Qnap. But if you plan things properly you may not need this function.

With a 4K media, both NAS will play it with no issues. As long as your TV is connected to the network with a LAN cable (or at least 5GhZ Wifi) you can stream 4K media. If your network is slower or you have too many users accessing it – you might consider connecting NAS to a TV over HDMI. This is also useful for some very heavy 4K video files- when TV cannot play certain video file formats.

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What can I connect to a NAS?

Wireless Speaker Sonos

The great thing about Sonos is that you don't need to pay for music subscription service. With the cheapest NAS at home like DS115j or any other, you can have your backups done for all of your devices and still use your network drive as a Sonos music library. Sonos will connect to your NAS via your network and let access your provided music library. If you have little more of IT knowledge, you can even set up your Alexa or Sonos with Alexa built in to play music on your voice commands ("Alexa! Ask DS Audio to Play Music!").

Casting devices

Nowadays it is so cheap to upgrade your old TV and make it smart. All you need is Google Chrome or EZcast alternative plugged into your HDMI port at the back of your TV. Now you have great functionality added to your TV to send a video file directly from your NAS to a TV. No need for wires and chargers and other mess. You can use your phone as a remote to go to your movies or family videos and cast that content on your TV during family or friend gatherings.

 

Apple TV

Amazon Fire TV

You may not have a smartphone, or you just simply prefer to control your content with a remote in that case Amazon Fire TV will be a great addon to get to your TV. It also plugs into your HDMI port and will play content from your NAS to a TV. No wires no mess.

nVidia Shield TV

It gets even better! If you want some more entertainment and all previously mentioned functions - nVidia TV is a great thing to get. You can use it for playing games and watching movies from your NAS. The greatest thing is - shield TV does video transcoding. So even if you have a cheap NAS with a weak CPU, in a combination of shield TV you can now automatically on the fly change video file size and format for a destination device. It is a great way to reduce network load and let older devices to play video content which normally was not supported on the device.