Until now I've been using cheaper NAS devices but I have to say this is a significant step up in performance in every way. There were a couple of kinks to iron in the way DSM handles shared directories compared to the previous QNAP units but once that was understood it's been plain sailing ever since. If you want hardware transcoding of 4K media this is not the device for you but the CPU does handle 1080p transcoding okay. Having eight HDD's in one unit more than makes up for that in my books.