Buy a NAS (which brand?) or make one myself?

[Dizzy49 94]

I also built my own.  I've had my own "server" for many years now, the latest (built specifically with Emby in mind) is the 4th in the last 20 years.  The first two I ran out of drive bays and had drives just hanging out of the case (not recommended), so I bought actual server cases with 12, and now 24 drive bays.  My last one was essentially a "normal" computer in a server case.  I went a bit overkill on this one and it has dual power supplies, a server board, a Xeon processor, 32GB of ram, etc.  This is my beast and I expect it to last me a good long time

 

Do your research on parts, go overboard on bays as you can add drives over the years, and if you spend a little extra now, it might last you another year or two on the backside.

[robgfaulkner 15]

I bought a QNAP TS-453 Pro and dropped 4 - 4TB drives in it.  It runs great.  Not a single issue.

[Meniak 1]

I bought a new Skylake NUC i5 because my old i5 NUC was becoming a tad laggy for some casual games I play.  I like low power machines and my NAS was a Cubox-I4 Pro with a 4 bay SATA enclosure.  I installed Openmediavault as NAS software.  Although robust the quad core 1ghz processor became a bit slow for my needs.  

 

So, I used the older i5 NUC and installed Xpenology on it which is DSM from Synology.  I REALLY like it as I think it's the best of both worlds.  It has the ease of use of the DSM software from Synology and you can basically choose the hardware you want.

[famulor 1]

I pretty much decided i just want something that can handle "alot" (+5) of drives and just serve the file like synology does. Guess i can cut back on some hardware then and making it a bit cheaper. 

[Meniak 1]

I pretty much decided i just want something that can handle "alot" (+5) of drives and just serve the file like synology does. Guess i can cut back on some hardware then and making it a bit cheaper. 

Have a look at http://xpenology.me/ then.  You can basically build your own Synology cheaper with a bit more "oomph"

[famulor 1]

Have a look at http://xpenology.me/ then.  You can basically build your own Synology cheaper with a bit more "oomph"

I just heard that its not getting updates anymore? perhaps that not true?

[Meniak 1]

I just heard that its not getting updates anymore? perhaps that not true?

You heard wrong.  I'm on DSM 5.2 and they will release DSM 6 once released.  DSM 6 is still beta and Xpenology won't release that version but they will release the actual release.  That said, on the forum there's people already running beta version 6.0 in VM's without real problems so I think it will be a smooth update.  If you like the Synology UI, I would give it a spin.  The community is also quite helpful.  The installation method is also extremely easy but a tutorial was a bit hard to find.  If you want to install it and need help, just ask.

Edited February 13, 2016 by Meniak

[Luke 37071]

We now have Emby Server for Western Digital NAS in testing:

 

https://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/59597-emby-server-for-western-digital-nas

 

Please try it out and report your experience. Thanks !