DS425+

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

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

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

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

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