Mac mini as NAS alternative setup?

[LongLensPhotography]

Just thinking ahead to when I eventually get rid of my Synology... Do I get UGREEN or do something a lot fancier? Technically it should be feasible with a mac running *nix compliant OS, low power consumption and noise, and some appropriate RAIDed external storage. I am thinking of base spec used M1, although that could change if I wanted to host a beefier local AI install.

I am asking primarily those who at least tried and ideally are running something like this

 

[AndrewFlannigan]

Technically it should be feasible with a mac running *nix compliant OS, low power consumption and noise, and some appropriate RAIDed external storage.

Yes.

My backup system is three 2TB disks attached to a 2012 MacBook with Carbon Copy Cloner (CCC) running on it. I use other machines to do the work and copy the files I need to keep on to the first disk. CCC clones that drive to the second disk on a half hourly schedule and then copies the second disk to the third disk half an hour later, so I have three separate copies of my data. I've been using this system in various forms for more than ten years. You could do the same on a Linux box with one of several backup tools instead...

 

[Craikeybaby]

Not very useful if you need to access it from multiple devices concurrently though...

My plan is sort of to bury my head in the sand and home my Synology carries on... They seem to support older hardware for longer than Apple, my 2018 model is still getting the latest updates. Realistically, I'd be looking at Asustor, as I've been happy with other hardware I have from them.

For NAS stuff, I find the nascompares website to be very thorough, and would be my first call for this sort of thing.

My gut feeling would be that Apple hardware would be overkill and that their software would b e too restrictive, and Linux a PITA. It is also worth checking power consumption, it is easy to save say £100 on hardware, but cost more than that with increased power usage on something that is on 24/7.

 

[Nikon f1.8]

Second the Asustor recommendation, I have the 6704 gen 2 and it is brilliant. 4 bays and 4 nvme slots with a Celeron cpu and 16 gig of ram.

 

[AndrewFlannigan]

Not very useful if you need to access it from multiple devices concurrently though...

We use it as a data store and it works for our needs. Most of the time it's serving four to six machines across various network connections including data over power lines. Even when we're moving a couple of hundred megabytes at a time it doesn't take long to suck it up or spit it out.

The great thing is that if it falls over, I've got a spare machine all set up to take over the address and carry on.

 

[Snapsh0t]

I'm also a big Asustor fan but recently added a Terramaster F2-425 Plus to my collection and have been very impressed. A major plus for TM is that there are loads of staff members active in the user forum plus an active beta program with updates every couple of weeks.