Synology’s telegraphed moves toward a contained ecosystem and seemingly vertical integration are certain to rankle some of its biggest fans, who likely enjoy doing their own system building, shopping, and assembly for the perfect amount of storage. “Pro-sumers,” homelab enthusiasts, and those with just a lot of stuff to store at home, or in a small business, previously had a good reason to buy one Synology device every so many years, then stick into them whatever drives they happened to have or acquired at their desired prices. Synology’s stated needs for efficient support of drive arrays may be more defensible at the enterprise level, but as it gets closer to the home level, it suggests a different kind of optimization.
Damn it I already own own one. I guess I funded this cunt corporate move
Well, I had been considering one, but I guess not
It sucks, because all things considered, they’re great little devices. I really like mine.
I own a Synology NAS. It’ll be the first and last one I buy. When I need an upgrade I’ll go back to building my own again.
I was thinking of buying a Synology system. I was actually looking at prices this past week.
That being said, I’ve got an old 2019 desktop running Windows that is coming to the end of its support, that I was considering making a Linux machine.
How complex is making a roll-your-own NAS?
How complex is making a roll-your-own NAS?
It really depends on what you want out of it. I personally installed ProxMox on an old gaming machine (DDR3 RAM old lol) and have an Open Media Vault virtual machine running on it with access to my ZFS mirrored pair of storage drives.
Enabling Samba support in Open Media Vault gives you a nice little NAS. I believe it’s okay to install bare metal if you really want to also.
It also has a nice Docker interface, so although I should probably not bundle services together so tightly, it runs things like Jellyfin for media, Paperless NGX for document storage, and NextCloud AIO for a convenient (if slightly resource-hungry) interface.
ProxMox lets me do fun things though, like back up the VMs, spin up virtual machines for PiHole ad blocking and Klipper for controlling my 3D printer.
My most important data gets synced to a subscription to a service called iDrive as my offsite. Pretty affordable for 5TB and my own encryption keys. :)
I want to stress that I’m not an IT professional or anything either. If you’re reasonably comfortable with Linux and understand some basic networking, I’d say at least getting Proxmox and/or Open Media Vault up and running so you can access it on your home network isn’t too hard.
Outside of that, and if you want HTTPS and stuff? There’s lots of guides but I would recommend using TailScale instead of opening any ports to the web.
Sorry if this post was meandering but hope it gave you a little bit to go on! :)
I have mini-ITX board in a mini case. 4 bays, 16 GB RAM of DDR3-L and a slow but very low TDP CPU. This thing is very low power but it’s on 24/7.
Runs home assistant with zigbee, rtl433 and whatever it detects over the network. A few older game servers (minecraft, minetest/luanti, quake 2), miniDLNA, … Arch Linux, so rolling release and always up to date with the latest versions.
Served me greatly and I haven’t upgraded because it still does what I want and I can’t find any modern CPU with a TDP this low.
Really depends on what you want out of the system, what you can spend and how much time you want to spend on it.
My old z390 itx system has a 16x PCIE to 4x m.2 card - leveraging an m.2 to 5x SATA adaptor with the built in SATA adaptors has given it plenty of space.
Considering I can grab m.2 to 6 SATA adaptors and fill the remainder of the slots that’s a decent chunk of drives from a single PCIE x16 slot.
Software is another kettle of fish and a good way to timesink, I’d rather not give too much of my personal experience as there are so many ways to skin that cat.
It’s not too complicated but you don’t get some things for free like with Synology. It require work to setup scripts for offsite backup for example whereas Synology has a backup app with a UI.
For storage, I used to run ZFS in a raidZ2 configuration. If you do this then I suggest having a cron job running a script that can alert you if the pool is unhealthy. This is again something that Synology does for free.
You could also look up trueNAS core and see if that’s something that fits for you.
I’ve heard good things about Qnap
but I also heard good things about Synology…
Also on my first and last I think.
Hi. I’d like the word “pro-sumer” banned. In perpetuity.
Why?
It’s like they don’t understand their demographic.
They absolutely do. But it’s a symptom of capitalism. They must seek higher and higher profits each year. And this is one of their ideas to seek higher profits…
The worst is that it will probably increase profit or a quarter or too while running the brand to the ground.
Growth imperative. Greed will never be satiated.
Yeah, I think their CEO might have QNAP stock or something.
It’s hilarious how dumb this is.
Hilarious and pathetic.
Like Brexit.
Synology is like Ubiquity in the self-hosted community: sure it’s self-hosted, but it’s definitely not yours. End of the day you get to deal with their decisions.
Terramaster lets you run your own OS on their machine. That’s basically what a homelabber wants: a good chassis and components. I couldn’t see a reason to buy a Synology after Terramaster and Ugreen started ramping out their product lines which let you run whatever OS you wanted. Synology at this point is for people who either don’t know what they’re doing or want to remain hands-off with storage management (which is valid; you don’t want to do more work when you get home for work). Unfortunately, such customers are now out in the lurch, so TrueNAS or trust some other company to hold your data safe.
Lol! Not like uGreen put any roadblocks to running your own OS (like disabling the watch dog feature in the BIOS and some other setting to enable custom boot).
And you don’t have any fan control on their NAS. Either you estimate and configure correcrly or you need to schedule downtime.
Actual servers let you live tune (some of) the power settings. Synology supports changing the fan profile in the live OS.Damn I was really happy for ugreen, terrormaster it is then.
It’s not like you can’t do it (I did save the original SSD and replaced it with a new ome and installed TrueNas Scale). It’s just not intended to do from uGreens perspective.
Edit: I think I used either of these guides I used on how to open and how to install the new OS:
https://youtu.be/BWNH_JzMNPc
https://youtu.be/R8t-Wqx_E3U
https://youtu.be/yh8Ao5ryOeEOh yeah. The HDD indicator bays are partly non-functional as well.
But you can restore some functionality with scripts you run periodically with cron. Juat search “ugreen dxp4800plus led cli github” to find it.Edit2:
And I only chose a uGreen NAS due to the Kickstarter price. Because that was a 40% price reduction.
At least I got a solid Model that is really nice. It also has a magnetic metal dust cover Ican easily remove if needed (even easier than the one on my pc case front panel which is a Fractal Design North)
That’s a massive shot in the foot.
As a Synology owner, I already had enough - they have arbitrarily cut customer support to sanctioned jurisdictions, leaving me without the support they promised and I expected when paying for a device.
Next one will definitely be built from the ground up.
They are probably betting they will make more money from businesses. I.e., actual pros, vs prosumer.
I do like my Synology NAS I bought 10 yrs ago, but these days there are more and better alternatives for people who dont really need to pay for the support and stability.
That would be my exit sign
Mine too. Already priced a new build half the price just the data migration I’m not looking forward too.
Can you migrate Synology data? I haven’t ever found a way.
Rsync or SCP?
Aren’t those for syncing data, not migrating data?
Same thing, no?
No, where am I supposed to sync the data to?
To the new system you’re migrating to
Another drive.
Edit: it’s the first line of the manpage: rsync – a fast, versatile, remote (and local) file-copying tool.
I get why they do this sort of thing but it didn’t stop us re-adding video station and h265 support back into our Synos.
Someone already made a script to overwrite the existing compatible drive checker so someone will write a new script to fix the new one.
Oh, snap, bringing me the magic I need, but didn’t know to look for.
I’ve been refusing to update because of video station. Looks like I’m saving your comment for later.
The real shame is they didn’t open source the app on decom.
i was considering these devices for my home media set up, now im just building my own NAS with some old parts i had laying around and using open source software.
fuck this shit.
Remember, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with buying a used 7th gen Intel PC and filling that with [insert drive of choice]. An i7-7700T is still more powerful than even the newer Synology units.
The enshittification/rent seeking continues. Nothing is sacred.
If I had known how bad it’d get I would’ve chosen a different field to work in. Sure, I can avoid it in my private life but on the job it’s like I’m in some kind of hostage situation.
“Oh hi there customer! You know our product your users are accustomed to will only come as a subscription from now on and it’ll also be really bad and force full screen ads. We’ll push two updates per day because our unpaid interns are so agile. Bugs? Oh, no, we call those ‘micro disruptions’. They’re a feature but don’t cost extra! How much the license costs? Well, how much do you have? Yes, it’ll be that much.”
I remember arguing with some nerd that this overpriced shit was not fucking worth it and my build based on old server parts I got from a local computer recycler was infinitely superior in every way
I wish I saved that post so I could reply with this link. I feel so validated. Never trust companies. It’s why I say you should never fuck with plex, even if it is a bit easier to deploy than Jellyfin.
Yeah… Never had a specific “server” certified hardware and always repurpose my hold hardware stuff. Never failed me !!
However, there are some functions specific to NAS’ like low power and other stuff people mention but I already forgot.
IMO all this NAS and certified server stuff is good for Enterprise shit and the like… But for homelabbing it’s probably overkill and way to much overpriced for the little gain…
Except maybe for the ease of use and plug and play function? Each one it’s own I guess !
There’s plenty of N100/N350 motherboards with 6 SATA ports on AliExpress, grab them while you can
Do you happen to know about a decent solution for 8 SATA ports on a mini-ITX board?
The only reason I even have “server” parts is because they were dirt cheap at the recycling center. Before I used this my rig was an old pc from a doctors office I worked at they were going to throw away from like 2009. It was awful spec wise but it did the job. My current build is overkill but I wanted to play with vms and local LLM stuff and the hardware was cheap, so why not?
low power is definitely something to consider though. That said there are some people that have made impressive builds out there. There are some low power builds on the unraid forums that use even less power than one of these things. It’s a bit more up front because it relies on some niche hardware but the power usage is so low it’s maybe worthwhile if you use it for years
I just fail to see the benefit of these. Ease of use for sure but assembling a pc is really not difficult and installing an OS is not hard either. And an os like unraid or truenas is pretty simple to use, they hold your hand a lot. Like I get that running Debian is something not everyone wants to do but then it’s like, just don’t do that then?
Frankly if you’re capable enough to configure the dockers you’d run on one of these, like plex or Jellyfin, I would think you could handle those things??
Oh yeah sorry ! For the ease of use part I ment the NAS stuff which already comes bundled with all the necessary software to keep things easy but less customizable !
Yeah if you get IT enterprise hardware for free it’s kinda similar to repurposing, sooo that’s a great deal and lucky you !!!
But I would never put 1$ myself into specific server stuff ! Except if one day I want to contribute to the self-hosted/opensource community and host something like newpipe that needs to be publicly available.Then yeah, proper hardware and software stuff is mandatory !
Sorry if my comment came by rude, that wasn’t my purpose !
No need to be sorry, I did not take it that way, we are best friends forever. More to clarify that there are a ton of old server parts out there for dirt cheap if you’re okay with saving e waste from the trash heap.
You are absolutely right that homelabs are totally fine on consumer grade hardware but check server parts too, you might be surprised at the deals you find, especially locally. My build was a 10th gen intel build and cpu/mobo/32gb ecc ram/heatsink missing fan was $125. That was several years ago though and now we got tarrrrriiifffsss
Is the main appeal of prebuilt NAS cases the aesthetics and the reduction of DIY concerns?
Because they seem to me like overpriced and underpowered computers. Most tech-oriented folks I know have more powerful PCs in a closet somewhere that they could easily convert into a NAS
Edit: some very thoughtful responses thanks y’all! I definitely see the appeal for people who just need something that doesn’t need tinkering or care significantly about power draw and noise.
I am a tech oriented person, I work in IT, and a Syno ticks the boxes in many respects.
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Low power draw. Power efficiency is very important to me, especially for something that runs 24/7. I don’t know how efficient self-build options are these days, but 10 years ago I couldn’t get close to the efficiency of a good NAS.
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Set and forget. I maintain enough systems at work so I don’t really want to spend all of my free time maintaining my own. A Syno “just works”, it can run for months or years without a reboot (and when it does need one, it does it by itself overnight), and I can easily upgrade or swap a dead drive in a couple of minutes. When the entire NAS dies I can stick the drives in a new one and be up and running almost instantly.
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Size and noise. I don’t have a massive house, so I need something that can sit on a shelf and be unobtrusive. In our last house it was literally sat in the living room, spinning drives constantly, and nobody was bothered by it.
The Syno I have is plenty good enough to run a bunch of Docker containers and a few VMs for all of my self hosted stuff, and it just does the job efficiently, quietly, and without complaining or needing constant maintenance.
I don’t like this creep towards requiring branded drives and memory, though I’m pretty sure it’s not legal in the EU. Regardless there are ways around it.
Yeah I agree, I set up a synology as a little summer project and I didn’t want to go out and source parts and put a nas Linux distro to do everything myself. Synology is newbie friendly and kind of holds your hand to do everything even dynamic dns. However, if I were to get another nas, I would be more comfortable setting it up myself.
We use DS223j’s at work for our clients as backup targets.
Fast to set up and configure from a total beginner up to experienced IT personal.
And I set up NFS, Samba and ACLs in my own Debian NAS.
It aint so sleek and braindead-simple like a Syno does it.One question in regards to your noise comment: What drives are you running? I have a synology with 2 toshiba mg08 16tb drives and those things are unbearably loud when reading or writing. A lot of that obviously comes down to the drives themselves but I also kind of blame the plastic chassis for probably resonating with the noise and not being better at soundproofing.
It’s an 8 bay unit with six drives that are a mix of WD Red and Seagate Ironwolf, all NAS grade drives, basically. The other two slots have SSDs for hosting the aforementioned containers and VMs.
The largest drives I have are 4TB though, so maybe the larger capacity ones are louder? I also ran the fan profile in whatever the quietest setting is.
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Reliability. We’ve put them in small businesses and they do their job very well VS a frankenpc NAS.
I have 2 8-Bay devices at home and they are so good for what they are. Silent, low power, bit of fancy utility for those that like it but reliable and quality. They age very well.
I also use the surveillance station with my cameras which all connected ootb fine. (mix of brands)
You are paying for reasonably well polished software, which for non technical people makes them a very good choice.
They have one click module installs for a lot of the things that self hosted people would want to run. If you want Plex, a onedrive clone, photo sync on your phone, etc just click a button and they handle installing and most of the maintenance of running that software for you. Obviously these are available on other open source NAS appliances now too so this isn’t much of a differnentiator for them anymore, but they were one of the first to do this.
I use them for their NVR which there are open source alternatives for but they aren’t nearly as polished, user friendly, or feature rich.
Their backup solution is also reasonably good for some home labs and small business use cases. If you have a VMware lab at home for instance it can connect to your vCenter and it do incremental backups of your VMs. There is an agent for Windows machines as well so you can keep laptops/desktops backed up.
For businesses there are backup options for Office365/Google Workspace where it can keep backups of your email/calendar/onedrive/SharePoint/etc. So there are a lot of capabilities there that aren’t really well covered with open source tools right now.
I run my own built NAS for mass storage because anything over two drives is way too expensive from Synology and I specifically wanted ZFS, but the two drive units were priced low enough to buy just for the software. If you want a set and forget NAS they were a pretty good solution.
If their drives are reasonably priced maybe they will still be an okay choice for some people, but we all know the point of this is for them to make more money so that is unlikely. There are alternatives like Qnap, but unless you specifically need one of their software components either build it yourself or grab one of the open source NAS distros.
I see! Thanks so much for the thoughtful response definitely seems like there’s a use case for people who might be more creatives with a need for storage rather than self-hosting enthusiasts who want to mess around in a homelab.
The prices are still a bit eye watering but you pay for software support for sure.
I think the biggest draw to Synology now is the ultra low power consumption. Yeah, you could totally repurpose an old PC, but it’s crazy to run 500W perpetually. The reason they use old Celeron processors is the low power draw. In time, hopefully, RISC V can produce some low cost systems that would slot in well for this use case.
Obviously everything depends on use case. I definitely am a tinkerer and prefer options. I’d never run a jellyfin server off a synology NAS cause… Well cause it can’t transcode very well. So efficiency is less of a concern than processing power.
I get now that my questions was a bit moot, obviously some people will pay a premium for a narrow use case if it brings reliability and ease of use.
1U form factor, 4 disks, using 7w whilst idle, decent enough CPU to run 1 Linux VM
I bought an RS822+ for as a veeam Linux repo.
I can’t make that myself, or I don’t know how.
It was stupid expensive and if it wasn’t the business paying I would have probably put a bunch of disks into an HP elite desk.
They should be careful, they’re just selling small form factor computers with removable drive bays. Standing up and unraid or a true Naz isn’t all that difficult. And then there’s plenty of competition out there ready and willing to eat their lunch.
Why would anyone even use Synology?
Just buy a pc with big hard drives
Without technical know-how or experience in general using NAS, Synology is a good first-time option. All apps are ready for immediate use. And don’t forget the majority of computer users don’t even know what a NAS is and they simply want to store files for remote access.
My personal reasons for buying a synology were ease of use, reliability and power usage.
I had previously played around with TrueNAS in a VM using an external USB HDD Enclosure for storage and I just wanted something reliable. With TrueNAS I often ran into issues with user permissions one way or another and the Synology software is incredibly easy to use and foolproof.
