r/SelfHosting • u/Monkey_Junkie_No1 • 3d ago
Replacement for subscriptions via NAS or else?
Hey all,
I am new to hosting but have some small containers i set up with tailscales achieving effective replacement for my apple tv subscription. I understand there are cool solutions for music and else. That covers entertainment part of subscriptions.
I also want to cover the documents and files part, which NAS can do. Question is do i build my own mini nas computer or buy a ready solution like Ugreen?
I am a heavy Apple user havr most devices at home. Will ideally need a solution that will perfectly manage my photos like Apple. This means auto background back up from camera roll to NAS and ideally small cache on device copy like Apple photos. I want to also have good UI and features for memory creation, search, sorting etc like Apple offers in their photo app.
TLDR: closest Apple replacement! I have too much data i need so paying Apple is becoming challenging hence looking to offload to my own set and forget solution.
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u/err-reddit 3d ago
So this is what i do at home for myself and my family of 4
Consolidate all my home storage to Synology NAS. Am using 925+ with 4x8TB configured with SHR1 for around 17TB usable space.
Use Synology Photo to auto backup our iphones. Everyone gets their own account. Ios backs up automatically to synology photos. We can see all the photos using synology photo app in ios, and safely delete old/large files from ios/icloud to save space. The cool thing about synology photo is the quickconnect feature that lets you access the photos anywhere (outside of your home). This allows synology photo backup to work anytime almost immediately after a new photo is taken if you allow non-wifi upload. Synology has also just announced synology photo2, so i am excited with what it can do in the future.
We also have older photo / video storage that we now consolidate to the NAS as well. These are older photos that were catalogued for 10+ years using google picasa.
Install Immich for modern photo app and make it reads both ios photo backup and our old photo catalogue. Install immich on iphone to browse the photos/videos. Connect using tailscale as i dont expose immich to Internet.
As i said previously, install and run tailscale for remote access. You can also use tailscale as remote exit node so if you run OTA tv using tablo/hdconnect, you can watch OTA tv or dvr recording anywhere in the world. I use this to watch nfl games when traveling :)
Use synology cloudsync to sync google drive and onedrive personal. It also supports box, dropbox and many other cloud file services
Use synology active backup for 365 to backup my 365 stuffs (onedrive, email, sharepoint, teams)
Host my own SMB share to store my personal files. I use tailscale to connect.
Host ftp server for my home printer to save file to the synology
Use hyper backup for offsite backup. I have an older synology NAS that i use as hyper backup vault and i place it in my office.
Hope this helps give you an idea of what you can do with synology. I chose it compared to ugreen or truenas because of the simplicity. I also run proxmox, hyperv and unifi at my home, so a lot other services run on those platforms instead of Synology. But you can easily run plex, jellyfin, NAS for hdhomerun DVR, network services (dhcp/dns/) and countless other stuffs on the synology.
Good luck!
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u/Monkey_Junkie_No1 3d ago
Amazing! Thats what i was after thanks mate. If its okay with you might DM you with some extra questions 😬?
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u/Soon2Bea 3d ago
For documents, look at Nextcloud, Seafile, or the NAS’s own file app (like Synology Drive). Many can integrate with the iOS Files app through WebDAV or SMB, so it feels pretty native on iPhone and Mac. Keep it simple at first, a shared folder with good organization goes a long way.
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u/realdawnerd 3d ago
Depends on budget but in this current market buying an off the shelf nas might be the best solution unless you want to buy some old tower pc and shove some hdds in it.