Windows home server vs synology

If you want to say businesses can only be run on Windows, I'd argue not really. With a little creativity and bravery, things can run just fine not on Windows. I will summarize though that I'm in the "get a normal server" camp. But I have a friend who does their business from the Synology only, and we're arguing about things and frankly there is little compelling reason to spend twice the cash on a normal server if the Synology does it all, using standard Linux services.

And now it supports Docker, so many interesting tools can be run from it that way. A Synology is not a server, its Network Attached Storage, that for very small work-loads can run the things you want.

Yes, Microsoft is expensive, but that is a cost of doing business. If you can run the business on Linux, more power to you, we have linux all over the place here, tons of money to be saved.

One of the biggest issues that I will point out to you is that there aren't any support companies for a Synology, not in the traditional warranty sense anyways. With server hardware, you're on a very heavily tested, and well designed platform that is for the purposes you are needing. Docker is for services were you need hundreds or thousands of identical services running at once, on a piece of hardware, say an Online sales platform.

So you can load balance the request coming in much more fluidly. It works well. But Enterprise grade hardware, like that from xByte is far better suited for these kinds of tasks. How is your friend backing up his Synology? What is his recovery method should the main board on the Synology die? What is the warranty support like for that unit he's using?

Or the one you're considering? I'm hoping for file storage to be 5 to 10TB. The servers I've looked at don't have any drives, nor Windows. And Server Essentials doesn't have virtual, so would have to get Standard and CALs, so figure about a grand for software and licenses.

This is where you do some research at quality vendors and find a server that is reasonable for your needs. But you'r looking at a doing something the correct way versus saying "F-it lets see what happens our business isn't that important".

I wasn't aware it was software RAID, would have figured, being their bread and butter as a NAS, it would have hardware for its 1 purpose. I don't know about my friend's disaster plans. They just store a ton of stuff on it, with a few other services used here and there. They would probably just replace the unit and stick the drives back in. The likely issue is that one of the disk would go bad, and during the recovery you'd hit a URE, losing all of the data, because of the disks, not the housing.

So first we're saying, hey Synology is a NAS, just use it for that cause it's what it's made for. Then it's like, well it's software RAID, so don't use it for that. They are a NAS, it's what they're made to do, but ultimately it's also a box running linux so you can run "apps" or hack the thing to hell and run, well probably pretty much anything somehow or another.

It's all about degrees and whether the Synology will do what you need when you add up price, limitations, ease-of-use, support vs. I would say that a server with some hypervisor on it gives you a ton more flexibility as it can do pretty much anything whilst a Synology will always just be a Synology which isn't a bad thing, you know what I mean.

No you're missing the point, as a backup device it's fine. If the Housing dies, you pull the drives, and put them into a new unit, you're back up and running. Well, I don't have a lot of room in the budget for buying both a Synology and a standard server, plus Windows and licensing. I don't know.

OK, well many of the things you want to run can be run on Linux without any issue at all. So there is a huge 'breather' here in terms of budget for Windows. So you use the existing Windows Server license you have for SpiceWorks Today, and simply virtualize that server.

P2V it, and be done with it. I don't know what you mean to use my existing server license for SpiceWorks. I don't have any licenses for anything. I just want the server to help monitor the network and I know SW can do something like that. I have experience with ESXi and run that already on a repurposed custom system with a few Linux VMs such as one of owncloud, but have not found it very reliable. And a proper backuo, recovery protocol. I want to have the files from each location backed up at a single colocation geographically nearby.

All stores are within 30 miles of each other. The 5th NAS can be used as a ready to go spare at any location if any others fail. I do just that for my smaller clients. Depends on the use case. If you need power, kit running Windows will often be a bit better than your common entry-level NAS.

As said the use case and budget always matter. Your list should include amount of traffic, security and redundancy. If they are pushing tons of data through the network graphics, video, etc a NAS might not be your best option.

Also, in some cases for the price of a NAS you can simply roll out a file server that will offer tons of security software options. Additionally future tech planning needs to be considered.

How soon until they outgrow the NAS? Additional use case - I was called to a firm to help them with their network "issues". Turns out their 'network' was a NAS and the "issues" was ransomware. Remember, if it is mapped it is vulnerable. In your scenario there's no way I would install Windows servers at each location. In addition to the advantages you mentioned:. Very slow growth. Its 4 super markets. The traffic is largely POS database and credit processing.

Music streaming. CCTV is on its own network. Each location has less than two TBs of data. I wouldnt forsee them needing more than twice that in the next 5 years. We can always archive Invoices too at some point. Ransomware is one of my concerns. The bottom line is that these devices are becoming more powerful and are able to replace Windows Servers in some small business environments. We are selling them left and right and the clients are in love with them.

Tomlin Technology is Silver Certified by Synology and would be happy to answer any questions you may have. You can call our office at or visit our Contact Us page and fill out the form there to have one of our representatives contact you. Subscribe to our eNewsletter for more info like this! By Matt Dotterer. Synology vs Windows Server: Which is better for your business? Leave a Comment. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

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