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Which NAS do you use with your Hackintosh ?

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Hi Forum,

Having read Middleman's post about Drobo filing for Chapter 11 Bancruptcy and my desire to one day build my own Linux based NAS, I was wondering what type of NAS (examples below) that others are using with their Hacks and whether the experience has been good or bad when used with a Hackintosh?

  • Linux Server
  • Open Media Vault
  • Synology
  • Drobo
  • Qnap
  • FreeNas / TrueNas
  • Self build using Synolgy DSM
  • Other

Thanks for reading.
 
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I use the Synology 1xx series.
 
Hi Forum,

Having read Middleman's post about Drobo filing for Chapter 11 Bancruptcy and my desire to one day build my own Linux based NAS, I was wondering what type of NAS (examples below) that others are using with their Hacks and whether the experience has been good or bad when used with a Hackintosh?

  • Linux Server
  • Open Media Vault
  • Synology
  • Drobo
  • Qnap
  • FreeNas / TrueNas
  • Self build using Synolgy DSM
  • Other

Thanks for reading.
I have a TruNAS Mini server that I've been using for almost 5 years now. I only had one issue with a failed upgrade of the OS and was able to resolve without losing any data.
 
I have a couple of QNAP's. Cheap. Unsafe when exposed to the Internet. OK for some extra local storage. I may fill one with 4 x 6TB using RAID 10. Then I'll have 12TB of fast storage(500 MB/s read/write via 10GbE) but that's another $600 for something I don't really need.

DAS + BackBlaze is less trouble for backups. That's what I use now.

I also have a Raspberry Pi + 8TB WD USB disk as a media/plex server. Works surprisingly well.
 
I have a couple of QNAP's. Cheap. Unsafe when exposed to the Internet..
Why unsafe ?

DAS + BackBlaze is less trouble for backups. That's what I use now.
Cool, I'll have to read up on that !

I also have a Raspberry Pi + 8TB WD USB disk as a media/plex server. Works surprisingly well.
I forgot to list the Pi, is the nothing that tiny computer can't do?!
 
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I built a Synology clone (kinda like hackintosh for Synology).

I started off with an 8 bay case and switched to 12 bays while reusing the same internal hardware this year to run a second array because I wanted to reuse the 3.5" drives I pulled from my hackintosh with my Mac Studio. The motherboard I am using has 12 built-in SATA ports so it worked out perfectly.

I love the Synology DSM and SHR/SHR2. DSM is super user friendly and easy to use. SHR/SHR2 allows me to mix n match drives of different capacities and easily upgrade the capacity of the arrays just by swapping out smaller capacity drives with larger ones. These two features are what I loved about the Drobos.

Since I use 10GBase-T, performance of my NAS is fantastic and several magnitudes faster than my old Drobos. The time it takes to upgrade the capacity of an array is also much faster.
Screen Shot 2022-08-30 at 3.54.01 PM.png

In terms of reliability, Synology DSM itself has been rock solid. I did have a problem with my hardware because of an Intel flaw on the SoC that's used on my motherboard. Luckily, I was able to return the motherboard to AsRock and they replaced it with a board that has an SoC with a fix. Other than that, I haven't had any downtime in the six years this NAS has been in service.

 
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This is one of those subjects I know very little about and use only very basically.

A D-Link ShareCenter Pulse 2-bay with a couple of WD Black 500GB drive inside. Bought 7-years ago.

Given what I'm reading about everyone else's expertise I realise what a green-horn I am! :lol:
 
I built a Synology clone (kinda like hackintosh for Synology)...
Fantastic and that's some serious amount of storage and speed that you have. I was looking at building a Synology clone/DSM build a few years back but I didn't bite the bullet on my shopping cart :).

I always hear positive vibes about the Synology UI and features so great to hear that your DSM build is rock solid. It seems very similar to building a Hackintosh. Do you ever worry about DSM updates not supporting your build or is it a case of not updating unless you really have to?
 
This is one of those subjects I know very little about and use only very basically.

A D-Link ShareCenter Pulse 2-bay with a couple of WD Black 500GB drive inside. Bought 7-years ago.

Given what I'm reading about everyone else's expertise I realise what a green-horn I am! :lol:

It's not really complicated. Lol

Just think of them as computers whose primary purpose is to "share" some sort of RAID array.

In most instances, they all run some flavor of Linux and just provide pretty UI to configure the system that can be accessed via a web browser.
 
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Do you ever worry about DSM updates not supporting your build or is it a case of not updating unless you really have to?

When I first completed my build, I was running DSM 5 and went through every upgrade until DSM 6.2.3.

I have not tried to upgrade to DSM 7 because it requires a completely new bootloader (kinda like having to switch from Clover to OpenCore) and I'm not entirely sure if the new bootloader works with my motherboard. But, really, it's not a big deal. The standards for SMB, AFS, and NFS are unlikely to change enough to make my NAS unusable. As long as SMB, AFS, and NFS work, there's no urgency to ever upgrade.

The only other service I run on the NAS is Plex and that continues to run fine on DSM 6. In a worse case scenario, I can always run Plex in a Docker container on the NAS or even on a Raspberry Pi.
 
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