Need help with old NAS

[alveou]

Hello !

I'm trying to get into the world of NAS.
I saw one Synology DS211J and a QNAP TS-231. Both are old, like 10 years old.
On either of them would it be possible to use jellyfin ?

*Again I'm pretty new to the NAS world. I'm trying to buy a NAS to store all the series/movies I'm dowloading so I can access it anywhere.*

Thank you !

[chrsa]

Hey there.

Congrats on your journey into network storage!
You are right, those are some old units. Honestly I would look into something more powerful even if you only want to use it as storage.

Can I ask what your budget is? Do you already have a couple drives?

[Venson]

Well a prebuild Nas can be a good investment as it will handle a lot of stuff for you to not care about. But there are a few things you should keep in mind if you want to use it as a Jellyfin media server:
- Use an X64 based processor. 
Most budget CPUs from synology are not x64 based and will get you in trouble even running jellyfin. 
- Get one with an integrated GPU
For lots of tasks and formost transcoding, an GPU will work wonders.
- Plan ahead
Its better for you to invest now and have a bit of headroom to "grow" into, instead of buying today what you need today and needing to do everything in 5 years again as it can get expensive


I started with an SynologyDS920+ which ticks all those boxes. It has 4 bays so you have quite a range of possible configuration options.

[alveou]

Thank you for help !

For my budget, I was thinking something under 400$ or even under 300$. I don't want something overkill.

Also I don't have any drives so I'll have to buy them. Is there a big difference between normal and NAS one ?

[Venson]

Well budget of 400$ _can_ be done but you might have to make some sacrifices depending on how much capacity you want.
That plays also nicely into your next question: NAS drives vs Consumer drives

NAS drives are Designed to run 24/7, Consumer ones are _not_ and will wear out a lot faster.
NAS drives are typically a bit faster/you can even get them +7200rpm which you will not with consumer ones.
NAS drives are a _bit_ cheaper
NAS drives are A LOT louder then consumer ones. Do NOT underestimate the noise factor here if you have your Nas somewhere you live.

How much capacity are you looking for?

[alveou]

For the capacity I don't want something to big to start with. I'll mainly use it for movies and series so I guess less than 10gb would be fine.

I was looking at Synology and QNAP but is there other NAS that would work fine for my use ?

[TheDreadPirate]

If you're feeling adventurous, building your own "NAS" is also an option. Most of the x86 equipped Synology and QNAP products use some variety of Intel Atom processor. Asrock, and others, make mini-ITX Intel Atom barebone boards. I have an Asrock J4205-ITX.

Building your own NAS gives you more hardware and OSes to choose from. You can probably build from second hand parts more cheaply, too. If you do go this route, just make sure the board you choose has more than 1 SATA port. For some reason, a lot of mini-ITX Intel Atom boards only have one.

[joshuaboniface]

Just a heads up, I moved this into the self-hosting & homelab forum, a better place for it.

Those NASes are indeed quite old, so the big question would be whether their software can handle Jellyfin. I'd lean towards "probably not" and recommend building a new self-contained NAS or getting a more recent model myself.

[Ice]

Check out if your NAS are able to run docker (I would suggest docker):
- If this is possible you can use the NAS as Fileserver with integrated Jellyfinserver (as a docker service).
- If not you can use the NAS as Fileserver only and run Jellyfin-server on a Raspery Pi or on your PC / Notebook.
You can also use a USB-3 drive 1TB for example and run Jellyfin-server on a Raspery Pi or on your PC / Notebook.
For home use this would be a good starting point (to test internal network LAN / WLAN and performance of Fileserver / Jellyfin-server and don't forget to develop a backup plan for your media).
If you plan access from outside of your homenetwork, there are additional tasks; First of all security (configuration of firewall) and also the upload bandwith to your internet provider.
Start small to get familiar with all aspects.
Find your sweet spot of use (video, audio, photo) and if clients are in homenet or extern (mobiles / friends / relatives). After that you can follow Vensons hint to go for future investments.