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Synology DS414

danielwerner

danielwerner

macrumors regular
Original poster
Oct 27, 2012
153
0
Stockholm, Sweden
Okay, after much thought about what kind of storage solution to get, I think I'm finally sure. I want a Synology DS414. What I understand this is a pretty popular NAS for Mac users, so I have a few questions.

1. Is it QUIET? I will have it in my living room so it needs to be veeeeeeeery quiet, like 1 or 2 on a 10 point scale of audibility.

2. If I enable the mac file service (http://www.synology.com/en-global/support/tutorials/563) can I drag and drop files to the NAS, from my Macbook pro over wifi? And can I just playback video files directly from finder, just like with an directly connected USB-disk?

3. How does the time machine work? Do I need to use the native NAS time machine (how is that performing btw?) or can I use my NAS as a storage medium and have my Mac mini (which will be connected via USB 3 or ethernet if that works) do the backing up?

4. Any other tips regarding this device?

5. If I have four disks, can I have "dual Raid 1"? I mean D2 mirror D1 and D4 mirror D3, separately?

BONUS (DUMB) QUESTION: Can I have the NAS inside a cupboard (roughly double the size of the NAS) or would that be suicide heat-wise?
 
Last edited:
NAS are typically not the most quiet devices in the world, though I don't own a Synology but a Qnap.

If the NAS is connected to your router, then once you connect to it via the Finder you can drag and drop

Once you enable the TM services on the NAS, all you need to do is point TM to the NAS
 
danielwerner said:
Yeah, I've heard that, but apparantly the Synology is dead quiet (or almost so), according to reviews. Any owners here who can confirm?
Click to expand...

The only concern I'd have with dead quiet NAS units are how efficient do they manage the heat from the drives? My Qnap is not horrifically loud but its not quiet, but the I'm happy with the thermal management. Ive read reviews that it keeps the drive temperatures nice a cool.
 
My thoughts below:

1. Is it QUIET? I will have it in my living room so it needs to be veeeeeeeery quiet, like 1 or 2 on a 10 point scale of audibility.

I have a DS413 - I used to keep it in my living room. From my couch, I couldn't hear it over the ambient noise. On my desk now, it is audible but I'm sitting 3 ft from it.

2. If I enable the mac file service (http://www.synology.com/en-global/support/tutorials/563) can I drag and drop files to the NAS, from my Macbook pro over wifi? And can I just playback video files directly from finder, just like with an directly connected USB-disk?

Yes to all of the above. Drag/drop into finder can be a little cumbersome in that you have to navigate the folder tree to get to precisely where you want (eg click on DiskStation under "Shared" in finder, go from there). The workaround is to save the folder path as a favorite in the cmd-K menu (eg 192.168.0.x/iTunes/iTunes Media/Movies). You can use the same path to create an automator action or service. The former can be run from your mac upon booting (system prefs -> users & groups -> login items, then add your custom automator app); the latter can be assigned a keyboard shortcut. Practically speaking, I have both set up so that upon booting my iTunes, Documents, Photos, and other shares automatically mount on startup and can be mounted/ejected with a keyboard shortcut.

3. How does the time machine work? Do I need to use the native NAS time machine (how is that performing btw?) or can I use my NAS as a storage medium and have my Mac mini (which will be connected via USB 3 or ethernet if that works) do the backing up?

You can run the native OS X time machine app with the NAS as the destination drive. Others have pointed out that the implementation is not flawless, with occasional corruption of the sparsebundle file necessitating a fresh backup. In 1 yr of owning my NAS, this has happened to me once. I have successfully restored both my OS and individual files from my NAS without issues otherwise (and FYI, I have a USB drive attached to my Mini for TM backups as well, to be safe)

4. Any other tips regarding this device?

There are many potentially useful applications to explore - too many to summarize here.

5. If I have four disks, can I have "dual Raid 1"? I mean D2 mirror D1 and D4 mirror D3, separately?

BONUS (DUMB) QUESTION: Can I have the NAS inside a cupboard (roughly double the size of the NAS) or would that be suicide heat-wise?[/QUOTE]

Don't know - haven't tried.
 
Place thermal sensors on each drive, place another 2 on the front case, and another 2 on the rear case, hook it up to a thermal reader and see what the temperatures are at with your drives. If you feel that too quiet of a NAS is bad, then you can determine it by monitoring the drive and case temperature.

Mine is quiet, but the fans do run on both the front and back of the case I have. The drives stay on the warmer side but never above what WD says they can handle.
 
I do not have the same unit, but a DS411+. My comments may not apply, but I think more information would not hurt.

My unit is not "veeeeeeeery quiet", but I run it in "cool mode". You can change this setting in DSM and the fans will not run as much. Four disks generate a lot of heat. I have 2TB Hitachis (old), but newer WDs may run cooler.

BONUS (DUMB) QUESTION: Can I have the NAS inside a cupboard (roughly double the size of the NAS) or would that be suicide heat-wise?

I used to have the unit inside a cabinet. I did not pay much attention then, but one of the fans was failing (I notifications stating something like "Fan 1 stopped", "Fan 1 resumed"). Eventually, one of the disks got corrupted and had to replace the fan. I know better now and pay attention.

I think the unit can "live" inside a cupboard, but I would do some checking first.
1. Monitor IDLE temperature where you have it know.
2. Do a large file transfer, and monitor the temperature again.
3. Put the unit inside the cupboard and repeat 1 and 2.

If there is a noticeable temperature difference, you may want to change the fan setting, or re-consider placing the unit in there. In any case, I would add some sort of ventilation to the cupboard. Stagnant air is good insulator and may promote higher temperatures.

For your reference, my unit runs idle between 46-50C. During large file transfers (several GBs), temperature may rise 5-10 degrees.
I also have a DS212+, and it runs idle at about 33-36C.
 
I have two Synology NAS drives. I have one DS212J and one DS112J. Both are dead quiet, or at least quieter than all the other devices in the room. The 112 is in an upstairs bedroom so I can testify that it is dead quiet.

RAID? No. Thank. You. That's why I have two Synology NAS drives. I have on mirror the other and if they both die on the same day then shame on me. My 212J only has one drive in it. My 112J only holds one drive.

Some things to consider:
I purposely bought the lowest power consumption, quietest NAS drives available. This means they are ARM based. Yes I can run Plex but yes it runs s l o w. Yes I can run Apache, PHP, mysql, wordpress, etc but again for me quiet and low power consumption is more important than speed or the ability to run x86 Linux binaries. If you want Intel based Synology drive, you will have to spring for the + series and your power consumption and noise will increase accordingly.

hope this helps...
 
1. I have a DS214play. It's fairly quiet but I notice it, especially the hard drives as they seek. The DS5 software which came out this week now supports Trim for SSDs so you could fill the thing with SSDs and it would be very quiet.

2. yes

3. TM works great, had some hiccups when Apple changed the protocol but Synology was one of the first to have a fix ready. It backs up and can restore multiple Macs easily.

4. The DS414 is nice but you still need to back it up externally. RAID is not a backup. What do you plan to use it for? Unless you're running a small business it's overkill and you need a managed switch plus Mac Pros (dual GigE) to get link aggregated LAN speeds.

5. Synology's hybrid RAID is fine. Did I mention RAID is not a backup, just in case I'll mention it. RAID is not a backup (somehow this confuses people).

If you're just going to pack it full of media then consider a DS214play (designed for media serving) with a pair of NAS HDDs (the 4TB WD Red or Seagate are nice). Don't bother with RAID, do bother with compressing your movies to H.264 using Handbrake and you can fit an awful lot on 4TB.

Set one drive as boot with everything but movies on it and the other movies. Backup to external USB3 or eSATA drive(s) is better than no backup and the Synology can do this on a schedule. If you can afford offsite backup such as Amazon's S3 even better.

One of the new features in 5 is CloudSync, this is very handy for having an automatic offsite backup to Dropbox, Google Drive or Baidu.

Cupboard is fine as long as it has space around it for airflow. It has temperature monitors so you can check if it's overheating.
 
Thanks alot for your great responses! :)

I thought RAID was a backup but after googling some more I see that it's really not. Instead I'll go ahead and do a scheduled sync with rsync or if the Synology has a built in alternative, from one disk to another. And then sometimes do a sync to an external drive for the most important stuff.

A question though: If I plan on streaming 1080p-video (mostly on h.264 so no enormous file sizes) wirelessly, is the NAS enough to do this fast or can I connect the NAS to my Mac Mini (right now I have an external USB3-drive directly connected, it streams fine)?
 
Hmm... I read now that the DS214play have HSF+ support and some better hardware. Would it be better, for a fast video NAS, to have a DS214play and later perhaps buy another one, rather than one DS414? Power consumption doesn't matter that much.
 
Okay, now I have my eyes on the DS412+, since that has an intel processor (needed for HFS+ support). That's pretty important for me since I want to backup to external disks sometimes.

But... The 412+ is a couple of years old. Is it a bad deal to buy it now? DS414play is coming out soon...
 
I just bought a 214play last week to pair with a 4TB WD Red and I couldn't be happier. I know you're looking at the 414 but regarding the 214...

1. It's quiet enough that I don't here it. I have mine in the living room in an entertainment stand with a door and mesh cover so it's a good distance away from my couch in the living room.

2. I played around with using both AFP and SMB to transfer files from my rMBP through finder. AFP was the better of the two. If you can, try to have a wired connection instead of wifi. I was getting 977mbps transferring a 3gb file from my MBP to my 214play.

3. Haven't used Time Machine so can't comment there.

4. I know it's been mentioned before, but I chose the 214play specifically for its media server capabilities which is a huge deal for me. Previously, I was running an air video server which required using my MBP. Not really a big deal but it was annoying having to log in and dealing with video cutting out before it went to sleep. Now everything plays straight from the NAS to my AppleTV without needing a laptop. The only hiccup I've had so far is the 214 won't play any file using DTS audio.

5. Can't answer that either. I'm only running 1 drive for now. Will plan on getting another 4TB HD when I can.
 
danielwerner said:
Okay, now I have my eyes on the DS412+, since that has an intel processor (needed for HFS+ support). That's pretty important for me since I want to backup to external disks sometimes.

But... The 412+ is a couple of years old. Is it a bad deal to buy it now? DS414play is coming out soon...
Click to expand...

Why do you think you need an intel processor for HFS+ support? My Qnap is running an ARM processor (and formatted to ext-4) and I have full AFP and Time Machine support.
 
I have a Synology DS412+ and I have to say that is is exceptionally quiet. I have it on my desk, not tucked away in the corner of a room and I have to put my ear right next to it to hear it - just make sure you buy quiet drives too.

In contrast to this I have a Promise Pegasus 2 and a Drobo Mini. The Pegasus is noticeable because I'm around 2 feet away from it, but it's not terrible. The fact that the Drobo mini is in a drawer speaks for itself.

Over the 6 months or so I've had the DS412+ I have found it to be an excellent NAS. I can stream movies to a PS 3, use it for TimeMachine backups and as a general dumping ground for 'stuff'. It's fast, quiet and (hoping I don't jinx it) has been reliable. Given that the price I couldn't think of a better 4-bay NAS. I had a similar QNAP but found it kept dropping disks and wasn't as quiet as the Synology.
 
maflynn said:
The only concern I'd have with dead quiet NAS units are how efficient do they manage the heat from the drives? My Qnap is not horrifically loud but its not quiet, but the I'm happy with the thermal management. Ive read reviews that it keeps the drive temperatures nice a cool.
Click to expand...

Noise to ventilation depends on various factors. Noise level generally have some correlation with cooling, but there are exceptions.

For example, the new Mac Pro is very quiet.
 
maflynn said:
Why do you think you need an intel processor for HFS+ support? My Qnap is running an ARM processor (and formatted to ext-4) and I have full AFP and Time Machine support.
Click to expand...

I agree. The only reason I'd bother with an Intel based NAS is if I wanted to be able to run x86 Linux binaries on the thing. I'm very happy with the 6 watts standby, 18 watts peak of my Synology DS112J.
 
Synology NAS Experiences

I have a Synology DS212+ and I'm going to upgrade to a Synology DS414 at the beginning of May. I've been using the DS212+ for the last 2 years without any issues whatsoever.

1. Is it QUIET? I will have it in my living room so it needs to be veeeeeeeery quiet, like 1 or 2 on a 10 point scale of audibility.

A: Yes. It's very quiet. There are two fan speeds: quiet and cool. I keep the fan setting on "quiet." The disk temperatures are almost always 97˚F. In my living room where the device is located, we don't hear the device at all.

2. If I enable the mac file service (http://www.synology.com/en-global/support/tutorials/563) can I drag and drop files to the NAS, from my Macbook pro over wifi? And can I just playback video files directly from finder, just like with an directly connected USB-disk?

A. We have the Apple File Protocol (AFP) enabled, which includes the ability to use Time Machine over the LAN. My MacBook Pro is exclusively Wi-Fi while my iMac is wired. I use the DS212+ for DVDRipper and MakeMKV destination files. I also use Handbrake from the NAS. The only time there's a noticeable difference is copying very large files to/from the NAS over Wi-Fi. In those circumstances, I prefer being wired, not Wi-Fi.

I use the NAS for all my internet downloads as well as Synology CloudStation (the same functionality as DropBox, but from Synology). I have taken shared directories from the NAS and included it on the left-hand side of Finder for easier accessing. The MAC makes using it a seamless experience. It acts just like a local disk or a locally-attached drive.

We have located our iTunes libraries in our Home directory on the NAS. In addition, we enabled the Media Server to allow PnP applications such as VLC on any laptop and 8Player on the iPhone/iPad. Viewing our movies is a painless experience.

We also placed our iPhoto library on the NAS without issue.


3. How does the time machine work? Do I need to use the native NAS time machine (how is that performing btw?) or can I use my NAS as a storage medium and have my Mac mini (which will be connected via USB 3 or ethernet if that works) do the backing up?

A. I have setup the HDDs to power down after 10 minutes of inactivity (the shortest duration), but due to CloudStation over the internet, that it's hosting a download server for a business, and hosting our personal iTunes libraries in our Home directories, the drives never power down.

When you enable the Apple File Protocol (AFP), there is an additional option to enable a specific shared folder for Time Machine. Without that, the Time Machine backs up to the user's HOME folder. For the wired iMac, we have the Time Machine set to the NAS, but for my MacBook Pro, I use a local FireWire 3TB HDD (mirrored). Keep in mind that the first Time Machine backup on the NAS takes a LONG time, but subsequent backups are not noticeable.

4. Any other tips regarding this device?

A. I have the DS212+ setup in mirroring mode. Upgrading a the storage is a multi-step process and much easier than I thought: (1) power down the NAS; (2) Replace one hard drive with the larger space; (3) Power up the NAS and wait for the mirrored volume to rebuild; (4) When the rebuild is complete, power down the NAS, replace the other drive with the larger storage, and power up the NAS; (5) Wait for the mirrored volume to rebuild; and You're DONE! That's how I upgraded from 2TB storage to 3TB storage.

5. If I have four disks, can I have "dual Raid 1"? I mean D2 mirror D1 and D4 mirror D3, separately?

A. One of the reasons that I'm moving to a 4-drive NAS is to double my storage capacity from 3TB to 6TB but also to increase read/write response times and enhance my fail-over position. I'm going to setup a RAID 1+0, that is 2 mirrored sets of HDDs (Volume 1 will have 2x3TB HDDs and Volume 2 will have 2x3TB HDDs). Then, I will setup striping between the two volumes, which will enhance the read/write performance. It will then be possible to lose up to 1 drive in each volume without impacting performance in the slightest.

The other reason I'm moving to a 4-drive NAS is because there is more RAM for caching and 2x1GB Ethernet ports. Using port bonding, this will double the theoretical network capacity of the NAS to 2GB.

BONUS (DUMB) QUESTION: Can I have the NAS inside a cupboard (roughly double the size of the NAS) or would that be suicide heat-wise?

A. The HDDs have a temperature sensitivity and much receive adequate ventilation or they will fail. If you put the unit in a cupboard, the cupboard itself must be adequately ventilated to exhaust the heat. Otherwise, plan on a NAS or HDD failure.
 
Also looking for new NAS

Hi All,

Not wanting to hijack this thread but similar to previous question from original poster, what are the real work application between the following technology (have shifted from Windows to Mac some time ago)

DS414 HFS+ (Read Only, with max. volume size 2TB)
DS412+ HFS+

Currrently have 4x 2TB drives currently all formatted as HFS+ drives
Originally there are 2 drives with music video and movies saved with a second manual backup of each. i.e. 4 drives

2x 2TB WD Black
1x 2TB SGate Barracude
1x 2TB Hitachi

Recently had nasty experienced with Vantec unitHX4r enclosure with drives as JBOD attached to Airport Extreme base station. turns out 3/4 drives suddenly unreadable having only just gotten around to sorting most of my media out. :(

Keen to avoid the same thing again.
Will I have to reformat the drives in order to write to them rather than maintain HFS+ ??


​
Also just as side point from previous post wonder what the visual impact between 214play and 414 considering they are both supposed to support DLNA? (For movies etc)

Sorry everybody - not super savvy when it comes to IT so a simple everyday explanation would be easier for me take on board.

look forward to hear experiences or opinions
Thanks everyone/anyone :)
 

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danielwerner said:
Thanks alot for your great responses! :)

I thought RAID was a backup but after googling some more I see that it's really not. Instead I'll go ahead and do a scheduled sync with rsync or if the Synology has a built in alternative, from one disk to another. And then sometimes do a sync to an external drive for the most important stuff.

A question though: If I plan on streaming 1080p-video (mostly on h.264 so no enormous file sizes) wirelessly, is the NAS enough to do this fast or can I connect the NAS to my Mac Mini (right now I have an external USB3-drive directly connected, it streams fine)?
Click to expand...

H.264 really has little to do with ease of streaming. More depends on your WiFi network set up and sustained maximum data flow. Under some circumstances, I have used WiFi with 20 plus gig files with the caveat that the "receiver" of the data was able to buffer/cache so no issues. I also have seen WiFi that had trouble with lower bitrate files that were also smaller. Again, it has more to do with your WiFi set up and any inherent challenges (walls, interference, poorly "tuned" channel set up etc.).
 
I have a 412+ and it's very quiet. I have it in my bedroom. It never bothered my sleep.

I have 4 4TB WD Red in it running RAID-5 and backing up important data to a USB3 drive. It gives me 11TB of storage with the setup. The disks are 29C-32C when idle, not sure when under load.

Able to access the NAS when I'm on the go is great and it works great with time machine.
 
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