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Forum Discussion
Help! Ultra 6 or Pro 6
Hi. Welcome some honest advice.
I have a Sparc NV which has saved me amazingly well - currently loaded with 4x WD Green drives. Just starting to feel a bit slow when loading up 5gb HD movie files. So looking to upgrade to new NAS.
I use it for really only one purpose - as a fileserver for storing my iTunes library which consists of music and blu ray ripped HD movies in iTunes format. iTunes runs on my Mac Pro which acts as the iTunes server to 6 Apple TV's around the house. I also have 5 Sonos zones that access the music files NAS directly.
I do have a small partition on the NAS that I backup photos and documents to nightly from a backup drive I have in the Mac pro that backs itself up from the main Mac Pro drive. I do this because a) I want a proper backup for these (I can always rerip music and movies!) and b) because using Aperture with the library on the NAS was impossibly slow so have to have it on the Mac Pro (as I am typing wondering if that will be necessary when I upgrade..??)
I think therefore I may have no need for all the various DLNA add ons, video transcoding etc on the NAS itself. I also don't backup the NAS to anywhere else as the only critical data I have is backed up twice per above already. (Ok I don't (yet) have an offsite solution. So don't think I need rsync stuff or snapshots (don't even know what they are!)
But to the nub of the question. I can get the Readynas Ultra 6 for £569 from Kikatek, the Ultra 6+ for £712 from pixmania or the Pro 6 for £760 from play.com. Given the price differential between the Ultra 6+ and the Pro 6 I am discounting the Ultra 6+ as for £48 quid I would go with the Pro. The real question though is whether I want to pay £191 extra for the Pro 6 over the Ultra?
Remember all I am doing is really streaming HD movies, and rarely to more than 2 or max 3 of the ATV's at any one time. I don't think I need NIC teaming for this (and don't want to splash another £100 quid on a compatible switch) although will use the dual NIC on the Ultra or the Pro to have a separate network for my Mac Pro - I think I can do that. I also don't want to have a noisier, hotter and higher power use device if I am not going to use the extra CPU power - I already do that in my BMW 650ci which I just tootle round town in grimacing at the 12 mpg I get out of it!!
So leaning towards the bargain Ultra but would hate to pull the trigger and then have somebody say - ah but you didn't realise xyz and you really really should have got the Pro.
So any helpful ideas welcome. Read some other threads and default answer seems to be to get the Pro, but I thought if I explained exactly what I use it for I could get a specific view.
Appreciate any comments in advance.
Thanks
TW
I have a Sparc NV which has saved me amazingly well - currently loaded with 4x WD Green drives. Just starting to feel a bit slow when loading up 5gb HD movie files. So looking to upgrade to new NAS.
I use it for really only one purpose - as a fileserver for storing my iTunes library which consists of music and blu ray ripped HD movies in iTunes format. iTunes runs on my Mac Pro which acts as the iTunes server to 6 Apple TV's around the house. I also have 5 Sonos zones that access the music files NAS directly.
I do have a small partition on the NAS that I backup photos and documents to nightly from a backup drive I have in the Mac pro that backs itself up from the main Mac Pro drive. I do this because a) I want a proper backup for these (I can always rerip music and movies!) and b) because using Aperture with the library on the NAS was impossibly slow so have to have it on the Mac Pro (as I am typing wondering if that will be necessary when I upgrade..??)
I think therefore I may have no need for all the various DLNA add ons, video transcoding etc on the NAS itself. I also don't backup the NAS to anywhere else as the only critical data I have is backed up twice per above already. (Ok I don't (yet) have an offsite solution. So don't think I need rsync stuff or snapshots (don't even know what they are!)
But to the nub of the question. I can get the Readynas Ultra 6 for £569 from Kikatek, the Ultra 6+ for £712 from pixmania or the Pro 6 for £760 from play.com. Given the price differential between the Ultra 6+ and the Pro 6 I am discounting the Ultra 6+ as for £48 quid I would go with the Pro. The real question though is whether I want to pay £191 extra for the Pro 6 over the Ultra?
Remember all I am doing is really streaming HD movies, and rarely to more than 2 or max 3 of the ATV's at any one time. I don't think I need NIC teaming for this (and don't want to splash another £100 quid on a compatible switch) although will use the dual NIC on the Ultra or the Pro to have a separate network for my Mac Pro - I think I can do that. I also don't want to have a noisier, hotter and higher power use device if I am not going to use the extra CPU power - I already do that in my BMW 650ci which I just tootle round town in grimacing at the 12 mpg I get out of it!!
So leaning towards the bargain Ultra but would hate to pull the trigger and then have somebody say - ah but you didn't realise xyz and you really really should have got the Pro.
So any helpful ideas welcome. Read some other threads and default answer seems to be to get the Pro, but I thought if I explained exactly what I use it for I could get a specific view.
Appreciate any comments in advance.
Thanks
TW
15 Replies
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- I have a pro.
Both the ultra and the pro are much faster than your NV, so both will meet your application needs. I think you have taken all the technical factors into consideration. The pro has a 5 year warranty, which is one thing you haven't mentioned.
BTW, I recommend using new disks with the new NAS, and shift your backup strategy to use your existing NV. - Thanks - the warranty is nice but for £190 doesn;t get me there - had faultless service from the NV. On backups I don't really want two NAS's running and not sure I really need a redundant backup. At the moment for all my photos and documents (the only critical items) I have the original working copy, backed up nightly to a second drive internal to the Mac Pro, and then backed up nightly onto the Readynas. So would need to have 3 concurrent failures before loss? I am going to augment this by rotating a weekly backup on a USB portable drive that I will store at work. Does that sound reasonable or am I missing soemthing in using the existing NAS?
- I was assuming that the NV was used for primary storage. I agree that what you are already doing is sound.
One benefit of using the Ultra as primary storage is that when you (eventually) replace your Mac Pro you can go with a smaller SSD disk. Just a possibility for the future. - I'm on the same boat, need to decide between Ultra 6 or Pro 6. Leaning to Ultra 6 based on price but not if it won't stream HD (mostly 720, some 1080) content to play station & tivo.
Do both Ultra and Pro 6 have the same CPU and transfer speeds? My use will be primarily for storing and streaming HD content and would do without the additional cost for warranty to keep cost lower.
Would welcome some feedback. - CPU in Pro 6 is much faster. See CPU Specs of the ReadyNAS
Transfer speeds for Pro 6 are higher. Unless you need to transcode video (convert video on the fly to a different format) to stream it to your devices you shouldn't need the extra CPU power in the Pro 6.
Pro 6 also has business features such as NIC Teaming. - I'll be using MP4s wrapped in MKV file formats, which I believe need to be transcoded to play on play station. CPU model numbers alone suggest that Pro 6 is the clear choice. However, the benchmark comparison below doesn't show improvement while encoding with either CPU. Still on the fence but closer to pulling the trigger. Thanks for sharing the CPU specs link.
Pro6 – E5300 2.6Ghz CPU (dual core)
Ultra6 Plus – E2160 1.8Ghz CPU (dual core)
Benchmarks: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/66?vs=69 - Pro 6 > U6P >> U6
For 1080p Pro 6 way to go. 720p should be fine on U6P. U6 is too slow - So if I am using only iTunes content to AppleTV's there is no transcoding right? I am using 1080p but even my NV seems to handle 1080p iTunes content to Apple TV's no problem. About to pull the trigger on the Ultra - lower cost, lower heat, lower electricity bill and does everything I need I think. Would be nice to have the Pro just so I can feel I have the 'Ferrari' but my head is overruling my heart :-)
- If you can stream from the NV to the Apple TV you'll have no problems streaming the same way using the Ultra.
I have the Ultra 6 (beta tester so received free diskless unit). Personally I'd like to save up and buy a faster unit though the Ultra 6 is a great NAS and works really well. - Pulled the trigger on the Ultra 6 - head very happy, heart a bit disappointed, but ever the optimist thinks a future Pro 8 will be the way to go and the Ultra can work well in the meantime :D :lol:
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