Looking for first NAS

[Dropndestroy213]

Hey guys I'm looking for some input. Looking to buy or build a NAS for my home. My wife and iwould like to be able to store files and access on any of her device's desktop,laptop or phone. I was looking into the Synology DS218+ or DS118.

 

Any Input would be great

[GDRRiley]

synologies are nice buy price, you got brands like terramaster and asustor.

you could also build a machine running freenas

[LunaP0n3]

Synology units may have a price premium, but DSM is dead set easy to navigate as a counter. I use a DS418 and it's never given me any trouble at all. For peace of mind I'd recommend the DS218+ simply for the fact it has two drive bays that you can setup into mirror mode for safety of your data.

 

Purchasing NAS optimised drives for your unit is a good idea, as they are rated to be on 24/7.

Seagate has the "Ironwolf" family of drives, and WD has the "Red" series of drives. These are the appropriate drives for a NAS system.

 

[GDRRiley]

1 hour ago, LunaP0n3 said:

Purchasing NAS optimised drives for your unit is a good idea, as they are rated to be on 24/7.

Seagate has the "Ironwolf" family of drives, and WD has the "Red" series of drives. These are the appropriate drives for a NAS system.

 

toshiba has the n300 series.

[Net Runner]

Synology has an amazing collection of applications for phones both Android and iOS which is incredibly helpful sometimes and their DSM management system is also very neat. These are some justifications of overpaying for a Synology compared to a DIY FreeNAS or whatever else built box. If these things are crucial for you and you do not want to dance around the box too much go Synology. Kinda fire-and-forget option. 

[Dropndestroy213]

What would be recommend specs for a built rig and using freenas

[ju1ion]

Running FreeNAS requires you to run a 64-bit processor with at least 8 GB of RAM. I highly recommend using ECC memory. A single bitflip can harm your whole filesystem, making you loose all your data. 

 

Maybe a ryzen 3200G or some 1st, 2nd gen Ryzen - cause they all support ECC - or something similar. Most Ryzen (except the "G" ones?) require a dedicated graphics card, like a GT 710, which you can get for cheap. 

If you are going to run ECC memory, your CPU and motherboard need to support it (check the motherboards documents for supported ram kits). 

 

You can also dramatically increase your performance with more ram, cause the way ZFS / ARC work. 

[GDRRiley]

an old HP or dell or lenvo desktop will run freeNAS just fine. just go up to 8GB+ of ram and toss in some hard drives, most only have 4 sata ports so you'd be limited without an add in card.