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Outgrown my Synology NAS, time for a proper dedicated machine (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/selfhosted@lemmy.world
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Great news! I started my selfhost journey over a year ago, and I'm finding myself needing better hardware. There's so many services I want that my NAS can't handle. And I unfortunately need to add GPU transcoding to my Jellyfin setup.

What's the best OS for a machine focused on containers and (getting started with) VMs? I've heard Proxmox

What CPU specs should I be concerned about?

I'm willing to buy a pre-built as long as its hardware has sufficient longevity.

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[–] 35 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Depending on how many bays your Synology is, you might be best off getting a nuc or a mini pc for compute and using your synology just for storage.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    This is precisely what I do with my nas.

    I have 9...ish tiny/mini/micros for compute, two NAS (locally).

    Solid approach

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    9? That's quite a bit of compute lol.

    My journey started with 1 server, then 4, then 5 (one functioning as a NAS), then 1 (just the NAS box), then I moved and decided to slim it down to a proper NAS and 1 mini PC/NUC clone. Now I'm up to two because the first was an Intel N105 which just isn't up for the challenges lol

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  • [–] [S] 4 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    It's 4 bays, and we're eating that space up quicker than I imagined

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    I have a 6 bay, so yeah that might be a little limiting. I have all my personal stuff backed up to an encrypted cloud mount, the bulk of my storage space is pirated media I could download again, and I have the Synology using SHR so I just plug in a bigger drive, expand the array, then plug in another bigger drive and repeat. Because of duplication sectors you might not benefit as much from that method with just 4 bays. Or if you have enough stuff you can’t feasible push to up to the cloud to give piece of mind during rebuilding I guess.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

    I'm in the same boat. My 2 bay Synology is enough for my storage, but the apps and Docker containers are bringing it to its knees. I'm keeping the Synology and adding on a mini PC to run docker containers.

    Found a mini PC with an i5-12500T for £240.

    I'm a noob at this stuff, but I'm hyped to get more stability in what I host and start using more demanding services.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    I run a 4 bay and a N100 NUC.

    The Synology is almost a pure storage machine. Works really well with Proxmox on the side. Not a single file has made it kneel yet, and I’ve thrown some high bitrate badboys on it.

    Is not upgrading the drives an alternative?

    I feel like you sacrifice a lot of practicality removing the NAS, such as automatic backup from phones and very easy remote access.
    Personally I also prefer separating data and software, so I don’t lose it all if a component fails.

    Just my .02

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    That's my goal: use the NAS as a NAS, use a computer for containers and the like. I'm using Seagate Exos for the NAS exclusively

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    Cool, well then I can at least share what I went with that has worked really well: GMKtech N100 NUC from Aliexpress with 16 GB of RAM.

    It's hosting Jellyfin with transcoding, PiHole, Home Assistant, Heimdal, a Valheim server and loads of other small LXC's in Proxmox.
    I don't think I've ever seen it break a sweat.
    The NAS holds the .arr stack and Qbit, but that's it.

    I cannot speak to the longevity of it, but I repasted the CPU once I got it and it's chilling below 45 degrees all day long, so I expect it to last for many years. I also enabled C-states to get idle consumption as low as possible, around 7-8W.

    Best of luck with whatever setup you end up with mate!

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago*

    I did his when I moved from unraid because I wanted better infra as code for my dockers etc. Kept unraid with all my drives and use NFS mounts from another machine with proxmox that runs a VM for my dockers

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