My first ever NAS device and why you should get one too
It was one of those Friday nights when I just lay down on the couch and watch YouTube tech videos back to back. After 2 hours of continuous watching, I had nothing left to watch.
I ordered a sub with coke and found myself sitting in the same posture I was before. The natural next step was watching some more videos but I had already exhausted my watch-list before I ordered. So this time, it was mindless scrolling…
After a while, I saw a video which was supposedly comparing multiple NAS devices. Till then, for me a NAS was just a hard-drive that could be attached to my router. And because of this immature thought, I never dwelled into this area of Network Attached Storage a.k.a NAS.
Lo and behold, I was about to discover new range of products. That video gave me an insight to how powerful and versatile NAS has become. NAS is just not another hard drive which gets plugged into the router via LAN cable. Its much more…
Spent another week to read more about all the companies that are providing NAS in India. Spent hours comparing different products from QNAP, Synology, Asus and Western Digital.
Fast forward a few weeks…Amazon delivered this
A brand-new entry level NAS device from Synology with a pair of 4 TB Seagate IronWolf hard drives.
It costed me around 35,000 INR (~470 USD). For comparison sake, Google Drive costs 6,500 INR per month for just half of that space. You do the calculation.
I would not go into details of why I chose this specific model from this specific company. Let’s just say that I’m a big fan of software and not rich enough to afford the expensive models. Your choice might be different and that’s totally fine. Do your research before buying.
I’m a strong believer of the statement by Alan Kay which was also quoted by Steve Jobs
People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware.
-Alan Kay
For me, Synology seemed to love software too with the Operating System for their DiskStations (their range of NAS products) called DSM (Disk Station Manager). I was sold to the Software more than the hardware. You could get better hardware for the same price.
But just like an iPhone can work more efficiently in less resources in comparison to its counterpart, a Synology disk station works more efficiently on less powerful hardware as they own the hardware and software too.
Moving on to why it is worth mentioning and what problems does it solve. I will first list down the problems it solved for me and then the things which might help someone else but didn’t help me out specifically.
Problems it solved for me
Data Safety
I have two hard drives with me, one 2 TB (Red One) and another 1 TB (Black One).
The RED one contains media stuff like some very old songs I selected in my school and college days, many selected movies in high quality, a plethora of images and many video tutorials for educational purposes.
The BLACK one is for all the projects and work related stuff I have. Many projects that I worked upon, multiple software I own (did I mention I’m a software engineer?), a few games and some OS images. The data in this is very old, like pre-1Gbps-broadband era when downloading a software was a task in itself. I don’t use this hard drive much these days but don’t want to lose the data either :P
Okay. So irrespective of the color of external hard drive you and I have, they all suffer from risk of data loss. I might not need 99% of my data but that 1% of data is just priceless. BTW, I only have 10% data which is not needed, other 90% I just can’t risk to lose.
Earlier than this, I just prayed that I don’t lose my data and kept all hard drives covered and didn’t share it to anyone as it might get damaged.
This NAS solved that with an option of RAID configuration. You can read more on the internet but in short, its just that the same data is copied to multiple hard disks so that even if one of them fails, you don’t lose your data. The most basic configuration of RAID is that the data is copied to 2 hard drives but if your data is even more critical you can increase the redundancy.
Now I have all my data well organized and safe at my own house and I can access it from anywhere (more on access later).
Media Streaming
Gone are those days when I had to plugin my hard drive to the TV to watch movies. Now I can just stream my media to the TV using inbuilt DLNA streaming app called Video Station. I makes the media files accessible over the network and you can use it anywhere in your home or even outside your home, if you chose to open the NAS access outside the home periphery.
It also has an app called DS Video which is just super cool. Simply put, its your own Netflix or Prime Video.
It can index all the movies present in your NAS drives and fetch information like cast, story, IMDB rating etc from the internet and organize them in your library.
The best part, this app is available for my Apple TV, iPhone/iPad and Android all well.
People familiar with Plex Server, this is the free alternative for that. But Plex is also free right! Yes…but not with all the features. If you want hardware trans coding, then you need a Plex Pass.
One note here. This model does not have necessary hardware for trans coding media files. You either have to get DS218play or some higher model. I’m planning an upgrade soon enough I get someone to buy this model from me.
Photo Albums
I realised this part a few months later.
I could just not store all photos in my NAS but also make albums out of it and watch them on over my TV or any other device be it mobile, iPad, phone etc.
Few months have passed, and I have already organized my marriage photos in there along with other festival photos.
Next up is all university day photos. Its a big task but I’ll get through it.
Extended Storage for Laptop
Before I bought the NAS, I used to store a lot of extra data to my drive and I had to plug it in, in case I needed that data. But no more!
As the name suggests, all of my data is available under the home network and I have just added multiple network drives which are always available for data access and storage. No need to plugin and plug out. My own safe cloud storage is always available and have fast access.
Many of you might be thinking that you could do that with just any cloud. Yes, you are right but think speed. A cloud is as fast as your data connection and always capped with the data you are available with according to the plan.
I now have many cloud features at the speed that is just not financially feasible with an internet connection and yeah, one more thing, my cloud works even when the internet is down ;)
Other Noteworthy features
General ones
- Hyper Backup — Two NAS in combination could backup each other’s data for even better data safety
- Access over internet — you can access all your data securely (https) over the home internet connection in case you are not in your home.
- User Management inbuilt — A NAS can have multiple users accessing it at the same time and can have their own private areas. It supports multiple user accounts.
- On drive Encryption — Any user can chose to encrypt their data for an extra layer of security
- Audio server — supports inbuilt audio server to stream audio over the network. You can use the DS Audio app to access all the music stored in your NAS
- Time Machine Backups — It has native support for Apple’s Time Machine backups
For Experimenters like me
- Moments App — Think Google Photos. Its their version of that. Not as good as I want it to be but still good enough for basic usage.
- Download Station — Gone are the days when I had to keep my PC running so that it keeps downloading stuff in the background. You can download anything with this app and it will be directly stored in the NAS (supports http, ftp, magnet links and many more)
- Synology Drive — It’s like every other cloud drive with a difference of your data being kept in your own house. I’m yet to find a convincing feature to keep using it.
- Surveillance Station — Many network supported cameras could be used for surveillance of your home/office. I’m yet to buy a camera and look into its quality and standards. But I’ve read that they have a strong business base on this feature
For Geeks
Just so many things in this section but I’ll list down the ones I feel important. You can check others out yourself.
- Mail Server — Your NAS can behave as a mail server. No need to buy GSuite
- Chat Server — Can be used as a chat server and users can use the chat application given by Synology. Think privacy
- Office — They their own version of office suite containing sheets, presentation and documents just like has their own.
- Note Station — App for taking notes. Notes will be stored in your NAS.
- SSO Server — A self hosted single sign on server
- OAuth Service — A self hosted OAuth service for delegating authorization
- much much more…
Long cut short. A NAS can behave as your own personal cloud in which you own your data not just by some privacy and usage agreement but by actually having the data in your premises. No bullshit… your data, your place, your rules and your ownership.
I’m in no way saying that it is a cloud storage killer but I strongly believe that a combination of this NAS and public cloud is quite powerful and has a very bright future ahead.
Thanks for your time :)
