So, I am thinking about getting myself a NAS to host mainly Immich and Plex. Got a couple of questions for the experienced folk;
- Is Synology the best/easiest way to start? If not, what are the closest alternatives?
- What OS should i go for? OMV, Synology’s OS, or UNRAID?
- Mainly gonna host Plex/Jellyfin, and Synology Photos/Immich - not decided quite what solutions to go for.
Appricate any tips :sparkles:
I went with Synology for my Plex sever. I chose to use a docker container to run it instead of the normal Plex server app they have available. I found some YouTube videos on the setup and it was fairly straight forward. Now that it’s setup I rarely have to think about it, other than the occasional update. I now have to update the docker image instead of just letting Plex update itself.
I went this route because I didn’t want to have to maintain a desktop for my Plex server, which I had done since Plex was first released. But I also didn’t want to have a new sys admin hobby just to watch some videos. Rolling my own raid felt like it would end up that way.
Can definitely confirm this. I started with a Proxmox system which had a TrueNAS VM. TrueNAS just used a USB HDD for storage though. Setting everything up and getting the permissions set correctly so I could connect my computers was a pain in the ass though.
Later I bought a synology and it just works. Only thing I would recommend is getting good HDDs. I bought Toshiba MG08 16TB drives and while they work great, they are obnoxiously loud during read and write operations. They are so loud, that even though the NAS is in a separate room I have to shut it off at night.
Meanwhile the Seagate Ironwolf drive I used for TrueNAS was next to my bed for multiple months and was basically silent.
I have Iron wolves and I thought THEY were noisy.
You might have gotten a dud. I’ve got 4 in my NAS and they are silent.
I bought WD Red Pros, which are supposed to be made for use in a NAS. They’re pretty loud. It’s sitting right next to my couch and it a bit annoying. It’s always doing something, even when I’m not doing anything. When backups fire up at 3am they go nuts.
Thankfully, I don’t hear it when I’m trying to sleep. I do use a white noise machine, so that could be part of the reason why.
SSD prices are coming down. I can see they tempting me in the future to get a completely silent NAS.
I have the same SSD thought, except every time they come down HDD prices also go down.
From what I’ve read there is a hard floor to HDD drives due to what physically needs to go into them, so at some point (probably around $50, the HDD should stop dropping.