NAS for home media

Federico7 · December 17, 2019

Hi, it's been a while about installing a nas for some time to centralize all the different files I currently have on 4 hard disks and 2 computers... right now it's kind a mess... so i want to build a nas for media (Plex Server) movies, itunes library, image from DSLR...and some documents. The nas will be used mostly to store media and completed works. The nas should be accessible from all the devices from my wi-fi and potentially even from outside. Computer backups and other sensible data are supposed to be backed up on a different system accessible only locally. So right now i'm wondering about 3 options

-buying a Synology (i was thinking of one 4 bay nas)

-use a Macbook pro 2011 (already own) with faulted dedicated GPU with some programs such as FreeNAS

-Build a dedicated PC (maybe not spending too much money) with some nas software

Any advices? What are the best free software for nas? Right now i don't have a specific budget my only concerns are that

1- It should be silent! (i don't want a loud fan that is spinning 24/7, since most of the time probably the disk will not even spin... its just for having medias accessible everywhere) and on that point i like the deidicate pc idea because heat management can be addressed in so many ways...

2 - It should be easily upgradable or powerful enought to last quite a bit because i plan to keep for quite some time...

3 - "easy" ... i mean i don't want to use virtual machines or complicated stuff... i kust want something reliable that works fine... without need to manage settings every 2 weeks or having issues with software updates....

Thanks