Advice for selecting synology vs truenas mini

I’ve been delaying setting up a good NAS solution for home largely because I was given a large amount of space on google drive until recently.

I’d like to set up something for me and my partner to backup computers locally and then back that up offsite, currently looking at backblaze.

I’ll likely setup plex media server but it won’t be used frequently (maybe a few times a year).

It seems like both symbology and truenas would work for this and I’m thinking of going for a prebuilt solution because of the small footprint and avoids me going down more rabbit holes instead of fixing my initial problem.

The biggest question I’m struggling with is the cost to lifespan of this purchase.

DS920+ vs Mini X has a sizable price difference and my experience with home networking / home server is non-existent.

I’m leaning the truenas for a few reasons:

  1. I prefer open source options
  2. It feels like a nice step towards learning about home servers
  3. I’m a software engineer and could imagine playing with docker in truenas scale
  4. I’ve had friends who have bought synbology devices but once they’ve outgrown it tend towards other solutions

But does the above justify truenas or would I be better off with a synology and switching to a truenas server in X years when I might have space for a small server rack and can get some second hardware?

If truenas is the best option because it’ll outlive synology, is there any reason for mini X+ vs mini X? I.e. will scale work on one but not the other?

Any advice/ recommendations would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Matt

I think you could go either route based on your needs.

However, if you ever intend to install IP cams then synology or qnap are hard to beat. After that, it’s size, processors are sufficient to run the NAS, I wouldn’t bother much beyond that.

If you want to run other services, I’d buy a cheap desktop with a decent processor and RAM then install a hypervisor of your choice.

I have a QNAP NAS, it stores files well, a decent IP cam application and that’s about it. As it stays on 24x7 I don’t want it using so much electricity either.

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Synology comes with very easy to use great features right out of the box such as their Synology Drive, Active Backup for backing up full computers, Synology Photos and Surveillance Station. TrueNAS is more performance oriented and being an open source product offers much more customization but has a much steeper learning curve.

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