Turnkey NAS versus DIY NAS - do you regret the solution you chose? - eviltoast

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?

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  • hermit-the-frog@alien.topBEnglish
    0·
    1 year ago

    Turnkey with some serious regrets.

    I just need a simple way to store my data and back it up. I went with a Synology DS1621+ and I also have a DS218j.

    Things that really had me questioning my choice:

    • Both of them are the noisiest enclosures I’ve ever encountered. Rattling all over the place and having to hack the case to stop things from rattling. It drives me crazy. I paid over a thousand dollars for a case that I need to hack to keep my sanity.
    • Power consumption. The DS1621+ uses 35W at idle, even when the disks are not spun up and another 55W for 6 disks that never spin down (I’ve tried everything). That’s 90W. The idea is that this would run 24/7 but that ends up being over $225/year. This consumes as much power as my 5950X w/ 6800XT at idle. That’s insane to me.
    • Fear of vendor lockup and restrictions on what I can do with the hardware. Out of the box, Synology doesn’t allow NVMe volumes. I can run a script to enable it, but I really dislike the fact that they are intentionally restricting what I can do with my device.

    So I’m downgrading my Ryzen machine to a low power APU and going to use it as an all flash server. Will use TrueNAS and just have my SMB shares. Only going to boot my Synology once a day for a couple hours to back up everything so I have my second copy. The one thing I like about the Synology devices is that it’s super easy to schedule on/off time windows.

    So annoyed that I spent all this money on the DS1621+ and it’s just going to act as a backup server. Will probably look to replace the DS1621+ as a backup eventually too.

    • geopeat@alien.topOPBEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      Thanks for that, good insights. Interesting to hear about noise and power consumption of these devices because that’s supposed to be a selling point. As you said, disappointing considering the price tag.

      I am leaning more towards DIY now…