Synology could bring “certified drive” requirements to more NAS devices
(arstechnica.com)
from otter@lemmy.ca to selfhosted@lemmy.world on 18 Apr 05:39
https://lemmy.ca/post/42487861
from otter@lemmy.ca to selfhosted@lemmy.world on 18 Apr 05:39
https://lemmy.ca/post/42487861
Synology’s telegraphed moves toward a contained ecosystem and seemingly vertical integration are certain to rankle some of its biggest fans, who likely enjoy doing their own system building, shopping, and assembly for the perfect amount of storage. “Pro-sumers,” homelab enthusiasts, and those with just a lot of stuff to store at home, or in a small business, previously had a good reason to buy one Synology device every so many years, then stick into them whatever drives they happened to have or acquired at their desired prices. Synology’s stated needs for efficient support of drive arrays may be more defensible at the enterprise level, but as it gets closer to the home level, it suggests a different kind of optimization.
threaded - newest
That would be my exit sign
Mine too. Already priced a new build half the price just the data migration I’m not looking forward too.
Can you migrate Synology data? I haven’t ever found a way.
Rsync or SCP?
Aren’t those for syncing data, not migrating data?
Same thing, no?
No, where am I supposed to sync the data to?
Another drive.
Edit: it’s the first line of the manpage: rsync – a fast, versatile, remote (and local) file-copying tool.
I don’t have another drive.
So by migration, you mean just using the same drive in another system? That’s potentially a major data loss moment. You at the very least should back everything up before you try to “migrate” without copying files.
I don’t use Synology, so I can’t speak to the exact process you need to follow. But I imagine it will require you to format your drive if it’s somehow locked into Synology’s system in order to use it with something else.
It’s likely similar to reinstalling a different OS. You have to back everything up and format the drive. It likely uses a different file system.
Yeah that’s what I thought 😞
To the new system you’re migrating to
Curious as to what you are getting. Was planning to buy my Synology build some time later this year but not so sure about that anymore.
Building my own i3 8 bay build after finding a good cheap case called saggitarius on ali express
Fuuuck that
It’s like they don’t understand their demographic.
Yeah, I think their CEO might have QNAP stock or something.
It’s hilarious how dumb this is.
Hilarious and pathetic.
Like Brexit.
They absolutely do. But it’s a symptom of capitalism. They must seek higher and higher profits each year. And this is one of their ideas to seek higher profits…
Growth imperative. Greed will never be satiated.
The worst is that it will probably increase profit or a quarter or too while running the brand to the ground.
That’s capitalism, baby! /s
The enshittification/rent seeking continues. Nothing is sacred.
If I had known how bad it’d get I would’ve chosen a different field to work in. Sure, I can avoid it in my private life but on the job it’s like I’m in some kind of hostage situation.
“Oh hi there customer! You know our product your users are accustomed to will only come as a subscription from now on and it’ll also be really bad and force full screen ads. We’ll push two updates per day because our unpaid interns are so agile. Bugs? Oh, no, we call those ‘micro disruptions’. They’re a feature but don’t cost extra! How much the license costs? Well, how much do you have? Yes, it’ll be that much.”
I remember arguing with some nerd that this overpriced shit was not fucking worth it and my build based on old server parts I got from a local computer recycler was infinitely superior in every way
I wish I saved that post so I could reply with this link. I feel so validated. Never trust companies. It’s why I say you should never fuck with plex, even if it is a bit easier to deploy than Jellyfin.
Yeah… Never had a specific “server” certified hardware and always repurpose my hold hardware stuff. Never failed me !!
However, there are some functions specific to NAS’ like low power and other stuff people mention but I already forgot.
IMO all this NAS and certified server stuff is good for Enterprise shit and the like… But for homelabbing it’s probably overkill and way to much overpriced for the little gain…
Except maybe for the ease of use and plug and play function? Each one it’s own I guess !
The only reason I even have “server” parts is because they were dirt cheap at the recycling center. Before I used this my rig was an old pc from a doctors office I worked at they were going to throw away from like 2009. It was awful spec wise but it did the job. My current build is overkill but I wanted to play with vms and local LLM stuff and the hardware was cheap, so why not?
low power is definitely something to consider though. That said there are some people that have made impressive builds out there. There are some low power builds on the unraid forums that use even less power than one of these things. It’s a bit more up front because it relies on some niche hardware but the power usage is so low it’s maybe worthwhile if you use it for years
I just fail to see the benefit of these. Ease of use for sure but assembling a pc is really not difficult and installing an OS is not hard either. And an os like unraid or truenas is pretty simple to use, they hold your hand a lot. Like I get that running Debian is something not everyone wants to do but then it’s like, just don’t do that then?
Frankly if you’re capable enough to configure the dockers you’d run on one of these, like plex or Jellyfin, I would think you could handle those things??
Oh yeah sorry ! For the ease of use part I ment the NAS stuff which already comes bundled with all the necessary software to keep things easy but less customizable !
Yeah if you get IT enterprise hardware for free it’s kinda similar to repurposing, sooo that’s a great deal and lucky you !!!
But I would never put 1$ myself into specific server stuff ! Except if one day I want to contribute to the self-hosted/opensource community and host something like newpipe that needs to be publicly available.Then yeah, proper hardware and software stuff is mandatory !
Sorry if my comment came by rude, that wasn’t my purpose !
No need to be sorry, I did not take it that way, we are best friends forever. More to clarify that there are a ton of old server parts out there for dirt cheap if you’re okay with saving e waste from the trash heap.
You are absolutely right that homelabs are totally fine on consumer grade hardware but check server parts too, you might be surprised at the deals you find, especially locally. My build was a 10th gen intel build and cpu/mobo/32gb ecc ram/heatsink missing fan was $125. That was several years ago though and now we got tarrrrriiifffsss
There’s plenty of N100/N350 motherboards with 6 SATA ports on AliExpress, grab them while you can
Do you happen to know about a decent solution for 8 SATA ports on a mini-ITX board?
Yes,
www.silverstonetek.com/en/product/info/…/ECS07/ www.amazon.com/…/B0D8BCWHPT
www.aliexpress.com/item/1005003335714128.html
Then you have 4 main plus these 5-6 extra. Just put your boot drive on a data drive instead of m.2 or get an adaptor and you are good to go. 8 data drives plus a boot drive
Thank you. I have seen the ASM1166 mentioned before as part of such a solution, but the other suggestions were new to me.
Can you also confirm to me, have I got it right that (some/all? of) the N100 boards has everything included regarding CPU, GPU and RAM, while most other mini-ITX boards come without those? Or did I get that wrong? Sorry for bothering you, but it’s all still a bit confusing to me, and I have an empty Jonsbo N3 case, and some 22TB drives that are longing to move into their house.
Lmao what is Synology smoking. I have used their hardware in the past, now I’m so glad that I chose a Nextcloud setup for my home storage solution.
Also why does the nonsense reasoning for these limitations always include “security”. That’s a rhetorical question btw, I know they are just making shit up.
This comment by Frodo Douchebaggins in the Ars Technica comments sums up my newfound opinion of Synlogy pretty well:
Welp, guess I definitely won’t be buying synology again in the future. I was planning to transition to a rackmounted NAS at some point and synology is overpriced in that category anyway but this puts the final nail in for me.
It’s a shame because I quite liked the simplicity of their UI.
The Unifi rackmount NAS looks pretty sweet imho.
That thing looks almost too good to be true for 500. What’s the drawback?
Not available in europe? (It actually is available, I just checked)
Loud as fuck?
Bad Software?
You have to sacrifice a goat to it every time a drive hits 829374930 revolutions of its third platter.
Only 7 bays and small rack size. It’s a NAS not like Synology + series.
Is that supposed to be a con? I don’t even use 4 bays currently and would be perfectly fine with a 4 rackmount NAS. 7 HDD bays sounds great to me
You asked the drawback on a thread about Synology.
Doesn’t look like it hooks into their unifi ecosystem which would be a big negative for me.
Edit: the pro does but what that even looks like idk
Died 1990s, born 2025 - welcome back Mac hard drive firmware lockdowns
People who buy overpriced “solutions” instead of taking the time to configure a PC seem like exactly the crowd to enjoy a closed ecosystem (see apple)
Not everyone has time, skill, or desire to spend their nights learning how to build and configure a nas.
People have other hobbies than IT, so if a photographer wants to have a local storage for his portfolio without faff, I guess they can get fucked?
Really with your gatekeeping
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t support this. But I can see how the suits at Synology could come to the conclusion that this is a great idea
The reason why Synology is great is their bulletproof reliability.
Sure you might be able to make a PC perform the same spec for spec but will it actually? And even with these devices, they are so far from Apple it isn’t funny, you have to set up a fair bit still to make the most of them. Also why use a 500w psu VS low power consumption of a NAS device.
Honestly HDDs/SDDs are a disposable part of the backup ecosystem, I get that they want some extra money but there are already scripts to overcome some of the existing compability checkers in these systems.
I had been considering upgrading, my current 4 bay Synology is physically full and running out of storage space. Moving that to a larger Synology box and adding drives would be easiest, basically plug and play.
But now instead I’ll probably just switch to a more traditional NAS instead. Run TrueNAS, or maybe give HexOS a look. If I’m going to have to convert from my current proprietary Synology filesystem anyway I might as well rebuild from scratch. As it is I’ve shifted all the services off the Synology and Docker to a dedicated Proxmox box.
Grab one of the 8 bays now, this won’t affect anything currently released. I don’t see me having to retire my 1813+ or 1819+ (both 8bay) anytime soon and both are 4+ years old without a hiccup.
Why bother with that? That’s gonna be $1000 just for the box alone, and still lock me into the Synology ecosystem.
I can build a NAS with more capability for less than that. Like taking a Jonsbo NAS case and have the freedom to do whatever I want with it, with plenty of space to move everything else I’m running over to that as well. Even their N5 would likely be less expensive, and I’d have room for 12 HDDs and 4 SSDs then.
While I agree with the doing whatever you want on a custom build I very much doubt the reliability as per my comment here.
lemmy.world/comment/16523392
Personally I’ll be moving to rack units when these finally kick the bucket.
Once my DS415+ (with the C2000 fix) finally dies, I’ll most probably go with a Terramaster F4-423. They have an internal USB-port with their OS which you can replace and install a custom OS to it. And it’s basically just an Intel NUC with a storage controller in a nice package. So, pretty much compatible with the usual OSes and NAS softwares.
This will not end well for them.
Critical Synology Vulnerability Let Attackers Remote Execute Arbitrary Code
Just build your own. It’s easy. Move on.
I get why they do this sort of thing but it didn’t stop us re-adding video station and h265 support back into our Synos.
Someone already made a script to overwrite the existing compatible drive checker so someone will write a new script to fix the new one.
github.com/007revad/Synology_HDD_db
github.com/007revad/Video_Station_for_DSM_722
Oh, snap, bringing me the magic I need, but didn’t know to look for.
I’ve been refusing to update because of video station. Looks like I’m saving your comment for later.
The real shame is they didn’t open source the app on decom.
That’s a massive shot in the foot.
As a Synology owner, I already had enough - they have arbitrarily cut customer support to sanctioned jurisdictions, leaving me without the support they promised and I expected when paying for a device.
Next one will definitely be built from the ground up.
They are probably betting they will make more money from businesses. I.e., actual pros, vs prosumer.
I do like my Synology NAS I bought 10 yrs ago, but these days there are more and better alternatives for people who dont really need to pay for the support and stability.
Synology is made for the tech literate tech idiot.
They solve one problem and create a dozen more. That problem not only doesn’t need a physical solution, it doesn’t need to be a standalone device. It doesn’t need its own shitty proprietary operating system.
Anyways. Fuck them.
Would love to hear why the problem doesn’t need a physical solution, if you want total control
You literally just moved the goalposts.
But, sure, ok… your NAS can be simply 1 16TB HDD in a server that does a dozen other things already, assuming its generally always available on your network. That’s roughly what I do (with redundancy).
Synology runs a proprietary OS OOTB that’s had multiple sloppy vulns exposing full remote access to users’ files. Putting your data in the hands of fuckups who have and will continue to leak it is the opposite of total control.
It’s completely trivial to store any data you want to in a cloud provider 100% securely just by piping it through openssl before uploading.
I was looking at simple 2 bay home NAS and Synology was - quite logically - one of the contenders. Now I’m glad I ordered differently. Went with Asustor AS5402, which might be not as polished package as a Synology option, but they’re very open about it and say it’s just regular PC so you can instal e.g. TrueNAS if you want. This openness convinced me.
They should be careful, they’re just selling small form factor computers with removable drive bays. Standing up and unraid or a true Naz isn’t all that difficult. And then there’s plenty of competition out there ready and willing to eat their lunch.
Synology is like Ubiquity in the self-hosted community: sure it’s self-hosted, but it’s definitely not yours. End of the day you get to deal with their decisions.
Terramaster lets you run your own OS on their machine. That’s basically what a homelabber wants: a good chassis and components. I couldn’t see a reason to buy a Synology after Terramaster and Ugreen started ramping out their product lines which let you run whatever OS you wanted. Synology at this point is for people who either don’t know what they’re doing or want to remain hands-off with storage management (which is valid; you don’t want to do more work when you get home for work). Unfortunately, such customers are now out in the lurch, so TrueNAS or trust some other company to hold your data safe.
Lol! Not like uGreen put any roadblocks to running your own OS (like disabling the watch dog feature in the BIOS and some other setting to enable custom boot).
And you don’t have any fan control on their NAS. Either you estimate and configure correcrly or you need to schedule downtime.
Actual servers let you live tune (some of) the power settings. Synology supports changing the fan profile in the live OS.
Damn I was really happy for ugreen, terrormaster it is then.
It’s not like you can’t do it (I did save the original SSD and replaced it with a new one and installed TrueNas Scale). It’s just not intended to do from uGreens perspective.
Edit: I think I used either of these guides I used on how to open and how to install the new OS:
youtu.be/BWNH_JzMNPc
youtu.be/R8t-Wqx_E3U
youtu.be/yh8Ao5ryOeE
Oh yeah. The HDD indicator bays are partly non-functional as well.
But you can restore some functionality with scripts you run periodically with cron. Juat search “ugreen dxp4800plus led cli github” to find it.
Edit2:
And I only chose a uGreen NAS due to the Kickstarter price. Because that was a 40% price reduction.
At least I got a solid Model that is really nice. It also has a magnetic metal dust cover Ican easily remove if needed (even easier than the one on my pc case front panel which is a Fractal Design North)
Just lol at Synology trying to do an Nvidia
Is the main appeal of prebuilt NAS cases the aesthetics and the reduction of DIY concerns?
Because they seem to me like overpriced and underpowered computers. Most tech-oriented folks I know have more powerful PCs in a closet somewhere that they could easily convert into a NAS
Edit: some very thoughtful responses thanks y’all! I definitely see the appeal for people who just need something that doesn’t need tinkering or care significantly about power draw and noise.
1U form factor, 4 disks, using 7w whilst idle, decent enough CPU to run 1 Linux VM
I bought an RS822+ for as a veeam Linux repo.
I can’t make that myself, or I don’t know how.
It was stupid expensive and if it wasn’t the business paying I would have probably put a bunch of disks into an HP elite desk.
I am a tech oriented person, I work in IT, and a Syno ticks the boxes in many respects.
Low power draw. Power efficiency is very important to me, especially for something that runs 24/7. I don’t know how efficient self-build options are these days, but 10 years ago I couldn’t get close to the efficiency of a good NAS.
Set and forget. I maintain enough systems at work so I don’t really want to spend all of my free time maintaining my own. A Syno “just works”, it can run for months or years without a reboot (and when it does need one, it does it by itself overnight), and I can easily upgrade or swap a dead drive in a couple of minutes. When the entire NAS dies I can stick the drives in a new one and be up and running almost instantly.
Size and noise. I don’t have a massive house, so I need something that can sit on a shelf and be unobtrusive. In our last house it was literally sat in the living room, spinning drives constantly, and nobody was bothered by it.
The Syno I have is plenty good enough to run a bunch of Docker containers and a few VMs for all of my self hosted stuff, and it just does the job efficiently, quietly, and without complaining or needing constant maintenance.
I don’t like this creep towards requiring branded drives and memory, though I’m pretty sure it’s not legal in the EU. Regardless there are ways around it.
Yeah I agree, I set up a synology as a little summer project and I didn’t want to go out and source parts and put a nas Linux distro to do everything myself. Synology is newbie friendly and kind of holds your hand to do everything even dynamic dns. However, if I were to get another nas, I would be more comfortable setting it up myself.
We use DS223j’s at work for our clients as backup targets.
Fast to set up and configure from a total beginner up to experienced IT personal.
And I set up NFS, Samba and ACLs in my own Debian NAS.
It aint so sleek and braindead-simple like a Syno does it.
One question in regards to your noise comment: What drives are you running? I have a synology with 2 toshiba mg08 16tb drives and those things are unbearably loud when reading or writing. A lot of that obviously comes down to the drives themselves but I also kind of blame the plastic chassis for probably resonating with the noise and not being better at soundproofing.
It’s an 8 bay unit with six drives that are a mix of WD Red and Seagate Ironwolf, all NAS grade drives, basically. The other two slots have SSDs for hosting the aforementioned containers and VMs.
The largest drives I have are 4TB though, so maybe the larger capacity ones are louder? I also ran the fan profile in whatever the quietest setting is.
You are paying for reasonably well polished software, which for non technical people makes them a very good choice.
They have one click module installs for a lot of the things that self hosted people would want to run. If you want Plex, a onedrive clone, photo sync on your phone, etc just click a button and they handle installing and most of the maintenance of running that software for you. Obviously these are available on other open source NAS appliances now too so this isn’t much of a differnentiator for them anymore, but they were one of the first to do this.
I use them for their NVR which there are open source alternatives for but they aren’t nearly as polished, user friendly, or feature rich.
Their backup solution is also reasonably good for some home labs and small business use cases. If you have a VMware lab at home for instance it can connect to your vCenter and it do incremental backups of your VMs. There is an agent for Windows machines as well so you can keep laptops/desktops backed up.
For businesses there are backup options for Office365/Google Workspace where it can keep backups of your email/calendar/onedrive/SharePoint/etc. So there are a lot of capabilities there that aren’t really well covered with open source tools right now.
I run my own built NAS for mass storage because anything over two drives is way too expensive from Synology and I specifically wanted ZFS, but the two drive units were priced low enough to buy just for the software. If you want a set and forget NAS they were a pretty good solution.
If their drives are reasonably priced maybe they will still be an okay choice for some people, but we all know the point of this is for them to make more money so that is unlikely. There are alternatives like Qnap, but unless you specifically need one of their software components either build it yourself or grab one of the open source NAS distros.
I see! Thanks so much for the thoughtful response definitely seems like there’s a use case for people who might be more creatives with a need for storage rather than self-hosting enthusiasts who want to mess around in a homelab.
The prices are still a bit eye watering but you pay for software support for sure.
I think the biggest draw to Synology now is the ultra low power consumption. Yeah, you could totally repurpose an old PC, but it’s crazy to run 500W perpetually. The reason they use old Celeron processors is the low power draw. In time, hopefully, RISC V can produce some low cost systems that would slot in well for this use case.
Obviously everything depends on use case. I definitely am a tinkerer and prefer options. I’d never run a jellyfin server off a synology NAS cause… Well cause it can’t transcode very well. So efficiency is less of a concern than processing power.
I get now that my questions was a bit moot, obviously some people will pay a premium for a narrow use case if it brings reliability and ease of use.
Reliability. We’ve put them in small businesses and they do their job very well VS a frankenpc NAS.
I have 2 8-Bay devices at home and they are so good for what they are. Silent, low power, bit of fancy utility for those that like it but reliable and quality. They age very well.
I also use the surveillance station with my cameras which all connected ootb fine. (mix of brands)
i was considering these devices for my home media set up, now im just building my own NAS with some old parts i had laying around and using open source software.
fuck this shit.
Remember, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with buying a used 7th gen Intel PC and filling that with [insert drive of choice]. An i7-7700T is still more powerful than even the newer Synology units.
Isn’t synology basically a Linux system with lots of slots for storage? Can’t you just… buy a pi?
In regards to performance? Probably yes.
In regards to IO connectivity? It depends.
Maybe with something like a PCIe to SAS/SATA backplane?
Are we overreacting? Hasn’t Synology always had a list of “certified” drives for their NAS’, which end up being the same HDDs we would tend to use anyway?
I can understand that they don’t want people using any garbage storage drives, which could increase failure and make Synology NAS’ look unreliable.
Unless something has changed, this is how they’ve always done it, just like how every laptop manufacturer will say which RAM and storage works best (for reliability and performance) on their machines.
They’re disabling features
Yes, but is this them being assholes, or them wanting to make sure that users aren’t making their system unreliable? I think there would be a huge distinction there.
For example, say a user wanted to create a cache drive using an SSD. But because the user doesn’t know better, they buy the cheapest crap they can find, install it, and set up caching. But because they’re using cheap shit, the drive is slow and the user reports poor performance, system hangups, and other instability.
Wouldn’t it be in Synology’s best interest to say “here’s a list of drives we know will give you the best experience.”?
Now, Synology has already done that, but users are ignoring it and continue to use poor storage drives expecting to use pretty sophisticated features. What now? Well, Synology disables those features.
For example:
Um, yeah. That makes sense. If a shitty hard drive can’t reliably get firmware updates through the NAS, why on earth would they want to keep that option enabled? Same with lifespan analysis. If a crappy drive isn’t using modern standards and protocols for measuring and logging errors and performance data, Synology really can’t “enable” this to work, can they?
That’s what I think is happening. Although, this could be just greed, too. I don’t think there’s any real problem for most users, unless they say that we can’t use fairly common, high-quality NAS drives from Seagate or WD and must use their own branded drives. I’d have a huge problem with that.
I think it’s a mix of the two. There are legitimate reasons, and commercial reasons
Hi. I’d like the word “pro-sumer” banned. In perpetuity.
Why?
Why would anyone even use Synology?
Just buy a pc with big hard drives
My personal reasons for buying a synology were ease of use, reliability and power usage.
I had previously played around with TrueNAS in a VM using an external USB HDD Enclosure for storage and I just wanted something reliable. With TrueNAS I often ran into issues with user permissions one way or another and the Synology software is incredibly easy to use and foolproof.
Without technical know-how or experience in general using NAS, Synology is a good first-time option. All apps are ready for immediate use. And don’t forget the majority of computer users don’t even know what a NAS is and they simply want to store files for remote access.
This is why I chose an ASUS nuc + external bay-storage for my home networking needs, felt like synology NAS would be a limiting factor.
So you built your own NAS, then. NAS is just an acronym, “Network Attached Storage”. Not a singular line of products.
That said - I also feel the same way about Synology and the other “all-in-one NAS” brands. Expensive for what they are, which is essentially an incredibly cheap PC with a built in toaster. I built my NAS out of a 2014 Mac Mini (running OMV) and a Sabrent USB-C 4-bay drive dock, and even full of WD Reds, that entire rig is literally half the price of a DS920+. And more powerful.
Plllbbbbbb @ Synology - I just got one of these and added 2x 4TB ssds this week. I’ll eventually add 2x more but for now I’m set: gmktec.com/…/intel-twin-lake-n150-dual-system-4-b…
Fingers crossed that it doesn’t blow up or crap out.
Jeff Geerling: www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_Ft8OAPQ3g
Tldw: get some thin heat syncs 75-80c temps on the ssds
Cut some holes in the plate covering them
Absolutely wild timing on this video. I built mine on Wednesday. I installed OpenMediaVault on mine. The one I bought was $30 cheaper to not have that Win 11 1TB drive. I would have wiped that anyway, and have no use for a 1TB drive.
I started mine off with heatsinks on my SSDs. Those are running at 53 C since being powered up on Wednesday after work. I didn’t go crazy with the heatsinks that pop out of the bottom or anything though, his were pretty funny to see.
<img alt="" src="https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/18d88d49-e276-41c5-9f05-898a7c6a27db.png">
<img alt="" src="https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/495ea900-023c-4a8a-b4d8-55a593dc16f6.png">
These posts are absolutely perfect timing for me. I’m looking to start replacing an old Synology Diskstation I bought back in 2016 that has worked for me flawlessly. I really appreciate everyone sharing their details and experiences here.
Guess I am going to be taking my “pro-sumer” dollars elsewhere.
I own a Synology NAS. It’ll be the first and last one I buy. When I need an upgrade I’ll go back to building my own again.
I was thinking of buying a Synology system. I was actually looking at prices this past week.
That being said, I’ve got an old 2019 desktop running Windows that is coming to the end of its support, that I was considering making a Linux machine.
How complex is making a roll-your-own NAS?
It’s not too complicated but you don’t get some things for free like with Synology. It require work to setup scripts for offsite backup for example whereas Synology has a backup app with a UI.
For storage, I used to run ZFS in a raidZ2 configuration. If you do this then I suggest having a cron job running a script that can alert you if the pool is unhealthy. This is again something that Synology does for free.
You could also look up trueNAS core and see if that’s something that fits for you.
It really depends on what you want out of it. I personally installed ProxMox on an old gaming machine (DDR3 RAM old lol) and have an Open Media Vault virtual machine running on it with access to my ZFS mirrored pair of storage drives.
Enabling Samba support in Open Media Vault gives you a nice little NAS. I believe it’s okay to install bare metal if you really want to also.
It also has a nice Docker interface, so although I should probably not bundle services together so tightly, it runs things like Jellyfin for media, Paperless NGX for document storage, and NextCloud AIO for a convenient (if slightly resource-hungry) interface.
ProxMox lets me do fun things though, like back up the VMs, spin up virtual machines for PiHole ad blocking and Klipper for controlling my 3D printer.
My most important data gets synced to a subscription to a service called iDrive as my offsite. Pretty affordable for 5TB and my own encryption keys. :)
I want to stress that I’m not an IT professional or anything either. If you’re reasonably comfortable with Linux and understand some basic networking, I’d say at least getting Proxmox and/or Open Media Vault up and running so you can access it on your home network isn’t too hard.
Outside of that, and if you want HTTPS and stuff? There’s lots of guides but I would recommend using TailScale instead of opening any ports to the web.
Sorry if this post was meandering but hope it gave you a little bit to go on! :)
I have mini-ITX board in a mini case. 4 bays, 16 GB RAM of DDR3-L and a slow but very low TDP CPU. This thing is very low power but it’s on 24/7.
Runs home assistant with zigbee, rtl433 and whatever it detects over the network. A few older game servers (minecraft, minetest/luanti, quake 2), miniDLNA, … Arch Linux, so rolling release and always up to date with the latest versions.
Served me greatly and I haven’t upgraded because it still does what I want and I can’t find any modern CPU with a TDP this low.
Really depends on what you want out of the system, what you can spend and how much time you want to spend on it.
My old z390 itx system has a 16x PCIE to 4x m.2 card - leveraging an m.2 to 5x SATA adaptor with the built in SATA adaptors has given it plenty of space.
Considering I can grab m.2 to 6 SATA adaptors and fill the remainder of the slots that’s a decent chunk of drives from a single PCIE x16 slot.
Software is another kettle of fish and a good way to timesink, I’d rather not give too much of my personal experience as there are so many ways to skin that cat.
I've heard good things about Qnap
but I also heard good things about Synology...
Also on my first and last I think.
Well, I had been considering one, but I guess not
It sucks, because all things considered, they’re great little devices. I really like mine.
That’s what I’ve heard… Getting real tired of people building great products only for corpos to find a way to make it terrible for an extra buck
Def agree.
Damn it I already own own one. I guess I funded this cunt corporate move
Me too. Invested in my setup last year :(
I’m not saying that they won’t do this, but so far their actual actions have ended up pretty decent. I’ve had 3 Synology devices over the last 12(?) years, and while they are not perfect, they have been very good at delivering what they promised over the long haul. All of them still work fine. Even the old guy delivers.
Actually perfect timing (for me, it’s all in all terrible)… I was about to buy myself a NAS and struggled to figure out which to get, and this removes at least one option.
As I read this, I am just transfering over to TrueNas on totally open hardware (from Synology). After 1 week, I am loving it. A bit of a learning curve, but TrueNas seems really nice and solid.
Honestly if you’re comfortable with Linux I just built my own at this point, but if you’re not then obviously don’t take my advice
Such a silly move. Like shooting yourself in the foot to sell more bullets
I had Synology for a second but built my own server, went UnRAID, and never looked back.
This is the way.
Started messing around with docker containers on a small Synology box a few years ago, dumped Synology with a quickness in favor of just building an Ubuntu-based NAS. I’m running TrueNAS Scale bare metal now and getting ready to dump it to go back to another roll-my-own Linux + ZFS setup, possibly using Cockpit and the ZFS extensions from 45 drives.
For me at least I never considered a synology nas it seemed like the apple of home servers. Especially when I enjoy building machines anyway there was no point. Although I can definitely see the appeal for some people.
I wonder if there are more open solutions that don’t require building a machine from scratch.
Yeah I expected that this would happen. They already did this with RAM. They just rebrand RAM, sell it for a way higher price and add a check. When they brought their own branded HDDs, I knew they will pull of the same scam.
Building an own server isn’t that more expensive and you don’t have to deal with the whole lockout with Synology. For example I had quite the issue to access hardware. I wasn’t able to get Home Assistant running on my NAS. The issue was my Zigbee USB Stick. I got it running to the point where I was able to send commands (e.g. turn on or off lights) but the status didn’t came back. I threw it on my Pi3 (now Pi5) and zero issues.
The next NAS is self build. Probably Proxmox as base, with truenas or so as main server and the rest depends on what I might need.
I have a synology I bought 3rd party ram (not synology) and it works fine. Same with drives just bought some seagate drives. Probably going to upgrade from a 4 bay to a 12 and I don’t see compatibility of ram being an issue. I just don’t feel like building a whole racked system I just want to plug and play and forget. As of now tho only thing I lose is warranty cause I’m using not “certified” ram and drives.