Synology is more closed down but they make it very easy to use. Note that nas prices don't include the hard drives - that could be $250 alone. Recommend finding one from past generation.
this post was submitted on 19 Dec 2023
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Even though I consider myself technically savvy and I could have saved money with a DIY solution, I went with synology and I couldn't be happier. It took me just one day to get it up and running with everything I needed. Including shucking the drives.
I'm kind of a noob and starting out with Synology helped me learn a lot about networking, protocols, ddns, docker, etc. Wonderful learning experience and it will help me become more confident in building my own nas in the future.
Same, it’s great!
With Synology and QNAP for example, what we get in exchange for our money is support and stability. Also, both make durable hardware, my old QNAP still running after 10 years. And still supported!
Build it yourself, avoid proprietary solutions. If you're after power efficiency go with some ARM board with PCI/M2 slot to use as SATA ports, if you want more performance and want to run a few services on it, get a second hand computer like an HP mini or even a full desktop.
I what would recommend is instead a Mini-PC like the HP EliteDesk 800 G2 DM or the Dell OptiPlex 3050 Micro.
If you plan to create a small NAS for storage and self-host a few services even an old laptop will do it, however there are advantages to picking a mini PC. Those machines are quiet, don't require much power and some can even fit a 2.5" hard drive so you won't need external hard drive enclosures.
Mini-PCs are also cheap second hand, you might be able to get an 8th Gen Intel CPU for 100-200€. Sometimes you'll find really old models (i3 CPU + 4 GB of RAM) selling for 50€ and while those aren't usable anymore as a Windows desktop they're are still more than enough to run your NAS/Cloud solution. I would pick something 6th gen or more recent.
For eg. for 100€ you can find an HP Mini with an i5 8th gen + 16GB of ram + 256GB NVME that obviously has a case, a LOT of I/O, PCIe (m2) comes with a power adapter and outperforms a RPi5 in all possible ways. Note that the RPi5 8GB of ram will cost you 80€ + case + power adapter + cable + bullshit adapter + SD card + whatever else money grab - the Pi isn't just a good option. Aside from the big brands like HP and Dell there are other alternatives such as the trendy MINISFORUM however their BIOS comes out of the factory with weird bugs and the hardware isn’t as reliable - missing ESD protection on USB in some models and whatnot.
A very important thing for you to consider is the storage / hard drive interface. On a Pi you're usually constrained to USB for your hard drives, however on a Mini PCs you've the following options:
- USB Storage - is slower and USB isn't very robust, not recommended, the only advantage here is that you don't have to DIY anything;
- Some of those machines come with a SATA port and space for a 2.5" hard drive, either use it a single drive if you don't need much storage or get a 5 SATA port card to expand it;
- Recent models come with a NVME M.2. slot (PCIe) and that can be turned into 6 SATA ports with a cheap adapter like this.
In both SATA cases you just have to throw NAS hard drives and a cheap power supply at it and you'll be done. SATA is faster and way more reliable than USB for storage, it won't randomly disconnect and you will be able to take full advantage of the disks, no speed limitations like in a typical USB connections. Personally I would pick model that has both the SATA connector and the NVME slot and then use the SATA connector for a small 2.5" SSD (boot drive) and the NVME with the adapter above for the NAS hard drives - this option will give you the best performance.
Software: run barebones Debian and install everything from scratch OR use something already made like TrueNAS Scale or OpenMediaVault.
Hrm. I hadn't thought about that. I have never built a pc before but i was thinking about that, probably around august ill be ready, to finally build my first PC to replace my current aging gaming PC and was thinking id make this one actually just be the server. I have a closet that shockingly has a power outlet and everything that would be amazing for that.
replace my current aging gaming PC and was thinking id make this one actually just be the server. I have a closet that shockingly has a power outlet and everything that would be amazing for that.
Oh yeah, you're set, no need to look further. Use that hardware, better than having it laying around end up on a garbage pile. If that's a gamming PC it should be way overkill for what you need but it will get the job done.
Side note: obviously a HP Mini with an i5 8th gen mobile CPU will be more power efficient but does it really matter? The difference between a 45W or 100W CPU running at idle won't be that much (they both will downscale to a lower speed like 800Mhz or 1Ghz). Even if the desktop wastes more it will most likely be something like 4 or 5$ more per year to run it so it isn't worth it to spend more money on a new machine while you've that one around.
Pro tip: remove the GPU from the machine AND if it has integrated graphics don't run a GUI on it - this will greatly reduce the power consumption of the machine. In fact by not having a GPU installed and not having a GUI running you'll save more power than by replacing that machine with one of those mini units I suggested.
Yeah its aging but its already running this just fine. Im playing FFXIV with my server runing DS9 as I type this lol. i5 just like you recommended actually.
Well just be sure to remove the GPU, don't install a GUI and turn on every power saving option on the BIOS / disable hardware you don't need etc. If you've a watt-meter it will make the task easy as you'll be able to see how much power you can cut back with BIOS tweaks. Sometimes (but not always) even disabling CPU cores helps.
got ya thanks ill read up on all that :D
That is a fantastic idea! (I did this with my old retired desktops for years before I finally built a dedicated machine)
CPU - Intel Core i5-7500 @ 3.4GHz (4 cores, 4 threads) Intel HD Graphics 630 RAM - 12 GB DDR4 Disk - 128 GB SSD
What do you think of these specs?
Would I be better off getting M.2 SSDs for the plex server?
Could these specs stream multiple high quality streams?
Are you planning on transcoding? If so you might want to add a decent GPU to deal with that as the CPU won't be most likely able to handle it alone. Otherwise it should be fine.
Yeah I think so, from what I can gather it is needed for what I want.
I don't really know what to look for in a gpu is there one you'd recommend? 🙏
Your cpu supports quick sync so I bet you are good without gpu. Try it yourself before buying one, you also drain less power
To piggyback this in agreement, I just watched this the other day
Those fancy cases are expensive AF. Cool but expensive.
Another very cool one: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005003125774264.html
The Jonsbo cases seem to be the best. In the video linked, he built one for £260 including PSU and motherboard.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/C6hf3ddtNCs?si=ig7HpGejsOSvfk9H
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Just went through this myself and settled on DIY build. Someone recommended this video, and I followed it very closely. The built was so easy and less expensive than off the shelf. I installed TrueNAS on it and couldn't be happier.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://www.piped.video/watch?v=vjDoQA4C22c
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
saved. awesome thanks man~
DIY is the way to go. Buying NAS hardware makes 0 sense imo unless we're talking (used) SMB / Enterprise stuff. Used computer parts including a mitx board with 4 sats headers and a case that can hold 4 drives is a perfect starter. With drives up to 20 TB being rather affordable per TB these days you can get 40 TB of usable space on a RAID 10. That won't fit in the $250 budget of course, but you could start with smaller drives or, as I do, forgo RAID for now because all I store is media I can redownload anyway.
The cheapest solution if you want the most basic of starters is an old cheap used NUC with a 3.5" drive slot that you can slap an as big a drive in as you can afford and then go down the more proper DIY NAS build.
What NUC has a 3.5" bay?
Right, there's only 2.5" bay ones standard. There are third party cases with 3.5" support. Though I guess 2.5" HDD works fine as well. At least 5 TB drives can be found for that form factor.
To start with you can grab whatever hardware u have (or buy whatever on ebay) if you are spending money then new hdd and some way to add redundancy. Throw proxmox on it (or TrueNAS), proxmox will serve you in multiple ways. Install cockpit to serve HDDs over samba / nfs.
Video explanation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hu3t8pcq8O0
thank you ill check this out :D
Another recommend for build it yourself. I saw deals on 8tb drives at my local micro center and through 2 into an old desktop I no longer used. Been running that with TrueNas scale for a little over a year and its been great. I did recently switch to Ubuntu server after some docker issues that were specific to truenas though. Honestly given the budget you mentioned, a cheaper minipc off amazon and an external drive or 2 is a good place to start off. Its nothing crazy but you'll have something functional to see what you need and want out of a server.
My NAS is an 8th gen i7 Dell Optiplex I got on ebay for like $175. Running TrueNAS CORE. With a shucked 18tb WD Easystore that was a black Friday deal at $200. Watch https://shucks.top/ for good deals on storage. My rig is a little more than you want to spend, but you wouldn't need the 18tb drive to start with. And you could save a bit more if you went with an i5 instead.
oooh that is a damn handy site
Build it yourself! I bought a used HP desktop from eBay and I couldn't be happier.
definitely looks like im going that way ahha
Just check if the case has enough space for your needs. In my case (pun intended) I just wanted two HDDs, and my SFF case has enough space for those.
I am no expert but I just picked up a qnap ts 462 as my first NAS, really happy with it.
I bought the Aoostar R1 and freaking love this thing. Throw in 2 drives (I bought 2 refurbished white label 10TB drives I got off Bezosland for cheap) and threw Proxmox on it. Serving up my SAMBA shares, running PiHole and Jellyfin, all on separate LXCs. She's a beauty.
I've got a QNAP. Relatively happy with it, as it's easier to manage than DIY, but it's hard to migrate to a different brand as the RAID implementation is proprietary, so can't just plug the disks in a different brand. First NAS lasted about 7 years until it was too slow, new one is about 5 years and still going strong.
DIY gives you more flexibility, but also more maintenance.
DIY gives you more flexibility, but also more maintenance.
More maintenance? Setup is harder for sure, but after that no more maintenance required if you don't feel like it. To be frank the amount of maintenance is usually corelated with the amount of crap you install. a TrueNAS Scale will run just fine, maintenance free most likely for more than 5 years, however a clean Debian install with a simple Samba server (install via apt-get install) + FileBrowser (webUI file explorer) will last indefinitely without maintenance. Simple tools fail less.
I got a cheap 4 bay Terramaster off Amazon for $250 AUD.. they are on special a few times a year including prime day and Black Friday. They are ok. I get about 95MB/s write to a raid 5 array
I don't need a NAS personally but if I am I definitely would go for a SBC build with several hard disks thought SATA. Good luck.
QNAP. Their current offerings are solid performers.