NAS Newbie needs recommendation

[captfidel]

I use a Synology and have for many years...it runs Roon Core + is my repository for all things digital. I have used QNAP as well but prefer the Synology software environment. Synology tends to put a slightly lower powered CPU for the same price point on many (not all) of their models vs QNAP. If you are just using as a NAS, this is no issue. If you are going to do much processing on the NAS then I would recommend you select a model with an appropriate CPU - Synology has several that fit the bill. Good luck!

[captfidel]

Agreed! RAID is a must in my view. Once you have a NAS, the cost of an addition disk to enable RAID is negligible and the single disk sizes these days allow for a NAS with RAID enabled and limited bays to still support a huge amount of storage. I've run a NAS for many years, in that time, I've had disk failures (even though I have top-shelf enterprise-class disks) which because of RAID were far easier to deal with than having to go to some form of backup (which I also have).

 

Also, if you are using Synology, I highly recommend configuring your volumes to be Btfrs. At this point, most models support this.