ᐅ Small NAS for Home Use

Hello,
since there are many smart home experts here, I wanted to ask for information about a NAS.
1. Data backup from two computers (PC with LAN and laptop with Wi-Fi)
2. Security through RAID in case of a hard drive failure
3. Backup of photos from iOS devices, but not all pictures—only selected photos. Transfer via Wi-Fi
4. Photo storage for Lightroom over the network
5. Possible operation of a Minecraft server (for my son)

The Synology DS218 caught my eye. Can it handle everything I need?
Thanks for your help.

Synology would also be my recommendation. Just avoid the value models, they aren’t reliable. I still have a DS 213 here, which now only serves as a time-lapse storage device for the house construction. It no longer receives updates but still runs perfectly. Meanwhile, I have one in rack format, but the small one keeps running and running.

But beware: RAID is not a backup!

Isn't it more sensible to build something yourself? A system-on-chip with a Celeron processor is more powerful and flexible than a boxed NAS.

Why? Because there is too much time on one’s hands? What the OP wants works perfectly out of the box with no effort at all. For these requirements, neither more power nor flexibility is needed.

Because you never know what kind of application you might want to run on it, for example to access it remotely. Not everything runs on the dedicated NAS.

For example, Civilization, because work can be boring. Does it really matter?

That's true, you can't run ten Windows Server VMs simultaneously on a DS218. However, the original poster didn’t ask for that either 🙂 Sorry, but they clearly outlined their requirements, and what they suggested is sufficient for that. That’s what matters 🙂