Is Synology right for me?

[weez]

Hello, looking into getting a NAS and I'm thinking a Synology ds423+ is what I want. Just want to run it by all you first. I've been doing a ton of research and I've decided a DIY NAS is going to be too much work and time for me. Synology's software looks super simple and that's what I'm after. I'm looking at the 4-bay because of upgradeability. My uses are:

 

1. Video playback of my bluray/dvd collection. So far all 1080p but might start getting 4k. Not sure if I'm going to set up Plex. Right now I'm probably going to just play the files off my Shield TV Pro using Kodi. But I'm thinking about Plex

2. Personal Cloud for Photos. I want to use it like Google Photos and, Synology Photos looks like what I want. This part will have 2 users. My wife and I. 

3. Use the NAS as my download folder. Can I do that?

4. Play my Flac files on my iPhone. Do I need Plex or something else to do that?

5. Back up all my other random files. 

 

Pretty basic needs I think and I like that the software looks super simple. I know going Synology has a price premium but for myself I think it's worth it. I just don't have the free time to go DIY. Will the ds423+ do all the stuff I want?

[manikyath]

the only downsides about synology are the proprietary hardware (if something breaks, you're essentially at the mercy of synology to warranty it or buy something new), and the quite slow CPU's in these things.

 

other than that, they're perfectly capable machines, and none of what you are planning on doing is especially cpu heavy.

 

but having that said, this one:

35 minutes ago, weez said:

 

3. Use the NAS as my download folder. Can I do that?

is kind of a bad idea. you *can* do that, but that'd mean your computer downloads the file, transfers it over to the NAS, and transfers it back to open or run it. past that, running installers off a network share can be tricky, because of permissions and drive mappings when running stuff as administrator.

[weez]

3 minutes ago, manikyath said:

 

is kind of a bad idea. you *can* do that, but that'd mean your computer downloads the file, transfers it over to the NAS, and transfers it back to open or run it. past that, running installers off a network share can be tricky, because of permissions and drive mappings when running stuff as administrator.

Thank you. I won't plan on doing that now