Synology NAS

[Beerislife]

My Google storage is currently over 8Gb out of the allotted 15Gb (And so is the boss) and I'm loathe to pay Google 2,500 yen a year for more storage.

So I'm thinking of buying a Synology DiskStation DS223j/G 2 Bay NAS and a couple of large drives and use Synology Photos to back up to my
own storage!

Before I do though I'd like to know if anyone here has any experience with these, especially the number of separate users with their own
phones that can back up to it. Obviously, I want to move the boss onto the same system!

Cheers!

[oshunluvr]

Well it certainly is inexpensive. I see it had btrfs as an option which is cool. Sounds like they built in a lot of access options as well. My only question would be how much access/flexibility you would have with the operating system. Sounds like a good way to go though.

[jglen490]

I manage a Synology DS418play, on a volunteer basis. Yes, it's set up with btrfs because it makes sense in this application. This NAS unit is a four disk system, which I set up to use RAID 5. RAID 5 is not the most efficient way to use space, but striping with parity provides a lot of assurance on the data. The NAS uses a customized Linux, and incorporates Windows ACLs. It will work with external clients having almost any OS - it doesn't care. I manage it from home with my personal Kubuntu laptop. I have not tried it, but the User Manual says it will communicate with cell phones/tablets/etc. just like any other client system.

It's job is to provide common long term storage and file sharing for several PCs in an office environment. So far, it has been nothing but painless, consistent, and well mannered. It's powered through a UPS, and is made to do so out of the box. And, it will write backups of its own data to external drives via USB using whatever method and timings you choose. It is reliable, but is also not particularly fast with file transfers. It's a storage unit, not a transactional I/O system.

In the four years that we've had the unit it has never failed, and even behaved well when using the UPS, including having to use orderly shutdowns and restarts by itself.

Yeah, I like this Synology unit.

[Beerislife]

I hooked up a small external SSD to the USB port on my Archer C7 WifI router. Setting it up is easy in the router settings but writing to it was a pain and trying to play anything from it was impossible. It has very limited functionality therefore I'm looking at the Synology option.

jglen490's answer was my reassurance that it will be fine. A two disk unit for home use should be plenty!

[claydoh]

I started with a USB SSD drive on my router, but I was lucky that it had a USB 3 port. Still, not great for movies if a backup job was running.

A two disk unit for home use should be plenty!

Be careful! that's what I thought when I decided to build a simple NAS box from mostly on-hand parts.

Oooh I have file backups! Cool!!
Waitaminit, all my pics, music, and videos are on there. A media player sure would be handy!!
[Adds jellyfin]
Ahhh that's nice.
Oooh, what about document and photo syncing from my laptop and phone
[Adds Nextcloud,]
Ok, my own personal Google photos, Google drive, and Google Docs! Sweet!
But I really would prefer something with more features for my photos
[Adds Immich to the NAS, and it's app on my phone]
Awesome, I like that better.
Lookee here, I can run virtual machines from this thing, and use them from other computers?
[Adds kvm]
[Adds headless BitTorrent,]
And on and on and on..........

tlr if you anticipate any sort of regular and consistent/constant access to the device, consider more drive bays if possible - not for the space.

[Beerislife]

I believe in the KISS principle. I just want to backup my pics from my phone and the boss from her phone and cut out Google! My videos are on an external drive and I'm the only one who watches them! Backups are on two other external drives and I have a 2Tb portable if I decide to run away to Thailand!

[jglen490]

That's why you decide what your needs are first, and then you build your solution

[claydoh]

That's why you decide what your needs are first, and then you build your solution

I tried that. Then the options I never thought about at the time crept in jumped in a stomped the bejeezus out of that.
Having said that, once I got it finally figured out, I have a system that somehow I don't muck around with, and won't, until those 10 year old drives finally kick the bucket.
5-years-ago-me would be shocked and speechless. 10-year-old-me would wonder where the real me went, or what alternate universe this was.

it is pretty cool how much an old i7-3770 can do when there is no desktop running, or a less old 35 watt i5-8400t now.
I would have gone with one of those celeron boards made for the purpose, or a beefier Arm one but they were actually more expensive than pulling the i5 out of my thin client and getting a brand new itx motherboard and case.

[Beerislife]

I could always start off with a BMAX Mini PC 8GB DDR4 128GB SSD Intel Celeron N4000 for 12,799 yen and add external USB drives and build what I want?

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣