ᐅ Small NAS for Home Use

There are now small uninterruptible power supplies (UPS) from brands like APC with USB connections.
I have one connected to the NAS at my in-laws’ place. It is completely sufficient to allow the NAS to shut down safely during a power outage.

Tolentino schrieb:

In my experience, people don’t realize what ideas they might still come up with.
A SOC like that is a good, expandable alternative and, depending on the case, sometimes even cheaper than a dedicated NAS.

That's exactly how it is.
After getting a simple QNAP NAS, I quickly realized that I also wanted to run other programs on it. But that wasn’t possible.
So I decided to build one myself.
At first, I used OpenMediaVault, then after a hardware upgrade to an Intel J4205, I switched to Windows 10.

The next upgrade will bring a decent performance boost.
Then I’ll also run ETS on it in the future.
With remote access from my phone, I can even make small changes on the go if needed.
IP-Symcon and Portfolio Performance are already running on it.

I would recommend this approach to anyone; it’s really not rocket science.
The Technikaffe is a great source of information with different hardware configurations for various needs and budgets. 😉

I would just advise comparing and considering the idle power consumption in terms of electricity costs. There are definitely more power-hungry (and usually more powerful) systems out there.
With Windows 10, there’s no need to deal with a completely new operating system.

rick2018 schrieb:

I also see Synology here and no custom build.
The DS218 is sufficient.

I agree. You really have to be motivated to tinker, and the household should be on board.

rick2018 schrieb:

Definitely connect an uninterruptible power supply (UPS).

You can do that, but I wouldn’t say it’s absolutely necessary. The power grid isn’t the biggest risk for the NAS, and even if it is, a RAID 1 with a journaling filesystem isn’t really harmed if power goes out.

Of course, you should have a backup.
For me, it worked well to team up with a friend and back up each other’s data in a crosswise setup.
So his NAS backs up to mine at night, and mine backs up to his.

So, the DS218 is set up and doesn’t really impress me.
The fan is noisy, and of course Minecraft doesn’t run since Docker can’t be installed.
I’ll probably return it and upgrade to the DS220+.
Thanks for your help.

If you’re building yourself, you can make it fanless... :p

Tolentino schrieb:

If you build it yourself, you can make it fanless... :p

I’m already at the point where I configure the fan via PuTTY so that it stays off until the CPU temperature reaches 50°C (122°F).
Despite heavy traffic, the temperature has never exceeded 43°C (109°F).