I’m looking to upgrade my Synology DS215J running Asset. In the 2-bay NAS range Synology currently has 4 options the DS223J, DS223, DS224+ and the DS723+. The J option is the cheapest and there’s really only a RAM difference (1Gb vs 2Gb, same processor) to the DS223, so the ‘Plus’ option would really be the next step.
I’m wondering if the various models have any distinct difference in the final sound quality through a streamer? Has any one moved between different levels in the range, and if so what was your experience?
The question applies to other brands as well, QNAP being the most obvious other option. But it’s Synology I’m familiar with.
As a NAS these are transparent in terms of SQ… kind of akin of which shelf you store your CDs on. If the NAS has a UPnP / DLNA server built in, then on the first gen streamers from Naim there were subtle differences between media servers. With the later streamers, many aspects of this were re designed and engineered and now even this has no bearing.
Just be mindful of common mode noise… and if your NAS is not earthed, try and ensure on the network path it goes via an earthed switch, this allows leakage current to Earth at that point, rather than pass through to the streamer.
I have the previous model, the Synology DS224 running Asset and looked into “upgrading”. For streaming music I came to the conclusion that more expensive models give you nothing in terms of SQ and streaming performance. The different Synology models differ in the processors memory installed but this doesn’t really matter much (if at all) for streaming.
I am not a NAS expert but I believe that the need for faster processors and larger memory may matter if you are doing tasks such as professional video editing or other video tasks requiring high performance. But not for streaming. Like many others we use the NAS for our music library and for all our computer backups.
I was able to use my synolgy 218+ with Roon. Although i had already added another 4Gb of Ram to it. I think, in case you didnt know, the first number represents the number of drives, the last 2 the year it was released.
I have a Synology 218play with 2x4tb drives (mirrored for a bit of resillience), I use it for storing my FLAC library. I’m running minimserver on the NAS which my ND5XS2 ‘sees’ no problem at all.
As others have said, streaming files is pretty low intensity and doesnt require anything ‘fancy’.
I do 99% of my file curating (tagging, artwork etc) on my pc with local disks, and then when I’m happy I move the music files onto the NAS.
If I was looking to replace my NAS I’d be looking at the 223 or 224+. For purely capacity reasons I would look at the 4bay equivalents.
I’d also agree with the others in that in my experience the NAS itself has no sound signature.
Hope this helps.
Thanks everyone for your replies, much appreciated. Often in hi-fi, unexpected things can have quite an effect, so I figured it was worth asking the question.
I think I’ll go with the J series as this NAS is dedicated to music streaming and nothing else. And that will save some cash for upgrading the capacity of our data backup 2nd NAS.
I hav run a Qnap TS251+ running MinimServer for eight years. I also use it for multimedia storage, backing up files and the music folder is backed up to Google Drive. It also runs two cctv cameras. EAC is used to rip CDs if necessary and mp3tag used to tidy tags. These days most music comes from Bandcamp.
I tend to disagree (for my system and from my experience)
When I had hdx as nas, there was a noticeable difference between files played from hdx or from synology ds918.
With innous zenith as nas the difference is more noticeable.
Most likely it is the effect coming from the LPs inside the zenith