Speed of a NAS?

Newcad

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82062338#Comment_82062338

Yes BT insist that you return the hub.

Perhaps oddly though they don't want the VOIP Advanced phone with Alexa back. Due to a mix up I ended up with two of those, one has never been out of it's box.

However they are no use without a SH2 or above, (and the Alexa only works wth a SH2), I'll put them on Freecycle rather than ebay.

B0bbyEwing

Wrong forum I guess perhaps, although it's still techie - but what are the other broadband provider routers like?

I'll be leaving BT next month as they're taking the wee-wee with their pricing. I can get the same speed for over half the price elsewhere.

I'm on a 300mb connection right now. I don't need it bit I'll probably stick with it. Can't see me going higher unless it's like an extra £1 per month or something.

So as yet I don't know who I'll be jumping ship to, I only know roughly what speed I'll be going for. So Sky, TalkTalk, PlusNet, whoever else.

Is everyones router generally decent or are you better off buying your own?

flaneurs_lobster

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82063081#Comment_82063081

I've been with BT for donkeys, for the last 5+ years I've been using their ubiquitous Smart Hub 2. Was hoping for an upgrade when I got FTTP @ 500 Mbps but no.

Bought myself an EE Smart Hub 7 Plus off eBay for £25. Bit dodgy since they are not officially on sale anywhere.

Main advantage is that it runs Wi-fi 6 & 7 (SH2 runs 5). Speed delivered to my newer devices that support the standard has shown significant boost (>100Mbps). Not sure if this is the Wi-fi standard or just a better/more powerful router.

Also has an extra ethernet port.

The BT app thinks it's a Smart Hub 3 which it probably is in all but badge.

kaMelo

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82063081#Comment_82063081

I found this list for comparison although it's from January this year, so six months old.

https://www.broadbandanalyst.co.uk/guides/uk-broadband-routers-compared/

What I would say is that the large ISP's give their routers away by the bucket load, they'll be built to a price rather than a spec, also the ISP has backdoor access to it. I'd always recommend using your own router over an ISP supplied one, that way you can choose one that meets whatever specific needs you have.

mgfvvc

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6675465/speed-of-a-nas

For comparison I am running a Synology DS218J NAS, connected via a TP-Link Deco M4 mesh and I just opened a few folders from an 8th gen Core i5 laptop. None of this is recent hardware and opening folders just took a second or two even with 4000 photos in the largest folder I tested..

B0bbyEwing

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82064673#Comment_82064673

So likely my PC then?

I wonder how much (or rather little) I need to spend to get something significantly quicker.

I'm not talking for the purpose of accessing a WD MyCloud Home drive & that alone, but just generally speaking.

Whether even the most basic of PCs / laptops / mini PCs would be a significant upgrade, or just minor.

flaneurs_lobster

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82067088#Comment_82067088

Might be able to get an idea if it's your PC that's the bottleneck by accessing your NAS using another device. Do you have a phone, tablet or can you borrow a laptop?

Give us some idea of what you are using the PC for and there might be some suggestions for replacement.

Need a budget and some idea if your monitor, keyboard would be replaced too.

B0bbyEwing

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82067099#Comment_82067099

AMD Phenom II 1055T 2.80Ghz

16GB RAM

Nvidia GeForce GTX 460 1GB

Win10 on SSD

Various HDDs attached here & there. They come & go. Storage drives really.

These days just browsing really. What I do have to get through is

1. Taking MakeMKV blu-ray rips (so let's say 30GB files) & running them through Handbrake to get them down to say no more than 5GB without any noticeable (to my eyeballs) loss in quality where it'd be viewed on my living room TV. I could acquire many of these movies very quickly at the 2-3GB area but they're not always ideal. For example - I like a lot of M.A. movies & the MakeMKV rip of Jackie Chan's Police Story 1 & 2 has all I want - normal audio, dubbed audio & the all important subtitles. A very quick acquiring of those movies didn't have the English audio & some times I watch with English audio, other times I'll watch with native audio with English subtitles (yes, I'm weird, I know).
2. Many many many hard drives need sorting through - de-duplicating. I'm talking many TBs of files. It's an absolute mess. I was running it on a number of drives the other day, about 4-5 drives & it was set to take hours & hours.

Other than the above I generally just browse. Nothing overly intensive.

The PC will boot to Windows quite quick but I've started to notice a distinct lag between getting to the desktop & things (browsers, file explorer) actually responding in decent time.

forgotmyname

What are you using to view the files?

I use Plex and after an update a little while back it now has a bit of lag that it did not have previously. I overcame
most of the lag by adding an SSD into the NAS and putting the Plex data onto the SSD not the standard drives.

I have 63 TB of space which has over 1600 films, 264 TV Shows, and 10's of thousands of music files.

Someone asked recently where I store all those and I said to use them they are on a box but the actual physical media
is in the loft if the drives ever fail, they commented on the weight which had never crossed my mind. I sold a load of
old car magazines so that should help.

B0bbyEwing

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82067350#Comment_82067350

I use a Nvidia Shield which is connected to my TV & I watch movies via Plex. I also bought the lifetime PP years ago before prices went mad. Cost me about £70.

I have both a SSD & a HDD connected to the Shield which houses the media and have absolutely no issue whatsoever with it playing any media. Even 4K remuxes after I fixed an issue it had.

I don't have the weight in the loft issue if you know what I mean.

I have the HDD copied to another drive of same capacity. Not a foolproof method but right now that sits at 4TB. These files are all in the area of 2GB per file with the exception of a few 4K files which are 50Gb-70GB.

On top of that I have about 10TB of Makemkv rips. I don't have a copy of that 10TB though. If that drive fails then that content is lost.

I don't fancy paying for 14TB worth of cloud storage. Will probably cost a fortune.

I like your signature by the way. Very fitting for certain message boards. :) I went a similar route.