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1st NAS for someone a bit techy

#1
Gday,
Love the channel, honestly thought I’d watch 1-2 vids to get some recommendations but have ended up watching a lot more, lots of great info, and for what can be a dry subject you manage to keep it entertaining, so firstly THANKYOU!

Sorry if this is lengthy, just thought the background might help.

I’m looking at getting my first NAS, I first thought I just wanted some storage and backup, but your Vids have convinced me to spend a bit more because it can do a lot more, money isn't the major factor but I don’t want to go crazy.

Must have
Storage, I was thinking 4-5 disk (but Qnap have made me look at 6bay systems, as the price jump isn’t huge). Aiming at 20-30TB but future growth would be nice.
Network, even though 1gb network has been around for ever, 2.5 is taking over as mainstream, and 10g would be nice for some future proofing

Nice to have
Plex for a couple users on the same network (not for Streaming over the internet, Aussie internet wont cope with that).
Surveillance – 4-5 Cameras Home use, I wouldn’t do this if the NAS wasn’t capable.

Stuff I want to play.
Virtual Machines – I would use one for testing every now and then, but doubt I’ll leave anything running permanently.

I was originally thinking just get a Synology DS 1500 series, only because I’ve done a very basic setup of one for a friend and the 1522 looks like a good device, but now I understand the lack of GPU could be a factor, and the lack of built in higher speed network disappoints me. The software for Synology looks to me to be the best polished in the desktop NAS space.

The Asustor Lockerstor AS6706T, looks interesting I’d say the 4 M2s is overkill for me, I’d only use Caching, but I wouldn't complain to have the option, the Celeron CPU looks like a good option though, my concern is that Asustor doesn’t seem to have as good software and software support, feels like a Cheap knockoff situation.

The QNAP TS-673A, looks like the answer to me, honestly looks like an awesome NAS, but I can't find if it’s possible to fit a GPU and a 10G network card into the device, do you know if that’s possible?? I’m worried that the GPU may take up the 2 slots. Also again the Software/Apps doesn’t look as good as Synology, I don’t mind lots of options and having to set things up properly, but from what I read there are lots of bugs and general flakiness in the software?? (is this true?)

All of these endup around $1300 AUD(US$900), I don’t mind spending a little more for future proofing, but from what I can tell I don’t think I would need to.

Do you know of any other options I should look at?
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#2
Yes, at the start NAS can seem like a boring hard drive for backups. But it has become much more. It is more like a computer nowadays.
Yes, Celeron-based models are perfect for home use. Having a quad-core-based model would allow you also to have beginner's performance VMs and docker.
Asustor software is probably the least reliable. But people often choose them for sake of hardware. Then install third-party apps on it.
Qnap has a better software but it is quite difficult to understand from user point of view if you are not IT.
Synology is not perfect, but it seem to be easier to use even if you have no IT background. But it doesn't allow extra configuration compared to Qnap, if you are a little geeky.
For local streaming, you do not need a graphics chip. Unless your TVs do not support videos you store on those drives (but why would you store something non-compatible).
Qnap 53D and 64 series are their best multimedia-ready NASes. Qnap 73A can be upgraded with GPU card. You may need a PCIe extension cable to be able to fit in 10gbe card. But it is possible.

I hope this helps.
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