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Comment by dfee | Hacker News Reader

i have 4x 4TB drives that are in my dead QNAP NAS.

i've wanted to get a NAS running again, but while the QNAP form factor is great, the QNAP OS was overkill – difficult to manage (too many knobs and whistles) – and ultimately not reliable.

so, i'm at a junction: 1) no NAS (current state), 2) custom NAS (form factor dominates this discussion – i don't want a gaming tower), or 3) back to an off-the-shelf brand (poor experience previously).

maybe the ideal would be a Mac Mini that i could plug 4 HDDs into, but that setup would be cost-inefficient. so, it's probably a custom build w/ NixOS or an off-the-shelf, but i'm lacking the motivation to get back into the game.

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I tried a Mac Mini for a while, but they're just not designed to run headless and I ultimately abandoned it because I wanted it to either work or be fixable remotely. Issues I had:

- External enclosure disconnected frequently (this is more of an issue with the enclosure and its chipset, but I bought a reputable one)

- Many services can't start without being logged in

- If you want to use FileVault, you'll have to input your password when you reboot

Little things went wrong too frequently that needed an attended fix.

If you go off the shelf, I recommend Synology, but make sure you get an Intel model with QSV if you plan to transcode video. You can also install Synology OS to your own hardware using Xpenology - its surprisingly stable, moreso than the mac mini was for me.

> Get a Synology Intel model with QSV if you plan to transcode video

How about if you _don't_ plan to transcode video? For example, this years models DS425+ uses the (six year old) Intel Celeron J4125, while the DS925+ uses the (seven year old) AMD Ryzen Embedded V1500B. Why choose one over the other?

That’s a damn good question. I’d probably go with the intel model that had qsv just in case. Especially compared to an equally ancient AMD processor that doesn’t.

I do recommend those little Beelink computers with an AMD CPU.

They can be had for a bit less than the Mac mini, and I had no issues getting headless Linux working on there. I even have hardware transcoding in Jellyfin working with VAAPI. I think it cost me about $400.

I was in the same boat - QNAP OS was a complete mess. Ended up nuking it and throwing Ubuntu on there instead. Nothing fancy, just basic config, but it actually works now. Other option is pay Unraid.

What are your requirements for a NAS? What do you want to use it for? Is it just to experiment with what a NAS is, or do you have a specific need like multiple computers needing common, fast storage?

I use a QNAP 8-bay JBOD enclosure (TL-D800S) connected via SFF-8088 to a mini-itx PC - I find the form factor pretty good and don't have to deal with QNAP OS.

The fact that Asahi doesn’t run on M4 cpus (ie the current Mac Mini) is also a consideration.

ZFS on macOS sucks really bad, too, so that rules out the obvious alternative.

I guess you could run a Linux VM and pass the disks through? I considered something similar for an ARM64 NixOS build server - though that application doesn’t need the disks.

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