Why You NEED a NAS (More Than Just Storage)

**Updated for 2024:**

/ For 10 Gigabit

OR
(The DS1621 is at a price point that I'd rather have a DS1821+)

/ For everything BUT 10 gigabit

/ For just a file server

Always look for $/TB when it comes to hard drives. $25/tb is the most I'd pay. Preferably $20.
Highly recommend Seagate as of 2024 onwards:

// Gear

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[HUUFSC-gihf]

Maybe a series like mastering NAS will very cool...

[hugocast]

NAS are a gateway drug to learning IT :)

[srinivasss]

While there are pros and cons to owning a NAS, this video gets a bit confusing at times. It seems to focus more on the storage part rather than the networking and compute aspects, which are definitely more complex. Having a NAS is neither a starting point nor a prerequisite to learning dockers, linux etc. There are more complex concepts involved, and getting a NAS is not something I would bother with if thats your goal. A better advice to learn these things would be to get a rpi or a cloud provider free-tier account and learn. Also having a NAS without proper networking in place is either going to limit your applications or make your content more prone to attacks. This is something which most cloud providers are going to be better at, not to forget being able to reach the disk with probably better connectivity than your ISP. The cons should be properly explained here.
AFAIK owning a NAS is only worthwhile if you have lots of media files you dont need to access from everywhere and money is factor (doorbell footage, dslr raw files, plex etc come to mind)

[GaelyneGasson]

Oh my goodness. I'm well versed (but a bit rusty) in Linux, but I will be in needing some media storage in the nearish future. So you've given me a lot more ideas to think about. And it's awesome that you use Home Assistant and automate your home. I have one camera (we used to have quite a few but that was several years ago and they've aged poorly) and also use HA to run my household - as well as a couple common voice assistants. For me it's mostly motion detection in rooms so that lights come on when I enter. I started following you for the Obsidian topics, but I'm staying because you're into a lot of the fun stuff I enjoy. This video explained a lot more about NAS in a way that made it easy to follow along even though it's kind of unfamiliar territory for me. Keep up the great work!

[ragadrop]

I started with a NAS, now I have a full home-lab lol

[scoobydruid]

This really makes me want to get a Synology NAS. Well done!

[Mr.Cffee]

Great video! Could you make a video on how you setup your NAS for the camera backup, home assistant and the auto backup?

[digerati]

Local NAS doesn't protect your data from flood, fire, theft, or natural disaster. Another off-site solution is necessary, doubling the hardware cost of your investment along with bandwidth limits from your ISP.

[arete_]

How is the sound level on that? I got a big tower rack with multiple drives, but the noise is just insane. Especially with WD Red drives.

[Auguur]

"12 security cameras" I love how he is so relatable

[J_CtheEngineer]

Found you for the obsidian content. Funny, I just bought a 4 bay nas as well. Getting it set up atm

[WunderTechTutorials]

Loved the video, man! You gave an awesome overview - great job!

[noraellen]

Great video! This is what we were looking into. Thanks.

[haezlitt]

I stumbled upon this channel, solid content. Subbed.

[tlxreed]

My NAS is great, learned a lot and got my stuff out of primarily being hosted in Google and Dropbox cloud services. The major downside for me at the moment is noise. I have my two bay NAS in a closet and it runs constantly with a low-level disk access noise going on...there's no way around that without replacing the NAS with all NVME storage which is a big outlay after having created the NAS just 1.5 years ago.

[byiton]

Best overview on why I need a NAS I've seen thus far. As a result, I know its the solution I need and have an idea what options I should consider. @FromSergio I appreciate your effort in this video.

[Joemels]

Yeah but as a dev on Mac, there’s a large benefit for the memory sharing and quick access from the ssd. NAS won’t be quicker over WiFi

[Vennnaya]

I don't understand how people make some leap of logic from external storage, to a NAS. That's like going from a scooter to a sports car. Its stupid.
Instead, a far more elegant solution that will fill most peoples needs for FAR CHEAPER, is simply to re-use old HDD/SSDs as archival storage, and use a HDD caddy to plug them in to a computer to access, without the need to open up the PC and fiddle about with SATA power and data cables. Effectively, turning your old 1TB+ HDDs in to USB sticks, in a way. Or at least you can treat them like them, plugging them in and out of your PC like one through the caddy.
Not to mention this saves a lot of money not only on the price difference of caddy vs NAS (£20-30 vs £100-£200+) but also on power costs, because its not on all the time unless you want to do that, and still offers most of the same benefits like automatic backup, if you set that up. The only real thing you lose is the ability to access data anywhere anytime but honestly for 99% of people, that kind of data will be in the form of forms, documents etc, and so using google drive, one drive, dropbox, will all suit your needs.

[mhoffman]

A NAS is not a backup - I couldn't agree more. It is shocking how many people think it is.

My only issue with them is the challenge of being able to fully back them up and have them in another physical location requires more resources and complexity than just backing up to a hard drive and doing multiple copies of that

[tlxreed]

This is me a year ago. Paying Google and Dropbox...it sucked and do you even own your data? Now I have a Synology NAS and from there started a Proxmox homelab server. Now I'm conteplating a home built NAS with NVME drives for fast storage. Getting a NAS was really a game changer for me.