Do I need a NAS?

[dseg]

Right now I have a spare PC that is on 24/7 that manages home automation, security cameras, and acts as a home server.  I have six hard drives on it for movies, photo and video storage.  I use Plex for movies and Plex Photos currently for my photos.  Plex is great for the movies but for photos is kind of bad. I want to try Immich but not sure if I should be setting up a Synology or some type of NAS instead of just having this spare PC do everything.  I read that Immich is doable on Windows 10 but not the best.

 

Any recommendations on what direction I should go in here?

• I want my pictures from iPhone to backup to hard drives automatically.
• A great app for iPhone to view and share photos/videos - which is accessible outside of network.

This spare PC has a Intel i7-8700K, 16GB of RAM, Windows 10 Pro

• Black Western Digital (WD) 10TB (photos/videos)
• WD Red 4TB (photo/videos)
• WD Red 18TB (Movies)
• WD Purple 8TB (for cameras)
• WD Purple 8TB (for cameras)

[Lumikor]

I think everyone should have a NAS, so yes. Which OS were you thinking about? 

 

[asdasdasdasdasdasd]

That's a really capable PC. You don't need multiple PCs for different tasks - everything can be on your main spare PC.

 

I think your problem is software. Running all your programs on bare metal is definitely not recommended because it's not really secure and it's hard to change.

 

In my opinion you should go with something that allows you to make separate containers for everything. I have Proxmox on my spare PC, which allows me to manage drives and make containers and VMs more efficiently. 

[OddOod]

Welcome to the forums!
My dude, that IS a NAS.

[Mark Kaine]

6 hours ago, OddOod said:

Welcome to the forums!
My dude, that IS a NAS.

Ok let me rephrase it: "Do I need a NAS for my NAS?"

[Mereo]

Your current PC is already a NAS. If you want to continue the Frankenstein approach, you could set up an Ubuntu virtual machine (VM) to deploy Docker containers like Immich.

 

Alternatively, you can install Unraid on your current computer, which will essentially transform it into a NAS similar to Synology, but better. You won't ever need to think about buying a Synology or Ugreen device.

[ToboRobot]

21 hours ago, dseg said:

Right now I have a spare PC that is on 24/7 that manages home automation, security cameras, and acts as a home server.  I have six hard drives on it for movies, photo and video storage.  I use Plex for movies and Plex Photos currently for my photos.  Plex is great for the movies but for photos is kind of bad. I want to try Immich but not sure if I should be setting up a Synology or some type of NAS instead of just having this spare PC do everything.  I read that Immich is doable on Windows 10 but not the best.

 

Any recommendations on what direction I should go in here?

• I want my pictures from iPhone to backup to hard drives automatically.
• A great app for iPhone to view and share photos/videos - which is accessible outside of network.

This spare PC has a Intel i7-8700K, 16GB of RAM, Windows 10 Pro

• Black Western Digital (WD) 10TB (photos/videos)
• WD Red 4TB (photo/videos)
• WD Red 18TB (Movies)
• WD Purple 8TB (for cameras)
• WD Purple 8TB (for cameras)

A NAS in this sort of situation would largely be a second copy or backup of your (some of or all) data.

I also have a server with media server and file storage, but also have a small NAS to backup some important data.

Having a separate NAS/server that can store and serve your data plus whatever home automation/etc would be useful in the sense of having two levels of infrastructure to provide redundancy, so if you are making changes or updates and break something, the other system can still function.  

[FreddyWestside]

You have a NAS, you just chose a desktop operating system to run it. Everything you listed, unless you have a camera software you really love, would run fine (and maybe better) on a dedicated NAS OS but migrating could be a hassle. Most of the OS options are going to need empty drives. You should be able to run immich in a pretty lightweight VM.

 

I personally use UnRAID because my goal was to be janky from day one, I wanted to use mismatched drives and add more as I went and (at the time) GPU pass through to VMs was easier and I wanted to experiment with that. Unraid is a paid program, but you only need drives empty when you add them and you can add one at a time.

[OddOod]

On 5/1/2026 at 4:46 PM, Mark Kaine said:

Ok let me rephrase it: "Do I need a NAS for my NAS?"

I'd recommend pulling out of windows and going some flavor of linux. Either a dedicated NAS OS, or even going full endgame with proxmox