Synology vs QNAP NAS Debate - Which is Better for you?

answer there when it comes to Synology I think or let's get it out of the way if we had to subtitle this video if this was a trailer which would be weird um it was on a big poster and there had to be a little subtitle it would be software software software versus Hardware Hardware [Music] hello and welcome back and that's right we're gonna tackle the big one today we've talked about it before but not like this today we're going to talk about Synology and qnap and myself and Luca over on black void I believe he's over that side there we are going to debate these two Brands we're going to do the classic style debating round we'll be going to talk about you know what we consider the pros what we love about these respective Brands and hopefully try to if not change the other person's mind then maybe you're at home you're gonna you know watch this video and think there's more to this and it's not that black and white as we thought but before we get any further look up let's explain to the audience one who you are and your experience with Synology over to you well thank you for having me uh once again Robbie I'm um I'm obviously Luca owner of Blackboard and uh as a recent official media partner but everything that I'm gonna say today has accumulated over the last 15 years of my Synology experience so this isn't actually driven by phenology as a company but actually my humble points and Views and uh yeah I've been uh solely invested into Synology brand although I've have had tackle the qnap both hardware and software rights but not as of version 4 I have to say so I am lacking on that on that end so I'm very happy to hear your side of things and uh yeah that's about it fantastic well I mean I think we should let the the viewing public know how this is going to go down so nice and simple we're going to sort of take it in turns to talk about some standout points from the respective Brands these can be Hardware there's going to be soft where there can be you know extra there could be absolutely anything and then it's going to come down to the other person it's going to debate that point a little bit there's a sense of drama in the air and of course it is worth if you disclaimer straight off the bat much like Luca there I've quite well versed in the field of network attached storage I've been dealing with the majority of the brands in the field for quite a few years now I think it would be fair to say that I love things and dislike things about most of the brands that are there when it comes to Synology I think or let's get it out of the way if we are to subtitle this video if this was a trailer which would be weird um it was on a big poster and there had to be a little subtitle it would be software software software versus Hardware Hardware unfortunately that is going to be the subtext and it's pretty much going to be the full text for the majority of this video because frankly even though I'm obviously in the case of this video at least going to be pleading for the side of qnap let's face it DSM is still the dog's natches when it comes to software in the world of network attached storage the ecosystem the smooth days that word ecosystem get ready to hear that a lot the smooth business of the platform just generally the responsiveness for the utility the fact that they've got first party apps for everything I cannot go into this video and not say that I don't think DSM is an absolute Powerhouse of software because it damn well is but there is more to the world of network attack storage hence this comparison but I just thought it very important to get that out the way early doors before we start having this debate and a lot of people go you've said lots of horrible things about technology um so straight off the bat I think let's open it up over to you Luca what is your first big big point I feel I might know what it is already but go for it what's your first big point well Bitcoin for Synology I mean I'm just going to do a little bit of intro why that is uh so bear with me considering I'm not a fast talker like you obviously but um yeah and for me back in the day uh back in the day when I was actually looking into a a Nas solution for myself I've obviously quinoa pencino in 20078 we're all ready uh showing promises on both hands but on both the uh um their hardware and and software elements but for me it was just Synology that won that battle it was it was uh neatly packed it was uh more sort of user friendly it checked all my boxes at that time and uh over the next decade I guess uh the main thing even today especially today I think especially today for for all the viewers and all the users is um the security element in my course opinion security is something that it's absolute that that needs to be uh number one on everybody's list and all those technology as well as qnap and all the other brands in the in the recent years have had issues I think that um uh after seeing a locker in 2014 end of 2013 2014 August I believe a Synology really stepped up in that department and continued on that path on that path which is something that has given me the ensured me that they're not gonna um you know mess up along the way maybe they will but they will definitely focus on that uh also they've established that PSR RT yeah the products security incident Response Team actually had to write it down and remember it same here don't worry yeah yeah just to uh uh to to keep on top of uh all the active uh uh zero day exploits and all the cve issues that are out there so for me security is number one and I believe looking just the the over the course of last year that q a proves a little bit more exposed than any other brand out there that's just I do have some kind of stats on that um and you know you are bang on the banana um just going by the security advisory um qnap reported uh 31 different security vulnerabilities um during that period a lot of them were Linux based and again what do you do find when you look at the advisor and again I'm talking to you guys at home with the advisory Pages often what you find on there is a vulnerability within Linux with a particular version of Linux which then gets patched by Linux and then other brands and software that I built on Linux will then Implement those updates into those uh improvements and fixes into their own respective platforms so there was 31 on qnap but there was also there was also 26 on Synology last year now none of them were the same scale as deadbolt let's let's get that out of the way deadbolt was their Sinnoh locker but the problem gnap have obviously faced is it's happened too much and their response to it has not been good enough there was the forced updates there and I know you guys are thinking aren't you supposed to be on tune outside in this video um they their response to it was frankly woefully inadequate by comparison to how Synology responded to Sino locker and I think you you were pretty much dancing around the point I was going to make which was that with Sinnoh Locker that was synology's big headache nightmare potential brand killer scenario and they clearly learned from that and you mentioned the psirt checks he spelled it right um and the likes of their Bounty program they've been running a bounty program came up have just instituted one why taking so long and of course they even participated technology in poem to own the big event every year uh believing I think it's in Toronto you might have to correct me in the comments like it's things like that that I love about that technology and security platform now hopefully this incident with deadbolt is qnaps um Sinnoh Locker I really hope it is because they need to learn from that and they've probably made more implemented changes into their platform after deadbolt than anything else I've seen before everything from admin account disabling to um all Australia external access being shut down unless needed otherwise the presentation um which was woefully inadequate I would say prior to deadbolt of allowing people to just smash holes through uh with port forwarding in their firewall without real consequences and even some applications not functioning to their fullest without the latest update on there something that really is only on its home on Console gaming so again I would love to try to argue with you on the sense of security there in case of new map but unfortunately we're in the walls we're in the trenches as far as looking at qnap as a brand and security they have to take their lumps and I can't sit here and defend you know that stance until a good I would say at least three to four years go by on case of cuno they are moving forward they have made implemented changes but until I see well much like yourself three plus years there I can't comfortably say teach a camera that I consider qnap safer than Synology I can't I'd love to I can't I think it is I think it's safer than it was but Synology have clearly taken on board the the lessons they needed to learn and particularly again uh psrt home to own Bounty uh programs and even though both platforms have got the vulnerability and security advisories I still feel like if you look at the list and the ones that are common across both of them that are Linux based vulnerabilities that have been found outside of the Native NASA OS then they and they've had to adapt once you move outside of those the Standalone vulnerabilities that are independent to either platform they're denser and worse on the qnet ones the ones that have appeared again deadbolt but I think yeah I'll just uh just one more point on uh on cine Locker when it when it actually uh occurred I know that a lot of a lot of my colleagues were really that happened and if you look at if you look at why it actually happened because um users that weren't patched up at that point which was kind of uh solved by a Synology in December 2013 those that were patched didn't feel a thing but considering the people were opening the boxes having them unpatched and then go through the security advisor checklist obviously yeah but I guess you you have to crash your car right so yeah a few times before you actually learn something so yeah I'm just um so sort of Defending Synology on this point but a lot of sinaloka incidents were actually uh uses to blame I mean I mean I'm sure I'm sure I send repetitious here on the channel but it's it's oft said by myself and Eddie like the majority and I know it sounds awful but the majority if you look at year one or two decades of storage particularly network storage the majority of instances of malware and vulnerability have not come down to the software itself it has come down as you say to updates not being filled to people getting an ass connecting it put it in the corner of their office not instituting automatic updates again I'm still looking at a bubble on the bottom right of my screen that says I can get Windows 11 if I want go away um I will take necessary security updates and that's it but there's lots of users that have bought a nouns set out for three to four years stuck in the corner and then they've been hit because they're not getting Network updates which again this isn't a blame game but there's a big part of the responsibility on the end user so you're absolutely right but even then I think with deadbolt there was still an area of the vulnerability not being acted upon quick enough and I still I agree with you that there is an element of user responsibility versus brand responsibility but I don't think we can let qnip off too easy on that one but this is turning way way too much into a way where both ontonology side in this comparison let's move it forward and switch over to my side here because let's if we're going to get the obvious stuff out the way and I say the obvious like it's flipping the hardware when it comes down to it oh he's sitting there taking his lumps because the thing is this sounds really overtly critical but okay when you are buying these solutions they are combined Hardware software Solutions and a keyword solution there and Synology most certainly um when you for every 100 pounds you spend I can't help but feel that every 100 pounds on a Synology minimum 60 pounds of that probably close to 70 is going towards DSM and arguably 30 of that is going straight towards active backup more on that later um but the hardware on synology's platforms unless you go Elite level Enterprise and even then it still seems to be in the 640 bracket the hardware just feels a little bit underwhelming you know and it's it's sometimes I will argue that it's because they're staying within a budget remit I get that but when and again go and buy my notes when you can for the same money get too far by Nazis and the Synology one has got one or two USB old gem ports it's got two 1gbe ports it's got a proprietary Network upgrade slot and a CPU that has had an element of controversy behind it for some multimedia users and for the same money over here you will be able to buy something that's got USB 10 gigabits per second um a 2.5 gpe two of those ports uh same price uh support of traditional PCI upgrade cards HDMI 2.1 support and KVM support um and just support of m2mvs for a multitude of different supported uses not just caching as well as support of Google's II reported upgrade card that's the same money so in terms of Hardware I've and you know I've never really quite understood the Synology position on Hardware there I mean for yourself how do you feel about Synology Hardware yeah you're a really you know hitting me there I just can't say anything back I mean it's clear as day obviously and uh yes Synology tends to be more expensive you know I'm guessing you're you're comparing or referring to 923 just now only because it's the most recent release but if you move away even from the nine tooth like at the moment it's coming on the channel a little while I've got these new uh the 6-2 series uh dual core Intel Celeron device and it's I think I wish I had my notes still up there but there's the two by uh the two by it's uh 389 knicker here in the pound in the UK someone's gonna give me some stick for that in the comments um and it's a dual core New Gen Celeron it's 2.5 GBE it's got a PCI upgrade slot it's got two M2 slots it's got USB 10 gig it's got HDMI 2.1 and it's three eight nine three nine nine and of course the big counter argument is you're paying for DSM more than you are for the hardware and you've got to factor in the value of that experience of course course it's true but there are users out there that aren't going to use that software to install it then aren't going to be active backup in surveillance station and therefore for those users Hardware they're going to feel a bit short-changed I mean for you if I had to say and then I'm putting you on the spot here and it's a bit of a hospital no no if you were to pick a Synology off the top of your head with Hardware that impressed you what would it be well I have to say that um the the most recent one was 923 or 723 just because just because everything above everything um rack station related is for the end user is probably an Overkill right so if we focus down on the DS uh the the desktop stations uh I really think that 918 920 were really close nothing too much there uh why somebody would upgrade from x80 into X20 but the 23 model although yes AMD in in there and you're losing Hardware transcoding what now what you are and the course was touched on uh yeah I mean the overall package I think that um the 923 has started to shift outside the the expected Zone where 920 and 9 18 will be and I was I was really happy with that just because you have out of the box 32 gigabytes of RAM you know PCC as well ECC you see it right you have a more powerful CPU than the generation before I'm not going towards kuna because that's there's no competition there obviously you do have proprietary 10g but finally 10g I'm all for 10g I I really because you're not putting me actually on the spot I'm actually glad you are but me two and a half five G that's a that's a no-go right it's either 1G for me or 10g so maybe I'm not the average user that would say look two and a half G should should have been already three four years in a row implemented uh you know but for me I really like that they went with the proprietary 10g that they finally implemented 10g to to something that's not a six play or an excess unit or an RS unit and the fact that they've implemented that in 720 and in a two Bay is I'm really happy I'm really happy with those two devices but uh I really can't argue that uh qnap for years has been the superior one when it comes to overall Harvest specs and I'm sure that the enthusiasts out there the people that are not actually looking for for software elements or TurnKey Solutions when it comes to backup they just want a powerful uh Nas unit that has a lot of a lot of horsepower and and input output elements in what my um ports and whatnot uh qnep is definitely a better choice obviously the only thing I would add to that while I quickly double checked that we are definitely still recording this on obs because I got paranoid part the way through that um the only thing I would add today and again it's to do with a 2.5 g debate and I've discussed it in another video so I'll keep it very very brief um I barely use 2.5 GB in my home life I do use it here in the studio and one of the reasons I do that is because um the router that I use I have an office provided review to the router that had 2.5 GBE it's an ISP router with 2.5 g and on top of that we're seeing more devices arrive on the scene with 2.5 GBE at the same cost as 1gbe Ergo be having one GBE seems like a conscious choice and when it comes to like adapters I talked about the channel before these are like twenty dollars if that and therefore upgrading your client Hardware to two and a half times network speed when making the jump to 10 GBE is more expensive and you need to have the media to saturate it with and with that adapter I do like yourself at first when I learned about this adapter I didn't like it I think I've got about in the channel because I was like oh I don't like a proprietary 10g I don't like this idea that I oh I've got 10 GPU but I've got to do it this way but over time and particularly within the first month one it is the easiest 10g upgrade I've ever installed in my life um and secondly it's the idea that there are users out there that want to scale up and the option to just sling that Ian power down power up they're going to that lack of downtime knocking around with drivers it's really really good news and now I can Muck around with support and stuff but by the same token it's really expensive have you seen how much that thing costs and I know I sound like I'm being Mr Penny Pinchy happy so 150 Euros something like that though that's where it was um and I don't know if it's an availability or Hardware short thing I've seen the prices all over the place in different regions when I've seen traditional standard class PCI upgrade cards knocking around for 80 knicker it's kind of really anyway look we've harbored their like uh the hardware point there quite a lot I think that we've got the obvious two things out the obvious two and a half things out the way over to you to your next point well um tying into my first point which was obviously security uh from my point of view something that would um something that I would suggest to people to go to Synology versus qnab was something that uh is related to stability so security turning into stability in terms of dear sensibility uh as an OS obviously it's more fluent especially in the sm7 uh stability of packages I believe that certain applications and platforms are more mature on on the on the Synology side uh there's just simply more of them more clients applications as well for for mobile phones for tablets and what and whatnot Fire TV it's crazy yeah and it just feels that technology sometimes is a little bit slower to Market than qnap maybe that's the reason why certain problems arise on the qnab side more often and um but on the other hand we were waiting for the sm7 a really long time so Synology Is Not Innocent in this as well right so I'm not I'm not saying it's perfect but just I just have a sense of feel that um it's a bit more stable we're not going to rush it well we're going to let users get angry at us because we're not handing over the the new features fast enough uh but we're not going to sacrifice on stability security and whatnot although they do tend to mess up in certain applications and whatnot but okay it there's a lot to cover a lot of application a lot of platforms DSM alone hardware and so forth so I mean stability in general I gotta say I mean again I am going to struggle to argue with you on that because it's it's a it's only an eloquent point it's an inarguable Point first and foremost applications on uh the Synology DSM platform remaining beta for longer than any other brand I've seen which they wouldn't do that for no reason obviously they're collecting public data usage data for improvement and it's the same thing with it's the whole thoughts and the hair scenario where there qnap will often bring certain services to back very very early as killer apps but as you they could sometimes do with a lot more time in the oven you know what I mean and and there's just often the case that Synology will roll out a software uh sorry qnet will roll out a software Synology don't and then it's kind of a little bit shaky but of course thanks for taking it out a bit a little bit too early then Synology will bring their entry which often doesn't have the fully fledged features of the qnap one there but the ones it's have has are very very solid as you say and again the responsiveness of the SM the the amount of money I would love to speak to someone at Synology can actually get a figure of how much money was specifically targeted towards uh ux design and just general GUI uh Behavior patterns because it is uh intuitive as hell but also responsive and it's that feeling of local versus remote I had a debate with Eddie a short while ago about when you play and again sorry to make a computer game comparison I'm five um but when you play a computer game at 30 frames second that you've never played it in any other frame rate for the whole time and all of a sudden one day you play it at 60 frames per second and then you go back to 30 and then you go what the hell is this and it's it's very much the case because when you use the Synology platform it doesn't feel like you're using remote the amount of data being held by local browser cache must be phenomenal the amount of optimization and efficiency going in there is phenomenal and when you use qts you feel like you are dealing with something remote a lot of the time you know you can go quite a long way without feeling that but it's as you say sometimes the responsiveness doesn't feel the latency seems a little bit more increased and we're talking you know Ms here milliseconds but it's enough and the design of all applications within qnap don't always seem to sit at the same level and you'll be opening certain tabs on Windows and the design and the in-house style there's suddenly a fractious difference between how they're presented and it was very much a case when qts5 first rolled out yes it was in beta but there was tremendous differences in the portrayal and the presentation of certain apps and windows between qts uh in different first party apps as well I mean the only thing I would then argue against this I think is a reasonable argument is you're right Synology with their applications there are you know fully fledged and they look beautiful and they've spent more time in the oven but often they can feel a lot more limited they can feel a lot of the configuration options are either hidden or just flat out not accessible and at least when the qnap ones come out a lot of the time they are far more configurable to the end user sometimes to their detriment going back to point number one there um yeah yeah I would just uh like to give an example here on the Synology side I mean uh a recent addition a recent recent uh deprecation of all apps and Publishing a new one Synology photos was one example that when it rolled out people were satisfied but not overly happy because they lost certain elements from photo station and professionals were really angry which was later on added as a subsequent uh updates to Synology photos but not out the gates so it felt kind of wow you gave us new thing but it robbed us of of certain things that we we had before which is something that maybe Synology could have avoid it but maybe it was a specific decision for whatever reason but yeah I kind of wished I hadn't basically put in photos and removed the other two apps because this actually touches on one of my points which I'll just load straight into right now and it's when we talk about um software on the qnap platform as you say there are just some when I talk about the features that are missing to get to really focus straight in on photos there um so qnap still has uh photo station it has photo station Q Maggie um awful name awful awful name um running side by side and Q Maggie is AI recognition recognizes more targets it has a broader definition of AI photo recognition and moreover it has thing recognition which still to date I don't understand why Synology moments doesn't have it I've never had a clear answer and when it comes to AI photo recognition I do want facial recognition and I do wants great metadata to give me geolocational data I really want that and both of them provide that but whereas Synology moment had thing recognition so I'm looking for a certain thing an item a target a subject why did moment have that and Synology photos after two years still doesn't and when you you do rightly say that Synology did roll in some of the um options and configuration choices of Synology photos uh photo station even into Synology photos not all kicky word and it's and I still don't for me that almost feels like um a conscious choice not to include those and I don't know why um I'd love to get a clear answer but it rolls out more than that on software so when it comes to surveillance on the Synology platform you've got obviously surveillance station on Synology is still the best surveillance software and I'm not even going to argue with that either the fact I can still access to it's better it's more responsive it's better it's got some of the improvements that are on it's a more responsive app and the qnap one qvr pro heavily reliant on the use of the client applications rather than just the browser and I think the Synology uh technology surveillance platform is the better of the two however if I want to use Synology AI Services I have to use one of their AI powered Nas of which there's three and they are frighteningly expensive for most home or even Pro Schumer small business users whereas on the qnap platform you've got facial recognition available on even a Celeron base and we've seen it's possible because Synology rolled out a two-bay DVA Nas that has no graphics card it has a Celeron inside so we know it's possible you can use the AI upgrade for the qnap platform you have eight camera licenses not two um there's just a lot there's lots of little tiny things that add up on that qnap side although it's not the better software overall it still has a lot of those features included and it moves on when you look at other applications say a file station both platforms have got the file manager platform called file station well all good um and the Synology one obviously because Synology has got that single ecosystem they have their own office uh the collaboration Suite chat Love chat they've got mail got um all of those different calendar and note station all that stuff that wonderful combined platform and yes there are migration tools and improvements coming in DSM 7.2 for the Synology office to be a lot more compatible with a lot of Windows templates and windows formats but qnap have just got a Windows Office plugin so when you open an app when you open a dock in file station on a qnap it just opens in office so it'll open in spreadsheet in word it'll open and you know all of those different tools and it's just little things like that little tiny things that can app do that either they're not advertising well enough aren't stable enough at launch then they don't have to patch in and repair and make better but it's things that I'm surprised Synology don't also do and sometimes I would wonder whether they do that because of that single Eco I'm not going to say agenda but that single ecosystem deployment method if that makes sense yeah yeah it does I mean um you've touched on touched on a lot of elements now that on in my point of view are both plus and minuses obviously I mean surveillance station is by far the best surveillance station in in that range of devices but of course 26 uh 100 pounds or Euros or whatnot for uh 32 21 uh devices uh quite a steep price um true we'll see what the cameras will bring in right of course when they when they come up maybe such certain things will change but yeah I would have to agree on the on the application side I mean that TurnKey solution that when you get a box right because you're buying an appliance right you're not buying a a computer that you're going to assemble yourself and they're gonna put uh certain Nest software on top of it I don't want to get uh into it uh but you know when you're buying an appliance you're buying a an experience right and that experience needs to be stable secure and as much as possible feature Rich right or for for the customer right and I think that Synology versus qnap is just better I mean Synology in that department as a whole as an experience uh for the end user especially not an Enthusiast level user okay is uh is better yes lacking on the hardware elements that we touched on but on software I think it's uh definitely ahead in general but what you mentioned um a note station for instance not station was one of my my favorite applications on on DSM at least one of top five applications but they've just abandoned it I mean no development on it no no updates nothing's happening and I'm just kind of feeling that it's gonna get axed right DS videos got a little whiff of that as well oh yeah yeah especially with the AMD platform now we're creeping in I mean they're actually not advertising at all and I'm also very worried uh questioning what's going to happen with for instance video station as well uh considering the the uh competition in that department plexus and whatnot yeah and uh I agree with the overall collaboration uh platform yeah the the office and mail and chat and whatnot yeah uh sonology drive by far that's one of the the most used application uh as a Google drive or Dropbox alternative for for thinking and backing up and whatnot but uh yeah it's it's not all uh bells and whistles on Synology or obviously but yeah from from a software point of view I think there are definitely ahead yeah I'll say um I mean real quick off um just uh I I'm pretty sure this video is going to run into quite a few hours and I think that's okay if we're gonna do this let's do it right um um about two days ago there um uh subscribe to the channel Brian Free if you're watching this hi Bry um we are having a debate about he was a long time Synology user that was dipping his toes into qnap and he highlighted a feature that was absent which he naturally just assumed it was there and that was full system uh image backup and it was something that just isn't really a thing on qnap's side which again I kind of in my head was like that's a thing right and I had to properly dig into it because I it's not I I knew it wasn't a thing a few years ago but I naturally just assumed the way they had gone with a lot of their backup software it had arrived and it still hasn't arrived and of course that leads us in to probably one of the most powerful and useful tools arguably almost worth the price of admission on a lot of qnap devices I you know active backup active backup on its own is so good for Synology and again I know a lot of qnet people are going to go what are you doing backing them up but just hear me out right um active backup is probably I would say the best application technology I've ever rolled out and more importantly they know it I worry though that it is influencing how they develop the rest of their platform because as you say there are certain tools that seem to be getting just a little bit less attention an active backup is getting bigger and better and drive is getting on they're fantastic oh we're adding nine new features but I worry about the detriment the detrimental effect of such a great application as active backup on the rest of the Synology I would argue home prosumer portfolio of people that are buying into that ecosystem when they have a range of say 10 tools and four of them are out of this world and the other ones less so you know what I mean and we could fill this whole video with active backup maybe we'll do a follow-up video today about why it's so fantastic but I'll let you move on to your next point well um actually uh actually maybe one other element that I've might add um again it doesn't reflect on Synology Nas but as Synology as a brand is my final point and that would be C2 C2 cloud uh now C2 has been in their portfolio for quite some time I've been actually a beta user since C2 storage as they call it now uh has rolled out considering the the First Data Center was in in Germany in Europe so it was close to me but I think that uh that's also something that an added value uh by going into the Synology ecosystem right uh there are certain Elements which are uh which will obviously cost the certain platforms which are free some are commercial when it when it comes to C2 but I think that again that TurnKey solution right I have a mass and my data is on my Nas and that's backed up no it's not because if your data is on your Nas and only on your Nas that's basically just like sitting on any other computer so it's not backed up and with the C2 uh for instance people maybe don't want to buy an additional nurse and put it at their friend's house or the their office or whatnot I think that C2 with a competitive prices and uh we're looking at Amazon and whatnot uh not uh not charging the egress fees and all that is definitely really something that is a bonus and a really added bonus for the end user to say uh-huh so I can take all my backups all my data and just back it up to the cloud and that's it and on top of that certain services in in C2 portfolio don't even require you to have a Synology Nas when it comes to backing up your computer and whatnot so I think that C2 as a platform is just a great addition as ABB on on their metal right but that that is one of my final points when it comes to Synology I mean I've got a couple more points on the qnap side but just before we get to I'll definitely dig into because one I agree with pretty much 95 of what you said there I mean one I've said this before in other videos and I said again maybe you're listening Synology hello um why do they not include an area of space inclusive with the NASA I've never understood that it's a little little taste because there's a lot of users that instantly get the Nas and go wait I've got to pay more for that get lost and it's if they just included even a small amount of space for all Synology users there's a lovely little taste the same way all of the providers do maybe with mobile phones and stuff where they give you a little bit of space there's a little taster which you then end up filling up and going well my data's on there now I'm not saying to use such a manipulative and cynical tactic as that but ultimately I think a lot of users would buy into that for one for although there are lots of benefits to that and obviously if you want to go for full Disaster Recovery you're going to talk terabytes but leading on from that because the one service that I saw that I I I have a personal uh C2 subscription with my my Synology now's at home but I'll be straight with you one it was never provided by Synology just to keep that clear but secondly I only got it I would argue about four months ago because of C2 surveillance not because of anything else but because of C2 surveillance and the it's little things like that I think Synology could stand to include a better way to present C2 cloud storage to users and I'm sure they have discussed the merits or downfalls of including a little bit of free space for everyone even if it's on the first two to three years or whatever license LED it would get people in a little a lot more there but the cloud as you say we've you've done really well not to use the word ecosystem and I'm going to do it again but that idea of the Synology uh TurnKey ecosystem to get a solution that can then expand out is fantastic then C2 was a big gap but I mean again a little look behind the curtain here but prior to this video we didn't discuss the points that we were going to make but we both kind of discussed one element which I'd love to talk about where is the Synology switch why isn't there a Synology switch why why why why um um I mean I'd love to hear your thoughts on that one because kidnap have obviously taken the switch route and I have a run with now don't get me wrong there are users that are going to look at qnap's security record over the last few years and go not sure about that but still nonetheless they I think they've got something like 25 it might even be like 30 45 switches they've got 100 Gig switches manager they've even got dual purpose and switches that are Nazis and switches rolled into one with separate psus separate entry points separate power up power down and Synology many many years ago rolled out the sg-1000 which by the way is also the name of an old Sega console I'm a hoot at parties and the sg-1000 they rolled out it had um was it what did they call the software it even had its own software which eventually became SRM but that was a network Gateway device more than a switch but why have they never rolled out a switch I mean don't get me wrong I've chuffed about the cameras I'm a bit me about the storage hard drives but where are the switches man yeah I've again can't argue with that uh don't know the answer to that the right question I've never actually questioned it but uh back in 2016 when uh RT 1900 AC came out I was like so we're going to network right and I've actually thought that the Synology is gonna uh maybe not that year but following up with 2600r and 2200 models that they will eventually uh push out at least some switches but obviously that didn't happen and uh by the looks of it it's not going to happen I I think that qnip is way ahead in that department you can't argue with that they've even started with completely new Solutions uh switches combined as a in into NASA's and all that so uh yeah I think that Synology just decided to go a different route maybe Synology is going to come out with some new Hardware that we haven't seen so far maybe some new categories I don't know but I'm not really certain that the network is going to be one of them so strange isn't it when you think about that whole I mean right to go as far as cameras hard drives and ssds it's and routers it's the most glaringly obvious component which again if they released this year great but if not why not um but yes moving slightly forward um I've got two points left to discuss um so which would you rather discuss do you want to talk about something software related or talk about something Hardware related Ollie you deciding if you pick the wrong one they will let you know in the comments um Hardware let's rip the Band-Aid off all right then um SSD support on qnap it's so in for the most part vastly Superior on the qnap platform over Synology that it's not even funny now I could start light and just you know soften things up and just talk about storage pools um I mean again we do like that I was going to bring this up earlier on I do like this devices 723 I think again it's placed in the market as disgust has changed and much like the 923 it's the second Nas to roll out m2mvme support at pcie three times one bottleneck um which I still am quite perplexed by and yes maybe it is a temperature thing and they're throttling those because of the performance there and you know the way the chassis has been designed it's not been you know there are lots of you know I can see the reasoning behind that but then being three times four and capping that's 3.1 and only giving storage balls on those devices and not the Myriad of releases for the last three years that have got into nvme slots some of which are three times four I believe the unit just up there um I think that's 1621 uh 1621 and above it the fifth uh 1522 as well both of those have got M2 slots both of them are PCO gen 3 and neither one of them have M2 mvme support there um and then on top of that on the qnap platform not only have you got SSD caching for read and write caching you can do read-only caching and write only caching you can set the i o levels manually to on the caching on a qnap as well to be far more beneficial to larger sequential i o than just standard small class 4K io on top of that you've got Q tier which merges the hard drives and ssds into a single volume not volume pool sorry and then within that pool rather than caching copying data it actually intelligently learns the more frequently accessed data and physically moves it onto the SSD portions within that array then on top of that you have um u.2 SSD um flash system from qnap that are kind of insanely Xeon powered and epyc powered um whereas synology's flash station is SATA is it a SAS or just SATA because they've not rolled out a synonym they have SAS as well but you'd have to use third-party drives to take advantage of that with something which Synology or you know I'm not going to say they're blanketly saying you can't use third-party drives but the support and compatibility there it is presenting that to a lot of users um then you've got pcie Gen 4 SSD support as well so you look at um a PCI gen3 SSD you're looking at three to three thousand three hundred Megs pcie Gen 4 you're looking at seven to seven thousand four hundred Megs per single SSD there just the SSD support is phenomenal and it even improves once you move on to the ZFS platform but more on that later on obviously ZFS is going to poke his little head up but just I'm just really surprised that Synology particularly as a brand that has its own range of ssds out there arguably more designed towards caching than storage use um arguably a little bit more so on the SAT 5 2 and 5210 but yeah the SSD support and the broadness of SSE support and the Synology platform it's just not as good I find I'm just going not as good I mean well we're both obviously seeing the 23 year and Beyond event and uh Synology is uh obviously rolling out there scale out uh platform which is which was uh really impressive when you look at the numbers and it's definitely pointing up stuff I probably won't even touch or see ever but uh yeah when we when we shrink down to four bay five base six base you know the the uh acceptable price range devices uh there's no arguing uh queuing up again winning by a mile here um also uh fresh off my testing the 723 and 923 when it comes to ssds or nvme uh in a combination with 10g it was obvious that the throttling that they're doing on the nvme drives was look we just needed to copy one gigabyte a second because there's 10g and that's it so there's no need actually I'm kind of Defending it but if if you think about it there's really no room because 10g is going to be the 12 point right so there's no real reason for those drives to go any faster when it in terms of network trying transfer but local local transfer that's a whole different what I was going to say before someone in the comments jumps up and goes nuts and continue um there is of course the argument if you're running particularly complex databases Where iops are King if you're running a virtual machine locally if you wanted to run certain applications at their very best while dealing with the warm or cold storage or the archival of the hard drives there's a tremendous benefit to those ssds and having them capped at a thousand then if you already had a four oh it's be generous there six or an eight Bay with hard drives even mid-range to Pro you could reach a thousand Megs anyway on those drives so the idea that you've got ssds that are only matching that of the Bayes in say a five or six Bay there that is going to be throttling I think would be noticed internally you're right externally on a device particularly given you know it is a two base so the very idea that you were going to saturate a 10g ball is already quite comedic anyway but you know yeah so they wouldn't need those m2s to exceed that in that capacity but with regards to internal performance I think there's an enormous argument yeah yeah definitely I agree I mean um I mean uh virtualization from my end is RS units or above all of these DS units that's just my personal opinion all of these DS units yeah they can do it but you're basically buying an expensive box for let's say one or two VMS and that's just not it doesn't feel right so when it comes to uh virtualization it's Synology as a as a storage unit connected via 10g towards a hypervisor that's how I see it and uh and uh yes maybe that was the reason why they were throttling because look they're maybe going to be using maximum of 10g there's no reason to go above that and and on the other end catering to people that actually wanted a usable volume storage obviously that comes again with a steep price tag of the Synology nvme drives at the moment so yeah I was going to say with with the M2 and VMAs like um with VMS I think one of my again this is my fault not only you know I can't really put the blame on anything else whenever I say VMS I'm so old school in my time in network storage and traditional storage in this way whenever I say VM I should really caveat I am talking containers I'm talking every kind of virtual sandbox kind of bucket uh process if you know what I mean and I think there's a lot of people that would have used containers because then you can almost fractionalize the hardware resources in a way that if you use standard VM I'm going to assign some virtual threads um but yeah sorry I just wanted to disclaim what I said there because I think I used the word VM there when I shouldn't really it's no no I'm a little bit more uh when you say VM I'm actually focusing on a virtual machine when you say containers are micro Services I'm actually focusing on the other end so when I say VM I'm actually thinking about a proper level two uh you know VM so yeah I was going to say which um this actually leads quite neatly uh into something you know I've just remembered a couple of some other things I've done not talked about um one of which I'm going to Sky over very very quickly uh this one just to slide it in there and I'm sure in the little time bar on the bottom of YouTube there um this is going on but uh when it comes to support third-party software Synology I would argue because of it's that priority towards I'm going to say it again site with me kids ecosystem um but because of that single TurnKey single ecosystem design I often feel like they are purposefully not supporting some third-party software and platforms and probably there's lots of micro instances which one could argue all the amount of time and energy and resources it would go into creating support of a lesser used software platform is being taken away from from useful stuff I get it there is counter arguments but the fact that hybrid share only supports Synology C2 platform to me is an obvious move where they could have supported so many bucket object blob storage call it what you want they could have and they chose not to qnap does allow that with hybrid Mount along with a kind of reverse version of hybrid Mount called vjbod which then takes storage from nice to allow that to be bolted onto something else in a reverse move but it's the idea that you can't bolt on storage in that way other than C2 from Synology it's a clear move and the same thing goes um with VMS they clearly support VMware they clearly support like hyper-v and stuff like that because they are the market leaders of saas um platforms and hypervisor publicly used platforms there but even when you look at Italian things they're very keen on like pushing their stuff first which is their right it is their platform but when you go to the qnap alternative their virtualization station not only have they got their own container station Standalone app not reusing Docker but you've got Linux station to deploy your VM in three clicks on any qnap Nas with an x86 processor and on their virtualization station platform there's a VM Marketplace so if you want a Windows 10 or dare I say it at the windows 11 VM you just go to the top click and it downloads a VM reader Rock go to the Via Marketplace there's zabix there's PF sense there's the works there's all the different like it's that qnap may be arguably stretching themselves a little bit too thin given the budget to the software development but the ability to be able to support a lot more third-party platforms and integrate them to their detriment it has to be said I'm sure you're about to say from time to time is something I think that is at least worthy of note if not worthy of Praise from everyone I quite like that about the platform yeah I'm I'm actually glad you uh you mentioned that because uh when you when you compare um obviously again or just tracking back a little bit it's the knowledge of this skiing up on our software side element um Synology is slightly winning if we can just yeah yeah yeah overall yeah yeah so qnap um has to have a um a way to counter that uh one-way Hardware uh and the other way anywhere they can and a single click solution through virtualization to deploy zabix why not I mean that's definitely something that uh maybe it's uh pooling users from unraid as well because raid also has that sort of package on uh and uh app store for for solutions that qnup is also involving uh rolling out and so yeah I definitely see it and I understand why Synology is now pushing into that yeah and just going back a little bit on third-party support yes they've a couple of years ago they started cleaning house and that um the reason why I see it I'm I'm not 100 sure this is just my opinion the reason why I see it is because they wanted to develop uh devote the r d time into their proprietary uh OS of course security and whatnot and they just want to clean everything out leave Docker support as is and basically let people know look we don't want them metal third-party applications you're going to sandbox them as microservices into Docker or into virtual station and that's it and for me from somebody who's in it Ops in it operations system engineer on on on that level um I like it personally I like that I've I've never actually even back in a day like a decade ago I was never into slip streaming something that's not really recommended you know when it comes to certain applications yes maybe a command line here and there sure but I've definitely like that that TurnKey solution again in their ecosystem is obviously a priority and they just want to Shield themselves from anything they can and apps are obviously a source of huge number of problems like what opens the door yeah yeah you always get you get the impression sometimes when you install third-party apps like the changes to Plex Media Server I know this is a basic home user concern but when they change the way Plex is installed and people like what are they doing and then you know fair play to Synology there they were Towing Their Own Line they were sticking by their guns and their principles on that so as annoying as it was for people it would have been so easy for them to go well we'll give an exception to that one little like punching holes in my firewall so no fair play to them but it's there is no denying that third-party support from within the application center is more of a priority on qnap than it is on Synology but again to their detriment some in some cases I mean again if what I'm about to talk about one of the other uh my last Point here um and of course it's something we should have touched on already really for a lot of people that have looked at qnap and that is ZFS because zettabyte file system on qnet was quite the coup when that was right first rolled out anyone that ever really wanted to use Oedipus I think we can all say it together through Nas or three Nas or the big shark or whatever you want to call it and them including uh JFS opened up a lot of features and services to the brand and they're still really exploring ZFS arguably this is something we've seen before the brand rolling stuff out and maybe could have spent a little bit more time in the oven frankly but ZFS with inline data deduplication inline data compression compaction particularly important when it comes to ssds as well and durability something from earlier on resilvering um you know Limitless volumes by comparison obviously this is prior to the petabyte volume that we discussed but just I always wonder why Synology would not Embrace ZFS it was always a strange one this isn't really a comparative point but it was with ZFS being the Enterprise darling I always find it quite strange that they're sticking with btrfs and eft4 at the Enterprise platform because they have made conscious choices previously when it comes to prioritizing Enterprise users Outlook I mean the classic example I've talked about before and I'm sure the you know the eight or nine of you that are still awake listening to this you're my guys but when Synology hybrid raid first rolled out and people were like beautiful because the ability to mix and match Drive the ease of expandability the ease of introducing newer drives something that which as far as the video I did yesterday on qnap I still don't have a clear answer about you know reintroducing larger drives into an old raid and what happens if you replace all the drives with shr I know the answer and it's great but they don't include this HR on the more premium systems they access above and when I ask analogy about this Dave said because as Enterprise level users want the traditional performance levels and traditional response times and uh redundancy array that is traditional right there so they clearly looked at the market there and gone well shr is not going for those guys because they don't want it but those guys want ZFS so it's really strange to me that Synology have not ever considered or they've presumably considered by closed doors but never rolled out a ZFS version yeah I think that I think they've uh they definitely look I mean an excellent point on shr and zff um I think they looked at it and they said if we open this box we have to do all of these changes to the DSM DSM version for UC controllers as well that's a a separate course yeah as well so maybe the choice was let's not touch that let's leave that to True Nas freeness and whatnot and maybe maybe the reason why qnap is pushing there is not actually countering Synology on one end but it's actually drawing people from unraid and from True scale freeness and whatnot back to that platform telling them look we have the hardware which is obviously as an appliance better than Synology and we're offering you ZFS right so I think that uh all in all um Synology probably made a conscious choice not to pursue it even though Enterprise elements and scale out Solutions are coming out but maybe they just said better not to touch it because it's going to be more trouble than it is or it's going to open a whole whole division yeah I mean we're talking about um the qnap position a lot of stuff to do with third-party hardware and third-party software I think it would be fair to say I mean you've talked about it in some of your reviews before that a lot of the time um our Hardware is supplied by the brands themselves and they make it abundantly clear we can say or do it the hell we want which is great um I don't know about you but I never have to send approval or any kind of Link in advance it's just publish do what the hell you want but when it comes to qnap they they have the same policy but I did some videos a while ago showing users how to put true Nas on a qnap you could use a qnap that's got like a Celeron Processor 8 16 gig of memory and you could put true Nas on it true NASCAR and true now's scale which was very appealing to people that liked the sound of ZFS and like the sound of Drew now's but don't like the idea it's not as user friendly and doesn't have the GUI and all the kind of apps and services and they didn't want to build a PC with eight different kinds of warranty so what they wanted was one solution one warranty TurnKey but they wanted true Nas and so I made the video off the basis of that Shang uses how to put true hands on it now when I made those videos one would assume that the brand that supplied that Hardware would have come knocking at my door and going just what the hell do you bloody think you're doing because they might wonder you know that is almost if not diluting their brand and it is actually moving people away from their software and services uh licensing and stuff like that something there is too much of on qnap as well I should have added that but at the same time they did nothing and I think some of that content actually got shared on qnet platforms which was surprisingly nice dad for them to not basically be so counter to this idea now one could argue if you want to be cynical they're going they just care about boxes going out the door you know there is that counter argument but at the same time they're not being opposed to people using the hardware in that way because it didn't invalidate the warranty from what I could see because you were using an external drive you were going in Via bios it was fine but it was just I really I'm only bringing it up simply because of that kind of open-ended nature to third-party software that I'm seeing more and more on that qnap platform there again occasionally to their detriment and with Synology Towing Their Own Line and being quite um um Courageous one might argue that it would be so easy for them to you know get change small parts of their infrastructure to gain a quick buck and they're choosing not to do that there's pros and cons on either side but I mean if we if we were to conclude this video right now if a user has watched this video all the way through use a you eight guys yeah if you've got all the way to the end and you are still on the fence if you were to say to someone right now a few just a handful of bullet points why they should choose a Synology over a qnap what would you say security stability TurnKey solution C2 cloud and overall just a better source of applications and platforms obviously active backup as a selling point just just that that alone let alone for foreign end user so yeah those those will be my bullet bullet points yeah and from my side it would be obviously Hardware there at the top um better third-party support there just generally better value for money overall customization and just generally more scope and more open-ended nature and what you can do with the device and scalability but this has been a big big debate about Synology versus Q now we may do another one of these videos if you feel like there's a point that either one of us missed and I'm sure there's stuff that you guys might want to disagree with and put it in the comments below but let us know but thank you so much for joining us today uh Rusty again links to Blackboard and his reviews of the 73 and the 93 are below I strongly recommend checking out that 723 review um and it power it is better than mine I'm happy to say that no no I will happily normally do lots of videos on a subject but you've done one review that is as far as I'm concerned the categorical be-all end-all review of the 723 so if you have if you are considering that as do check it out don't worry I'm not blind smoke because they can go to mine my Link's gonna be above yours don't you sweat it um thank you so much for watching everyone have yourself a great week uh click like if you enjoyed the video it really helps click subscribe if you want to learn more uh and free advice section everyone else Compares big blue button on the right the free community support Forum on arsenas Compares and check out Sinnoh Forum as well for all your Synology support needs and of course if you want to help me out there are links below to products that we may have discussed again if this video helped would helped you if you will go to those sites anyway make sure those two things are true use those links it results in a kickback on whatever you buy coming back here to NC which allows me to continue doing what I do thank you so much for watching uh see you later Luca and we'll catch you guys next time so real quick guys throughout this video uh we're just recording this after the video recording you may Notice Me drinking out of cups and stuff on the side I jogged here to work today because you know it's January and I'm one of those basic and and right now I'm so dehydrated it's unreal so throughout that video I apologize for just how much water I drink throughout the course of this video guys let's roll that start

Channel: NASCompares

Views: 15,844

Keywords: NAS Server, NAS Drive, NAS Guide, Synology NAS, QNAP NAS, SYNOLOGY DSM, QNAP QTS, QNAP vs Synology, Synology vs QNAP, Synology or QNAP NAS, Synology Rackstation, Synology 2021, QNAP 2021, Synology compare, QNAP Compare, NAS drive review, Synology QNAP, Synology 2023, Synology 2024, Synology NAS 2023, SYNOLOGY, QNAP, QNAP 2023, QNAP NAS 2023, QNAP vs Synology 2023, Synology vs QNAP 2023, DSM vs QTS, DSM vs QuTS, EXT4 vs ZFS, BTRFS vs ZFS, NAS comparison

Id: sMyny_M43eY

Length: 65min 59sec (3959 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 21 2023