Advice for new NAS please!

Issac

Hello,

I just looking for a bit of advice on setting up my home network properly.

Essentially what I want to do is install a NAS that my family can share, I'm looking at the Synology 216j at the moment with two red WD HDD.

I also want to use a VPN (I've used one before) for various reasons and was looking at something like NordVPN. Can I run Kodi on the Synology and point it towards the VPN?

I know that synology has a VPN server capability built in - can this function in the same way that a service like NordVPN does? I'm not sure what the difference is.

Also can I install Netflix on this device? Would it be its own program or through something like Plax?

Is the Synology the best device (on a tight budget) to allow me to do this?

Thanks for the help - I'm totally new to this!

LoGiE

What's your budget?

I'm a big fan of QNAP NAS.

Maybe the QNAP TS-251 2 Bay?

It has a HDMI port that plug into your television for Kodi, youtube etc.

ED E

Synology are great until a failure, anyone whos had one start to act up will tell you to run a mile (fortunately not a syn owner myself). QNAP wouldnt be a bad idea if your budget is ok.

Issac

Thanks for the advice. I ended up ordering the Synology DS216j in the end (couple of days back). The QNAP was a bit more expensive and my budget was very stretched as it was.

Do you know if I can somehow run Netflix on this thing?

Also how does the VPN work - will it have similar results to getting a paid VPN in terms of my ISP not seeing my traffic and also online security? How does it differ from a paid VPN service?
I know I can log in when I'm on public wifi and have a more secure connection but will it be more secure for my connections when I'm at home?

Also - can I use it as a router?

Thanks!

PJtharsaile

Don't forget that your NAS needs to be backed up.

If you have a good Internet connection look at cloud backup. If not think about rotating one of a pair of USB drives offsite on a weekly basis. Alternatively, get yourself an old PC and stick some drives in it and run either OpenMediaVault or FreeNAS.

OpenMediaVault is trivially easy to set up. FreeNAS is more powerful but requires a bit more effort. FreeNAS 10, a major new version, is in beta now and is due for a first release this month. I think it will have a better UI than Synology's Diskstation and be more capable (support for things like docker, and hosted apps without license or hardware restrictions).

grimeire

LoGiE wrote: »

What's your budget?

I'm a big fan of QNAP NAS.

Maybe the QNAP TS-251 2 Bay?

It has a HDMI port that plug into your television for Kodi, youtube etc.

i don't know about that qnap but we use TS-453u and another few models that i cant think of off hand.

they are pure and other crap. they cause nothing but problems. every week or 2 there is a new firmware upgrade that fixes major secruity vunlerbalites.

they may be ok for a home user but not in an enterprise situation.

just get urself a external and connect it to your home router or go for FreeNAS like already suggested