Setting up a NAS as a first timer?
So I've seen some posts here and elsewhere about people making a home NAS setup, using it as a media server with jellyfin/plex/.arr to set up media + keep files/passwords/photos, and then managing it remotely. That sounds incredibly cool.
I also did some cursory searching that one way to do things without messing with port-forwarding is to look into Tailscale to network remotely.
I want to try this for my parents and I, especially since I will be training abroad for several years while they will be based in Asia.
The obvious problem is I don't have any experience with the process or even networking in general. I also do not know how to code in any capacity. I am in a decidedly non-tech field of work.
I've been googling but want to know if this a feasible idea at my skill level? Is this work for hobbyists or those in the professional field of computing? Am I going to potentially shoot myself security-wise if i try this? Should experiment with something smaller-scale first?
Preliminary "Research":
- Watched Practical Networking on youtube to see what I was getting into (understood... lets say 45% of what he was talking about)
- Plan to get a synology NAS with minimum 4 drive bays (Supposedly this is easiest for beginners?)
- Connect to network via tailscale
- Get a vpn
- Install docker
- Install apps
- Connect it to PCs and smart tv at my parent's home in Asia
- ???
- Maintain it from Europe?
Any advice on how to start or any guides to recommend? (most of what I've found is 2021 or earlier so I am unsure if a lot's changed since then)
I would suggest trying out Cloudbox, which will give you a good base to build off of for a media and file server: https://github.com/Cloudbox/Cloudbox/wiki
The setup will take a bit to walk through but isn't too complicated, but the community support is quite good.
Interesting - this is the first i've considered cloudbox and the link seems comprehensive. Will take a look at it; and you're right - this will be the work of many weekends but I'm excited to experiment. Thank you!
Feel free to PM me if you have any questions about Cloudbox, I've been running and tuning Cloudbox instances for the past few years and am pretty happy with the results. Also the Cloudbox Discord is pretty active and helpful.
This discussion from earlier this year has a bunch of great suggestions.
If you’re using a Synology, almost all of those things will be extremely easy. Synology has an excellent Docker interface that’s easy to use and out of the box support for VPNs. I know there’s a version of Tailscale available but I haven’t used it.
Thanks! It's pricey for a first plunge so I wanted to be sure but looks like synology nas drives has an overall good rep for beginners.
I've rolled my own and owned a few different NAS systems over the years. If you want something that's simple to use and rock solid in terms of reliability, it's well worth the small extra cost.