Thinking of switching from QNAP to Synology or Asustor

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Honestly, all of the routers currently support Wifi 6 super well. They are not all equal but that tech is very much ready (unlike WiFi 7).
You can read more about WiFi in general on this page[1] alongside what truly matters beyond the BS (for your next future purchases :+1:t2:).

First thing, take a breather. :dove::man_in_lotus_position:t2::peace_symbol:
I know it feels good to do all of that but it also needs to not be a burden and you can take it slow without pressuring yourself! :mending_heart:
That would be a lot of stress because it’s not trivial and there are a lot of things to it.
Hence take it slow and don’t feel like being the hero saving your family here haha. :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

That being said, back to the topic! :nerd_face:

That one might be easier than you think. Especially if you have some homelab already, will make switching to fully FOSS apps even easier. :+1:t2:
I mean depends on how hardcore you are with your apps, but it might not be as bad as you think.

Same here, might not be as bad depending on how many alternatives are needed.
And having self-hosted stuff will ease the migration by a lot too!

I do get the urgency. Both approaches are valid:

  • top to bottom with network security, NAS, down to individual devices
  • giving prio to things needed first and getting up the stack progressively

both are valid I guess. :blue_circle:

Go with the Flint 2, here is the reason. I mean, maybe by the time you’re back at your networking setup a Flint 4 or better will be released (like OpenWrt Two). :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:
Those devices change and improve quite quickly but I’ll help you narrow down the best device in time if you want![2]

Linux mindset: one tool for one job.
One shouldn’t do 15 things mid/poorly but 1 thing just well.
Moreover, if one thing dies or bug out, everything goes down the drain which is not the most resistant approach to things. Better to just have the streaming device down only for example.

One thing for sure: OBS is by far the best input source available on the market yes.
Might not be the smoothest experience if comparing to a few paid products but eh, for FOSS it’s amazing and the ecosystem/customization around it makes it the best by a long shot if investing a bit of time into it. :+1:t2:

I have to say that I am not too familiar with what the Switch 2 does. But I am also not sure that it’s the best example in town given that you need a capture card for it apparently?

If you want to stream some games from your PC while having OBS running on the same machine, then yes you could skip all of that. You might need to consider if you want to also facecam + mic (and how to setup those alongside) but there are free solutions given your wishes/gear.

And yes, you could even skip OwnCast entirely if your goal is to share some game footage by using vdo.ninja. PG used to use that before using StreamYard and it is plenty powerful with a lot of guides + tools to make it super nice to stream + invite people to join.
For you, it could be as simple as creating a link to a room, sharing it to your friends and you’re ready to go! :collision:
If the goal is to bring newcomers outside of your friends circle, then OwnCast is the way to go (the YouTuber/Twitch grow an audience kind of path haha). :+1:t2:

I’ll give vdo.ninja + OwnCast a try myself this year to see how nice it is.
Might be quite fun to follow my journey along for your own use case!

As a saw some people mentioning here, you’re probably victim of Analysis paralysis.
Happens with anxiety-prone people, I include myself into that box. :weary_cat:

Sometimes I do agree that buying or upgrading is rather expensive.
Thing is, the time you invest thinking, researching and trying to figure out the correct thing is technically also money. So…that means that you could do the wrong decision by taking the wrong decision.
Solution to this? Start small and understand the topic better before “going all in”.

Now, the time part. It is true that it will take some time away from other things meanwhile see it as an investment for your own knowledge. Things you do learn about Linux will not be lost or useless unlike a product or proprietary tool.
You’re hence investing into some long-term FOSS knowledge and things working for the next (potential) decades without needing further tinkering down the road.

This is not a get-rich-quick AI-crypto-bro hype scheme but a sturdy foundation that will be evergreen. :+1:t2:
Now, the hard truth part. My opinions or ones from other people on the Internet are just that, opinions.
Best way to learn and achieve things? Try to practice and do the things yourself.
Don’t forget to take notes on your way so that you do have persistency and don’t forget about them by dumping it into Notion, Obsidian or even a blog! :glowing_star:

But yeah, rather than thinking about all the paper cuts and technical parts, give it a shot by investing into a miniPC like Beelink, Minisforum or alike (with a N100+ CPU).
You can get it for around 300€, play with different things, wire some NVME or HDD drives to it down the road to give TrueNAS a try before pouring a load of money into something that might just not fit your needs.
Also, you’ll figure out if you do even enjoy doing that. Or can achieve that (or if it’s too complex and not worth a try). In which case, back to QNAP… :skull:
Hopefully not! :smiling_face_with_tear::face_with_hand_over_mouth:

Yes, hence start small and give DIY a try. For 300€, you can’t really go wrong.
Even if it doesn’t fit or is not powerful enough, guess what? You’ll have a small PC for something and as you saw, it’s never a bad thing to compartmentalize things. :wink:

You could even get into 3D printing your own enclosure and making it fully custom.
It won’t be as enterprise as the Mini R but maybe it’s not even needed, yet you could even print your own mini rack while still being under the price of a mini R.
Self-hosting/home-labbing doesn’t need to be crazy expensive and hardcore.
You can start small, have some fun, iterate and build upon things without breaking the bank[3]. :+1:t2:

There is a reason plenty of people got hooked on homelabbing in the first place with a cheap 30€ RaspberryPi. It was lame in terms of specs, could fry easily, not very “production-ready” in comparison to Synology’s NASes but hey, it was your own little thing!
Nowadays, this is still a thing but better: we have toys that are production-ready while still being affordable to a “consumer wallet” while leaving the field to experimentations. :man_scientist:t2::test_tube:

I have not followed the hype around the Steam machine myself. Maybe I need to catch up on some Gamernexus or LTT but how I see things:

  1. you can build yourself a computer, with a GPU and play games on it (being on Windows or Linux), takes some hardware knowledge and then some software knowledge
  2. you could buy yourself a mini PC and get into homelabbing and doing self-hosted/server-y things on it
  3. you could buy yourself a console, like a PS5 and call it a day: go play Fifa 39 with lots of micro-transactions! :smiling_cat_with_heart_eyes:

I am not sure which one the Steam machine targets but I guess that it’s kind of a Framework Desktop for normies? Hence games + good Linux support + some basic work like Blender?

If you have the knowledge to build 1., Steam Machine is not that crazy amazing. It’s great, small and probably quite accessible but nothing ground breaking. Unless you don’t know how to build a PC haha. :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:
Which then is dope because you’re not buying a pre-built like Omen, Nzxt or whatever crap companies are selling with an awful performance (or even a subscription) while not delivering the basics of it… :unamused_face:

If you take 3., you just opt out from the whole thing and don’t care about doing the hard work, you want to chill on your sofa. I guess it’s fine, no hard feelings. :dove:

But yeah 2. is not exactly the same use case hence I would indeed differentiate both machines. You could leave the Steam Machine run 24/7 like a server and have lightweight things on it, sure but it might be a bit annoying if you want to reboot, upgrade or do other cool things because then one will bring down the other.

Actually, there are 50 different ones like that yes:

There are plenty of options with all kinds of budgets to make your life a tiny bit easier and dozens of reviews to go along. Just pick one above and go like Beelink Me mini VS ... and you’ll have plenty of alternatives that will be TrueNAS compatible or their own custom reinvent-the-wheel-make-it-easy-and-shiny NAS OS. :sweat_smile:

Hence, people are already doing it. :slight_smile:

As you guessed, even if you offered I would still refuse because you need to understand what you’re doing. There is no point for me setting up something for you and leaving you with no clue on how to fix it when it will need some update or config file tinkering.

It’s part of the journey. Also we’re on a Privacy forum, hence you’re not even supposed to know who I am.
And vice-versa. Don’t share your home address haha. :see_no_evil_monkey::ninja:t2:

No problem, hope this message was helpful too. :light_blue_heart:

  1. I linked directly to the Recommendations paragraph to showcase why I picked the Flint 2 ↩︎

  2. which pretty much comes down to going to OpenWrt forum and checking the 2026 recommended hardware because I understood a bit too late that it’s the best way to find the best device in no time :man_facepalming:t2: ↩︎

  3. trust me: it comes from someone that poured quite a lot of money into things and it is not an easy thing for me to write that down :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes: ↩︎

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