If anyone has happened to stumble upon this blog you will have noted that I really like Synology NAS products. A couple of years ago I purchased a DS211j (since superseded by the DS212j) and I have been quite satisfied. Since they have added both DHCP management and a DNS server to the official add-ons this is a real nice all-in-one solution. (If you want to see all the features, both native from Synology and via official third-party developers take a look at http://www.synology.com/dsm/index.php?lang=us.)
One things really, really bugged me, though. First, when you dropped a video into a published DLNA/uPNP directory, indexing took forever to allow it to show up. This also applies for music and photos. I have tried various solutions but, frankly, indexing SUCKS! I guess as part of this – call it part 1 (a) – is that the DLNA/uPNP server seems to crash far too often. And when it crashed it seemed like you had to let the indexing start all over again! And it could take hours!
Anyway, this was not impressing my wife and son very much. So, I went looking for an alternative which turned out to be from Qnap. The model I chose was the TS-219P II. I needed it to be cost effective (hence the two bay instead of four bay – which is my my Synology is also a two-bay…) and have a good DLNA/uPNP server for videos. Qnap’s solution is to use the Twonky product. While not nicely integrated like the Synology package is – Qnap’s is not branded or has the look-and-feel as the rest of the Qnap interface – it indexes almost immediately.
It also gets the media off may main NAS which solves another problem that I had – storage space….
About Mike Pelley
Let’s see… A little about me…
I’ve been around information technology since 1983 with computers such as DEC Rainbows (weird machine – the standard DOS couldn’t format its own floppy disks – remember them? – and I had to format them on a friend’s IBM PC) to Radio Shack TRS-80 to Apple ][e and Apple //c in the beginning.
I have programmed in 8-bit assembly language on 6502, FORTRAN and COBOL on IBM System/370 (and I still hate JCL), VAX BASIC and COBOL (and a weird and massive WordPerfect 4.0 macro) on DEC VMS (Alpha), C/C++ on Digital Unix (ALPHA), and C/C++, Perl (it may be powerful but I still hate it), PHP on Linux (Red Hat, Centos, Ubuntu, etc.).
I have work with databases such as Digital RDB (later to become Oracle RDB), Oracle DBMS, Microsoft SQL Server, MySQL and PostgreSQL on VAX, Alpha, Sun and Intel.
Check out my professional profile and connect with me on LinkedIn. See http://lnkd.in/nhTRZe
I still think that Digital created some of the best ideas in the world: VAX clustering, DSSI disks (forerunner to SCSI) and the Alpha processor (first commercial 64-bit processor – Red Hat screamed on an Alpha!). DEC just could not seem to be able to give air conditioners away to someone lost in the Sahara Desert!
VMware is one of the best ways to get the most out of an x64 server. And I have tried Oracle VM, Virtual Box and Microsoft Virtual Server.
Outside of that I am a huge military history buff starting in the early 20th century. I love Ford Mustangs (my ’87 Mustang GT was awesome) and if I had the money I would have a Porsche 928S4. If I had a lot of money I would have a Porsche 911 Turbo.
I also play too much AmrA 3 Exile mod. Over 5,000+ hours...
I have a wonderful son, Cameron. I have a long suffering (Do you really need all that computer junk?) wife, Paula. I live in Paradise, Newfoundland and Labrador.
