8 ms·

Wow, this beyond unacceptable and borderline illegal. Even tho I’m very happy owner of Synology, my next NAS won’t be it for sure. What are good alternatives fo

Wow, this beyond unacceptable and borderline illegal. Even tho I’m very happy owner of Synology, my next NAS won’t be it for sure. What are good alternatives for home usage? QNAP?

infogulch 6y ago
TrueNAS?
- acidbaseextract 6y ago
  I built a 6 disk TrueNAS Raid-Z2 box two years ago and though it was inconvenient to build vs buying something off the shelf, TrueNAS has been excellent. Does what it says on the tin and continually improving with each release. Their cloud sync and UPS functionality have been great (flaky power around here). Haven't dug into the TrueNAS' ZFS pool/snapshot management and jails management (FreeBSD's containers) functionality, but both are compelling once I get time and a good project for them. The NAS performing so well has me itching to upgrade to 10 gigabit ethernet around the house once prices come down a bit. Also I ran the OS off mirrored thumb drives until recently. That was pretty nifty.
- mwambua 6y ago
  I've been thinking about going down the TrueNAS route (the TrueNAS Mini series looks really nice), but it seems a little expensive. Is the extra cost worth the convenience of having a machine that you know will stay compatible with FreeNAS?
  - acidbaseextract 6y ago
    Here's a detailed review that answers that question: https://www.servethehome.com/ixsystems-truenas-mini-x-zfs-nas-review/ https://www.servethehome.com/ixsystems-truenas-mini-x-zfs-na... (the video linked there is also good) On page 5 they tally it up as a $400 difference vs building your own.
    - infogulch 6y ago
      A custom case, labeled drive cages (with software identification), integrated and tested component bom, 1 year system warranty... for a $400 premium (that's 8 hours if I value my time at $50/hr). Worth imo.
lostapathy 6y ago
QNAP isnt as popular as synology, but I manage several from 2 to ~20 disks and they gave been great.
katbyte 6y ago
unraid seems to be popular, it’s where I’d look but I’m Not quite ready to jump off the syno ship yet.
lmm 6y ago
I've been very happy with my Asustor so far, although I don't have anything to compare it to.
mfkp 6y ago
I switched from Synology to QNAP about 5 years ago (after my Synology NAS decided to stop reading disks using their proprietary RAID, and Synology support said "sorry, we don't know how to fix it". Lost 8tb of data that day). Two lessons learned: 1) Don't use proprietary raid, 2) Don't ever use Synology devices. QNAP has been great though, I've been very happy so far and zero issues.
- vetinari 6y ago
  Synology uses bog-standard mdraid. You can read the volumes on any linux machine.
  - mfkp 6y ago
    Maybe I'll have to take another look at it when I have some free time, although I vaguely remember something not working right with the standard mdraid tools. According to this post, it seems to be a slightly customized version: https://serverfault.com/questions/568166/how-to-recover-an-mdadm-array-on-synology-nas-with-drive-in-e-state https://serverfault.com/questions/568166/how-to-recover-an-m... Thinking back on this situation made me remember the terrible thermals in that old NAS. I had to replace the (fanless) PSU 2 times because it was always blowing up and creating sparks/smoke. Lol good times.
    - vetinari 6y ago
      They have it customized, they have also btrfs integrated with md, which is not in the stock kernel, but these are runtime things. Not to say there are not a ways to shoot yourself in the foot (e.g. being careful when creating ext4 volume with external machine, target nas might have older kernel that doesn't support half of the newer ext4 features and 64 bits). I never had any problem with thermals or psu, but I've heard other people had psu problems.
  - BuildTheRobots 6y ago
    On their older models, the webUI did something funky with LUKS encryption passwords meaning you couldn't actually just mount the disks in another Linux computer as you coukd never unlock them. I have memories of us having to do the encryption setup and unlock via ssh so we could mount the drives in something else in the event of a failure (though we retired that box over 5 years ago so my memory might be rusty). edit: my memory _is_ rusty; it was a QNAP box we had to do that with not Synology.
KozmoNau7 6y ago
I built a DIY NAS in a small cube case (Fractal Node 304), which can house a mini-ITX motherboard and six 3.5" drives, and has pretty good (and quiet!) cooling for a case that size (two 92mm fans in front and a 140mm in back). The drive bays are not hot swappable, but are very easy to replace when the top is taken off the case. For the OS, I put openSUSE on it, set up a btrfs pool and configured SMB, NFS, FTP and SSH/SCP manually. It also functions as my HTPC, with Kodi as the frontend. The Celeron J4105 is passively cooled and rarely sees 50C even under full load, plus it has hardware video decoding, so it can play back 4K video all day with no strain. It's not a turnkey solution like a Synology or QNAP box, but it's a lot more flexible.
- muxator 6y ago
  I whish I could do the same with a CPU that supports ECC ram. Unfortunately, a fanless CPU with ECC support (the Atom x6000 for example) is almost a chimera, or really really expensive.
  - parshimers 6y ago
    I built a custom home server using Mini-ITX form factor parts and I would have to agree with this conclusion. ECC ram in that form factor is very expensive. The biggest issue I had was that fanless ATX power supplies are not reliable. There was also a hardware bug that was bricking Atom C2xxx processors. I think that if form factor is not an issue, one of the i3's that support ECC ram are low enough TDP to be cooled passively. Especially if it is not expected to run at full load for long periods. However I simply switched to using a big case with low RPM, good quality FDB fans. It hasn't been a problem since, and is much less cramped when I do want to tinker with it.
    - KozmoNau7 6y ago
      I would absolutely go for a micro-ATX or even full ATX board if that allows you better choices in hardware to get ECC or other features. My goal was to build something not too much larger than a 4-6 disk NAS, that would also function as a HTPC, sitting under my TV. That meant small size and quiet operation were the main priorities. As none of the popular consumer NAS devices use ECC RAM, I reasoned that I would do without it in my build, too. The fans are running on the lowest variable setting controlled by the BIOS, it's whisper-quiet even with your ear next to it, but I've got some even quieter fans from be quiet, that I'm planning to swap in. The PSU is also from be quiet!, and with the placement deep in the case, with the 120mm fan oriented downwards, it's completely inaudible. Had I not been constrained by space and noise concerns in my small apartment, I would have build a larger, more powerful and ECC-equipped machine to be hidden away in an equipment rack in the basement.
jnxx 6y ago
You can use a Raspberry Pi (perhaps a Pi 400) if you work around the fact that the internal flash memory is not made for constant writing. Thus, you have to arrange the system so that it is read-only in normal state - which is not difficult. The Pi 400 also has an advantage that it has a keyboard, so you can cleanly shut it down without logging in, which makes a lot of sense for a storage device. Also, for RAID1 you need an extra powered USB hub. The normal power supply of the Pi 400 is not sufficient for more than one disk. Then just install a software RAID, NFS and possibly rsync and Samba. A simple NAS built in this way will come at about 240€, depending on disk size and will be mostly equivalent to a commercial one for twice the price. As an advantage, you can run well-known, standard software which is completely under your control. And since it is Debian-based Raspbian, it can be upgraded easily without breaking stuff.
- KaiserPro 6y ago
  what ever you do, dont do this. The Pi400 is a brilliant machine, but this is not a way to make networked storage for data you want to keep. if you want to use a raspberry pi for network storage, and you want to keep your data, make sure you have n+1 pi & disk machine. Raid isn't going to help you here, you need redundant nodes. for the same €240 you could get two minimum spec pi4s PSU and usb HDDs
  - jnxx 6y ago
    > make sure you have n+1 pi & disk machine. Why? The thing that could fail are the disks. So, one can use a RAID1 with two disks and this should, for normal applications be enough. I had a DNS-232 before as a NAS, it had 32 MB RAM, a tiny ARM CPU, and two large disks. It was working nicely over about ten years, and one could even run a web server plus a (slow) wiki on it (I had to replace the casing once, for a botched firmware update). The main problem I had with it that it was that it was impossible to update (I was running Alt-F firmware, which was developed by the community after the original firmware had constant problems with unneeded RAID synchronization, and the vendor had to release its code due to being bound to the GPL). The Pi400 is wildly more powerful, has a much faster CPU which only draws a few Watt, and can easily be connected to several USB disks. > Raid isn't going to help you here, you need redundant nodes. Why exactly? My set-up is working well.... did I miss it needs to be somehow lighter than air (because heavier-than air flying machines are not possible, y'know)?
pilsetnieks 6y ago
Last I looked into it, QNAP had some serious outstanding security issues that they weren't acknowledging and weren't fixing, that turned me off of them fast. If Synology isn't to be trusted (this plus starting to lock down part support like allowing only their own HDDs,) the only thing that remains seems to be building your own and running TrueNAS or Unraid.
- mbirth 6y ago
  I’ve come to the same conclusion. Once my DS415+ dies, I’ll build one on my own. Synology won’t see another dime from me.
JeremyNT 6y ago
I have always used Linux PCs. The tricky thing is finding a good small case that can support enough drives without breaking the bank. Currently I have an old Haswell i3 in a MiniITX Fractal Design node 304 case - it's fine, but it only supports 4 drives.
- justapassenger 6y ago
  So did I, until I’ve decided I’m too old for dealing with it. I’ve been working professionally with Linux systems for 20 years and counting, and finally decided that at home I just want an appliance that just works, even if it doesn’t give me all the features/flexibility I’d want.
  - jnxx 6y ago
    I have been working professionally with Linux since 22 years, and I have tried the same with a NAS - and found out that it has just so many annoying quirks and shortcoming that I am definitively far better off, and waste far less time if I am just using standard Debian on standard hardware. No need to work around the shortcomings of a prehistoric NFS implementation or things like that... no need to set up things from scratch because some hardware breaks or there are no updates for the system it runs.
- layoutIfNeeded 6y ago
  I'm also running a Debian-based NAS at home. If you want to expand beyond 4 drives I can recommend the 8-bay U-NAS chassis: https://www.u-nas.com/xcart/cart.php?target=product&product_id=17617 https://www.u-nas.com/xcart/cart.php?target=product&product_... Same Mini-ITX form factor, 8 hot-swappable drives, pretty solid build qualtiy in my experience.
- ValentineC 6y ago
  Doesn't the Node 304 support up to six 3.5" drives? I have one myself.
Saris 6y ago
DIY is the best route. Anything proprietary is going to end in disaster when they just decide they don't feel like supporting it anymore. It can be cheaper than off the shelf NAS units too.

Wow, this beyond unacceptable and borderline illegal. Even tho I’m very happy owner of Synology, my next NAS won’t be it for sure. What are good alternatives for home usage? QNAP?

infogulch 6y ago

TrueNAS?

acidbaseextract 6y ago
I built a 6 disk TrueNAS Raid-Z2 box two years ago and though it was inconvenient to build vs buying something off the shelf, TrueNAS has been excellent. Does what it says on the tin and continually improving with each release. Their cloud sync and UPS functionality have been great (flaky power around here). Haven't dug into the TrueNAS' ZFS pool/snapshot management and jails management (FreeBSD's containers) functionality, but both are compelling once I get time and a good project for them. The NAS performing so well has me itching to upgrade to 10 gigabit ethernet around the house once prices come down a bit. Also I ran the OS off mirrored thumb drives until recently. That was pretty nifty.
mwambua 6y ago
I've been thinking about going down the TrueNAS route (the TrueNAS Mini series looks really nice), but it seems a little expensive. Is the extra cost worth the convenience of having a machine that you know will stay compatible with FreeNAS?
- acidbaseextract 6y ago
  Here's a detailed review that answers that question: https://www.servethehome.com/ixsystems-truenas-mini-x-zfs-nas-review/ https://www.servethehome.com/ixsystems-truenas-mini-x-zfs-na... (the video linked there is also good) On page 5 they tally it up as a $400 difference vs building your own.
  - infogulch 6y ago
    A custom case, labeled drive cages (with software identification), integrated and tested component bom, 1 year system warranty... for a $400 premium (that's 8 hours if I value my time at $50/hr). Worth imo.

lostapathy 6y ago

QNAP isnt as popular as synology, but I manage several from 2 to ~20 disks and they gave been great.

katbyte 6y ago

unraid seems to be popular, it’s where I’d look but I’m Not quite ready to jump off the syno ship yet.

lmm 6y ago

I've been very happy with my Asustor so far, although I don't have anything to compare it to.

mfkp 6y ago

I switched from Synology to QNAP about 5 years ago (after my Synology NAS decided to stop reading disks using their proprietary RAID, and Synology support said "sorry, we don't know how to fix it". Lost 8tb of data that day). Two lessons learned: 1) Don't use proprietary raid, 2) Don't ever use Synology devices. QNAP has been great though, I've been very happy so far and zero issues.

vetinari 6y ago
Synology uses bog-standard mdraid. You can read the volumes on any linux machine.
- mfkp 6y ago
  Maybe I'll have to take another look at it when I have some free time, although I vaguely remember something not working right with the standard mdraid tools. According to this post, it seems to be a slightly customized version: https://serverfault.com/questions/568166/how-to-recover-an-mdadm-array-on-synology-nas-with-drive-in-e-state https://serverfault.com/questions/568166/how-to-recover-an-m... Thinking back on this situation made me remember the terrible thermals in that old NAS. I had to replace the (fanless) PSU 2 times because it was always blowing up and creating sparks/smoke. Lol good times.
  - vetinari 6y ago
    They have it customized, they have also btrfs integrated with md, which is not in the stock kernel, but these are runtime things. Not to say there are not a ways to shoot yourself in the foot (e.g. being careful when creating ext4 volume with external machine, target nas might have older kernel that doesn't support half of the newer ext4 features and 64 bits). I never had any problem with thermals or psu, but I've heard other people had psu problems.
- BuildTheRobots 6y ago
  On their older models, the webUI did something funky with LUKS encryption passwords meaning you couldn't actually just mount the disks in another Linux computer as you coukd never unlock them. I have memories of us having to do the encryption setup and unlock via ssh so we could mount the drives in something else in the event of a failure (though we retired that box over 5 years ago so my memory might be rusty). edit: my memory _is_ rusty; it was a QNAP box we had to do that with not Synology.

KozmoNau7 6y ago

I built a DIY NAS in a small cube case (Fractal Node 304), which can house a mini-ITX motherboard and six 3.5" drives, and has pretty good (and quiet!) cooling for a case that size (two 92mm fans in front and a 140mm in back). The drive bays are not hot swappable, but are very easy to replace when the top is taken off the case. For the OS, I put openSUSE on it, set up a btrfs pool and configured SMB, NFS, FTP and SSH/SCP manually. It also functions as my HTPC, with Kodi as the frontend. The Celeron J4105 is passively cooled and rarely sees 50C even under full load, plus it has hardware video decoding, so it can play back 4K video all day with no strain. It's not a turnkey solution like a Synology or QNAP box, but it's a lot more flexible.

muxator 6y ago
I whish I could do the same with a CPU that supports ECC ram. Unfortunately, a fanless CPU with ECC support (the Atom x6000 for example) is almost a chimera, or really really expensive.
- parshimers 6y ago
  I built a custom home server using Mini-ITX form factor parts and I would have to agree with this conclusion. ECC ram in that form factor is very expensive. The biggest issue I had was that fanless ATX power supplies are not reliable. There was also a hardware bug that was bricking Atom C2xxx processors. I think that if form factor is not an issue, one of the i3's that support ECC ram are low enough TDP to be cooled passively. Especially if it is not expected to run at full load for long periods. However I simply switched to using a big case with low RPM, good quality FDB fans. It hasn't been a problem since, and is much less cramped when I do want to tinker with it.
  - KozmoNau7 6y ago
    I would absolutely go for a micro-ATX or even full ATX board if that allows you better choices in hardware to get ECC or other features. My goal was to build something not too much larger than a 4-6 disk NAS, that would also function as a HTPC, sitting under my TV. That meant small size and quiet operation were the main priorities. As none of the popular consumer NAS devices use ECC RAM, I reasoned that I would do without it in my build, too. The fans are running on the lowest variable setting controlled by the BIOS, it's whisper-quiet even with your ear next to it, but I've got some even quieter fans from be quiet, that I'm planning to swap in. The PSU is also from be quiet!, and with the placement deep in the case, with the 120mm fan oriented downwards, it's completely inaudible. Had I not been constrained by space and noise concerns in my small apartment, I would have build a larger, more powerful and ECC-equipped machine to be hidden away in an equipment rack in the basement.

jnxx 6y ago

You can use a Raspberry Pi (perhaps a Pi 400) if you work around the fact that the internal flash memory is not made for constant writing. Thus, you have to arrange the system so that it is read-only in normal state - which is not difficult. The Pi 400 also has an advantage that it has a keyboard, so you can cleanly shut it down without logging in, which makes a lot of sense for a storage device. Also, for RAID1 you need an extra powered USB hub. The normal power supply of the Pi 400 is not sufficient for more than one disk. Then just install a software RAID, NFS and possibly rsync and Samba. A simple NAS built in this way will come at about 240€, depending on disk size and will be mostly equivalent to a commercial one for twice the price. As an advantage, you can run well-known, standard software which is completely under your control. And since it is Debian-based Raspbian, it can be upgraded easily without breaking stuff.

KaiserPro 6y ago
what ever you do, dont do this. The Pi400 is a brilliant machine, but this is not a way to make networked storage for data you want to keep. if you want to use a raspberry pi for network storage, and you want to keep your data, make sure you have n+1 pi & disk machine. Raid isn't going to help you here, you need redundant nodes. for the same €240 you could get two minimum spec pi4s PSU and usb HDDs
- jnxx 6y ago
  > make sure you have n+1 pi & disk machine. Why? The thing that could fail are the disks. So, one can use a RAID1 with two disks and this should, for normal applications be enough. I had a DNS-232 before as a NAS, it had 32 MB RAM, a tiny ARM CPU, and two large disks. It was working nicely over about ten years, and one could even run a web server plus a (slow) wiki on it (I had to replace the casing once, for a botched firmware update). The main problem I had with it that it was that it was impossible to update (I was running Alt-F firmware, which was developed by the community after the original firmware had constant problems with unneeded RAID synchronization, and the vendor had to release its code due to being bound to the GPL). The Pi400 is wildly more powerful, has a much faster CPU which only draws a few Watt, and can easily be connected to several USB disks. > Raid isn't going to help you here, you need redundant nodes. Why exactly? My set-up is working well.... did I miss it needs to be somehow lighter than air (because heavier-than air flying machines are not possible, y'know)?

pilsetnieks 6y ago

Last I looked into it, QNAP had some serious outstanding security issues that they weren't acknowledging and weren't fixing, that turned me off of them fast. If Synology isn't to be trusted (this plus starting to lock down part support like allowing only their own HDDs,) the only thing that remains seems to be building your own and running TrueNAS or Unraid.

mbirth 6y ago
I’ve come to the same conclusion. Once my DS415+ dies, I’ll build one on my own. Synology won’t see another dime from me.

JeremyNT 6y ago

I have always used Linux PCs. The tricky thing is finding a good small case that can support enough drives without breaking the bank. Currently I have an old Haswell i3 in a MiniITX Fractal Design node 304 case - it's fine, but it only supports 4 drives.

justapassenger 6y ago
So did I, until I’ve decided I’m too old for dealing with it. I’ve been working professionally with Linux systems for 20 years and counting, and finally decided that at home I just want an appliance that just works, even if it doesn’t give me all the features/flexibility I’d want.
- jnxx 6y ago
  I have been working professionally with Linux since 22 years, and I have tried the same with a NAS - and found out that it has just so many annoying quirks and shortcoming that I am definitively far better off, and waste far less time if I am just using standard Debian on standard hardware. No need to work around the shortcomings of a prehistoric NFS implementation or things like that... no need to set up things from scratch because some hardware breaks or there are no updates for the system it runs.
layoutIfNeeded 6y ago
I'm also running a Debian-based NAS at home. If you want to expand beyond 4 drives I can recommend the 8-bay U-NAS chassis: https://www.u-nas.com/xcart/cart.php?target=product&product_id=17617 https://www.u-nas.com/xcart/cart.php?target=product&product_... Same Mini-ITX form factor, 8 hot-swappable drives, pretty solid build qualtiy in my experience.
ValentineC 6y ago
Doesn't the Node 304 support up to six 3.5" drives? I have one myself.

Saris 6y ago

DIY is the best route. Anything proprietary is going to end in disaster when they just decide they don't feel like supporting it anymore. It can be cheaper than off the shelf NAS units too.