What NAS spec do I need?

[Twill]

I'm looking to buy a NAS, and trying to work out what my basic minimum spec should be.

The QNAP I'm looking at has a 1.2 processor & 256MB of RAM.

I'm a basic home user, not a power user, and I really just want to stream music to several different devices, as well as do some basic central file storage. Do you think this would be enough?

I know the Synology DSx12J range was very popular around here, and that's got a slower processor & half the RAM, so I'm thinking the spec in the TS112 might be enough, even though it's end of life compared to the TS119Pii. The TS119Pii is a bit more than I wanted to spend though.

I did read in a review of Synology 212J that it's CPU wasn't fast enough to transcode to WAV on the fly, but I'm not sure when I'd want to use this feature, or if the QNAP TS-112 might be that bit faster, and up to the task anyway.

I'm planning to store my music library as ALAC, and stream using either Airplay, or to ALAC-compatible network streamers. Probably only max 2 streams in the house at once.

I may also want to access some music using my iPhone and the QMobile app, but I'm not sure if that app supports ALAC.

Anyway, apologies for long question.

Do you think the spec of the TS112, basic as it is, will be enough?

Cheers.

 

[bigboss]

If you're choosing between Synology & QNAP, you won't find either slow for home use. Both are perfectly suitable.

I'm sure AnotherJoe will come along explaining the virtues of more expensive NAS drives. Just weigh that with actual use vs cost.

 

[hammill]

I have a 412 (same CPU and memory I believe) and am very happy so far. I am using it to backup all the family computers, run squeezeserver and the photoserver software included allows anyone to view my photo collection from the internet. It was simple to configure.

 

[Andrew Everard]

I'm running a 412, too – as you can read here...

 

[Twill]

Thanks all. Have gone for the TS-112, we'll see if it's got enough grunt.