Synology DS916+

Hello everyone, I have been reading a lot on the forum, posting a bit. Now that the public beta is out I am looking to upgrade my storage system and purchase a NAS. I would like to get the Synology DS916+ because of its four bay configuration. Is there any advantage to getting the 8GB configuration as compared to the 2GB configuration. I would like to get as much mileage out of a new my purchase at the same time I do not like excess. I have no issues with getting the 8GB if it will offer a noticeable advantage. Any thoughts?

I just upgraded my NAS to the 916+, mostly for DVR use (my 216+ had an old ppc processor that was pretty much extinct, and other services wouldnā€™t support it either). Works fantastic, setup was a breeze, not a hiccup yet. I donā€™t believe the 8GB will impact the DVR experience compared to the 2, but I got it anyway since I donā€™t plan on upgrading again for a long time.

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The 8GB should leave room for other apps you might want to install on there as well, like Plex or something. And who knows what might come out in the next couple of years.

Thanks, thatā€™s exactly what I wanted to hear.

Just to clarify, are you able to remotely view recordings via the web GUI with this setup. At this time, this is what I am currently lacking with my setup. I will likely upgrade to a NAS, but want to make sure the processor is powerful enough to support this functionality. My concern is coming from reading over on the plex forums and running 1080 video. Seems even the DS916+ has issues with high rate 1080.

Note that unlike Plex, our transcoder is actually able to take advantage of the hardware accelerated transcoder available on the DS916+

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Thanks, this is what I ā€œassumedā€ made the difference. I do not have a lot of knowledge with CPU architecture and am just surprised that the hardware acceleration can make that much of a difference. It is nice to know though.

HW accelerated transcoding is generally 2-3x faster than using the software encoder.

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I havenā€™t setup remote (donā€™t have a need for it), but everything local has been working reliably and very fast.

Iā€™m seeing worse performance with the hardware transcoder than with the software transcoder for web playback on my DS916+ (testing from Chrome on macOS 10.12.2). Currently I have it set to 480p and HW runs around 0.9x while SW does about 1.1. With it set to HW, the CPU in the resource monitor sits at 24-25% so it must be saturating one core doing something.

@mc2002tii Are you using blend or linear for deinterlacing? Try blend, which is less cpu-intensive and produces 30fps output (since the hardware encoder can only handle 30fps on your cpu model).

It was already set to blend.

I am seeing very similar results to @mc2002tii. I have the same setup: DVR runs on DS916+, Streaming to Chrome or Safari on MacOS Sierra (Mac Mini-Late 2014) and Safari on iPad Pro. The results are all better on Software than Hardware transcoding!
I have to use 240P to be able to sustain 1x Hardware transcoding on any browser. And I canā€™t achieve 1080P no matter what.
Latest DVR software: 2017.01.18.2126

Interestingly, the NAS CPU hovers around 25 - 35% no matter if I select Hardware 240P or 1080P.
But it varies proportionally to resolution on Software trans. (30% for 240P up to 60% for 1080P)

Everything runs beautifully on the ATV however! Loving this DRV software! Keep up the good work guys!

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Same for me. Most curious is that playing a live stream from HDHR runs great even on Safari at 1080p Linear; i assume that the same transcoding must occur.

Can someone post the OS/CPU lines from the Settings tab?

IIRC, the DS916+ has a N3170 which should be more than capable of hardware transcoding 1080p in real time. In fact the WD PR4100 has the same CPU and @brgator has reported it is transcoding fine. @brgator Can you post the OS/CPU lines as well so we can compare?

@chasut Are you saying that live tv transcoding works fine (shows >=1x under the player), but recordings transcode much slower? Can you try again with the latest DVR update (click ā€˜check for updatesā€™ to confirm up to date), using Hardware/1080p

Here are the details on my DS916+

OSLinux
(kernel: 3.10.77)

CPU
4 cores / IntelĀ® PentiumĀ® CPU N3710 @ 1.60GHz
load averages: 5.07 4.65 4.42

RAM
8.29 GB
90.4% free

Yes, live transcode works perfectly and reports >1x. I will be back tonight and will test and report.

Just going back to this before I make a purchase. I know there currently seems to be some issues with the web GUI playback, but it seems there are some issues that can be ironed out since this is only the beta phase. Would if be safe to get the DS916+? The only real purpose for me upgrading is to use this feature for watching live and recorded shows remotely. Should I hold off, look at a QNAP, or regardless of hardware there as some transcoding issues.

We just ordered a DS916+ to run some tests and should know more next week.

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Can anyone else confirm this? Super weird that live would work fine but not recordedā€¦