r/HomeNAS

My question is cause i did scare myself recently when i decided to carefully move my Qnap TS-233 with WD red plus 12TB on the shelf. I did hear a cracking sound or something like that. I cannot describe it too good cause my hearth was stuck in my throat at that moment and i was full panic mode. I was careful and looking to not bump the device anywhere... the price of that HDD is not a small amount of money for me. There is a possibility that the sound is from the cables sliding behind the shelf. I did check the SMART status afterward and it is clean but to put it simply do i really need to be that scared of even touching that thing when is powered on?

I have 2TB WD Mycloud. Its plugged into my Google mesh network. Its very sluggish and quirky. it sucks.

I “think” I want a NAS for the following purposes:

1)back up Apple laptops automatically via timemachine

2)photo storage and backup

3)extra drive space for my wife’s MacBook Air.

4. ill convert family VHS tapes to digital and need a place to store. and then play on my TV or phone

5)access these files from our Apple devices / Roku.

6. I would like at least two bays to have dual backs ups I think this is RAID.

7. potentially stop paying for my iCloud backup l

I need someone easy so I don’t have to become a full time IT guy for my wife.

I would like to be under 1k

advice is appreciated

Hi! I’ve done my initial research, but I need some help making my final decision. Soon I’ll be receiving my wedding photos and videos, which is why I decided to get a storage/backup solution.

I’m looking for a place to store my wedding content as well as other photos, videos, documents, some GOG installers I own, and occasionally watch movies via my Android TV (TCL C8K). I was thinking about a 2×4 TB RAID1 setup in a 4‑bay NAS so I can easily upgrade with another pair of 4 TB drives if needed. Initially, I planned to use it only for backups (running a backup once every 1–2 months and then turning the NAS off) due to electricity costs—I read that some units can draw around 25 W even when idle because of hibernation issues. However, I’m reconsidering this now that I’ve learned about tools like a torrent client, Pi-hole/AdGuard, Home Assistant, and other Docker capabilities. I might be able to run some small self‑hosted apps nicely, although I haven’t fully decided how I’ll use it yet.

My research has led me to two units: the Ugreen DH4300 Plus (€380) and the Synology DS423 (€416). I also considered the DS425+, but at €555 it seems too expensive.

What would you recommend for these use cases? I’m leaning toward the DH4300 Plus because of its (hopefully) stronger hardware. One thing I know that I don't want to build anything from scratch.

Hello, I have recently fallen down the rabbit hole of servers, and have had an interest in computer technology for a few years now. It started with curiosity for how things work when I was young, growing into interest in electricity and circuitry, then building a computer. Now I am in the process of making a small server setup to run Plex for my family, and switch from a prebuilt Synology setup just for fun and creativity. I would also like to store photos and videos.

I have come up with a list of parts and am trying to build inspiration and ideas from people more experienced in this community. I am also wondering which OS to run. For what I am intending to use it for, I have heard great things about ZimaOS. I have also heard it's very good for beginners. Any words of wisdom helps and is greatly appreciated.

Thank you for your time!

I'm creating my first NAS backup solution at home. Appreciate everyone's time so I'll make this as straight forward as possible:

My Needs:

- MAIN BACKUP solution for PC + EXT HDD files

- 16tb total space - 12tb of data which needs to be backed up

- PLEX SERVER

- Mostly 1080p movies and tv shows.

- Haven't ever cared to get 4k movies due to the size but will be moving forward.

- MOBILE BACKUPS

- Photos + Videos - want to replace my need for Google drive and iCloud

- Would be nice to be able to backup the entire phone.

My Use:

I currently have an ASUS gaming laptop being used as a retro arcade machine (Ryzen 5, GTX 1660, 32gb). Ill be using this machine as my Plex server. Since I dont need a powerful NAS system to run Plex, I decided to invest in two systems.

System 1 - UGREEN NASync DH2300 RAID 1

- will serve as my mobile remote backup server.

System 2 - 4-bay NAS RAID 1 or 5, depends on end cost

- Main PC and EXT Hard drive backup - automated

- Plex library

My Plan:

After some research on YouTube and bouncing ideas off of claude, seems like the best way to go about this and save money is to run two systems. Since I'll be using a laptop for Plex, I don't need to spend over $1000 for a Plex compatible 6 bay NAS system. I can opt for a UGreen DH2300 ($279 CAD) to use for remote mobile photo/video backups and pickup a 4 bay NAS for PC files and Plex library. Looking at the TerraMaster F4-212 and Asustor AS1204T but UGreen DH4300 ($500 CAD) would be the next option if TerraMaster is no good, I have zero hands on experience with any of this.

My Question:

1. Is this the right move? I would like to keep costs as low as possible.

2. If it is a valid idea, which 4 bay NAS system should I grab for PC + Plex library? Strictly used as backup of files.

3. Is there a better solution over UGREEN for mobile media backup and photo/video remote viewing?

4. Any brands I should stay away from?

I want to make sure my upfront cost is as low as It can be without compromising on quality. I was originally looking at the QNAP TS-664-8G ($1,249 CAD) but then realized I had a laptop sitting there and could save upwards to $1,000 by doing this.

Greatly appreciate the help -

I’ve been looking for a nas to replace cloud storage and act as storage for homelab. Was dead set on ugreen but lately been looking at other brands when terramaster popped up in my Amazon app.

I’m thinking truenas for zfs so native software isn’t a factor, but power consumption and quality is.

Anyone has experiences to share regarding this setup?

Looking to build a better storage/access solution for my wife who is a photographer. Currently she just buys WD or Seagate externals to back up her past client galleries, but she has had a couple fail, and lugging around an external plugged in to her MacBook always makes me cringe.

I’m a noob at NAS’s but know enough to be dangerous when it comes to networking.

Ideally a setup that has remote access would be nice for her as well so she could work on the go without carrying around her external drives. Any tips or recommendations would be great!

PS. No current plans to run home media (ie plex/jelly) so would more be just a more robust storage and access solution. (Although the idea of my own private instance for home video/camera storage is nice too)

So im pretty new to the whole NAS building situation. I've just got a new ugreen DXP2800 and I bought 2 like new drives 6TB WD HDDs for 200$ each. They just got delivered a couple days ago and I plugged them in last night after a quick inspection so I could run a full smart test on them.

Before I did that though, I ran a rapid test and, shock horror, they both have 60K hours (around 6 years power-on-hours) on both with less than 4 hours difference between.

After seeing this, I immediately took them back out and looked at them a lot closer now. The sticker on the HDD is completely fine, but a warranty sticker on both is covering up key info and I dont want to remove to risk voiding the warranty. The drives are old - WD60EFRX 6TB drives, but they look in good condition and according to the test they are 100% healthy with no bad sectors. They seller has a 5-year warranty on the drives and I got them around 260$ below market rate for 2 new 6tb drives.

So now im conflicted... Do I repackage and return the drives because they are at risk of dying at a similar time cause of their age or is this a non-issue due to the health?

Any advice?

Hey everyone. I’m looking at getting into NAS storage as what I have originally planned as a backup to my iCloud but now I hear of the 3/2/1 backup method ( after googling ) I understand

My only options would be an online offsite backup so I wondered what you guys use ?

I'm completely new to NAS administration and most networking concepts, so I’m looking for detailed, beginner-friendly guidance. I’d appreciate an end-to-end explanation of the recommended architecture and setup sequence, including Proxmox, ZFS, Samba, backups, remote access, monitoring, and recovery.

Please assume that I need explanations of what each step does and why it is recommended. I would also appreciate sanity checks after every major step so I can confirm that my system is configured correctly before continuing.

Hardware

I have the following system:

- AMD Ryzen 9 3900X

- ASRock B550 Taichi motherboard

- NVIDIA RTX 2070 Super

- 32 GB DDR4 RAM

- 256 GB NVMe SSD connected directly to the motherboard on which proxmox will be installed

- 1 × 1 TB Crucial P1 NVMe connected directly to the motherboard

- 2 × 1 TB OEM Samsung Gen 4 NVMe drives

- 1 × Seagate 2 TB ST2000DM005 SATA hard drive

- 1KVA UPS with a NUT for safe shiutdowns in case of powerloss

The three 1 TB NVMe SSDs were scavenged from old laptops. They are currently reporting excellent health according to SMART scans, with no obvious errors or concerning indicators. I would appreciate recommendations for additional tests I should perform before trusting them with data, such as extended SMART tests, bad-block scans, read/write verification, endurance checks, or any other relevant diagnostics.

The motherboard is configured for PCIe bifurcation as x8/x4/x4. The RTX 2070 Super occupies the first PCIe slot and receives eight lanes, while an adapter card in the second slot contains the two Samsung NVMe drives.

I am not particularly concerned about maximum NVMe performance. My router and network are limited to gigabit Ethernet, and I am completely fine with that. Network speed will be the limiting factor rather than disk speed, so I’m mainly prioritising reliability, maintainability, secure access, and a straightforward recovery process.

What I want to build

I'm trying to repurpose an old gaming PC and a few other parts i found laying around the house. My initial plan is:

1. Install Proxmox VE on the 256 GB NVMe.

2. Create a ZFS RAIDZ1 pool using the three 1 TB NVMe drives.

3. Use the resulting pool for approximately 2 TB of redundant storage.

4. Use the 2 TB SATA HDD as a separate monthly backup or cold-storage disk.

5. Provide SMB/Samba shares for backups from my computers and other devices.

6. Access the NAS remotely over the internet, but securely. I was considering Tailscale, although I’m open to better recommendations.

7. Configure automatic ZFS snapshots.

8. Copy or replicate snapshots to the 2 TB HDD once per month.

9. Receive alerts if a drive fails, the pool becomes degraded, or a backup fails.

10. Keep the backup HDD disconnected, unmounted, or powered off between backup runs if that is practical.

The main use case is device backups and occasional temporary file access, not media serving or high-performance virtualization.

Architecture questions

I’m unsure about the best overall design:

- Should I create the ZFS pool directly on the Proxmox host, or pass the three NVMe drives to a TrueNAS, OpenMediaVault, or Debian VM?

- If the pool is created on the Proxmox host, should I use a Samba VM, an LXC container, or Samba directly on the Proxmox host?

- What is the safest and most maintainable way to expose the storage to clients over SMB?

- Is RAIDZ1 appropriate for these three SSDs and this workload, or would another layout be preferable?

- Are there any special considerations for using SSDs that were previously installed in laptops?

- Should I perform any additional drive-health, burn-in, thermal, filesystem, or memory tests before creating the pool?

- Are there any problems with using an NVMe adapter card in the second PCIe slot for a ZFS pool?

- Is 32 GB of RAM sufficient for this use case?

I’m not looking for maximum throughput. Since my network is limited to gigabit Ethernet, I’m happy with anything that can reliably saturate or reasonably use that connection.

Backup questions

I would like to use the 2 TB SATA HDD as a monthly cold-storage backup, but I’m unsure about the correct method:

- Should I create a separate ZFS pool on the HDD and replicate snapshots to it using `zfs send` and `zfs receive`?

- Would `rsync`, Borg, Restic, or another backup tool be more appropriate?

- Should the HDD be imported, mounted, and exported after each monthly backup?

- Should it remain physically disconnected or powered off between backup runs?

- How should I schedule the backup?

- How can I verify that the backup completed successfully?

- How often should I perform a real restore test?

- How should I handle deleted or corrupted files so that they are not immediately propagated to the backup?

- Can someone recommend a sensible snapshot-retention policy for this use case?

I understand that RAIDZ1 is not a backup. The purpose of the separate HDD is to retain another copy in case of accidental deletion, corruption, ransomware, pool failure, or other problems affecting the main storage.

Remote-access questions

I want remote access to be secure, with a strong preference for not exposing SMB directly to the public internet.

I was considering Tailscale, but I’m unsure where it should be installed:

- Directly on the Proxmox host?

- Inside the NAS VM or LXC?

- On a separate VPN or gateway device?

- On each client device that needs access?

I would appreciate guidance on:

- Whether Tailscale is appropriate for remote SMB access.

- How to restrict access to only authorised devices and users.

- Whether I should use Tailscale ACLs, subnet routing, or another design.

- How to prevent remote users from accessing Proxmox management interfaces.

- Whether a file-sync application would be safer or more suitable than remote SMB for some use cases.

- What firewall rules and authentication settings I should configure.

Monitoring and maintenance

Please include recommendations for:

- SMART short and extended tests.

- NVMe health and temperature monitoring.

- ZFS scrubs and how often to run them.

- Memory testing before relying on ZFS.

- Monitoring PCIe/NVMe link stability.

- Proxmox and ZFS notifications.

- Email, Telegram, or other failure alerts.

- UPS integration and safe shutdown.

- Checking pool status and scrub results.

- Detecting silent corruption or degraded devices.

- Testing the monthly backup automatically.

I would especially appreciate commands or procedures for additional health tests that should be performed before deployment, along with the expected results or warning signs. I plan on setting up a discord bot that uses cron to alert me about issues down the line.

Could someone provide a recommended architecture and a detailed implementation plan covering:

1. Pre-installation hardware, SSD, memory, and PCIe testing.

2. Proxmox installation on the 256 GB NVMe.

3. A sanity check confirming that Proxmox is installed correctly.

4. ZFS pool and dataset creation.

5. Commands to verify the pool, devices, sector sizes, health, and performance.

6. A sanity check after creating the pool.

7. NAS service deployment.

8. Samba share and permissions configuration.

9. A sanity check from a local client.

10. Snapshot configuration.

11. Monthly backup replication to the SATA HDD.

12. A sanity check proving that the backup is usable.

13. Secure remote access using Tailscale or an alternative.

14. Firewall and access-control configuration.

15. Monitoring, alerts, scrubs, and maintenance.

16. Recovery steps if a drive, Proxmox installation, motherboard, or entire system fails.

17. A regular restore drill to verify that the backup strategy actually works.

For every major step, I'd appreciate it if you could include:

- The commands or GUI actions.

- What the step changes.

- How to verify that it worked.

- What output would indicate a problem.

- Whether I should stop before continuing if the check fails.

- How to undo or recover from the step if necessary.

I’m happy to learn and follow commands, but I would appreciate explanations rather than a list of unexplained commands. Please point out anything fundamentally wrong or unsafe about my proposed design before I begin, and suggest a safer alternative where appropriate.

Hi everyone,

I'm looking to get a NAS for my setup. My primary goal is to store and stream my music and movie collection. However, I also love tinkering with tech and plan to host a small website and run self-hosted applications like Pi-hole, so I need something flexible.

Is building a NAS from scratch (buying components and assembling it myself) a good option for this? I’ve read that prebuilt units can be quite limited when it comes to running custom software and containerized apps.

Thanks for your advice!

I have an unused WD blue 2tb hdd would that work in a nas, I am considering picking up a ugreen basic nas just for storing photos and videos. Gemini says the drive will break but Im not sure.

Maybe it's just the stuff I've been looking at, but lately every NAS I check — no matter the brand — is bragging about on-device AI and bigger specs. Local photo tagging, and some even say they can run an LLM on the box.

Honestly, on my own unit the "AI" stuff still feels like a gimmick. But I keep wondering if I'm missing something everyone else is already using.

So for those of you actually running one of these newer boxes — do you use any of the AI features day to day, or is it mostly marketing you just ignore? And if they ever got it right, what would you actually want it to do?

Just curious what this sub thinks.

I have been brewing on a homelab/nas build for a while now. After going back and forth on aoostar, ugreen etc. I landed on a self build.

My use case is more or less: Media centralized and safe with immich, and pushed a backup to hetzner storage box.

Devices connected via tailscale. Zfs scrubs and data integrity. Jellyfin to stream to local devices. Docs and office, nextcloud and only office and paperless. Warracker Meallie Navidrome and downtify

Final build:

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5700G

Memory: Crucial ddr4 cl22 64gb 3200mhz

MB: ASRock B550 Mini-ITX

Case: Jonsbo N3

PSU: Lian Li SP750

CPU fan: Noctua NH-U9S 92mm

Nvme ssd: WD red sn700 500gb

HDD storage: Seagate ironwolf 2x4tb

Replaced oem fans hdd: Noctua NF-A8 80mm x2 Case fan mb/cpu: Noctua NF-A9 92mm x2 Fan splitter UPS: APC BX750MI

System:

Debian / Openzfs / Docker / Samba

What other service would be nice to run? Ease of life mainly.

Also, have I gone completely haywire on the hw built?

I want to start ripping all my physical media which consists of Blu Rays and 4K blu rays and making them more accessible locally throughout the house. Plus I’m tired of blu ray players always freezing up on newer data heavy 4k disc. Priorities for intended use.

Priority #1 is being able to play my movies as if they were played on a player. Minus the freezing. So full video and audio codecs, no compression. My solution is a Zidoo z9x 8K for my media room. I’ve done the research and this product is exactly what I want. No need for other recommendations.

Priority #2 I also have an Apple TV connected in the media, plus Roku Ultra in the living room and Android TV in my Sony TV. I will most likely be using Plex to access my movies for those other areas.

Priority #3 Using it to also back up family photos and videos.

With that being shared, which NAS would you recommend for my situation that will handle 4k streams effortlessly with very little possibility of freezing and also easy to setup??

I’m not looking to get crazy with it, a simple media and back up system. I don’t need recommendations on using Plex or Jellyfish or why am I getting a Zidoo vs this other product. I’ve done the deep dive on all of that. I know my route. I just need help knowing which NAS to get.

Thank you

Hi there,

I've got an older pc (I think I built it in 2016) just sitting on the floor. I was thinking I could get some use out of it by turning it into a NAS that can hold all my media. I have an Nvidia Shield Pro as my Plex server, and right now it's attached to a jbod with a usb cable. I'm thinking with a NAS I have more room to add storage, and the Shield could access through the network. I also have family that remote views my Plex.

These are the components of the old PC (it's currently running Win 11):

• Case: Fractal Design Define R5
• CPU: Intel Core i7-4790K CPU  4.00GHz, 4001 Mhz Mainboard: ASUS Z97-A-USB31
• RAM: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 32GB (4 x 8GB) DDR3 1600
• PSU: EVGA SuperNOVA 850 G2, 80+ GOLD 850W
• GPU: Nvidia GTX 980

I would like to make it lower power.

I figure I can lose the GPU and just use the onboard graphics (I'm hoping I can remote into it after it's built and won't need to connect a monitor). But would I have to change anything else out, like the mobo or CPU, or PSU to be more power efficient?

I'd get a network card so I can plug into the 10g port of my Netgear R9000.

I have a variety of hard drives to use, and if I've read correctly UnRaid is the way to go with mismatched drives.

If there's anything I've left out, please let me know.

Thanks in advance.

I came to 4x Samsung 256GB NVMe SSDs for free and wanted to set up a small NAS or enclosure primarily for automated iPhone photo/video backups.

My 4-bay USB dock from ali express just suffered a hardware power failure while configured in RAID setup, so I'm looking for a reliable replacement to run these 4 drives 24/7. Since it's light phone data, I don't need huge capacity, just good cooling and power delivery.
What would you recommend?

Any solid 4-bay M.2 NVMe enclosures/docks that hold up long-term?

Thanks for any suggestions!

Lets say I have 4x4TB, and I need more space. What would you do?

-Replace all drives with 8TB version and try to sell your old 4’s?

-Buy second NAS and new drives?

-Something else?