I am looking into getting a NAS setup at home, but have to consider wanting it to just work and work for my family who are not technically advanced. They use computers fine, but being asked to open a terminal would require letter by letter instructions.
So my question, what is the current recommendation for a simple home NAS for files and video (family trips, etc) storage?
I’m running with 2 2 bay Synology ‘j’ models. As the do nothjng more then store data, the js are good enough. When you want to stream of of the NAS units I’d pick more powerful units.
For me, 2 bays was more then enough, as I don’t have that much important data, the 1st is the 215j with 2 2TB disks. They filled up in 5y, so I added a 220j with 4TB disks. Both mirrored and with external USB disk for backup which is 1 TB larger then internal nett storage.
When you need more space then that, more bays and raid 5 is more economical. It depends on storage needs and disk prizes. (Next to budget) It’s good to know you can mirror on a share basis between Synologie nasses. (So you can even think of a multi nas setup)
At work I had a run-in with qnap and couldn’t recover that device easily after power failure, never had that issue with synology, as they use a simple setup that can be accessed in plain Linux as well.
220j is fine for single user streaming. keep in mind the Js can’t run docker so you’re stuck with emby or plex or what I’m doing plain old media server :)
I assume because it’s built on linux you can get up in it’s guts and force it to run whatever you want though.
Main reason I still have the 215j is that it runs the logitech media server. I still need to find a way to use my squeezebox with other software, as Logitech quit supporting the useful stuff they make.