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GENERAL NAS FEATURE COMPARISON

NAS	Plex (local 4K)	Plex HD (remote)	Plex 4K (remote)	BACKUP (MS/GOOGLE OFFICE)	BACKUP (BAREBONE)	PHOTOS (OBJECT AI)	VIDEO EDITING (4K)	VIDEO EDITING (8K)	DOCKER	VIRTUAL MACHINES	PC MODE (QVM)	2.5GbE	10GbE	25GbE	Thunderbolt	NVMe	Pcie	Expansion	HDMI	Drive Mixing
TS-632X	✓	-	-	✓		✓	✓	✓	✓			✓	✓	ⓘ			✓	✓
DS1621+	✓	-	-	✓	✓	✓	ⓘ	ⓘ	✓	✓			ⓘ			✓	✓	✓		✓
DS620slim	✓	-	-	✓	✓				✓	✓		ⓘ						✓		✓

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BEST FOR Virtualisation

BEST FOR MULTIMEDIA

BEST FOR FILE STORAGE

BEST FOR BACKUP

BEST FOR VIDEO EDITING

BEST FOR SURVEILLANCE (CCTV)

BEST FOR SMART HOME/ AI

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AVAILABILITY / RELEASE DATE

Brand	Model	TW	USA	UK	Released
Qnap	TS-632X	•	•	•	2024-07
Synology	DS1621+	•	•	•	2020-09
Synology	DS620slim	•	•	•	2020-06

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SOFTWARE - 8/10

HARDWARE - 8/10

PERFORMANCE - 8/10

PRICE - 7/10

VALUE - 8/10

7.8

PROS

👍🏻Desktop Ryzen Powered Solution
👍🏻Dual NVMe M.2 cache
👍🏻PCIe Gen 3 x8 PCIe Equipped
👍🏻Great RAID Options (inc SHR)
👍🏻Excellent choice of Apps
👍🏻DDR4 ECC Memory up to 32GB
👍🏻Numerous Backup Software Options
👍🏻Huge Virtualization Support
👍🏻3yr Warranty and Extendable to 5yrs

CONS

👎🏻1Gbe Ports seem a bit limited now
👎🏻Shame it does not support 1/2 x DX1215
👎🏻NVMe SSDs cannot be used for RAW storage

SOFTWARE - 9/10

HARDWARE - 7/10

PERFORMANCE - 7/10

PRICE - 7/10

VALUE - 8/10

7.6

PROS

👍🏻Affordable 6-Bay Solution
👍🏻Incredible low footprint in your environment
👍🏻Supports Plex Media Server
👍🏻4K Media Playback and Transcoding
👍🏻LAG/Trunking Support
👍🏻Supports 15mm Drives
👍🏻VERY quiet
👍🏻Supports DSM 6.2.2 Very Well
👍🏻2.5″ Focused, but very capable

CONS

👎🏻Shame it’s not the 4-Core J3455
👎🏻Only 2x RJ45, Bottleneck for Faster Media
👎🏻10Gbe would have made this INCREDIBLE

SOFTWARE - 8/10

HARDWARE - 8/10

PERFORMANCE - 7/10

PRICE - 9/10

VALUE - 10/10

8.4

PROS

👍🏻Dual 10GbE Ports: Provides high-speed network connectivity, enabling fast data transfer and reducing backup times, which is great for businesses with heavy data flow.
👍🏻Energy Efficiency: Powered by an ARM-based processor, the TS-632X offers low power consumption, making it ideal for 24/7 operation without significantly impacting electricity bills.
👍🏻Support for ECC Memory: Offers enhanced data integrity by supporting ECC (Error-Correcting Code) memory, reducing the risk of data corruption, which is crucial for critical data storage.
👍🏻Scalability: Includes a PCIe slot for expansion, allowing users to add additional network cards or SSDs, making it adaptable to growing network demands.
👍🏻Affordable Pricing: Priced competitively between $699-$749, it offers a strong set of features without breaking the bank, providing excellent value for small to medium businesses.
👍🏻Compact Design: Its tower form factor and relatively small footprint make it easy to fit into a variety of environments, from small offices to home setups.
👍🏻Quiet Operation: Even when fully loaded, the TS-632X operates quietly, making it suitable for use in noise-sensitive environments like offices or shared spaces.
👍🏻Versatile Storage Options: Supports both 3.5-inch HDDs and 2.5-inch SSDs, providing flexibility in balancing cost and performance for different storage needs.
👍🏻Robust Software Ecosystem: Runs on QNAP\'s QTS operating system, which includes a wide range of apps for backup, synchronization, multimedia management, and more, catering to various business and personal needs.
👍🏻Eco-Friendly Packaging: Uses fully recyclable packaging materials, demonstrating QNAP\'s commitment to sustainability and reducing environmental impact.

CONS

👎🏻Base Model Lacks ECC Memory: Although the TS-632X supports ECC memory, the base model does not include it, requiring users to purchase additional RAM to take advantage of this feature.
👎🏻Limited Processing Power: The ARM processor, while energy-efficient, limits the NAS\'s ability to handle resource-intensive tasks such as virtualization and high-end multimedia transcoding.
👎🏻Only Two-Year Warranty: The standard warranty is relatively short for a device targeted at business use, where a longer warranty period (e.g., three years) would be more appropriate.
👎🏻Write Performance Could Be Better: While read speeds are impressive, write speeds are somewhat lower, which might be a limitation for users who need high write throughput for applications like live video editing or large-scale data ingestion.

In terms of these two brands, there is been a long-running theme all the way through that Synology has focused on FIRST-PARTY (i.e. Synology-brand) software and hardware priority, then supporting THIRD-PARTY services/hardware when they haven’t got a viable alternative in-house – to mixed degrees of popularity. Whereas QNAP has been a much more level playing field where they have released their own innovative hardware/software (occasionally a little too quickly) and singing its praises, but also tried to keep customization and flexibility for 3rd parties as open as possible and shouting loud-and-proud about that too – which can be a tad overwhelming for the less tech-savvy. Both brands have done an incredible job evolve their platforms as much as they have to date, especially when Microsoft, Google and Amazon are pouring BILLIONS into the SaaS (and PaaS and IaaS – Platform and Infrastructure as a Service) in order to create entirely streamable ecosystems for businesses, with NAS brands like Synology and QNAP not only integrating with them but also thriving alongside them as a local/bare-metal failsafe. These are all very lofty ideas and ones that most home or small business users will likely have little time for right now (aside from where NAS fits in with their Google/Office 365 office tools like documents, email and spreadsheets at a pinch) and for those users, who the NAS stands on its own two feet is what is going to matter most. Synology is earning its position in the market as the complete 1st party software and hardware package, with a genuinely groundbreaking range of available services, but still managing to make NAS accessible for all in DSM 6.2/7.0/7.1. That said, the trends we are seeing in those sub-enterprise services that are slowly receding in support of popular 3rd party hardware, software and services, making using a Synology NAS alongside your own existing setup in a frictionless way cannot be ignored and leading some to think Synology is shifting their industry position towards something higher.

QNAP NAS on the other hand, although maybe trying to cover too many bases at once, is still trying to cover as much as it can to appear to their audience. Their support of considerably more 3rd party platforms/software/services, even when they have their own software available, is certainly admirable and aside from rather aggressive pricing on their QVR Pro surveillance platform, are still the better choice for those who want a much more adaptable and customizable platform. Its a pretty understandable fact that most people who buy a NAS will be arriving with an existing collection of software in their daily workflow (Office 365 for docs, Gmail for their email, Plex for their media, Chromebook for their commute, Skype/Whatsapp for their communication, TB3 for their editing, etc) and it has to be said that QNAP keeps a more open platform to adapt a NAS into this mix than Synology – occasionally less intuitively and not without a little setup-friction, but certainly to more customizable results. Unsurprisingly, I am going to tell you that both Synology and QNAP NAS are good NAS brands and have earned their place at the top of the industry (whilst both making their own respective moves to integrate into the next tier – ie SaaS providers, Hyperscale environments and Boundless cloud storage), but there is no denying that no one brand has managed to do EVERYTHING to perfection. So, if in double, below is how I would recommend QNAP and Synology NAS to you, for each user case scenario and I hope this guide and my recommendations help you with your next big data storage purchase.

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