Basic in-home synology NAS for Plex

[Enquiries]

I've bought a synology NAS DS223 with 2 2tb drives. I want to set it up in a bulletproof way so that I can run my mac time machine on it and also run a plex media server for all my music and video. Mostly music. I will also want to be able to access it once in a while remotely from work, but that is less important than being able to stream my music and video and having a safe backup.

[ed]

Hi, and thanks for getting in touch. The DS223 is a good entry level Synology for what you want to do, and you can set it up in a very safe and simple way without much ongoing maintenance.

Here is the clean setup for your goals.

Create an SHR volume with your two drives. This gives you one drive worth of redundancy, which protects your data if a single disk fails.
Set up a dedicated Time Machine shared folder. Synology has a built in Time Machine toggle, and you can set a size limit so your backups never fill the NAS.
Install Plex from the Package Center. The DS223 does not have a powerful CPU for video transcoding, but for music streaming and direct play of video it works perfectly. As long as your playback device can handle the format, Plex will stream smoothly.
Enable remote access. For your level of use, the simplest option is Synology QuickConnect. It is not the fastest, but it works reliably for light remote access without opening ports.
Set up Hyper Backup to an external USB drive. This gives you a second copy of your important data, which is essential for a bulletproof setup.