Question Looking to setup first NAS, need input

[Vicarious1]

I'm currently looking to setup my first NAS in order to reduce my dependency on large companies like Google, Meta, Microsoft, etc. My intention is to use it as a personal cloud server for photo backups that can be accessed by mobile device off-site, similar to how something like Google photos works.

I don't need anything super powerful, as I won't be doing any heavy read/write work like video editing, and it's only going to be used by myself and maybe my partner. I have a good amount of technical computer knowledge, so I'm confident that I could build something from scratch, but I have a very limited amount of space, since I live in a small apartment, so I'm looking for something small and more pre-built.

So far in my research, I think something like an Asustor Drivestor lite with 2 8TB drives in RAID 1 (or the larger model with 4 4TB drives in RAID 5) with Nextcloud running on it would be ideal for me, but I would love some input before I commit to buying all the hardware.

Thanks!

 

[kanewolf]

I'm currently looking to setup my first NAS in order to reduce my dependency on large companies like Google, Meta, Microsoft, etc. My intention is to use it as a personal cloud server for photo backups that can be accessed by mobile device off-site, similar to how something like Google photos works.

I don't need anything super powerful, as I won't be doing any heavy read/write work like video editing, and it's only going to be used by myself and maybe my partner. I have a good amount of technical computer knowledge, so I'm confident that I could build something from scratch, but I have a very limited amount of space, since I live in a small apartment, so I'm looking for something small and more pre-built.

So far in my research, I think something like an Asustor Drivestor lite with 2 8TB drives in RAID 1 (or the larger model with 4 4TB drives in RAID 5) with Nextcloud running on it would be ideal for me, but I would love some input before I commit to buying all the hardware.

Thanks!

I would recommend you look at Synology or QNAP. They are the leading home NAS manufacturers. They are BYOD devices, where they are sold separate from disks.
The thing to remember is that your home internet connection is very different from Google drive. Your home internet may not even have a public IP address. Your home internet requires additional configuration to allow secure connections from a remote device.
Can it be done? Yes. Is it trivial for a novice? No.

 

[cruisetung]

I would recommend you look at Synology or QNAP. They are the leading home NAS manufacturers. They are BYOD devices, where they are sold separate from disks.
The thing to remember is that your home internet connection is very different from Google drive. Your home internet may not even have a public IP address. Your home internet requires additional configuration to allow secure connections from a remote device.
Can it be done? Yes. Is it trivial for a novice? No.

Access from internet can be achieved by using VPN like ZeroTier, Netbird or Tailscale if you don't trust the built-in internet access tools.

Go to their website and see if the NAS models are supported . Tons of tutorials on Youtube for these VPN.

 

[USAFRet]

My intention is to use it as a personal cloud server for photo backups that can be accessed by mobile device off-site

Be very very careful with this.

When I first set up my QNAP NAS, I had it semi-open for outside use.
Had removed the default username/password, just because.

But it got access attempts every day, from all over the planet. Russia, China, Ohio, Portugal, etc, etc, etc.
All failed, but the hole through the router firewall was there, and attempts were made.

Not long after, I closed that hole. Anything I want to share...OneDrive/Google/Amazon

One slight misconfig, and all would have been compromised.

 

[kanewolf]

Access from internet can be achieved by using VPN like ZeroTier, Netbird or Tailscale if you don't trust the built-in internet access tools.

Go to their website and see if the NAS models are supported . Tons of tutorials on Youtube for these VPN.

I believe this is the "non-trivial" part. Definitely doable, but not obvious to a novice.

 

[cruisetung]

I believe this is the "non-trivial" part. Definitely doable, but not obvious to a novice.

It's never trivial for access from internet, especially when there are so many nas vendor security holes in the past with their built-in internet access tools. That's why I suggest those open source VPN solutions, and there are many tutorials on youtube. Zerotier being the easiest in my opinion.