Thinking of switching from QNAP to Synology or Asustor

Off Topic
21

Halp :pleading_face:

22

Why do you need a specific operating system tailored around storage? Honestly they are just shiny frontends for a more complex backend and they often create more complications than doing things yourself in the terminal. (In my opinion)

I’ve never tried CasaOS or ZimaOS, but I did try TrueNAS when it was based on FreeBSD and just had constant issues with disks being detected correctly. (could have been hardware related idk)

If you’re not that familiar with handling operations in Linux, I would probably go for an encrypted cloud provider than a NAS tbh. It might be more expensive in the long run but you will save time on frustrations.

1 Like
23

I’ve been eyeing this case for a while, haven’t really seen anything like it before. Power consumption is usually pretty important with these sorts of setups so a Raspberry Pi actually makes a lot of sense.

24

Thanks for your answer! I already have a QNAP NAS and I’m looking to migrate to a more privacy friendly option. What would you suggest as the easiest and most private option?

QNAP are not recommended here. You’re now obliged to buy Synology drives for Synology NAS and there seem to be a push towards more cloud integration as @Jonah stated.. I’m not sure about Asustor, but this could still be an option.

That pointed me towards the open-source equivalent TrueNAS.

I decided that I would not choose the hardware myself as it seems complicated and there are options for TrueNAS and CasaOS/ZimaOS.

TrueNAS:

  • R-Series, H-Series, M-Series and F-Series are all for enterprises.

  • TrueNAS Mini

    • TrueNAS Scale
    • 5 Bays SATA + 2x slots for M.2
    • 16 to 64GB RAM
    • 90 to 216 TB capacity
    • Price: 1759 to 2309 USD

Casa/Zima:

  • ZimaBoard, ZimaBoard 2 and ZimaBlade all have only 2x SATA ports with no cases.

  • ZimaCube

    • ZimaOS
    • 6 Bays SATA + 4x slots for M.2
    • 8 to 32GB RAM
    • 256 GB NVMe storage
    • 164 TB capacity
    • Price: 1099 USD and sold out at the time of this message

It’s more expensive than I thought


Is the ZimaCube really private enough? At that price point, it’s more interesting then the TrueNAS mini.

Any other recommendation are welcome.

25

As Black Friday is around the corner, I would welcome any last minute recommendation on a open-source NAS all-inclusive package :stuck_out_tongue:

TrueNAS Mini vs ZimaCube vs other contender?

26

Are those mini-PCs? Could you develop more? :slight_smile:

After watching this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-YxbQYn8vs

And reading this: https://nascompares.com/guide/build-your-own-nas-in-2024-should-you-bother/

I might be waiting more before switching afterall. TrueNAS is apparently much more complicated then a turnkey product. It will also depends on the deals I see next week.

Unraid also seem interesting, but is paid and proprietary: 8 reasons Unraid could be your best (or worst) NAS decision

27

Depends on what you want: privacy respectful and you owning the whole hardware/software stack or ready to go product from a company.

There are plenty of different ways to get to your end goal, start by filtering the options:

  • what is my budget?
  • how tech savvy am I (or willing to learn)?
  • what are unique specs that I need (ZFS for example)
  • what’s the amount of space I need, 20 TB, more?
  • do I need to use Proxmox as a wrapper for my homelab?
  • how deep do you want to go into the rabbithole, 3d printing your case? learning NixOS to have a reproducible NAS config?

There are quite a few channels on YT that are quite good on the topic:

So yes, given some of those filters and how far you want to go, it could help you figure out where you are on the spectrum of building your NAS so that you can pick a path that suits you. :blush:

You can start small, with a limited budget and take some well known and trustworthy software to run on. After a few months you can always upgrade because you narrowed down your needs more precisely. :wink:
Takes some notes along the way to not get overwhelmed! :hugs:

If you don’t care about nothing and want a thing that “just works” then you buy from a company and look no further. :see_no_evil_monkey:

1 Like
28

I want both xD And the only real products that seem to deliver on this is the TrueNAS mini, but it’s way too expensive.

What I decided after watching lots of video is:

  • I won’t be using Unraid as it’s proprietary.
  • I finally decided on TrueNAS as what OS I will be using in the future.
  • I need a 4 bay NAS with 16 or 32 GB Ram with 2x20TB (new) and 2x4TB (what I currently have).
  • I won’t be using a computer to run the NAS as suggested by some as I don’t want to deal with failures (some hard drives are designed to run 24/7).

What is proxmox?

No, I want a device for sure. I will probably buy either a UGOS NAS and install TrueNAS on it. Unless there is a good deal on the mini.

1 Like
29

I don’t see a company giving away an amazing product, for a cheap price and caring about it’s customers. Venn diagram would be quite unique on this one. :sweat_smile:

Alright, now see if you want to buy a built NAS, or build one with recommended parts from people, or just find your own combo given your budget.

Regarding

Failures will happen anyway, this is just how hard drives are. The best devices are probably for companies and hella expensive anyway.
But it’s fine, you can always swap the dead hard drives and rebuild the RAID array. :+1:t2:

Give it a search, some tool to be able to have virtualization for potential Linux distros etc. Might be helpful for things like HomeAssistant OS.

1 Like
30

Thanks! :slight_smile:

1 Like
31

So UGreen doesn’t void warranty when you install TrueNAS on it.

BUT.

UGOS is out of the picture after reading this.

However, the breaking point came when several Chinese products were found to contain spyware and malware that was hard-baked into the hardware and allowed for remote collection of user data. Numerous brands were implicated, and the fact that there is a degree of ambiguity between numerous Chinese brands in the eyes of the world—regarding how many of them cross over at the point of manufacture and how many of them are on the same production line filtering toward various brands—all added up to increased tensions and, eventually, several companies and organisations being barred from sale in the US.

The aforementioned spyware, when it has been recognised—have been hard-baked into the hardware components and physical controllers, which means that regardless of the NAS software you use, some of these devices still have the potential to contain security vulnerabilities.

despite instances of systems with inbuilt vulnerabilities decreasing all the time—they do crop up more frequently in products made in China than anywhere else in the world.

Therefore, the only device that would seem to work is TrueNAS mini-R which is way too expensive.

This is a pain. I’ll write to TrueNAS to see if they ever do pricedrops.

32

Why not building your own computer or buying 2nd hand from companies? :hugs:
Plenty of people on YT recommend various setups.

33

It seems like a huge pain lol.

I wrote to TrueNAS, I’ll see what they reply. If they don’t have any sort of solutions, then either I buy the Mini-R (but ughh that’s too expensive) or I just wait it out.

I didn’t find a good deal on hard drives either.

Right now I have a 2-bay NAS which is pretty full.

The goal is to buy 2 new drives and switch at the same time to a 4 bay.

34

Not sure what’s worse:

  • have the pain of building the computer once but knowing it all around and being able to upgrade/fix it down the road
  • buying something off the shelf but then being stuck if something shows up, while also paying an extra for it

Of course they will not sell it for cheap because this is how they are sustainable with their business.

Hard drives, you have plenty of choice so maybe look in nearby countries’ online stores? Otherwise business 2nd hand is also a safe bet. :+1:t2:

1 Like