hosting a website using nas

ultra99 · August 25, 2019

I have a Synology Nas that I use for backups and was wondering if I can host my website on it instead of paying for host services? Is it possible? Good idea? It's not a crazy busy site or popular by any means...

Windows7ge · August 25, 2019

~~Some quick Googling says Synology NAS's have some database functionality but I don't see anything about just plain web-page hosting.~~

~~A consumer NAS is very application specific it's designed to serve a particular function and hosting webpages isn't on the list that I can see.~~

So now I do see it has a feature called Web Station claiming it can let you host HTTP/HTTPS web-pages. So you should be able to but you'd still have to register a Domain and pay for that regularly unless you want people to memorize your public IP and use that. I still wouldn't recommend using the NAS for this.

A larger concern would be the security as opening ports to this server and actively inviting people if it and the network are not locked down properly could leave you vulnerable to hackers who may break into your home network and reak havoc.

If it can be done it's recommended to let a hosting site handle these things (security/firewalls). Some sites let you have a 1 or couple page website for pretty cheap. What you'd end up paying in electricity & maintenance anyways for the server basically. They can also guarantee more up-time than you can if this website is going to be a means of income or is otherwise important.

mariushm · August 25, 2019

Namecheap.com has shared hosting for 15$ for the first year (double that from 2nd year) ... gives you 20GB of disk space and you can have up to 3 separate websites and 30 subdomains (across those 3 websites). Databases, ftp, email etc etc ... you name it.

Just got it a month ago to temporarily host two of my websites until I can solve some issues with a dedicated server ... and it works ok.

For small websites it's perfectly fine.

IF you get a web server on your NAS you'd have to do port forwarding to get the http data redirected from your router/modem to your nas, and sending emails won't work from your home IP and so on and so forth... 15$ is not that much in the grand scheme of things.

Here's the NC link if you want to learn more: https://www.namecheap.com/hosting/shared/