Yo.

I’m new to the game. Like 2h fresh. I’m fairly technical, being a millennial and a programmer.

What I want to do, is to have a NAS server I can host movies from and watch them on my phone in my bed - or on my projector.

Extra points if I could host my ebooks and music there and run a torrent client. Extra extra points if I could connect to it from outside my home network (and stream)

I’ve read about about Plex and Jellyfin.

I’m here to ask you about hardware advice.

Will QNAP or Synology be enough for my needs and can I install custom software there? I don’t really want to create hardware from scratch.

Google says yes, but I trust reddit and random articles like I trust a fox not to eat chickens.

Edit: preferably something with WOL that goes silent and fanless when not in use, or something I can shut down with a button

Edit: thanks everyone, right now I’m thinking of using GMKTec or QNAP and am comparing options, prices and number of issues people have on the internet. I’m not a hobbyist and the less I have to work on it the better.

Edit: I’ve ordered GMKTec NucBox G3 Plus 16 GB 1T for 195$ from their site as my starter kit. Should work for my needs.

  • FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.auEnglish
    33·
    19 hours ago

    Synology’s software is awful. Simply controlling NFS shares is an exercise in insanity, and don’t get me started on ACLs.

    Strange, I’ve had no issue controlling NFS shares or ACLs. Have set up 4 Synology NAS’s, with shares out the wahzoo. No problems. User error maybe?

    Further, synology is a real bastard company currently trying to enshittify hardware (disk) upgrades, among other terrible practices:

    That disk upgrade thing was a mountain out of a molehill. All they are doing is reserving some of their disk health features for synology branded disks because they’re the only ones they can verify meet their standards for their software.

    • non_burglar@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      18 hours ago

      That disk upgrade thing was a mountain out of a molehill. All they are doing is reserving some of their disk health features for synology branded disks because they’re the only ones they can verify meet their standards for their software.

      Then explain why one can successfully use and old synology to “mark” drives as “authentic synology” and move them into a newer DSM model to use them. This means the mechanism amounts simply to marking disks and not binning disks or any kind of actual hardware selection. Which in turn means that “certified” Synology disks are nothing more than disks with a Synology signature. And not even in firmware, but on the platter.

      And that is the “molehill” everyone is calling Synology out on.

      As explained ad nauseum on various yt channels, having a hw compatibility list makes sense for users likely to buy support, like business users. It makes little sense in a home market where users are both more likely to buy 3rd party disks and will not likely invoke official Synology support.

      But add on top of it that there is no functional hardware difference between certified and non-certified, and it becomes pretty clear that Synology is to be avoided.

      • FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.auEnglish
        22·
        18 hours ago

        Then explain why one can successfully use and old synology to “mark” drives as “authentic synology” and move them into a newer DSM model to use them.

        Because they have to have a way for legacy users to maintain functionality. Going forward though, new drives in new devices are handled differently. It’s basically a quality control type thing - they’re providing the support and warranty for them, so they’re only “guaranteeing” that their checks work on their drives. That makes sense. They don’t want to be on the hook for saying that a drive that isn’t theirs was perfectly healthy and then it drops dead an hour later and you lose all your data.

        As explained ad nauseum on various yt channels, having a hw compatibility list makes sense for users likely to buy support, like business users.

        Again though, the disks still work. The compatibility lists simply tell you if they are officially supported and will get certain features.

        But add on top of it that there is no functional hardware difference between certified and non-certified, and it becomes pretty clear that Synology is to be avoided.

        But add on top of it that there is no functional hardware difference between certified and non-certified, and it becomes pretty clear that Synology is to be avoided.

        Avoiding them because of missing a few proprietary synology disk health checks is such a strange thing to do lol. You won’t get synologys disk health checks if you were to make your own server, so why is not having them on a synology a deal breaker?