An extended family member is looking for a NAS solution. I run a completely DIY solution since I’m a knowledgeable Linux user. They’re not. I’m trying to figure out what’s available and what to recommend. Here’s what I have so far:
- TrueNAS SCALE (Debian based, UI)
- OpenMediaVault (Debian based, UI)
- Synology (??, UI)
- QNAP (??, UI)
I think that the proprietary solutions like Synology and QNAP are less desirable due to unknown longevity of the companies and their willingness to support their products with software updates. Am I wrong?
I have no idea what’s better between TrueNAS and OMV. I know Debian so I’m confident I can force either to listen via terminal if I have to.
What do you use? Which one of the list do you prefer? Any other Linux-based additions to the list?
I think a Synology is best if they lack technical skills. The GUI is nice and integrations are easy enough to manage. Longevity-wise, I’ve have the 918+ since 2018 and it’s still going strong. Plus there are packages for things like Tailscale (easy to use VPN) you could setup for a them. That way you reduce their attack surface of exposing services externally.
If you don’t want to be called there to always it support it, go for off the shelf solution. Both qnap and Synology offer the same. When i looked half a year ago, i saw Synology as being more expensive at the time so went with ts464 qnap.
Qnap do provide a roadmap of support for older devices. So you have an idea how long they will remain supported for.
absolutely. turnkey retail product is the answer here.
OR, a normal windows-based (so they know how to navigate it) desktop with one or more internal drives added. set up the shares, done. i’d add stablebit drive pool and maybe cloud drive to it for pooling, redundancy, and encrypted online drives to hold a copy. no weird hardware setups, no ‘foreign’ ui, no raid arrays to babysit…
Synology rules
Even as someone with tech experience using it for the last couple years as I learned what I even wanted to do with my NAS, it was awesome
Even my less tech literate wife was able to do stuff with it, just s little bit of “here’s how to access the server” and boom, the GUI is that intuitive
Using docker on it is also really easy if you do eventually want to step up your game.
Honestly if they are not that technical, I’d with the nearly fool proof solutions of QNAP and Synology and alike. It is very easy to maintain. I think e.g. Synology still provides updates for their 2012-2013 generation devices, hardware limitations apply whatsoever.
Surely you get less Hardware/Dollar but the software is near fool proof. I recommended such devices to two of my half technical friends and granted mutual space for encrypted off-site Backups and it just works flawlessly. If they would have me setup any self made raspberry pi like solution and anything goes wrong with their data I’d rather not stand in their line of sight.
If they’re not technical and you don’t feel like playing family help desk, you can’t go wrong with either synology or qnap. The downside with them is the hardware is just barely powerful enough for a NAS. If they start to get into self-hosting at all – pihole, home-assistant, minecraft servers, jellyfin, etc – they’ll quickly run into limitations.
If they’re somewhat technical but not a Linux guru, I’d add Unraid (slackware based, but 100% UI-driven) to the list. I’ve been running it for years and it’s been great. It makes running docker/VM a breeze on top of the hardware-agnostic setup of mixed drives that makes upgrading slowly over time painless.
QNAP at least used to make pretty powerful NASs. I had one with an older Xeon in it that I bought in like 2015 that at the time crushed Plex streaming. Not sure if they still do, I also moved to Unraid and will never look back, it’s exactly what I need and none of what I don’t (literally, raid. Don’t care about IOPs).
Actually ran Unraid on the Xeon QNAP for a year or so before building my own box.
