I hear ya.
For what it’s worth, I am using a repurposed Promise Smartstor RAID (decommissioned from my company’s server).
1 Like
I love my synology. Depending on your model you can hook them together. I like that I can integrate cloud backup to the syology (I use glacier for disaster recovery, bc it’s so damn cheap).
1 Like
Yes on the backup. I have two 5 bay Synology NAS as RAID 10 with one backing up to the other (in a different building). The 2nd NAS backs up to an external drive.
2 Likes
I use an 32 TB FreeNas box. I don’t store that much music on it outside of a couple DSD rips but I use it primarily for movies and backup.
2 Likes
I highly recommend the Synology NAS, my DS718+ has been using for years with 2 times upgraded to 6GB RAM and 12 TB RAID 5 ( 24TB ) with WD, the DS718+ small enough to place somewhere on your rack or next to the PSA devices, the Synology is just 5w in idle and about 15w when active. The most value of Synology product is not from their hardware. it’s is the DSM operation system. It’s worth the money i think so
2 Likes
I am also a Synology fan. As a Linux user I appreciate their subsystem as it is familiar to me for the most part. They do some annoying things that are not LSB compliant so that can throw you off if you are going to try an make manual changes to config files etc… I do use a BSD based NAS that I built here at the office as our third backup; Then like elsewhere mentioned, certain things go to Glacier or S3 depending on the data.
For audio, on the Synology at home I am using minimserver as the back-end to the Auralic app.
As far as stability goes, both the BSD and Synology solutions have been faultless. But as far as filesystem flexibility goes there is no better than ZFS now. Yes, BTRFS (Synology default) has similar features but is much less mature that ZFS and is limited largely to its GUI tools.
1 Like
…and support for btrfs is waning…
zfs has its issues but it still seems to be the most robust filesystem out there by quite some distance.
Since I’m now retired and (in a few months) looking for a project, I’m likely to simplify, streamline, and generally de-clutter my network. This will probably include a new storage solution with the current DS214 play moving to second backup duties (or staging to cloud backup).
Main will likely be zfs, I’ve just not decided between FreeNAS, hand rolled FreeBSD, or whether to endure the hassles of ZFSonLinux, which works great, until it doesn’t.
Synology’s DSM is great, and I agree it’s good to furtle on the command line, but as you say you can’t make config changes there very well. Best use I found for it is to run rsyncs for backups from there 
3 Likes
Another 
for Synology - I have one at home & one at work - I have not tried others for comparison but these have been flawless over 4 -5 years.
I prioritize silent (fanless) operation. That really only leaves a few QNAP models. I run the QNAP HS-251+. It has two drive bays, which I filled with SSD drives containing only music files from ripped discs. Very reliable. Fast enough. Though, I agree that Synology DSM software is nicer.
2 Likes
If you have a desktop system that is always running(aka home server) you can get away with a DAS. I have a 24 terabyte DAS with RAID5. I also have a QNAP NAS that has been running for around 8 years with no hiccups.
1 Like