What to do?

[ixiboneheadixi]

So i am looking to get a NAS for my home. I really do not know what to do though, i am looking for a high capacity and speed. What is my best option, build one, buy a unit that you just put your drives into like synology or just buy one that already has drives and such. 

 

Edit: not looking to spend a ton of money either, but i do not really have a set budget. 

[haswellgamer]

Well, just like when you are building your own computer, it depends on what you are using it for. And again, like building your own PC, a lot of people look for high capacity and speed. You can definitely build your own-third times the charm, just like building your own pc, the parts can be upgraded over time. Consider that.

[Mira Yurizaki]

I believe buying a drive-less prebuilt one is cheaper than buying one with drives already inside. Some of them, like QNAP's has units with more RAM than the base model, but you can upgrade this later (and again, it's also cheaper to go that route). Unfortunately a lot of the prebuilt NAS boxes are $300+ starting, for the base model without disks. Add in say 3TBx2 in RAID 1 and you're looking at $500 or so.

 

It certainly would be cheaper to build your own at least from a price/performance standpoint. Especially since for $300 you can get a lot more than a Celeron and 2GB of RAM like mine came with. But it may be less convenient to setup. The prebuilt ones are basically plug in, wait for it to boot, and login for some basic setup and be done with it. Going the DIY route may be a project in and of itself.

[ixiboneheadixi]

1 minute ago, M.Yurizaki said:

I believe buying a drive-less prebuilt one is cheaper than buying one with drives already inside. Some of them, like QNAP's has units with more RAM than the base model, but you can upgrade this later (and again, it's also cheaper to go that route). Unfortunately a lot of the prebuilt NAS boxes are $300+ starting, for the base model without disks. Add in say 3TBx2 in RAID 1 and you're looking at $500 or so.

 

It certainly would be cheaper to build your own at least from a price/performance standpoint. Especially since for $300 you can get a lot more than a Celeron and 2GB of RAM like mine came with. But it may be less convenient to setup. The prebuilt ones are basically plug in, wait for it to boot, and login for some basic setup and be done with it. Going the DIY route may be a project in and of itself.

Yeah i have been looking into it, and i am tempted to build one just for the project but i have been looking at the Synology ones and their software just looks like so much less of a pain in the ass and might be worth it for convenience sake. Plus i want to go somewhere in the 40-60 TB range so the drives are going to be a huge cost, so a couple hundred price difference between pre built and custom is a non issue at that point, Just want to figure out which i want to go with. Are there any advantages to going with a custom machine in terms of software or hardware in a significant way?

[Mira Yurizaki]

It's basically the same reason why you'd build your computer than buy it pre-built: you control what goes on. You know what hardware's in it. You know what software's powering it, that you're given the bare bones and it's up to you to configure the rest.

 

What you're buying pre-built is basically convenience. It'll work, it's mostly plug and play, and all the hard stuff is taken care of for you more or less.