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Key Points

Key Takeaways

  • 1

    Own Your Bits

  • 2

    Subscription Hell: Google Photos, iCloud, Dropbox. How much are you paying monthly? NAS has high initial investment, but running cost is only electricity bill. Pays for itself in few years.

  • 3

    Synology DS923+: iPhone of NAS world. Perfection of OS (DSM) is abnormally high. Even beginner can build 'Complete alternative to Google Photos' in 1 hour. Docker also runs crisply with Ryzen embedded.

  • 4

    QNAP TS-464: Android of NAS world. Price is cheap for hardware specs. 2.5GbE port is standard equipped, so if doing mass video editing, this is faster.

  • 5

    RAID Z2 (SHR-2): Configuration where data is not lost even if 2 HDDs break at same time. This is not 'Insurance'. It is 'Obligation'.

Introduction: Fear of Account BAN

What if your Google account is frozen suddenly one day? Mail, photos, documents, calendar. Everything disappears in instant. There is no guarantee that objection will pass.

Cloud is “Other people’s computer”. Hold your data by yourself (Self-Hosting). That is minimum condition as digital sovereign state.

1. The OS King: Synology DS923+

Most important thing when choosing NAS is not specs but software. Synology’s OS (DiskStation Manager) is like Windows running inside browser. Intuitive, beautiful, and robust.

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Synology DiskStation DS923+

App called Synology Photos is god. Automatically backs up smartphone photos, organizes with face recognition and object recognition. Google Photos itself.

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Btrfs & Snapshot

Ransomware countermeasures are also perfect. By snapshot function of Btrfs file system, even if infected with virus, can return to “state 1 hour ago” like time machine.

2. The Hardware King: QNAP TS-464

If in same price range, QNAP has better CPU and faster LAN port. Difficulty is there are too many setting items because of multi-function, but engineer with network knowledge can play more with this.

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QNAP TS-464

Has HDMI terminal, so can be connected directly to TV and used as Media Player. Virtualization function (Virtualization Station) is also powerful.

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3. Comparison: Security or Speed

項目 Synology DS923+ QNAP TS-464
OS Usability Overwhelming (Beginner OK) Normal (For Expert)
Standard LAN Speed 1GbE (Slow) 2.5GbE (Fast)
App Quality High (Sophisticated) Normal (Multifunctional)
Expandability Dedicated Card Needed PCIe Slot Available

4. The Backup Strategy

Just buying NAS is not backup. Because NAS also breaks. Furthermore, there is risk of disappearing with house by earthquake or fire.

  1. PC/Smartphone → NAS (Time Machine / Photos)
  2. NAS → External HDD (Hyper Backup)
  3. NAS → Cloud (C2 Storage / Backblaze)

Please fully automate this “3-2-1 Rule”. Once set, data continues to be protected while sleeping.

Conclusion: Become Lord of Data Castle

Continuing to pay for cloud is like living in rental apartment. Buying NAS is building house (owned house).

Have your own castle and protect data. Because that is record (Log) of your life itself.

# nas # synology # qnap # backup # data-hoarding # 2026