this post was submitted on 24 Nov 2023
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Synology and other brand NAS's are great, very simple to setup and maintain. They come with great support, power efficiency and decent build quality.
If you were to get a custom built one, it can end up costing you less, a Synology 2 bay (without drives) goes for £150 cheapest I saw brand new, plus you get very minimal specs, only usable as a NAS and nothing more if you're planning on running more stuff like game servers or many containers in the future.
Depending on the OS you use for the custom NAS, it can be incredibly versatile and offer great functionality and expandability, you can 100% achieve the same things you would with a Synology.
Although it's rarely ever "plug & play" like an OEM NAS is, configuring and troubleshooting can take a while especially without basic understanding of the OS.
It's fun and interesting to work on but if all you need is a working, reliable machine that you can plug in, put some drives into and have it work, I'd suggest spending the extra bit on a Synology or another brands NAS.
Thanks for the super helpful reply! I guess my main debate is since the custom NAS is built with a decent cpu and includes 16gb RAM, SSD and storage drives its much more value. I've worked a little with linux before so I'm not against setting it up myself. But would it be as easy to use as an actual branded NAS for family members backing stuff up that aren't great with tech?
You could also run Xpenology on your custom NAS, which is a bootloader for Synology DSM os. Other alternative is TrueNAS, Unraid or OpenMediaVault (or any other I might not know).
QNAP nas are fine too, but I disliked the backdoor they had pre-2021.. Terramaster are terrible chinese knockoff though, hardware is ok but the OS need to be flashed.
I installed this on a Thecus N5810, it worked good, but never put it into production, bought a Synology DS1522+. Anyone remember Thecus? Stable hardware with nice buildin UPS and the most awful software and stability you can get.
I don't think I ever heard of Thecus.. are they still around? Website is online but I couldn't find any vendor with any model in stock.. pretty strange.
Worse NAS goes to Iomega StorCenter ix2.. Probably the worst device I ever worked with, Lenovo pulled the plug on the company in 2018, which existed since the 80s.
IoMega...do you all remember the ZIP drives?
I do.. We still have users who have them in their office at work and an Addonic raid array from early 2000s... I need to check it next week lol.
I believe the company is dead, no updates since many years, one of the reasons I replaced the Thecus with a current Synology, primary because of active backup for business and for O365.