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Review: QNAP TS-251A NAS is a great choice for a home media server and network backup storage

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On paper, the QNAP TS-251A looks like a well-specced network attached storage device for ttme use (buy it here for $319), featuring a dual-core processor and ample 2 GB RAM. It even has a HDMI port and bundled IR remote, so you can plug it into a TV and use it directly.

There are a hundred different features you can use a NAS for but I’m focusing on what I use: backup and a TV shows / movies server. I am looking for units that are easy to use and maintain with enough performance to handle multiple video streams at once, as I use my NAS to provide content for every television in the house. Here’s my hands on with the QNAP NAS and how well it handles media and backup tasks …


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Review: Synology NAS, a solid backup solution and great home media server with Plex

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I’ve recently been testing the brand new Synology DS-216+ NAS ($299), a network-attached-storage product meant for consumers. Although Synology products include a variety of features, I will be focusing on two primary functions that I consider most essential and most useful to people today: Mac backup and home media management (TV shows and movies).

With Apple no longer shipping optical drives in most of their products, I think now is a great time to convert your home movie collection of DVDs and Blu-rays to digital files, which a NAS is great for storing. The Apple TV 4 was another big factor: with an app, I can now view all the TV shows and movies, stored on my NAS, from my TV.

Before I owned a NAS, I was worried about two things: whether the features would be useful and how much hassle would be necessary to get everything up and running. Hence, my review starts with an explanation of the setup steps involved …


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Synology shows off Apple Watch apps, its first router & new hardware for upcoming DSM 6.0 OS

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Update: The DSM 6.0 beta is now available to download. 

Today Synology is announcing a number of updates to its popular network-attached storage products including its first Apple Watch app, a new version of its DiskStation Manager web-based operating system, and new hardware including the company’s first router product. 
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9to5Toys Last Call: Anker Dual-USB Solar Charger $40, WD 4TB NAS $160, Cards Against Humanity 20% off, more

Keep up with the best gear and deals on the web by signing up for the 9to5Toys Newsletter. Also, be sure to check us out on: TwitterRSS FeedFacebookGoogle+ and Safari push notifications.

Today’s can’t miss deals:

Last Call Updates:

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TiVo makes the DVR sexy with 4K content, AirPlay and one-click commercial skipping

anker-solar-charger-deal

Anker 14W Dual-USB Port Solar Charger: $40 shipped (Reg. $50+)

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WD My Cloud 4TB Personal Cloud Storage NAS $160 shipped (Orig. $220)

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Amazon Gold Box – Cards Against Humanity 20% off: Starter Kit ($20) and Expansion Packs ($8)

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Get a no-contract iPhone 6s from Boost Mobile for just $450 shipped (Orig. $649)

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Apple iPad Air 2 Wi-Fi: 16GB $380 shipped (Reg. $499), 64GB $490 shipped (Reg. $599)

More new gear from today:

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LG 34-inch 21:9 UltraWide LED IPS Monitor: $620 shipped (Reg. $780+)

More deals still alive:

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USB Power: Anker 15,600mAh Battery Pack $24 (Reg. $30), Lumsing Wall Charger + 3-ft. MFi Lightning Cable $10more

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Four magazine subs for $16 (or less): Wired, Dwell, ESPN, GQ, Rolling Stone, Men’s Fitness, and many more

New products & more:

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Bose’s latest connected speaker lowers the entry price into the SoundTouch family

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Keurig’s new KOLD brewer lets you make Coca-Cola at home but it’s going to cost you

9to5Toys Last Call: QNAP NAS w/ AirPlay $135, Kanto Bookshelf Bluetooth speakers $250, more

Keep up with the best gear and deals on the web by signing up for the 9to5Toys Newsletter. Also, be sure to check us out on: TwitterRSS FeedFacebookGoogle+ and Safari push notifications.

Today’s can’t miss deals:

Last Call Updates:

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Explore the depths of the ocean with the new Trident submersible drone

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QNAP NAS w/ AirPlay: TS-131 1-Bay $135 (Orig. $215), HS-210 2-Bay Fanless $155 (Orig. $289), more

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Daily Deals: Western Digital My Book 3TB Hard Drive $90, Canon MAXIFY All-In-One Printer w/ AirPrint $80, more

Kanto YU5 Bluetooth 4.0 Bookshelf Speakers in five colors: $250 shipped (Reg. $350)

mega-mac-bundle

The Mega Mac 2015 Bundle: 15 solid Apps including MacBooster 2, Disk Drill Pro & More $25 (Orig. $564)

MacUpdate Bundle: 10 apps including Toast 14, DevonThink, ExpanDrive, Boom, iMazing and more for $50macbook-12-inch-retina-1

Save $100 on Apple’s all-new 12-inch MacBook + extra $50 for students/faculty: 256GB model $1,150 w/ .edu (Reg. $1,299)

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Apple is handing out free downloads of Super Hexagon for iPhone and iPad ($3 value)

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Giveaway: Schoolhouse Electric makes the clock cool again, $290 value

More new gear from today:

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This Star Wars Battlefront Deluxe bundle includes a working Han Solo mini fridge

Games/Apps: LEGO Jurassic World $38, iTunes gift cards 15% off, COD games for Mac 50% off, freebies, more

More deals still alive:

Aukey 13.3-inch Macbook Carrying Bag and Sleeve Case Cover $6.50 Prime shipped (Reg. $13)

Portable Bluetooth Speakers: Bose SoundLink Mini $159 (Orig. $200), Sony SRSX3 $60 (Orig. $140)

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App Store Free App of the Week: Infinity Blade III goes free for the very first time (Reg. $7)

New products & more:wilson-x-connected-basketball

Wilson’s X Connected Basketball is a simple shot tracking solution

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Sony takes the wraps off a new gold DualShock controller (and other colors too)

9to5Toys Last Call: 13″ MacBook Pro w/ Force Touch $1,300, iPad Air 2 64GB Wi-Fi $500, iPhone 6 cases from $2, more

Keep up with the best gear and deals on the web by signing up for the 9to5Toys Newsletter. Also, be sure to check us out on: TwitterRSS FeedFacebookGoogle+ and Safari push notifications.

Today’s can’t miss deals:

Last Call Updates:

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Spigen iPhone 6/Plus cases in multiple styles & colors from $4 Prime shipped (up to 80% off)

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9to5Toys Specials currently has a VPN Unlimited Lifetime Subscription for $39 and ibVPN Total Plan 4 year subscription for $59. Either way you won’t have to worry about hackers for a long time.

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Get into Network Attached Storage today with these deals on QNAP and WD Red products

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Hulu just paid $180 million for Seinfeld, but this deal on the entire series for $65 is real and it’s spectacular

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Patriot’s USB-C Flash Drives are primed for new MacBook and Chromebook Pixel owners

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$50 iTunes gift card for $40 shipped: save 20% on apps, music, movies and more

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Small States Review: Grovemade’s Laptop Stand combines quality craftsmanship & thoughtful design, giveaway

More new gear from today:

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Skiva iPhone/iPad charging bundle: 3.2-ft MFi Lightning cable + 2.4A Car Charger for $9 Prime shipped (Reg. $17)

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Spigen unveils new Apple Watch stand and protective solutions, get 15% off + 70-80% off iPhone cases

More deals still alive:

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Add AirPlay music streaming to your house w/ JBL’s SoundFly Air Wi-Fi Speaker for $39 shipped (Orig. $200)

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Harman Kardon AE in-ears w/mic & remote $49 shipped (Reg. $125+), more

New products & more:

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The ON magnetic portable charging station from RUBIX takes inductive charging on the road

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Review: Omaker M4 Splashproof/droppable Bluetooth 4.0 Speaker with NFC: $25 Prime shipped (Orig. $70)

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Rock out with this scaled down Bluetooth-connected Iron Man Mark XLIII mask

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Synology debuts economical 5-bay DiskStation DS1515 & compact RackStation RS815 NAS solutions

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Synology today unveiled two new multi-bay network-attached storage (NAS) solutions: the $649 DiskStation DS1515 and the $599 RackStation RS815. Both models take advantage of Synology’s excellent DiskStation Manager 5.1 system for managing “remote access, scalability, unparalleled reliability, cross-platform file sharing, and 24/7 security solutions.”

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Synology’s OS and hardware make great NAS systems for Apple and cross platform homes/businesses because they not only make huge Time Machine backups a snap, but they also provide apps for streaming media and other files to iOS, Apple TV, Android, PC and just about every platform.

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9to5Toys Last Call: QNAP 2-Bay NAS $149, Crucial 960GB SSD $293, Bluetooth speakers from $20, more

Keep up with the best gear and deals on the web by signing up for the 9to5Toys Newsletter. Also, be sure to check us out on: TwitterRSS FeedFacebookGoogle+ and Safari push notifications.

Today’s can’t miss deals:

Last Call Updates:

apple-tv-deal

Amazon Gold Box – up to 50% off Hard Drives & Networking: 2-Bay NAS $149, 1TB Wi-Fi HDD $120, more

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Crucial M500 960GB 2.5-inch Internal Solid State Drive $293 shipped (Reg. $360)

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Gold Box: OontZ Angle Bluetooth speaker by Cambridge SoundWorks: $20 Prime shipped (Orig. $80), waterproof: $35 (orig: $130)

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MacBook Air 11-inch (Early 2014) 1.4GHz/4GB/128GB: $700 shipped (Orig. $899)

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Aukey 3600mAh power bank + free Lightning cable $16 Prime shipped ($26 value), more

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Outsource your house chores to Amazon and get a free $20 gift card

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Small States Review: TM1985’s Weekend Duffel is the perfect companion for any excursion, $371 giveaway

More new gear from today:

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This Limited Edition Batman: Arkham Knight PlayStation 4 is one of the best looking consoles ever, pre-order today

More deals still alive:

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Media: Hobbit – Battle of the Five Armies BR/DVD/Digital $13much more

New products & more:

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Play Super Mario 64 in beautiful HD for free in your browser

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Neo smartpen N2 instantaneously sends handwritten words and doodles to its iOS/Android app

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9to5Toys Last Call: 128GB MicroSD $100, free $5 Amazon credit, Logitech iPad mini keyboard case $24, WD 4TB NAS HDD $140, more

Be sure to follow 9to5Toys to keep up with the best gear and deals on the web: TwitterRSS FeedFacebookGoogle+ and Safari push notifications.

Today’s can’t miss deals:

Last Call updates:

[tweet https://twitter.com/9to5toys/status/474378908033617920]

 

logitech-ultrathin-ipad-mini-silveriPad Keyboard cases:

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Western Digital Red 4TB NAS optimized 3.5″ hard drive $140 shipped (Reg. up to $200)

itunes-gift-card-deal

iTunes gift cards: $100 for $85, buy one-get one 30% off, spend $25 or more and save 15%

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9to5Toys Specials:

  • 1-year of Backblaze online backup storage for $25 (Reg. $50) – ends in less than 24 hrs
  • Scrivener 2: Winner – Best of the Mac App Store $20 (Reg. $45) – ends in 9 days

Other new deals:

More deals still alive:

New products/useful info:

Microsoft/Google/Android:

Jordan’s holiday gift guide – the perfect companions to your Mac & iOS setup

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We’ve already heard from Michael, Zac, and Ben on their last minute gift picks for the holiday season. For my gift guide, I’ve decided to only include products that I’ve personally been using on a daily basis. I review a lot of products in all of these categories, and below you’ll find only the best of the best that have earned a permanent place in my setup for both at home and on the go:
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9to5Toys Last Call: $6.50 Macworld 1 yr. subscription, Free (after rebate) MEElectronics headphones & Scosche USB car charger, 50% off ZAGG, more

From 9to5Toys.com:

A large majority of the deals we cover each day come from a variety of ‘Daily Deal’ websites or are so popular that they don’t even last 24 hours. We know you can’t be at your computer every second, so we’re going to round up the best deals each day to make sure you have a fair shot at the deals you want. Be sure to follow 9to5Toys.com so you never miss a deal... Twitter, RSS Feed, Facebook, Google+.

Today’s Featured deals:

SOLD OUT Today only: 1-Year subscriptions to Macworld w/ exclusive digital access for iPad $6.50 (Reg. $84)

Free After Rebate: MEElectronics Black 3.5mm Stereo Headset, Scosche Dual USB Car Charger

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SOLD OUT 50% off ZAGG’s invisibleSHIELD screen protectors for 9to5 readers

Other great deals we love:

Synology launches new 8-bay DS1813+ NAS with 4 GbE ports for $1099

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If you’re fed up with Time Capsule and looking for a reliable, feature-filled NAS solution that also packs in some killer iOS companion apps and AirPlay support, we’re huge fans of Diskstation NAS Enclosures from Synology. We’ve reviewed the Synology NAS experience in the past, such as the two bay SD212 Diskstation, but today the company has announced its latest 8-bay unit with the launch of the new “DS1813+” model.

The new unit is similar to the 5 bay DS1513+ model it launched earlier this month, features the same screwless drive bays supporting 3.5-inch and 2.5-inch drives, but also includes four GbE ports and speeds up to 350 MBps reads and 200 MBps writes. On top of some nice iOS, web, and Android apps for managing all of your content, Synology also offers apps for printer sharing, VPN server, ERP software, mail server, web server, anti-virus, and network video surveillance built-in. 
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OS X Lion loses compatibility with some network-attached storage drives

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CNet has discovered that OS X Lion users lose support for Time Machine backups with third-party NAS hard drives. Time Machine in OS X Lion is now only compatible with Netatalk 2.0. This means that third-party NAS (network attached storage) drives will need a software upgrade from their respective manufactures in order to work with Apple’s next-generation Mac operating system. Users of cable-connected external hard drives will not be affected. Drobo, the company behind popular network attached storage devices has noted the issues on their website:

DroboFS, B800fs and DroboPro FS users running Mac OS X Lion (OS X 10.7) will experience problems with Time Machine.

The next official firmware release for all “FS” products will ensure full compatibility with the released version of Mac OS X Lion,  including use of Time Machine.

Another popular NAS drive maker, Synology, has already released a fix in beta form. Other NAS drive makers will likely follow up with their own OS X Lion compatibility updates.


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