Home Use NAS in 2024

Lshadyscab on 30/03/2024 - 19:32
Last edited 31/03/2024 - 16:06 by 1 other user

NAS experts, data hoarders, and techies, what is the go?

My current understanding is that the Synology units are the best off the shelf units you can buy but seems to start at $500 for a 2 bay with a relatively weak processor.

QNAP and Terramaster cop mixed reviews and still seem quite expensive $400 for 2 bay.

I've been looking at some of the N100 units from AOOSTAR and UGREEN which seem to start at around $300 for a 2 bay unit, i imagine the software ill be dodgy or shit so likley end up on unraid or OMV.

It will be replacing a HP micro PC connected to a few external drives that really just does plex and some document and data backups.

I want to think I could live with 2 bays but I probably need the ability to expand without (profanity) around.

Since I'm sure a few of you have done the diligence before my question is what is the best play here?

EDIT: If you have any hardware recommendations ❤️ links.

Poll Options

  • 182
    Pony up for Synology
  • 7
    Terramaster
  • 29
    QNAP
  • 4
    UGREEN
  • 2
    AOOSTAR
  • 86
    DIY OMV/UNRAID
  • 22
    Other
Computing NAS

Comments

            • Chandler on 08/04/2024 - 14:10

              @knk: You got a photo you can share of the build and link to the hotswap enclosure? I've been considering a refurb G3 and the lack of drive bays has been on my mind.

              • knk on 08/04/2024 - 14:15

                @Chandler: I don't have good pictures yet as It's currently using a second power supply with bridged pins to keep always on to power it lol, need to swap over to the sata -> molex adaptors and tidy things up now that it's on. I'll do that later today or tomorrow and send a picture.

                https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005178176427.html?spm=a2…

                In the meantime that's the enclosure.

                https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004179182648.html?spm=a2…
                One of these, needs to be in IT mode ideally. You can reflash them yourself but I really can't be bothered for the sake of a couple extra dollars I'll just pay to have it done.

                • Chandler on 08/04/2024 - 14:32

                  @knk: Thanks very much.

                  6 x 2.5" in a single 5.25" bay! Makes sense I suppose, since 2 x 2.5" is only 5"! Got a whole 6mm for the enclosure (which is probably <1mm thick metal)

                  • knk on 09/04/2024 - 09:19

                    @Chandler: Yeah, I was pleasantly surprised honestly. I've only got 6x 512GB ssds in it in a raid6 (there was a sale earlier in the year lol), but i get almost 2TB usable storage and it performs well. 2 drive fault tolerance. Total maybe $300 for that, not terrible.

  • jedimaster on 01/04/2024 - 17:51
    -1

    HP Proliant G8 microserver from ebay or fb marketplace
    4 bays to get you started. Dont use hardware RAID, instead use Windows Storage Spaces (software RAID). More reliable if a disk goes down and need to rebuild data.
    Direct Play for Plex should also work fine

    • shadyscab on 04/04/2024 - 21:20

      They're after crazy money for these now and the specs aren't that flash

  • Vent89 on 01/04/2024 - 18:01

    I'm a little disappointed in Synologys lack of affordable options for anything beyond 1gb nic. Other brands for the same money give you 2.5.

    • skillet on 02/04/2024 - 16:53

      You dont have to stick to Synology branded nics. Most Intel 10g nic works. Google is your friend.

  • Jayphen on 01/04/2024 - 21:15

    Unraid is amazing. I decided to turn my gaming PC in to a media server, so I installed unraid and now just run Windows in a VM when I want to game with the 3080. The rest of the time it runs as a regular media server, and it’s only using 70w when the VM is not running.

    Synology is probably the best if you don’t want to tinker

  • Ozbar Gain on 02/04/2024 - 00:54

    The main benefit of Unraid is that you can mix and match drive sizes,unlike true Raid where the drives need to be identical

  • bazingaa on 02/04/2024 - 01:24

    I have a HP 600 G1 SFF ($85 + few bucks to make it 24 GB RAM) with 16 TB Seagate X16 ($310 for EastDigital) + 2 TB (Free, 2.5" drive) running Win10Pro + FFS lol

    daily sync working PC 2 TB SSD -> 2 TB partition on 16 TB NAS (at 8.30 pm) -> 2 TB NAS (at 4.30 pm next day), so 3 copies
    remaining 12 TB is shared drives with only 1 copy

    recently ordered 2.5 GbE card + keeplink 2.5 GbE 8 port switch from this deal
    https://www.ozbargain.com.au/comment/15098539/redir

    Planning to get used Intel X540 10 GbE (can't do 2.5 GbE) for NAS but my stupid Z690 doesn't have any 8x slots. X550 which is 4x and supports 2.5 GbE, is pretty expensive

    I also keep backups of photos etc on Bluray, recently got some 50 GB disc from Amazon JP for good price, but couldn't burn those yet.

    • Chandler on 08/04/2024 - 14:36

      daily sync working PC 2 TB SSD -> 2 TB partition on 16 TB NAS (at 8.30 pm) -> 2 TB NAS (at 4.30 pm next day), so 3 copies remaining 12 TB is shared drives with only 1 copy

      Just be mindful that automatic syncs that do not keep versions isn't a true backup (good for availability, but). What if you discover a deleted, incorrectly modified, or corrupted file, but the file has been like that for more than 2 days?

      • bazingaa on 08/04/2024 - 15:00

        I was initially thinking about installing GIT server with this for the whole drive, but thought it would require a lot of space for versioning. Most of the files are not like that just ML training results and models, which are not modified individually and just needed until I finalize results. I also use versioning with GitHub/BitBucket for coding and GDrive has versioning (last 50 modifications or so) for other files.

  • kaleidoscope on 02/04/2024 - 08:50

    If you want stable system from the get go and good support, go with Synology. Used Xpenology earlier on and then switched to proper rack mounted system about 6 years ago and it has been great. They also have lot of other software that are very user friendly to use and adapt. Power usage is also very minimal by the system most been taken for your hdds and the non rack mounted systems DS models are very quiet as well.

    p.s. Checkout some initial setup videos and make sure you change default system credentials and beef up on remote security procedures with whatever system you decide to go with or else you could end up with a fully encrypted system with ransomware attack sometime after :)

  • Maxi Pad on 02/04/2024 - 10:11

    Mini PC with USB 3 multi HDD bay.

    • shadyscab on 04/04/2024 - 21:21

      The multi bays are expensive (30-50% cost of NAS unit) and I've heard they can eat discs due to often having small/shit power supplies?

  • richadam on 02/04/2024 - 10:48

    Side question. I have a cupboard above the fridge in my new home that I was going to turn into the server space. Would I need to consider any airflow if it will be just the WiFi router and 4 bay NAS in there? If so, what would you recommend for airflow?

    • UFO on 02/04/2024 - 15:13

      Definitely. A large 12v case fan mounted at the top of the cupboard (or for easier installation/replacement a USB wired one connected to a usb port of the NAS), blowing up and out into the roof/wall cavity. Also, two vent holes (preferably filtered so you can limit dust) at the bottom front to allow cool air in. Don't put at back, because fridge will emit quite a bit of heat at the back.

  • jabbathepom on 02/04/2024 - 11:21

    If I was buying today I would go for an AM4 or AM5 based build with ecc support, from the trawling i did it appears ASUS, Asrock and Gigabyte B550, X570, B650, X670 motherboards support unbuffered ecc where as MSI explicitly don't. You'd probably need a discrete gpu as the apus dont support ecc unless you find a ryzen pro apu.

    About 18months ago I went for an Intel c246 based build with an i3 8100 and 64gb of DDR4 unbuffered ecc with 6x 12tb officeworks shucked drives in a zfs raidz2 setup. Motherboard and ecc ram were from Amazon. however those c based chipsets are now hard to find and the w680 chipset motherboards are expensive.

  • DefariumZ on 02/04/2024 - 12:48

    OMV box - but used a 'low'-power CPU (65w Intel i5-7400) and a mini-ITX board (non-ECC) - 16GB Ram….never used over 4GB.

    Also using a PSU from a thin-client - not sure if this is more efficient but measured typical usage ~20-30W from one of those socket amp meters (not the smart one).
    3x8TB NAS drives and a crappy 2TB whatever drive for very unimportant/temporary items (e.g. series that will be deleted after watching).

    Not in RAID. Very low maintenance - it just "works", I haven't setup any transcoding as my Xidoo box does that job well - haven't installed plex as I found it too fiddly.

    Cost ~120 total without drives. Can technically connect 6 drives on the motherboard, but it'll increase power usage. Currently I pay $2-3 a month to run it 16 hours a day (off after 2am, on after 10am).

  • Caped Baldy on 02/04/2024 - 12:50

    I bought a terramaster a few years ago. Never tried the included OS but tried TrueNAS (didn't end up having a streamlined photo backup to my liking) and Xpenology.

    Just go buy a Synology NAS. Worth it to be headache free.

  • jmc787 on 02/04/2024 - 12:55
    +1

    If you buy a Synology make sure it has hardware transcoding, not all of them do and its kindof important if you're planning on using it as a Plex media server. I think all the + models have hardware transcoding, mine is a DS220+ for example and it does have it.

    • Jase83 on 02/04/2024 - 13:15

      I have the DS923+ which has the AMD processor and therefore no Intel hardware transcoding. I'm using plex, though with regular 1080p content, not huge 4K rips, and haven't noticed any issues with transcoding.

      • jmc787 on 02/04/2024 - 20:25

        Its an issue if the playback device does not support the media codec natively eg older TV and H265 content, another scenario is accessing your plex server over the internet and the native bitrate is too high to stream

  • Jase83 on 02/04/2024 - 13:19

    I went through the same comparison process last year, read countless articles and watched vids from NASCompares.

    Ended up ponying up for the Synology DS923+ and it has been rock solid. Got the families phones all backing up to the Synology photos app automatically. Plex working great for what I watch 1080p rips, haven't noticed the transcoding people complain about for higher quality content.

    • Buwwy on 02/04/2024 - 13:33

      Have you felt the DS923+ is more than enough for your needs?
      I feel my needs would be similar to yours. Lots of photo and maybe video backup.
      Just thinking whether to take the hit now and get an 8-bay synology or stick with 4.

      • Jase83 on 02/04/2024 - 13:48
        +1

        I bought 2 new 8TB WB Reds which were on the Synology supported list. At the moment that covers my storage needs. I'll add more when required.

        With the size of individual hard drives these days, you would have to have a pretty massive media collection to need 8 bays I reckon.

    • shadyscab on 03/04/2024 - 09:06

      😓 I was set on building and read this, I think I'll do this route.

      • Jase83 on 03/04/2024 - 14:36
        +1

        If I was still in uni or soon after I would probably probably build my own. But with work/family/kids I'm too busy to tinker around and read forums on bugs workarounds etc these days. So the value proposition of just buying stability out of the box was appealing.

  • JBark on 02/04/2024 - 13:48

    For set and forget, it's really hard to beat Synology. Like others have mentioned, their attempts to lock you into Synology branded hardware aren't a great look and have turned me off of them a bit. I've used QNAP extensively as well, but I just can't get past how much better DSM is than QTS.

    Myself, I ran an HP Gen8 microserver for almost 9 years, and it was a great workhorse. Upgraded with 16GB of RAM, a Xeon E3-1265L v2 and PCIe NVME adapter it did everything I needed. Most of the time I ran XPenology bare metal, though a year ago I switched to ESXi and passed through the SATA controller to an XPenology VM. That said, it's getting long in the tooth, and it's quite power hungry at 75W idle with 4 drives. XPenology is getting more and more of a pain to maintain as Synology locks things down more than they used to.

    Just this past weekend I modded the HP Gen8 case with a crazy ITX conversion I purchased years ago from TaoBao and installed a CWWK N100 ITX mobo. Up and running now with TrueNAS Scale, 32GB of RAM/2xNVME SSDs/4xHDD, so far no complaints. I've got a Windows VM configured in TN Scale with 4 cores/10GB RAM and GeekBench on the N100 seems to run about 2x the speed of the same VM running on the 1265L V2. That's pretty crazy with a TDP of 6W vs 45W.

    If I had waited a couple months before collecting all the hardware bits, I probably would purchased the UGreen DXP4800 instead and used that to run TN Scale. I had no idea those were coming out, and would have been far simpler (though way less fun) than what I ended up doing.

  • MrFunSocks on 02/04/2024 - 17:38
    +1

    Synology for me. I've got 2 4-bays, one with 8TB and one with 40TB. The software is great, and my 40TB one is a 920+ running about 8 docker containers to handle all my automations. Hasn't missed a beat in years.

    My only problem now is I need to upgrade the 10TB drives in it to 16+TB drives, which is going to cost a small fortune and take an eternity to rebuild after I replace every drive one by one.

  • matt1234 on 02/04/2024 - 18:24
    +3

    Synology or QNAP if you want a decent software lineup.
    But just make sure you get one with an Intel or AMD CPU as most of the entry level/cheaper ones are ARM based shitty processors.
    If you are using it for Plex you are best to stick to Intel based ones, as they have the built in iGPU for video encoding/decoding. Doesn't have to be anything super powerful either, the Celerons do a great job.
    There are 3 bay options available as well for cheaper than the 4 bays.
    Obviously you can expand 2 bay with external drives via USB, but these tend to fail after awhile so i would look at a 3 or 4 bay personally.

  • Chmmr on 03/04/2024 - 08:13

    Synology

    Go 4 Bay for RAID 5.

    • bazingaa on 08/04/2024 - 15:02

      RAID 5.

      hehe RAID 5 could be a nightmare, I have seen failures in critical applications.

      • Chmmr on 08/04/2024 - 16:12

        What's happened?

        • bazingaa on 09/04/2024 - 06:29

          2 disk failure

          • Chmmr on 09/04/2024 - 06:31

            @bazingaa: Yeah, well THAT would be an issue…

  • Gros21 on 09/04/2024 - 22:29

    I run a Synology 918 (4 bay from a few years ago) been rock solid. Drives now have 45000hrs on them (5 years+)

    However as I hate docker and shit keeps braking with updates. I run sonarr/raddar/nzb get on a micro PC (you know the $100 units (with a thosiba drive I shucked) that are always on sale here) then transfer it to my nas. Set mini PC to boot with power on, auto login and delayed start for nzbget then radarr/sonarr (other wise they have issues saying network drive does not exist)

    Then Synology running Plex does the rest.

    Rock solid zero issues

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