Best NAS for intense home and multimedia for 500-750$

[Tdmitry]

Hey guys! At the moment I have a great deal - TS451+ 2GB ram for 546$ (in total). So far, I observerd it as the best buck for the money. More expensive DS916+ wont give any noticable difference, but costs 200-300$ more at the moment, while only DS416play comes at the same price - must say, it is much worse.

I was keeping some cash in stash to buy it, but now, before I actually go for it, I want to be sure I don't miss any better model to buy. Cause, actually, so far I though DS416play was the best choice.
Anyway, I'm looking for some decent and perfomance-wise ready NAS for home and multimedia usage, from Dell/IBM/Cisco/Qnap/Synology. Obviously, first three titles not for home usage, so only Qnap or Synology left. Don't want anything like asustor or WD, don't have any Buffalo offerings nearby, don't want to waste time with building my own.

So, please, who can give me a note/guess? Maybe I miss some well-made popular model, that could outperform TS451+ for the same money or +100$? Or counterpart for less money?

 

[USAFRet]

I have a TS-453A. Multimedia is one of its main features.
Currently, it is $545 at Amazon, with 4GB RAM
https://www.amazon.com/QNAP-Professional-Grade-Attached-Supports-TS-453A-4G-US/dp/B017YB7T6U

Currently 4 x 3TB drives, changing it to 4 x 4TB Seagate IronWolf.

I upgraded mine to 16GB RAM.

 

[why_wolf]

Synology or Qnap. Qnap provides stronger higher end models than Synology does at the moment and is who I would go with. OS wise they are both about the same these days. Synology used to be way better but Qnap got a lot better over the last few years.

The Synology DS916+ would be the equivalent model from Synology a bit more powerful with a Pentium under the hood. The DS416play is a bit less powerful, with significantly less RAM with no upgrade option.

Buffalo is hot garbage I've had three of those die on me.

 

[Tdmitry]

I have a TS-453A. Multimedia is one of its main features.
Currently, it is $545 at Amazon, with 4GB RAM
https://www.amazon.com/QNAP-Professional-Grade-Attached-Supports-TS-453A-4G-US/dp/B017YB7T6U

Currently 4 x 3TB drives, changing it to 4 x 4TB Seagate IronWolf.

I upgraded mine to 16GB RAM.

BTW, I forget to mention TS-453A. That's the third model I'm looking at.

But it costs 130$ extra, and has almost the same quadcore celeron (weaker than BayTrail J1900 installed in 451+, according to passmark) Does it worth that sum? And how did U made it to work with 16 GB RAM - N3150 can only see 8 GB, that's intel's cut
Won't use all that extra ports anyway - I use my NAS down in the basement, with all other LAN stuff. Basically, every client that uses NAS (pads, smartphones, PC's) connect to dat server through WiFi or LAN, no direct input.

 

[Tdmitry]

Synology or Qnap. Qnap provides stronger higher end models than Synology does at the moment and is who I would go with. OS wise they are both about the same these days. Synology used to be way better but Qnap got a lot better over the last few years.

The Synology DS916+ would be the equivalent model from Synology a bit more powerful with a Pentium under the hood. The DS416play is a bit less powerful, with significantly less RAM with no upgrade option.

Buffalo is hot garbage I've had three of those die on me.

Agree. I would even add - Qnap has a demo OS on their website. I could say, I like it FAR more than DSM - much more info, more options, more tweaks and possibilities to tweak, almost the same number of packs, apps and other stuff.

About DS916+ - it would be nice option, but unfortunately I could afford it only if buying it from doubtful local store. Ts451+'s CPU is not that worse - maybe 5 or 10%? But costs extra 200$.

 

[USAFRet]

I have a TS-453A. Multimedia is one of its main features.
Currently, it is $545 at Amazon, with 4GB RAM
https://www.amazon.com/QNAP-Professional-Grade-Attached-Supports-TS-453A-4G-US/dp/B017YB7T6U

Currently 4 x 3TB drives, changing it to 4 x 4TB Seagate IronWolf.

I upgraded mine to 16GB RAM.

BTW, I forget to mention TS-453A. That's the third model I'm looking at.

But it costs 130$ extra, and has almost the same quadcore celeron (weaker than BayTrail J1900 installed in 451+, according to passmark) Does it worth that sum? And how did U made it to work with 16 GB RAM - N3150 can only see 8 GB, that's intel's cut
Won't use all that extra ports anyway - I use my NAS down in the basement, with all other LAN stuff. Basically, every client that uses NAS (pads, smartphones, PC's) connect to dat server through WiFi or LAN, no direct input.

Yes, the CPU supposedly only recognizes 8GB.
But the system see the entire 16, and reports as such.

 

[Tdmitry]

I have a TS-453A. Multimedia is one of its main features.
Currently, it is $545 at Amazon, with 4GB RAM
https://www.amazon.com/QNAP-Professional-Grade-Attached-Supports-TS-453A-4G-US/dp/B017YB7T6U

Currently 4 x 3TB drives, changing it to 4 x 4TB Seagate IronWolf.

I upgraded mine to 16GB RAM.

BTW, I forget to mention TS-453A. That's the third model I'm looking at.

But it costs 130$ extra, and has almost the same quadcore celeron (weaker than BayTrail J1900 installed in 451+, according to passmark) Does it worth that sum? And how did U made it to work with 16 GB RAM - N3150 can only see 8 GB, that's intel's cut
Won't use all that extra ports anyway - I use my NAS down in the basement, with all other LAN stuff. Basically, every client that uses NAS (pads, smartphones, PC's) connect to dat server through WiFi or LAN, no direct input.

Yes, the CPU supposedly only recognizes 8GB.
But the system see the entire 16, and reports as such.

So what advantages does the TS453A have in comparison with TS-451+?

 

[USAFRet]

So what advantages does the TS453A have in comparison with TS-451+?

The 453A has 4 x LAN ports, and does 4k video, on the fly transcoding.