DS425+

I‘m in love with my new Synology DS425+ with additional 16GB Ram and NVME

I’ve used Synology since 2011 or so with Macs; they work perfectly. I would strongly recommend them - easy to use, reasonably fast for what they are, and lots of flexibility in them. Yes, out of the box the 2025 models (DS425+, etc. with 25 in the name) require Syno-branded disks. This is either a g

If you're buying a NAS, the point is not to tie your Mac to it; reboot your Mac and you don't want people dropping from movie watching, do you? Buy PlexPass. That's $250. The people suggesting Intel NAS generally have purchased Plexpass. Buy a NAS with an Intel iGPU. Let's assume that's a DS425+. Th

The Synology DS223 can be used for media playback, but its CPU isn't as powerful as the next model up. I would personally step up to the DS224+, DS225+ or DS425+ since they both have CPU's with transcoding abilities which can allow for smoother playback on more devices, regardless of the video file

The CPU wasn’t strained. 50% usage on an eight core box (and 2 efficiency) isn’t strained. It was a question that I had for you, not a reason to buy a new Mac. The reason to move things to another box is mostly so that you can freely reboot your PC (Mac) and not impact anything else; for most people

Another problem you might run into with using a Raspberry Pi for Home Assistant is that Home Assistant does a huge number of reads and writes. It will chew through a microSD card in a year. You could get a micro PC or a regular PC to get started, but I would actually recommend getting a NAS like the

Well, spent some time tonight looking through the equipment; I think this is the plan. Costs a bit more than I thought, but has some decent value and should be future proofed for a while; I'll start with the rack, controller, WAP, NAS with my current router/switch and older arlo security system, the