NAS and Router

[Enquiries]

Hi, love your channel, I spend way too much time on it :-). I am looking for a simple but effective NAS for music, a few films, and plenty of documents and photos. It should not get too hot and use as little electricity as possible. I loved your reviews on Zimaboard 2 and Beelink ME Mini and was wondering if you think these might be suitable and which you might recommend, or maybe you would recommend something else? I was also wondering which VPN router you might recommend (GL.iNet Slate 7, could this be used as a home router?) to use with your recommendation. Your time and help is greatly appreciated - I will be buying the coffee. Love the channel and presentation. Excellent. Thank you.

[ed]

Thanks for the kind words, and glad the reviews have been useful. For your use case, you do not need a power hungry system. You want something quiet, cool running, and efficient that can store music, documents, photos, and a few films without any fuss.

Both the Zimaboard 2 and the Beelink ME Mini can be used as low power NAS style devices, but each comes with tradeoffs. The Zimaboard 2 is very efficient and stays cool, but it needs extra hardware for storage because it only takes M2 drives and you would have to add external enclosures for bigger HDDs. It is great for tinkering but less ideal as a long term family NAS.

The Beelink ME Mini has more performance, and with an external USB enclosure it makes a decent simple server, but once you add drives the power draw goes up and you lose the all in one convenience you get with a real NAS chassis.

If your goal is a reliable, economical system that just works, I would look at proper small NAS units rather than DIY mini PC setups. A Synology DS223 or DS224 will use less electricity than either of the devices you mentioned once you add storage, they stay cool, and they give you excellent apps for music, documents, and photos. They also integrate well with backup tools and give you simple VPN and remote access.

For a VPN router, the GL iNet Slate 7 is a great travel router, but as a full time home router it is slightly limited. It will work, but something like the GL iNet Flint 2 or a UniFi UDR would give you better long term stability and more headroom if you ever expand the network.