I know this topic has been done ad nauseam but I’m stuck in a decision loop that looks something like this…
“…OK screw it, I’m going to stop talking about it just get a [non-enterprise/non-rack] Synology/QNAP NAS. I rent an apartment and they have a much smaller footprint and low power draw out of the box. Damn, it really costs that much for 4 bays with entry level hardware? NIC and RAM upgrade costs how much??? What if Synology abandons that model? Where’s the fun in this solution anyway…”
“…OK I’m going to look at going DIY instead. It’s more interesting, more customisable, virtually unlimited support, can be cheaper. Man that case is big and ugly… hey that ITX case looks alright. Wow consumer ITX boards are expensive, rather limited, and look like they will suck power too. Woah OK enterprise ITX mainboards are not in my budget. Hmm that aliexpress NAS board looks alright, but could be a dice roll. Do I really have time for this anyway? OK screw it I’m getting a Synology…”
And so on… I get all the pro’s and con’s of each, and that’s part of the issue!
Ultimately homelabbing is a hobby, and if I wasn’t such a nerd I would have bought a turnkey solution already or just paid Big Tech for the solutions I require.
On the other hand, the storage is a critical part of the infrastructure and could suck the fun out of the hobby. Maybe it’s best to pay for a solution created by people smarter than me (and paid for their time), so I can spend time on fun things that aren’t mission critical.
So I want to hear from fellow nerds, which path did you chose and do you regret it?
I’ve had several COTS type NAS’… all of them have had some sort of limiting factor and the value vs. hardware and capabilities were just never there for me. I went through hell with Synology and their “approved” memory and now drives… that was the final nail in the coffin for me.
Just last fall I went for broke (literally) and bought a 45 Drives Storinator AV15. Zero regrets, it runs Ubuntu and ZFS, and if it breaks I keep both pieces and can customize it all I want with any off the shelf parts I see fit. Was it cheap? Hell no… (and I’m still paying for it) … but I was tired of messing with all these Turnkey NAS’ so I decided this was the path forward.
If I had it to do over again (and wish it was an option at the time) I would have opted for their new Homelab server instead. What I have is overkill, but it was the best path forward for my needs.
I bought a QNAP device a decade ago. Today, it is about 3% full. Turns out I didn’t need any NAS at all…
Having setup my own DIY I found that great for me, as I knew how it worked and had a lot of fun learning. When I needed an off site backup that worked out the box and was low maintenance I went with Synology
I had a QNAP. It was terrible and slow. Would not recommend. Now I have a DIY TrueNAS, would 100% recommend.
DIY - No Regrets.
I built my NAS out of spare parts originally and then it evolved into needing dedicated purchases. I like having full control of the OS and everything on it - it helps me understand what daemons are doing what. It does a lot more than file sharing.
The likes of QNAP and Synology may make a more polished product with an easy UI, as well as offering support, but as far as I care, I am support, so I like to fix problems myself.
If you’re ping-ponging between the two options, from your post it reads like cost is the biggest problem you face. But as you say, storage is a critical part of the infrastructure and sometimes you do have to spend money on it if you want it to be reliable. I just upgraded my main NAS with a larger chassis and motherboard (from an ITX) so I can expand it further. It cost me a sizeable amount of money that might have bought me a low-end ready-made, but this is far more flexible.
Yeah to me cost is a big factor, but probably equal with freedom. I see the price of a prebuilt NAS (diskless!) and I can’t help but think of what could be achieved with the same money on a DIY system that has the benefits of being upgradable and flexible.
One other factor is that with a DIY maybe I would be too tempted to tinker with a system that should not be tinkered with and just create more work for myself haha
DIY - no regrets
I got a free enterprise HP tower that was eol 5-6 years ago and put freenas on it. It’s stil going strong. And it still beats a modern 8 bay synology.
(I’ve since expanded the lab, but this NAS is still with me)
I’ve had 2 HDDs go belly up in that time and had to replace those, but RMA was no problem since it was within 3y warranty. Due to RMA process I also bought a spare replacement , so now I have a cold spare waiting.
Power? Well… napkin math: it’s ~60-70 W not counting the HDDs. I’m sure I could find something that goes to sleep (~0 W), but mine is on 24/7, and that’s ok because I want my scrubs and data integrity. My more recent Truenas Scale build is more cpu, more better, more everything and sips 30-35 W idle. That one is also on 24/7. Anyway the delta between my old and less old hardware is 30-35 W at $0.10/kWh is ~$1/year/W x 35 W is about $ 35/y.
An 8 bay synology is $ 1000… yeah, I’ll pay the power bill.
I also backup everything important to Onedrive (i.e. not my steam cache).
I regret not having enough money for everything i want.
My NAS build is perfect for my need, and i think it’s perfect for most of us, i’m sure there are tons of people that take my suggestion and take some hints from them.
The only real regret i have, is having just 8 GB of ram, for folder caching, 16GB would be better, but i can upgrade, so no problem.
The, of course there is possibility for improve, like ECC, IPMI, better case, bigger drives etc, but those things cost too.
If someone have the capability of troubleshooting and DIY, this remains the best solution for money and performance. Prebuilt are good mostly for company and people that don’t want too many problems.
DIY all the way. I am currently running openmediavault 6 on an old G5930 CPU in a Coolermaster CM690 case with 5 x 6TB drives. It’s been rock solid for a few years now. This is for storage only. I have a separate DL380 G7 currently running my self hosted stuff. Most of the storage is used for media with my critical files being backed up on 2 remote locations as well.
My first NAS was a HP Proliant N54L that I ran Ubuntu 12.04 on. Of course, I rebuilt it several times and it ended up with Ubuntu 20.04 on it (hitting every major LTS release along the way). Ran that until just a year ago when I replaced it with a Synology RS-422+.
I went with the Synology because for the price I couldn’t really build something with hot swap drives, 1RU, and shallow depth. Now only use my Synology as a true NAS. I don’t run containers or anything else on it. Strictly an iSCSI/NFS/SMB solution to support the rest of my network.
i went diy NAS, no regrets, then went with a qnap nas to save on the power bill, also no regrets - the only thing i used either of them for is a network fileshare, though, so there’s that
I’ve built multiple DIY NASes both virtual and physical. No regrets.
I have some COTS NASes too, they do their job well. I only use them as a NAS - as in just storage. All of my COTS NASes are all secondhand, some of them are over 10 years old, still works ok, a bit slow for bit transfers but for $100 AUD for a 4 bay with 1T drives included or one of them, I’m not complaining lol
Sometimes it’s a financial decision, so I could regret it all I want but I’d still choose the same diy route 😉
A NAS is *way* too easy for even a novice to build to justify buying it as an appliance. Set up a software RAID and filesystem with LVM+XFS or ZFS or bcacheFS. Install the NFS server userspace utilities. Use the in-kernel NFS server. Add a line or two of configuration to /etc/exports.
Done. That’s what, fifteen minutes of work tops?
I voted DIY - No regrets. Myself (and a lot of others here) run used/surplus enterprise hardware that’s cheap/free. You’re kind of missing an option for that.
My primary NAS is a PowerEdge T620 with 13x 8TB HDDs (8 in the built in drive cages, 5 more in a caddy that fits in the 3x 5.25" bays). The server and the drives were free/surplus, but I bought an upgraded pair of CPUs (E5-2695 v2’s) , 128GB of RAM, and the drive caddy, for probably $200 total. It’s getting a little long in the tooth and I’ll be keeping my eye out for something newer (and less power hungry) during the next round of decommissioning.
This scratches my ‘play with enterprise hardware’ itch and is easier on the wallet upfront, but the power cost is probably more in the long run.
Also, you’ll likely get very different answers in the polls here vs in r/synology or similar. You’re asking homelabbers here, so you’re going to get homelab answers. But that’s okay, because it sounds like you fit in just fine here!
Yeah my old job was always decomissioning stuff and I had to stop taking it because my grilfriend was not impressed by the pile of old tech collecting dust that I was “doing something with”. Lots of old workstations but never any old server hardware… which was a good thing because I would have taken it and there’s definitely not the space for it in my appartment.
I currently have a jerry-rigged “NAS” made out of some odds and ends that I use to store my linux iso collection. It’s getting full and I wouldn’t trust it with my personal files anyway. So it’s time to bite the bullet and add a real dedicated NAS that’s not going to fall over (physically and metaphorically) at the slightest touch.
I’ve been lurking on r/homelab for a while, and I was after homelab answers haha. I wanted to hear from people who have similar interests to me, and I got the range of perspectives I was hoping for! If I wasn’t a such a nerd then I’d go out and buy a Synology box right now.
Synology DS1821+. I had a go at making a hyperconverged setup with an HPE DL380p G8, loud and power hungry. Also HPE are dicks with their hardware, can’t boot off the array when in passthrough mode.
Got a SuperMicro machine to try the same thing, again, loud and hungry.
The Synology is quiet and sips power. While it has no hope in hell of doing ZFS and the interface is proprietary as hell, SHR2 and BTRFS just works for me. I have a large network accessible space for “linux isos” and iSCSI for Proxmox.
I need to get rid of those 2 servers…