DIY NAS - The Cost of Building a Synology NAS?

[@4eyesleo]

Next to impossible, to create the same-level hardware DIY build. You just have no other choice than building a really better device for less than half the price :)

[@johna2640]

I smiled when I saw the video, bet you can't buy a NAS motherboard with only 1Gbe networks and USB 3.0. After using Synology for a decade, I'm putting together my own NAS box with TrueNAS Scale (using an ITX board / AMD 4350GE combo). I'm working though the many tutorials and walkthroughs you have created, I really appreciate the excellent work :)

[@craigprocter1232]

I have a topton N5095 mini-ITX NAS motherboard with USB 3 (and 2) and 1Gbe ethernet, with 12 SATA ports. I'm not getting your point. I'm running DSM 7.2.2 and thanks to hacks I have HEVC video added back to DSM and their apps. Synology take away, hackers add it back and make it better.

[@nkillick]

TrueNAS is great but the Synology offers a great deal in their software. I use the Active Backup for Business extensively with my customer as it provides a great mechanism for bare metal backup off site. The block level backups are excellent and selling this service paid for the Synology in just 3 months. I get £400 per month for just 8 servers.

[@W9HJBill]

Great video. For me, the biggest takeaway from all this is that Synology is cheeping out not having even their base model 4 day NAS have a 10Gig NIC.

[@leeemmerson3127]

They're not chasing home users.

[@W9HJBill]

@@leeemmerson3127 Today's "Home Users" are getting more and more advanced, and 1GG/s is old technology. Years ago 100MB/s was the norm. Now it's quickly becoming 2.5G and 10G.

[@sbv-zs7wz]

If you want to use DSM on white box hardware there is the hacked/open source 'xpenology', various bootloaders seem to be available to replicate the syno Dom and allow a wide range of hardware

[@paulv2411]

I did something similar CWWK J6412 NAS/6 SATA/Dual M.2/ITX/i226-V Network Card (Barebone) 32gb sodimm, xpenology. 2 small problems with the nas, the fans are loud, fixed that with the 7 volt mod. The drive rails/cages suck, Instead of a nice lift up latch to release the drive it is secured by screws. Otherwise rock solid

[@sbv-zs7wz]

@paulv2411 check the ARC loader, seems to port the most functions, but I've not tested fans

[@EnricoAnsaloni]

The thing I usually do is: when I upgrade my workstation I move mobo/CPU/RAM to my Proxmox server: it's coming from some generations of upgrades, so It's got all the drives already wired inside and a 10 port SATA PCIe card, so I just swap the mobo with the new one, eventually upgrade the cooler and I have a big upgrade in no time. Went from a very old Q9550 to a 2500k and now it's a 8700k with 64Gb RAM which smokes most of Synology or QNAP offernings (albeit being less power efficient) and all of that at almost no cost. The last upgrade I added 2 NVMe drives and 32Gb RAM so I spent a bit of money but this server is really fast now. Proxmox is very cool because you can virtualize TrueNAS with PCI passthrough and loose little to no performance.

[@devKazuto]

I've just looked up parts for a price comparison to a Synology 8 Bay NAS. Q670 Board, 14900T, 32 GB DDR 6000 CL32 and Jonsbo N3 comes to a total of ~1250€. Just ~150€ more than the Synology but tons more powerful with just 35W TDP and ECC support.

[@Valnjes]

And you can put DSM on it too!

[@mpxz999]

The only thing that has stood in my way of building my own truenas system has been the difficulty finding a modern (lower power consumption) motherboard that supports ECC. It is truly a headache. Thank you for the effort you put into this comparison/breakdown build video!

[@skr16684]

Which motherboard do u use? AMD/Intel?

[@TazzSmk]

7:00 I'm pretty sure you can do some aggressive BIOS tweaks to decrease cpu clocks and voltages to cut TDP in half

[@nascompares]

Very true!!!!!!

[@AM-pi7jy]

I think getting the software set up properly and secure is the real challenge here.

[@jeremyfmoses]

I’m trying to beat the Synology DiskStation DS1821+ which goes for $1400 here in Canada. You get here a miles better processor, USB4, 5 ethernet ports (3 of which are 2.5GBe), more M.2 slots all at full speed, and way more officially supported ECC memory. For that last one, I actually had to get an AI to write me a script to compare the ASRock QVL with the list of ECC model numbers available for sale in Canada to find the 1 (one!) stick that was on both lists. If you’re picky, the open slot in this build will be M.2 instead of PCIe like in the Synology, but if you really need it to be PCIe, you can get a more expensive ASRock board (the only manufacturer that would confirm its 16x slot bifurcated to x4x4x4x4). AMD Ryzen 5 7600 - $238.98 ASRock X870 Pro RS WiFi - $286.05 Kingston KSM48E40BD8KM-32HM (32GB 4800MT DDR5 ECC) - $246.75 (16GB version not on QVL for $120.75) ASUS Hyper M.2 $109.99 for Gen 4 (Gen 3: $87.99, $130 for Gen5) M.2 to 6x 6GBs SATA - $40 GLOTRENDS LE8245F - 2x2.5Gbe, 2x1GBe - PCIe x4 - $55 Fractal Define R5 - $129.99 Corsair RM750e - $136.56 Total: Can$1243.32 ($156.68 change from a Synology DiskStation DS1821+)

[@TazzSmk]

nice spec! (Define R5 owner here) it's pity almost no mobos nowadays have 8x SATA onboard :/

[@gokulena8518]

Power consumption

[@Brutus0357]

Switched to Synology when WHS went away. I have toyed with attempting to re-create something like the 1821+ or larger, but finding alternatives to SHR and SHR2 has been difficult unless I go with something like Stablebit Drivepool which doesn't give you the parity drives which then means I need to add SnapRAID unless things have changed since I last looked.

[@weirdguybr]

If you are comfortable with system administration, you can replicate SHR/SHR2 with exactly the tools that Synology uses: lvm, mdadm and your filesystem of choice on top.

[@awesomearizona-dino]

Good Morning Robbie, Dino here , thanks for the comparison.

[@nascompares]

No worries man, and thanks for the kind words and positive vibes!

[@mpmarvin999]

I can't knock the Synology products at all. I personally don't have the time to babysit a DIY project. As much as I would love to , and have done in the past, I'm old enough to know that it isn't feasible with all the other things I have going on in life. I need it to do it's job and leave me alone. lol. If time wasn't a factor I'd definitely DIY it.

[@bb2ridder757]

i had a 2 bay one but every time i had to go and check the web interface it was soooooo slow that i started my diy nas and .... now i have a server rack full of stuff. so i can't say it was a great idea budget wise.

[@xanderx51]

Which is about what you can say about anything DIY. If you know what your doing yeah it's great, but if you don't have the time and your needs are not ultra specific then we'll if it's not broke don't fix it.

[@PatrickDKing]

I'm on my 3rd synology nas and you will always have to babysit and play IT guy with them if you are going to properly maintain tasks and what not with them. And there's still a big enough learning curve and ecosystem to learn within Synology that they really aren't turnkey solutions for the non IT person.

[@xanderx51]

@@PatrickDKing what exactly is your usage case? All I run is the occasional update and then leave it alone for a few months. Short of some unexpected loss of power or other outside issue.

[@weholmes5315]

Anyone have experience with Xpenology? I lost interest after reading Robbie's article on it, but people keep suggesting it to run DSM on non-Synology hardware. I might give it a try. 😅

[@ericasante8545]

@@weholmes5315 lol bit late to the game but, it’s more fun to run synology as a vm 🙃

[@mitohobe]

Awesome video. More please.....

[@CharlyDS]

Such interesting and fair points. Currently using a QNAP TS251D (a J4025, 4GB RAM never upgraded) quite satisfied with it. The first project for a NAS was buying a Supermicro Atom C2250 with 16GB ECC that died on me sometime ago (and thus bought the QNAP) but came alive thanks to an Internet hack. I also have a n100 uninstalled. The idea now for me is to leave the QNAP as a standalone File Server with its 2HDD and host other services separately.

[@rickmec]

you know intel T series? mine uses about 5w in normal use... (moving files)

[@shredderz3w]

After looking at all the options a pulled the trigger to build my own NAS specs: i7-12700K MSI Z790-P Pro mother board with 4 m.2 nvme ports and 6 SATA ports G.Skill Ripjaws V 16GB RAM 750W Corsair power supply all for a less than half the price of a similar synology NAS even though its an i7 its pulling 30W from the wall without HDD's and with 6 HDD's its pulling 65W I went with the i7 and not something smaller is because it wasn't that much more expensive than the i3 with some black friday discounts going on. its very powerful and I can add many more hdd's

[@restevezes]

Overkilled cpu, undervalued RAm

[@paulmaydaynight9925]

-compared to the antiquated 8 slot ds1821+ Q2 2021 cpu ,its well over twice as fast at single threading but you can under clock it if you really want to compare- AMD Ryzen 3 3200G £49, MSI PRO B550M-VC WiFi ProSeries Motherboard with x8 sata ports £107, PCIe 3.0 x1 to 5GbE adapter (WP-NA5000) Realtek RTL8126 $29.99, WisdPi USB 3.2 to 5GbE Adapter (WP-UT5) Realtek RTL8157 £45, Fractal Design Node 804 £99

[@thewidow710]

We need more Nas solutions like the old Dobro.. Beyond Raid was awesome With the use of different size drives and the ability to swap out bad drives and replace with new/larger drives and the seamless rebuilding of the array. so Simple and Perfect! Synology Hybrid raid .. is close but not quite there! there is nothing else out there that even comes Close!

[@PatrickDKing]

Love to see some rackmount stuff.

[@yzmoto5753]

For me it's about how long with the hardware be supported. My 918+ hardware will be just fine when Synology ends upgrades / patches.

[@jeremyohara6513]

Do you get refub drives? if you do where you get them?

[@awesomearizona-dino]

btw, the new background without the clutter is very nice.

[@jonesconrad1]

💯

[@nascompares]

Sorry to be the bad news bear, but the messy background ain't going away! Just finishing the new one and gonna hop between both.

[@mpmarvin999]

@@nascompares I like the "mess". BRING BACK THE MESS!!

[@Arneby]

@@nascompares bg is ok either way. But have a look at proper 2-point lighting. The light right now is just too washed out.

[@rojostardarkstone3128]

@@mpmarvin999 A clean desk is a sign of a sick mind. ;-)

[@ultradroid4k]

been using synology 4 bays since 2018.. 6 years not even single problem compared to my other homemade NAS... synology just work even though it got limitation.. i believe what synology offer is not hardware but software... able to do multiple NAS as 3-2-1 backup is so great..

[@Valnjes]

So, you can get any x86 hardware, or TerraMaster, UGreen etc, then put DSM on it and enjoy it!

[@mredizon00]

Currently Synology DS920+, still suites my needs and planning to max its bays/ram next year. It will probably be my last Synology.

[@floridaman1244]

now i am quite illiterate when it comes to these, but can someone tell if it's possible to turn an r5 2600 based platform to a nas? is that a good cpu for this kind of build (i already have one lying around)

[@HORNOMINATOR]

at some point it just doesnt make sense anymore that the prices scale by slot while you have so much base components like chassis, cpu, ram and software that only change slightly or not at all

[@hendra_joe_]

Well, my choice for now just using DAS. With intel nuc 5i5ryh, hardisk docking dual bay, 2 hardisk 3.5 with 1 and 2 TB capacity. 1 120 GB ssd for the os. It's enough for my small server running in xubuntu & casa os, which also running adguard.

[@phillee2814]

Of course, a huge advantage of the DIY approach is that you can tailor it to suit your own needs, instead of blindly apeing what Synology did. The tray loading of HDDs is very much optional. If they aren't hot-swap, it can mislead people into believing they are, with all the attendant data loss that entails. I believe that if they aren't hot swap, HDDs have no business being in a tray that is too easily ejected. Even if they are hot-swappable there needs to be some form of lock, and here's why. I have seen a manufacturer's service engineer, who damned well should have known better, eject the WRONG drive, realise his mistake, push it back in then eject the right one. On a live, running, business-critical server. It only took a week to restore from Exabyte tape (it was a while ago) then track down paper and telephone records of every traceable transaction since the backup and reenter them all. That had the entire accounts and IT staff (so about 50 people), and maybe half of the sales force (a couple of dozen more) working flat out all week (a full seven days of 16-hour days) before anyone else in the business could do a damned thing. Odd transactions that had been missed were turning up for months, despite the effort to track them all down. VERY messy indeed, and all it took was less than five seconds. Ask yourself again how expensive a mirror set of that data really is. We had the budget for a mirror set at the opposite end of the site before the close of business on the day it happened. We called the new server "stable-door". So having only internal disks is not an issue - it is the downtime that matters, not whether you need to grab a screwdriver. That opens a lot of case options, and you can scale the processor, RAM, system drive, number of PCIe lanes, free slots, and anything else that matters to your own needs. Want an additional NIC for out-of-band or secure network (no internet access from it) management? Just include it in your own list. Even a dedicated NIC for synching to a remote mirror and a backup server is easy with a DIY approach. And you only need to pay for things you'll need, or at least use.

[@KonKhmer83228]

So how much is the difference price exactly ???

[@AndyJMacLeod]

What I’d really love to see is full builds with price and performance comparisons…

[@gmichia]

I think the purpose is important. For home user, definitely no server cpu. i'm looking at minisforum bd790i, maybe use it as a desktop for 2 years then underclocking it into a nas.

[@adrianogrisanti6731]

Plus when u buuld yourself cannuse any hd ram etc. A d now they removing apps etc whats point anymore i swapped to qnap but next nas will be my old 5700 pc. When i upgrade in 5 or 6 years

[@provis83]

It would be interesting to see a test of power usage of a synology vs a desktop cpu. I know they are higher tdp but they also idle much lower and have many generations newer technology and better power saving. I think you are likely over inflating power usage of a modern desktop cpu.

[@MyersJ2Original]

What is this mythical beast the enbeded "Ryzon" processor you speak of?

[@Valnjes]

I was hoping to see ARC Loader and DSM installation on x86 hardware! Guess we have to wait for this ;) I know its coming!

[@MrSousuke87]

I have to say. I've tried your video in japanese and it seems funny. Didn't get a thing but i've wanted to say that. Now, back to watching.

[@yagoa]

why not consider an M1 Mac mini you can have 10x the apps w/o dropping a single frame?

[@dazealex]

You can absolutely do this, but you'll need an external USB-C or Thunderbolt case as long as you're doing JBOD or RAID through OS X. You may be able to use Asahi Linux, but that won't get you much. Problem for me is, can't run unRAID on ARM. That's my problem, infact, I have a 4 bay external enclosure USB-C enclosure (10G) from AsuStor and a beefy Mac Mini M1.

[@moogs]

Nearly 20 years a synology user, I stopped using their products last year. Overpriced garbage.

[@yensteel]

Same. I had the 411j as my first, 2 others, and the current ds920+ will be my last. I've been happy with them all of these years. But, if I see no helmsman at the wheel and there's a rock, I'm gonna bail out.

[@dmille6]

so what did you move to?

[@i_am_macgyver84]

I had 2 different D-Link model NAS's. One from 2008, the 2nd from maybe 2013 or so. They did what I needed them to for the time. Then I switched to Unraid in 2020 and never looked back. I would never even think about purchasing a product like Synology ever again.

[@Valnjes]

So, you can get any x86 hardware, or TerraMaster, UGreen etc, then put DSM on it and enjoy it!

[@topgazza]

@@i_am_macgyver84 Same for me. Used Synology then Terramaster now Unraid. I’ll never go back. Unraid is so good

[@truckwithwings]

How do you power the HDDs with the DC barrel jack?

[@shayscannell]

You would still have to add a standard power supply to the build to power them unfortunately.

[@vitoswat]

You have couple of options. 1) take beefy 12v external PSU and use that for both mobo and 12v for drives with step down converter for 5V line. 2) Use Psu in always on mode and use molex or sata power to barrel adapter to power the mobo 3) find ITX mobo with standard power connectors and use any Psu fitting the case.

[@PlayingItWrong]

I feel like the erying Ali Express stuff with salvaged laptop cpu's is a solid way to get energy efficient hardware. Go matx and the price stays reasonable.

[@patrickwasp]

If you want to use your own hardware and its not mission critical you can see if xpenology Would work for you

[@bopal93]

If you're not a geek, synology is a great NAS.

[@Jwalk9000]

Why do you keep saying Ryzon instead of Ryzen.. is just a you thing to be different?

[@zensonize]

I decided to migrate from truenas to Synology due to low maintenance, use less research & config time, and being able to expand/reconfig my SHA-1 pool after deployed (I'm aware of RAID-Z Expansion but at that time of my research there is no way to expand without destroying everything) The price for synology 1522+ is high but having friends to share the cost and being able to 1 click install and forget won over (only periodic DSM upgrade).

[@BenReese]

Synology Hybrid RAID is still the best feature, IMO. The fact that there's not a (more) open-source solution to this is surprising to me! It's 2024... We shouldn't have to spend the $$$$ to replace ALL the drives in a 4-bay NAS just to increase the size. It should be normal to start with 3x 3TB and 1x 8TB, then upgrade the 3 as budget allows.

[@zensonize]

@ it should also support adding new disk to the pool and rebalance data strip by itself rather than forcing us to migrate all data, destroy the pool, and create a new one. With synology i can start with 3x 4TB and add 2x 8TB later. If i want more i can get dx517 + more hdd and change to SHR-2 for better tolerance or only get larger hdd to replace. SHR gives more flexibility than other open-source solution. Hope they release this feature soon.

[@Valnjes]

So, you can get any x86 hardware, or TerraMaster, UGreen etc, then put DSM on it and enjoy it!

[@BenReese]

@@Valnjes I've been using Xpenology for several years and it works, but is still a hack. It's not really just as simple as buying a TerraMaster box and putting DSM on it. DSM is looking for specific things in the boot loader, so you have to convince DSM that you're installing it on Synology hardware. I'm FINALLY getting close to moving my home brew DSM to a new host, but it's not as simple as I'd like it to be. Spending the $$$$ on Synology hardware would be much easier.

[@Valnjes]

@@BenReese It is easy as that. Just look for ARC Loader and thank me later.

[@otter-pro]

I usually get cheap used pc components along with cheap dell/hp business pc on ebay and total cost becomes less than $100 excluding HDD. 3d-printed or cheap hard drive cage and TruNAS or OMV are good enough for my needs. Someday, I might replace it with synology, if i I can afford it, but as of now, DIY is fine.

[@PreDaToReLeaSeD]

the key difference for me is hybrid raid, i think not having it is a massive dealbreaker, especially for my 12 bay units, unraid is not a real raid system, so synology stands alone against what.. terramaster?? can we even trust terramaster yet??

[@phillee2814]

TrueNAS does everything except "RAID" level increase. Yes, it now has RAID expansion, and it can use striped and full 4-lane width NVMe for an even faster L2Cache. Plus intelligent use of as much RAM as you care to give it for its main ARC cache.

[@PreDaToReLeaSeD]

@ does it do hybrid raid? I didn’t think so, but not sure, I’m referring to mixing drive sizes in same raid pool

[@phillee2814]

@@PreDaToReLeaSeD No, not what Synergy calls hybrid raid, but it can be imported to a completely different system if anyone or anything lets the magic smoke out. It can also do all the other things and operations of a properly grown-up enterprise-level highly developed and widely supported open source drive management and filing system. I'm not sure what benefits the mixed-up drive sizes offers, as if you partition the drives to have the same sized partition first on each disk, you can use that for ZFS and use the remaining bits as other drives. Mixed-up drives aren't a very good idea in any case, as they will all be more susceptible to vibration from each other to be properly trustworthy at the very high areal densities of 10TiB+ drives. The helium they are now filling those drives with is not to prevent fires - they really are sensitive to the size of the gas molecules.

[@PreDaToReLeaSeD]

@@phillee2814 I have been doing mixed drives for decades, the key advantage is what im going through now with one of mine, on a 12 bay system with 12 x 22TB drives on a single storage pool running out of space, to add more TB on synology I buy 2 or 3 x 30TB drives and im 2 disk redundancy with additional space, on a Truenas or QNAP system to get even 1 additional TB of space to the main pool in my understanding if im buying 12 more 30TB drives and the 22TB drives become useless to the main pool

[@swashyhimself]

With all the bells and whistles (10gbe nic, syn brand ram and syn brand nvme) it becomes extortionate

[@roocrew86]

recreate synology hardware? cost $20, they are calculators with a whistle

[@Nasguy-b7q]

Don't insult calculators and whistles...

[@davelamont]

Where are the seagulls?

[@3k3k3]

Biggest issue is the software, i am yet to find anything that competes with Synology on that and i would gladly pay for that software and run it on something i built myself.

[@thezfunk]

Xpenology

[@3k3k3]

@@thezfunk and a guide to hold my hand

[@Valnjes]

So, you can get any x86 hardware, or TerraMaster, UGreen etc, then put DSM on it and enjoy it!

[@phillee2814]

TrueNAS.

[@Valnjes]

@phillee2814 Always an Option.

[@Flodar_Eltih]

Old laptop. Free. Naturally immune to power outages as well. Lol. 6790hq, 4k video playback, 4w on idle. Only mac mini is better. But this one is free.

[@phillee2814]

But very limited on disc space and expansion potential. Good at the very entry level though.

[@AkiriHasan]

Current desktop CPUs can be as efficient, if not more, when you decrease their clock speed to the level of those embedded processors. Any modern motherboard with CPU O/C support can do it.

[@greg794]

86 nicker 😂 couldn't get more 'east end'

[@nascompares]

...and just off camera, I have a pint and a pot of jellied eels on the go...

[@weholmes5315]

Another Synology user here considering alternatives, something between turnkey and BYO. I've been trying Unraid on an old Dell workstation, but I'm looking for a prebuilt with a few more drive bays and better power efficiency, so I'm considering the Aoostar WTR Pro 4-bay. But... I'm also thinking how easy it would be to get a new Synology 5-bay and just transfer the HDD drives from my old one. Aoostar with Unraid would be fun but Synology would be easy 😅

[@Valnjes]

So, you can get any x86 hardware, or TerraMaster, UGreen etc, then put DSM on it and enjoy it!

[@weholmes5315]

@ Good point! I've been meaning to try Xpenology. I'll give it a whirl! 😁

[@Valnjes]

@@weholmes5315 Just search for ARC Loader. Thank me later

[@user-ic6xf]

Synology is still the best NAS. Not the best Home Lab... For me my storage and compute are on separate machines.

[@TheSparkybon]

Whilst this is an interesting video for the Tech prosumer, Synology is a software company not a hardware company. You buy the solutions they offer. I would never install a DIY in a business. Personally at home I would not trust my data to anything that could not be supplied and supported in my own country and from a company with very good reputation.

[@Valnjes]

Xpenology anyone?

[@frankwong9486]

It is difficult to buy new hardware low end and outdated like what they using now I grab a budget am4 board which already like few times quicker than whay Synology offering 😅 Yes we can build something but hard to build that slow, if you know what i mean

[@jolness1]

“Montherboard” oh aliexpress lol.

[@lewiskelly14]

The CCTV stuff on Shitology was way overpriced years ago which has always put me off since

[@augurseer]

Synologys biggest advantage is the software not hardware.

[@Valnjes]

So, you can get any x86 hardware, or TerraMaster, UGreen etc, then put DSM on it and enjoy it!

[@stels6532]

GooD job

[@michaelmcconnell7302]

subbed

[@AndreasA.S.]

thats still an unreasonable markup for software with old hardware.

[@Avatar_EU]

Every time... it's RyzEn.. not RyzOn.

[@lewislane1143]

Synology is the last choice. Complete crap.

[@enricod.7198]

What do you suggest as a 2 bay domestic nas instead? Cause I was looking at the DS223 for my home usage.

[@4eyesleo]

@@enricod.7198 2 bay is not really a wise choice (many reasons, mostly economical as you will have to sacrifice half of the storage for redundancy. Scalability is also a big question). You might really want to look into 4 bays option which are plenty. I am a DIY guy, so cannot recommend anything in particular though.

[@LiLBitsDK]

great video but please RY - ZEN not RY - SON...

[@ABTHOME-d4h]

too bad, there is no track in French

[@azrilrapaiee]

did you just make a video using the picture only🥹 i thought this how to make a nas system equivalent sybology🤦