I’ve been researching NAS and am figuring out how one can play into my current home setup. There’s a lot I don’t know even after researching. Best I explain to clear things up.
Currently, I have a home server running NextCloud, accessible only via my LAN network. It’s run along with a VPN on a Raspberry Pi 4B running Ubuntu Server. The data is on two 512 GiB external SSD drives. One drive is primary & the other is backup of the primary drive via rsync each day.
I’m looking at a NAS for more backups (Ex. 1 day, 3 days, & 1 week at least) since I have sensitive data on the drives. I want to feel more secure about my home setup with the ability to rollback changes if I mess up something. I also want the NAS to be able to run more services other than just NextCloud eventually, like Grocy/KitchenOwl, etc.
I have some more questions about NAS given my info:
- Do I have to use a special NAS-specific OS to make use of the NAS hardware? Like to do snapshots and stuff?
- Kinda related: what if I install something like Debian/Ubuntu on it? Can I still use the NAS hardware in the same way?
I looked into some solutions like TrueNAS and Synology. I prefer an OS that’s free software so I have control over what I’m doing and not held hostage if they want to increase prices, force upgrades, enshittify things, etc.
This is where I landed on this decision. I run a Synology which just does NAS on spinning rust and I don’t mess with it. Since you know rsync this will all be a painless setup apart from the upfront cost. I’d trust any 2 bay synology less than 10 years old (I think the last two digits in the model number is the year), then if your budget is tight, grab a couple 2nd hand disks from different batches (or three if you budget stretches to it,).
I also endorse u/originalucifer’s comment about a real machine. Thin clients like the HP minis or lenovos are a great step up.