For years, Synology has held a strong foothold in the NAS market thanks to its clean UI and reliability. But for performance-driven IT teams and businesses scaling up AI, virtualisation, and high-throughput workflows, QNAP is fast becoming the smarter, future-ready alternative.

Let’s break down the real differences—backed by hardware specs—to show why it’s time to seriously consider switching.

Feature-for-Feature: Where QNAP Pulls Ahead

• Synology still relies on adapter cards to enable NVMe SSD caching, even on high-end models like RS2821RP+ and RS2423RP+.
• QNAP models such as the TS-H1886XU-RP R2 and TS-464U-RP offer native NVMe slots, often 2x NVMe right out of the box.

Why it matters: Faster caching is essential for AI inference, high-transaction databases, and VDI deployments where latency is critical.

• Most Synology models continue to ship with 4x 1GbE ports—even in their 2U and 3U product classes.
• QNAP's equivalents often feature 2.5GbE or even 10GbE ports by default, such as:
  • TS-873AEU-RP: 2x 2.5GbE
  • TS-H2287XU-RP: 2x 10GbE + 2x 2.5GbE

QNAP outmatches Synology when it comes to performance, flexibility, and futureproofing, offering:

• Gen4 PCIe slots
• GPU support
• 100GbE and Fibre Channel

Example:

QNAP TS-H1677AXU-RP-R7-32G supports:

• 2x PCIe Gen4 x4
• 100GbE QSFP28
• 32 GB Fibre Channel

Compare that to Synology RS2821RP+, which has just:

• 1x PCIe Gen3 x8 (x4 link)

Use case: Ideal for AI/ML, GPU-accelerated applications, or environments needing multi-10GbE connectivity.

• Synology expansion units typically max out at 1–2 add-ons per chassis (e.g., RX418, RX1217).
• QNAP enables truly modular scaling:
  • Up to 16x TL-R1220Sep-RP (SAS) with the TS-H1886XU-RP R2
  • USB-based expansion for smaller setups

Why it matters: QNAP enables end-to-end growth from SMB deployments to full-scale data centers—without a forklift upgrade.

Result: QNAP leads in memory scalability and compute power—translating into smoother VM hosting, faster analytics, and better performance under load.

DiGiCOR’s Take: Why More Clients Are Switching to QNAP

At DiGiCOR, we’ve observed a growing trend—businesses reaching the performance limits with Synology and migrating to QNAP for:

• Out-of-the-box 10GbE for faster networking
• Native NVMe caching with no extra hardware
• AI/ML readiness via GPU-friendly PCIe Gen4
• More competitive price-to-performance across models

We are able to work closely with IT teams across sectors—from healthcare and government to engineering and education—to map your workload to the right QNAP solution.

Choose Smart. Choose Scalable. Choose QNAP.

DiGiCOR is your trusted partner for future-ready NAS infrastructure—whether you're an SMB, enterprise, or research institution. We provide:

• Tailored QNAP configurations
• Local technical expertise and deployment
• Ongoing support and scalability consulting

Ready to upgrade?

Talk to our team today for a high-performance NAS that grows with your business and eliminates bottlenecks.