I want to tinker with some homelab stuff and I am hoping to get some hardware advice. My understanding is that you can pull off a lot with the processors in off the shelf NAS devices nowadays. The end result would hopefully be a setup that, in addition to giving me something to tinker with, can handle the following:
- being a sync for all my photos from my phone through something like immich (or something else, I'm not fussy)
- hosting my owned music, and having it available to stream, perhaps from up to 3 devices at once
- hosting my owned movies/cartoons/etc, and having it available to stream in up to 1080p from up to 3 simultaneous devices (without transcoding? My understanding is that supporting transcoding from higher resolutions would significantly bump the hardware requirements, so I would plan to just host max 1080p resolution copies of my owned media)
- other arbitrary things like actually being a NAS, so I could access some files from anywhere in the world, or share files with friends, or what have you
Are these reasonable expectations from a NAS device nowadays or would I have to look into something more high tech? What would you suggest? Any advice welcome as I haven't dipped into this space very much, I just have a lot of media since I unplugged from spotify and streaming services and I want to bring back the convenience I had with those services.
This is reasonable for a single device. I'm running about that and more on an i7-8700. I'd recommended Intel 8th gen or newer for transcoding. RAM is unfortunately more important, you'll want at least 16 GB. I'd start with low cost used hardware with a couple SATA ports and you can expand to a better device with more storage or add a DAS in a couple years once this pricing insanity dies down.
Also, make sure to have backups of important data like photos. Check out 3-2-1 backup strategies.
Yeah as far as backing up data I'm already sorted. This isn't intended to serve as a backup, rather just a media server/tinkering platform
Interesting okay. So you wouldn't recommend using off the shelf NAS products? I'd found the UGREEN NASync DXP2800 which seems to be using an intel N100 chip, which as far as I could find would even enable some transcoding streams? Would you advise against something like that?
An OTS NAS with upgradable RAM is a good option for a small form factor. It's personal preference. I'd prefer to start with something cheap/free like an old PC or laptop and upgrade later as needed. For storage, I prefer the modularity and cost effectiveness of a DAS. But if you'll only need 2 bays DXP2800 is a good option.
Many thanks for the advice :)