The time has come to retire my Synology DS110J. Have tried running Sonnar, CP and NZBget on it, but the DS110J is way too enemic for these tasks. What are the minimum hardware requirements to look for in a new 2 Bay NAS in order to run the mentioned packages? I do my transcoding with a Mac Mini and watch Plex on an ATV 4 so transcoding abilities on the NAS are not vital. Have looked at all of Synologys 2 Bays, but I´m worried that even the fastest won´t cut it. Would really appreciate some suggestions. Will consider QNAP too… .
For best results get an intel processor, not ARM or the other low end one (forget the name, but mono won’t work at all). ARM should work, but will be slower, especially for par2 checks.
2GB of RAM or more is probably a good minimum, though you may be able to survive on less.
Thanks. You made me aware that I have been looking at the wrong units. Do you think one of these would fit the bill ? Be glad to hear if I can get buy with something cheaper 
Those look pretty powerful (likely enough to transcode), so yes they would be fine, but probably better than what you need. Are the Intel Atom units available? Slower than the quad core units, but faster than ARM.
Thanks for checking out the NAS´s. Not sure about Intel Atom units, but will do some searching tomorrow. I´m not well educated in CPU´s 
They moved the page somewhere I can’t find, but it’s still available in google cache.
The CPU list for the synology models.
My DS412+ is struggling with its 1GB memory limitation. Running Sab / Sonarr / Deluge / Plex Media Server / and several not to intensive applications nearly maxes it out, so I would definitely go with 2GB minimum
Thanks. I have been searching for that list. A quick look indicates that the best alternative is the 415+ ( expensive! ). The DS216 Play only has 1GB memory and I don´t need it´s transcoding abilities. Really stupid question, but better safe than sorry - Any issues running 2 disks on a 4 bay NAS ? I was hoping to stay with Synology, but I might have to go with QNAP for their upgradeable RAM.
No, although you can only expand later with drives which are equal or bigger then the original drive.
If you start with 2 3TB drives, the 3th drive has to be 3TB or bigger.
If you place a 4TB drive as 3th drive, you will only to be able to use 3TB. 1TB remains unused. You can use the synology raid calculator for a better explanation.
Thank you very much, this is valuable info as this is virgin territory for me. The quest continues. Still hoping to be able to stick with Synology, but can´t find anything beyond 1GB. Maybe I should just let my Mac Mini do all the work and just push the files to my NAS… .
Just to be clear, my config runs at around 75-80% of the 1gb ram
For me that’s on the edge for additional applications running comfortably and not needing a lot of hdd caching of the ram.
I/o waits are already high due to the torrents (and maybe caching).
Except the occassional slugishness due to the hdd delay evrything runs pretty smooth.
I’ll check the actual usage per app when i get home.
Don´t want to push my luck by being a pain, but don´t these two have the "right " specs ?
If you want a download center / Plex Media Server without transcoding then yes.
If you want PMS transcoding of 1080p files, then no.
From the synology layer my DS412+ shows hard usage of 680MB.
My “top -m” (of which I don’t understand half the stuff on how to do a “real” usage calculation)
Yes, that´s the big question. Transcoding abilities, or not. If I did not already have a Mac Mini with PMS that does the transcoding, I would probably go for a “Play” unit.
Thanks for your “top-m”. If you don´t understand it, I will probably understand even less, but I´ll try to decipher it
Most of the Play units are not suitable for Plex transcoding.
Plex does not support the hardware acceleration, and purely relies on the CPU power. The Play series tend to have a lower CPU, and therefore a lot of people make the expensive mistake thinking it would be a good choice in combination with Plex. But in fact, it the opposite. You can find plenty of info on that on the Plex forums. Also, Plex isn’t supported on all architectures. For example, the DS216play doesn’t support Plex.
Transcoding and NAS (low powered CPUs) simply don’t go well together. The next release of Plex might help a bit in that department, as you can pre-transcode content. As I’m not a plex pass user I have no experience with that feature.
Best advice I can give people is to chose a player that supports a lot of formats natively, and unfortunately that rules out ATV and Chromecast.
Unless I´m having a lapse of reason, I am leaning towards the DS716+. My Mac Mini can always handle the transcoding and this will leave me with a NAS which can handle heavy burdens and run Sonnar, NZBget and Couchpotato without delay. Too bad the ATV doesn´t support the formats natively. That way I could eliminate/sell my Mac Mini.
Edit: As I continue googling, as the evening passes, I am not at all sure… .
Sorry to muddy the water but… my story…
I have a DS409 and Mac Mini.
My Mac Mini lives under my TV, and is connected via HDMI, I run Plex Media Server and Plex Home Theatre on the same box, pulling all the data from the DS409, I use Remote Buddy to control it with a Logitech Harmony Remote.
I run Sonarr, Couch Potato, Sab and Mega Search all on the Mac (running 10.10 Server).
I have been thinking of replacing my DS with a DS415+ for a while but I just don’t need to as My Mac Mini is doing all the work.
Feel free to ask questions.
Just throwing this out there, have you consider a unraid system. License is cheaper than a new synology
Thanks. Appreciate any advice. Actually, I have exactly the same setup, except for the Harmony, which has now been replaced by an ATV4, which was given me for Christmas. Could have lived without the ATV as I really liked the new Plex Media Player on my Mini . My DS110J is woefully slow at running any tasks except for small file transfers, but adequate for my media storage ( 1TB fills up surprisingly fast ). Still tempted by the DS716+ or QNAP-TS251, though I feel they might be overkill… . Then again, I would still like to be able to run Sonarr, Couchpotato and NZBGet on my NAS, but not sure which 2 bay NAS I can get by with.
Thanks for the suggestion. unRaid is virgin territory to me, but after reading about it last night, it sounds interesting. Just wish there was an out of the box solution, as I´m deficient as a techie.