Synology vs DIY NAS for home?

Notice: Page may contain affiliate links for which we may earn a small commission through services like Amazon Affiliates or Skimlinks.

Logan

Member
Feb 22, 2017
65
9
8
I'd like to get a NAS to use at home as an additional backup destination for several home PCs, besides two cloud backup services I already use. No VMs, no media server, just a another place to archive my data (and Windows OS drives), ideally with snapshotting and ease of replicating (eventually) to a second NAS in another location. I currently have 12 TB raw capacity across several internal and external drives, of which I am using 6 TB, mostly photographs. Do I buy a pre-built Synology with btrfs or go the DIY route with ZFS? Would I benefit much from having more than 1 disk in the NAS, or would a single 12TB+ HDD be fine?

I'm looking at Synology DS218, DS220+, and DS418. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems QNAP's least expensive ZFS-capable NAS (via QuTS Hero) is TS-231P3-4G.

If I go DIY, TrueNAS Core or something else? On the hardware side, are there any good deals on recommended refurbished/decommissioned small towers/minis? If I don't use dedup, how much RAM is appropriate for ZFS? I have an unused 256 GB Samsung 860 Pro -- any value to this in a ZFS system?

Thanks very much.
 

dandanio

Active Member
Oct 10, 2017
182
70
28
Maybe an ODROID-HC2 is more to your liking? (Disclaimer: I am using one as a Tier 2 or Tier 3 (if you count online destinations) and it has been flawless for about 2 years now.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Logan

Logan

Member
Feb 22, 2017
65
9
8
Had not considered ODROID-HC2, thanks very much for mentioning it. Seems to be discontinued in favor of ODROID-HC4, are you aware of any stock still available at a good price? HC4 has a "toaster" form factor that I'm not familiar with. Any issues with HDD longevity in that case? Any recommendations of software to schedule backups/snapshots from Windows (assuming I run OpenZFS on it)?
 

dandanio

Active Member
Oct 10, 2017
182
70
28
While I love OpenZFS, I was not able to get it running on the ODROID (I haven't tried that hard, tbh., I looked around for packages and googled a bit, but I was too lazy to compile the module myself, so I went with brtfs, works great. It was probably 2+ years ago, so YMMV). As for the discontinuation, I really like the form factor of the HC2, single drive, single SoC, done. Availability of ODROIDs in the US is slim, at best, I usually buy my toys at ameriDroid (shipping charge from HardKernel is a bit harsh). I can't help you there. But if you find stock, with some reasonable S&H charges, let us know.
 

Stephan

Well-Known Member
Apr 21, 2017
920
698
93
Germany
If you want to tinker, a DIY NAS with Linux and ZFS RAIDZ2 will be alright. ODROID is not a suitable hardware imho to match ZFS' enterprise-grade data assurances. Low-power and ECC RAM capabilities will be difficult, but always worth a consideration. If it should work swiftly, go with Synology and put a RAID-6 on it. If data is precious and a disk dies, recovery should be based on remaining disks which STILL should have some sort of parity available. More important are backup considerations, in case of a disaster like blackmail trojan, flood, lightning, theft. What then?
 
  • Like
Reactions: Sean Ho

ReturnedSword

Active Member
Jun 15, 2018
526
235
43
Santa Monica, CA
It really depends on your budget, which will be the main constraint. ZFS can get pricey to implement properly, as much as or more than a commercial NAS, unless you go with older hardware. If you’re ok with higher power draw and a rack based platform that may be ok.

Personally I never got around to updating to a newer ZFS NAS, and in between I had a spare Synology DS1821+ I had bought for my parents that they ended up not needing, so I’m using that at the moment until I get around to making a newer ZFS server. It’s hard to beat the form factor of Synology and QNAP though, and much easier to maintain, though I’m missing out on the “enterprise” features of ZFS.
 

Stephan

Well-Known Member
Apr 21, 2017
920
698
93
Germany
Yep, worst of all problems, PEBCAK. If you want to know if your storage "got it", just delete like a mad man sjit on your shares or in your home directory. If you can get everything back easy peasy from a ZFS snapshot that was made a few minutes ago, you are on the right path.
 
  • Haha
Reactions: TRACKER

BoredSysadmin

Not affiliated with Maxell
Mar 2, 2019
1,050
437
83
I'd like to get a NAS to use at home as an additional backup destination for several home PCs, besides two cloud backup services I already use. No VMs, no media server, just a another place to archive my data (and Windows OS drives), ideally with snapshotting and ease of replicating (eventually) to a second NAS in another location. I currently have 12 TB raw capacity across several internal and external drives, of which I am using 6 TB, mostly photographs. Do I buy a pre-built Synology with btrfs or go the DIY route with ZFS? Would I benefit much from having more than 1 disk in the NAS, or would a single 12TB+ HDD be fine?
Based on your questions and info, I suppose data resiliency and preventing bit-rot is a big priority, and ZFS will help, but as other posters said before - raid isn't a backup. I recommend you look at the Backblaze b2 service. Most nasses including Truenas, will support backup to s3 compatible cloud like Backblaze.
Having more than one drive in nas? Yes - I'd say your bare minimum is two drives to mirror each other - this would provide redundancy in the event one drive fails. I recommend 4 drives at least to provide raid 10 (or 1+0) to improve performance and redundancy.
Given the level of your questions, I wouldn't recommend going with DIY NAS. Between Synology or Qnap - the prior will have much more polished software, but later will have beefier/newer hardware. Another choice if you keep on ZFS is iXsystems Truenas mini appliances.
TrueNAS Mini | Enterprise-grade Storage for the Home or Office - they aren't cheap, but they perform above their price point.

I used to run a DIY Freenas NAS with 18 drives for many years, but eventually, I switched to an 8 HD Qnap NAS to improve system power efficiency. QNAP QTS has included the license for QVR Pro for 8 cameras (channels) which I wanted to use. AFAIK, QTS Hero (ZFS) comes with QVR Elite [only 2 free cameras :( ]. Over time lacking enclosure management is also annoying - ie: failed drives don't make it easy to identify in DIY system, unlike in bought appliances mentioned above.
 
Last edited:

BoredSysadmin

Not affiliated with Maxell
Mar 2, 2019
1,050
437
83
I'm looking at Synology DS218, DS220+, and DS418. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems QNAP's least expensive ZFS-capable NAS (via QuTS Hero) is TS-231P3-4G.
I don't think that TS-231P3-4G supports QTS Hero, at least not officially, but TS-473A does.

If I don't use dedup, how much RAM is appropriate for ZFS? I have an unused 256 GB Samsung 860 Pro -- any value to this in a ZFS system?
4GB is the bare minimum - the more, the better. ECC memory is highly recommended for ZFS but not strictly required. 256GB 860 Pro wouldn't do much for the ZFS system. It would likely be useless for you as "read-cache" but unsuited for "write cache." Both caches are in quotes because they aren't exactly working like that with zfs.
 

Logan

Member
Feb 22, 2017
65
9
8
Appreciate everyone's comments, a lot to think about. I guess I wish Synology offered a little better hardware for the price, then I wouldn't be so hesitant to just buy it prebuilt.
 

Stephan

Well-Known Member
Apr 21, 2017
920
698
93
Germany
If you don't know exactly what you need an SLOG or persistent L2ARC cache for, you don't need it. Use case would be e.g. NFS export for VM disk storage, which uses sync writes. Recommendation in this case would be two fast and high-power multi-petabyte TBW SSDs or Octanes with power-loss protection in a mirror for SLOG. Useless for pure Samba. I removed my SLOG, it's fine.
 

BlueFox

Legendary Member Spam Hunter Extraordinaire
Oct 26, 2015
2,059
1,479
113
If you want simple, Synology is hard to beat. I say this as someone that has a full rack of colo space, but still uses a 12-bay Synology at home. Sometimes the extra time/effort required for the DIY solution is just not worth the savings. Also not going to find anything but a prebuilt NAS in such a compact form factor. The 2 and 4 bay Synology models aren't exactly terribly expensive anyway.
 

BoredSysadmin

Not affiliated with Maxell
Mar 2, 2019
1,050
437
83
this might help:
DS220+ should fit the bill.
Since it has an Intel CPU with a GPU, you should be able to even run a plex server with hardware transcoding (needs plex pass)
I'd highly suggest increasing the ram to 6GB.
 
  • Like
Reactions: ReturnedSword

ReturnedSword

Active Member
Jun 15, 2018
526
235
43
Santa Monica, CA
this might help:
DS220+ should fit the bill.
Since it has an Intel CPU with a GPU, you should be able to even run a plex server with hardware transcoding (needs plex pass)
I'd highly suggest increasing the ram to 6GB.
The Synology NAS with Intel IGP are passable for Plex transcoding, but the point that may bring frustration is Docker runs extremely slow, especially the more containers are deployed. VM capability on Synology non-Plus and Plus NAS are also pretty crap slow. I run my Dockers in a Lenovo TMM with the NAS as the storage target, however even a cheap NUC-type Jasper Lake mini PC will work great.
 

BoredSysadmin

Not affiliated with Maxell
Mar 2, 2019
1,050
437
83
The Synology NAS with Intel IGP are passable for Plex transcoding, but the point that may bring frustration is Docker runs extremely slow, especially the more containers are deployed. VM capability on Synology non-Plus and Plus NAS are also pretty crap slow. I run my Dockers in a Lenovo TMM with the NAS as the storage target, however even a cheap NUC-type Jasper Lake mini PC will work great.
Two things I've learned about running containers is that they need more memory than you'd expect, and they would just slowly with low memory instead of complaining about it. I'm not a docker guru; maybe someone else would chime in on how to properly monitor containers' memory usage outside Portainer. that particular model has a memory max of 6GB, which should be enough to run samba and 2-3 containers. I'm running my QNAP TVS-872XT with 64GB memory, and my containers are running very fast with plenty of free memory left. As for specifically plex, I'm running my plex natively on J3455 nuc (4gb, cheap 128gb SSD) with ubuntu server os, and it's plenty fast.
 
  • Like
Reactions: ReturnedSword

ReturnedSword

Active Member
Jun 15, 2018
526
235
43
Santa Monica, CA
Two things I've learned about running containers is that they need more memory than you'd expect, and they would just slowly with low memory instead of complaining about it. I'm not a docker guru; maybe someone else would chime in on how to properly monitor containers' memory usage outside Portainer. that particular model has a memory max of 6GB, which should be enough to run samba and 2-3 containers. I'm running my QNAP TVS-872XT with 64GB memory, and my containers are running very fast with plenty of free memory left. As for specifically plex, I'm running my plex natively on J3455 nuc (4gb, cheap 128gb SSD) with ubuntu server os, and it's plenty fast.
Yes, that's right about the memory. However, Synology NAS tend to have pretty weak CPUs as well, so that's the main struggle as there are simply not enough compute resources available beyond running a few simple containers. On my Synology, my RAM is maxed out, with 4TB of read-only cache (it doesn't help much for 1 GbE). Your QNAP TVS-872XT (which was my first choice, but was not available when I got the Synology DS1821+) has a much more powerful CPU so you would even be able to run a few VMs without issue. I solved my Docker and Plex performance issues though by just using a Lenovo P330 with a i7-8700T.
 

BoredSysadmin

Not affiliated with Maxell
Mar 2, 2019
1,050
437
83
I used to run docker on 2vCPU VM running on i7-2600 - never pegged the CPU, but when the performance started to slugging, adding more ram to VM always solved the slowness, but I do agree my 872 CPU is much faster than Celeron in NAS I've linked above. My point is I'm running my plex on even slower Celeron, and the CPU doesn't seem to be the biggest bottleneck. Even Celeron-based NAS could run 2-4 containers without much issue.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: ReturnedSword

ReturnedSword

Active Member
Jun 15, 2018
526
235
43
Santa Monica, CA
I used to run docker on 2vCPU VM running on i7-2700 - never pegged the CPU, but when the performance started to slugging, adding more ram to VM always solved the slowness, but I do agree my 872 CPU is much faster than Celeron in NAS I've linked above. My point is I'm running my plex on even slower Celeron, and the CPU doesn't seem to be the biggest bottleneck. Even celeron-based NAS could run 2-4 containers without much issue.
I have a test system I turn on here and there that has a i7-2600K, and yes now that you mention it, I never really had issue with running containers there. Not sure why the V1500B in my DS1821+ is sluggish. It can’t hardware transcode anyway since it doesn’t have an iGPU. It works great for storage stuff though.

I’m considering moving my Dockers and Plex to a Jasper Lake NUC, and I think it should be plenty fast for that purpose.