Yo.

I’m new to the game. Like 2h fresh. I’m fairly technical, being a millennial and a programmer.

What I want to do, is to have a NAS server I can host movies from and watch them on my phone in my bed - or on my projector.

Extra points if I could host my ebooks and music there and run a torrent client. Extra extra points if I could connect to it from outside my home network (and stream)

I’ve read about about Plex and Jellyfin.

I’m here to ask you about hardware advice.

Will QNAP or Synology be enough for my needs and can I install custom software there? I don’t really want to create hardware from scratch.

Google says yes, but I trust reddit and random articles like I trust a fox not to eat chickens.

Edit: preferably something with WOL that goes silent and fanless when not in use, or something I can shut down with a button

Edit: thanks everyone, right now I’m thinking of using GMKTec or QNAP and am comparing options, prices and number of issues people have on the internet. I’m not a hobbyist and the less I have to work on it the better.

Edit: I’ve ordered GMKTec NucBox G3 Plus 16 GB 1T for 195$ from their site as my starter kit. Should work for my needs.

  • Godort@lemm.eeEnglish
    4·
    19 hours ago

    It really depends on how much you value your time and how good you are with configuration

    A QNAP or Synology will work and be pretty simple to configure out of the box. Installing custom software is possible, but can be tricky as they require you to enable sideloading and custom apps can be hard to find. Both have supported app stores with available apps to do what you’re looking for (QNAP has apps for both torrents and Plex. Not sure about Synology)

    However, you will get way more bang for your buck by building one from scratch using something like TrueNAS and the Arr stack, but this can require a fair bit of technical knowledge about configuring containers and securing network services(Especially if you want them to be accessible remotely)

    Most people here do selfhosting as a hobby and as a result, the time spent trying new configurations is negligible as it wouldn’t be much of a hobby otherwise.