Greetings NASCompares,
I came across your channel a few months ago while trying to learn more about what a NAS is and how to backup all of my personal data, both from my laptop and android phone. I can't afford what I consider to be my ultimate NAS system right now, so I'm going to try breaking this down into several steps. I'll have to space them out based on what I can afford.
1. I'm planning to start with getting a cheap qnap device just to use as backing up my laptops data
QNAP TS-233-US 2 Bay $200
Seagate IronWolf 8TB HDD $180
2. I'm considering a raspberry pi 5 and connecting a few nvme drives for the purpose of having my data saved to two different types of storage media.
3. Build my ideal NAS that can also be my entertainment/file server.

What the difference is between simple back up of my files and a system clone? Should I do both?

How do I prevent Bitrot?

What's the best way to encrypt my data? Are there any other security concerns?

Hi nascompares,

Love your work. Your wisdom and passion is evident to see in all of your videos. I love your adlib, and delivery. Clear and easy to understand.

I'm thinking of getting my first NAS afte the cat knocked my external hdd off the shelf, causing it to fail. I think I'll go the SSD route instead of HDD. I've been contemplating DIY, but these two Asustore solutions look pretty slick.

How do they compare? I note the more expensive unit supports ECC ram. Is this a big thing, or not? Anything else to be aware of?

I have a computer with 7 TB of storage, a 500GB samsung t7 external, and a 4 TB western digital server drive I ripped out of my pc years ago that I need to backup. And then a TB or less on dropbox. I want to have all of those set up to auto backup as I record videos from OBS and stream. I want redundancy on these drives. Maybe 3 identical copies of the data in case 1/2 die at the same time. Maybe room for future expandability and the ability to put mirrors of my drives for easy reinstall of windows. I would have to save for this setup. Drive costs are decently high especially the more you want to store and mulitplying that by however many drives you need. I'll also have a streaming PC to ease the load of my main machine's GPU and CPU while streaming but that won't be super necessary to backup. I'm also a youtuber so I'll be editing these vods into videos and will want to store those. I'm honestly debating doing raid on the streaming PC vs going with an enclosed NAS ( synology/ugreen).

Looking for an off the shelf NAS storage product. IF the option includes "bays", I want the complete package, drive, housing and all.

Dear team,

I love your channel & blog and finally got inspired for my next project: Bought a Aoostar WTR MAX with 96GB RAM.
I'd need your advice on buying the right storage for my NAS since I'm overwhelmed with the options.

While I have not yet decided for the OS (most likely TrueNas with HexOS since OpenSource)
the usecase is clearer: I will use the NAS first for some Jellyfin, Immich & PC/File backup, I plan to expand to Nextcloud for myself and extended family as well as Homeassistant with Voice sometime next year as well as lab for VMs.

I plenty spare cash from recent consulting projects and want to make sure I find a good balance between speed, reliability & energy while going for a high amount of storage to future proof. Happy to pay a premium if I get high reliability and storage density without entering luxury territory. I am thinking Seagate Exos 20TB based on your configurator but looking to get your perspective. On the other bays - no clue - what would you recommend?

Thx

Hi,

I have a zimaboard that is already up and running very well. I have it connected to two drives in the drive bay that Ice whale sells. What I want to know is how can I expand this to at least 4 more drives that I already own. Im using the pice port for a 2.5 gb connection to my network. Any help is appreciated. Love your YouTube channel!

Patric

Hello again Gentleman -

So since I have the Memini up and running now on Unraid I am looking to have Jellyfin from my Unraid connect to one of my Synology nas's for my TV shows only. I was going to load everything on the Mini but the Tv shows folder is too big and just won't cut it.

They're both on the same local network and I just want jellyfin to connect to the Synology shared folder I designate via Unraid and then when I look at my shows have it stream from the Synology NAS. By chance am I A.) Making sense and B.) how do I begin with this?

Thank you as always!

Rob

Hello, I recently purchased a new Synology DS1821+ for $1,035 and the DS1823xs+ for $1596. So, the difference is about $561. My question is the AMD V1780B that much better than the V1500B? Most of the benchmark tests show that the V1780B is almost twice as fast as the V1500B. What I plan on using the NAS for is mainly File Server and media streaming, maybe a few docker containers. Also, the DS1821+ is discontinued and my other concern is the software support which is about 10 years, so I may only have another 6 years of life for this unit. Should I keep the DS1821+ or the DS1823xs+. Is it worth the extra $561.

What are your thoughts and advice?

Largely comparing three units. ASUSTOR AS6702T, Synology DS725+, QNAP HS264 (or qu405 if it was worth it, i suspect not). Mainly looking for the most seamless interface for my parents (relatively elderly) using their phones. I can do all the setup. I am based in australia. Don't really want bottom of the barrel. Not looking at any home surveillance. Probably want the ability to expand into more file sharing and multimedia sharing in the future but not going to be going near video editing. Something that replicates the google photos experience as much as possible. Ultimately looking to get rid of cloud storage.

I am trying to replace my AS604t asustor for something faster and last for years with firmware and software updates, and uses jellyfin and plex