I know this topic has been done ad nauseam but I’m stuck in a decision loop that looks something like this…
“…OK screw it, I’m going to stop talking about it just get a [non-enterprise/non-rack] Synology/QNAP NAS. I rent an apartment and they have a much smaller footprint and low power draw out of the box. Damn, it really costs that much for 4 bays with entry level hardware? NIC and RAM upgrade costs how much??? What if Synology abandons that model? Where’s the fun in this solution anyway…”
“…OK I’m going to look at going DIY instead. It’s more interesting, more customisable, virtually unlimited support, can be cheaper. Man that case is big and ugly… hey that ITX case looks alright. Wow consumer ITX boards are expensive, rather limited, and look like they will suck power too. Woah OK enterprise ITX mainboards are not in my budget. Hmm that aliexpress NAS board looks alright, but could be a dice roll. Do I really have time for this anyway? OK screw it I’m getting a Synology…”
And so on… I get all the pro’s and con’s of each, and that’s part of the issue!
Ultimately homelabbing is a hobby, and if I wasn’t such a nerd I would have bought a turnkey solution already or just paid Big Tech for the solutions I require.
On the other hand, the storage is a critical part of the infrastructure and could suck the fun out of the hobby. Maybe it’s best to pay for a solution created by people smarter than me (and paid for their time), so I can spend time on fun things that aren’t mission critical.
So I want to hear from fellow nerds, which path did you chose and do you regret it?
I’m kinda both.
I have a QNAP at home that served me well for 8 years, a big QNAP (forgot model number) in my lab at work with a dozen or so 3.5”, 4x 2.5”, and expansion for pcie. I find expansion and growth difficult. Like my old QNAP can’t do 10gbe and is stuck with an Atom cpu and a few GB of ram.
It’s expensive especially compared to buying something like a 28c/256GB ram Dell R730, an HBA, and a EMC disk shelf that I now use at home for TrueNAS. For ~$600, I have up to 16 2.5” and 15 3.5” bays, 4x 10gbe, more ram than I know what to do with, and much more capability. Porting my ancient WD Red 5400rpm from my old QNAP into this NAS I’m getting ~400MBps because of the cache and its bananas.
Sometimes it’s a financial decision, so I could regret it all I want but I’d still choose the same diy route 😉
DIY, only regret was the case I used. Silverstone CS351. Just don’t. Its a massive pain to work in, and getting to the lower internal two HDD bays requires tearing the whole thing apart. I picked it because it would hold everything I was using without mods. Its just a pain to work on.
I had a QNAP. It was terrible and slow. Would not recommend. Now I have a DIY TrueNAS, would 100% recommend.
DIY - No Regrets.
I built my NAS out of spare parts originally and then it evolved into needing dedicated purchases. I like having full control of the OS and everything on it - it helps me understand what daemons are doing what. It does a lot more than file sharing.
The likes of QNAP and Synology may make a more polished product with an easy UI, as well as offering support, but as far as I care, I am support, so I like to fix problems myself.
If you’re ping-ponging between the two options, from your post it reads like cost is the biggest problem you face. But as you say, storage is a critical part of the infrastructure and sometimes you do have to spend money on it if you want it to be reliable. I just upgraded my main NAS with a larger chassis and motherboard (from an ITX) so I can expand it further. It cost me a sizeable amount of money that might have bought me a low-end ready-made, but this is far more flexible.
Yeah to me cost is a big factor, but probably equal with freedom. I see the price of a prebuilt NAS (diskless!) and I can’t help but think of what could be achieved with the same money on a DIY system that has the benefits of being upgradable and flexible.
One other factor is that with a DIY maybe I would be too tempted to tinker with a system that should not be tinkered with and just create more work for myself haha
