Off the shelf nas? Build your own. I use Xpenology. It turns my hardware into a synology nas. I did buy a Unas case, so it is a nas style, but anything that holds disks will work. Yes a little tinkering still but not much. Bootable usb stick is easy enough. I’ve also used Freenas/truenas. I like them well enough, but I had gotten used to synology. Just don’t want to buy their hardware. I run two. Works just fine.
Comment on How to Get Hardware Transcoding BACK on Your Synology NAS
Prove_your_argument@piefed.social 3 weeks ago
Are there any great alternatives that are easy to use off the shelf (with our own drives) that can compete here?
I’m basically to the point where my next NAS will end up just being a linux desktop running truenas which sounds like a lot of tinkering for something that should have a simple solution. I don’t want to have to buy some big expensive enterprise array for a prosumer use case.
PancakesCantKillMe@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
RiQuY@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
Buy a QNAP, install an nvme drive and install your OS of choice.
kylian0087@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
Please dont… I got a qnap TS-H886 and it is the worst NAS I have used.
The so called ZFS that it is using is a very very old fork of openZFS that does not follow any standards. The inside is a complete mess.
RiQuY@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
The hardware has nothing to do with the ZFS version, like I said, if you are unhappy with it, change OS. Mine runs silent and got 0 issues with ZFS, it is a TS-464.
kylian0087@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
The hardware has nothing to do with the ZFS version,
Yeah but the QuTS OS of QNAP does. It is not as straight forward to install a other OS on the thing. Specially a NAS OS like TrueNAS scale. having to enable dev mode on truenas and compile a custom driver for the fans to work is not as straight forward for most people. it is not just the ZFS implementation that’s bad also their whole OS it self is.
unphazed@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
OMV took me some time to learn and setup, but I love the thing. I wish it had a file manager with root access thoigh. Learned to do without though, and with Docker really no need.
Bo7a@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
I’m with you here. I have put qnaps in dozens of smb client solutions and I have only ever had problems with one of them. I don’t stan qnap - truenas all the way. But their offerings are not nearly as bad as this thread seems to imply.
Brkdncr@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
My next nas wont be synology, it will be qnap.
rainwall@piefed.social 3 weeks ago
I’d recommend against it. It works “fine” but everything is a thin, but walled garden. Every app is some “Qsomebullshit."They really, really want you in their ecosystem.
Id say the systems are underspec’ed as well. The model I bought years pitched itself as container ready, but the chipset is so weak it can’t run anything worth a damn.
Brkdncr@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Synology isn’t any different.
I’d argue a NAS is for storage mostly.
rainwall@piefed.social 3 weeks ago
The vm/container side is less important than the “cant run a RAID parity check regularly because it makes the NAS useless” part.
I’d argue that a nas should be able to run containers at this point. NAS Hardware does not need to be utterly gutless just because it can be. A versatile NAS is actually a great first choice for a homelab setup before you start to expand.
LucidNightmare@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
I got a Dell computer that was headed for the dump from someone, installed TrueNAS Scale on it, and it has actually replaced my Synology for everything other than straight up storage. Now the Synology does the storage, and everything else is in TrueNAS. It did take me a few lookups to understand the permissions on TrueNAS, as Synology is much easier to set up in that regard. I like the fine grain permissions controls, sure, but it was definitely not user friendly to a complete noob like Synology was.
brygphilomena@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
At this point, I’d say build your own if you are wanting anything more than basic file sharing.
Lots of resources out there and even NAS style cases to make it basically the same as any off the shelf NAS.
Xenology has been mentioned here, but I haven’t used it
FreeNAS is good, but I haven’t used it in years.
OpenMediaVault is supposed to be good, but again I haven’t used it.
Unraid is good and has super easy support for docker. I primarily use this because of its ability to use different disk sizes for the array and does what is the equivalent of software RAID. It’s not the fastest thing on the market, but for my use case (primarily Plex/Jellyfin) I don’t need the fastest reads or writes. It supports hardware passthrough for VMs or to docker containers so they can take advantage of hardware for acceleration. It also runs off a flash stick, so I don’t waste any disks on the OS.
Atherel@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
Prove_your_argument@piefed.social 3 weeks ago
Stuff like that puts me off. By default it’s basically illegal, so we have no idea when the developers will need to retain legal counsel that explicitly tells them to delete everything and cease discussing it.
Support and maintenance are a nightmare, and based on the other folks here talking about it, it’s certainly something to have to tinker with heavily.
If i’m going to have to tinker, i’m going to go with FOSS stuff if I can. I’d rather learn something that will be useful for a while.
elucubra@sopuli.xyz 3 weeks ago
I use Xpenology on an HP Gen 8 microswrver, a pretty nifty piece of kit. Works great, but setting up and upgrading versions can be a rather involved process.
jodanlime@midwest.social 3 weeks ago
TrueNAS. More control for slightly more work up front. Hardware will be easier to maintain. Lots of gamer desktops that won’t run Win11 available that probably have enough SATA ports to get the job done.
elucubra@sopuli.xyz 3 weeks ago
Gamer desktops tend to be power hogs. Running them 24/7 can rack up some hefty power bills, plus noise, plus space, plus other tradeoffs.
Better a used thin client.
jodanlime@midwest.social 3 weeks ago
A thin client for a NAS? That’s a hard no for me. Take the GPU out if you don’t need it, put a more efficient PSU and it will sip power as long as you aren’t running 27 virtual machines on it. I guess it’s more space than a thin client, but I have no idea how you are getting multiple HDDs or SSDs in a tc. USB is trash at long term data storage, and having a bunch of external drives and cables isn’t superior to a slightly bigger box. Not to mention anything that’s actually sold as a thin client probably won’t run ZFS very well if at all. If it’s not ZFS and it’s not hardware raid what the hell is the point of having network storage? Save the TC for a docker host or host a VM on your NAS that it can connect to instead.