【Beginner's Guide】How to buy a NAS for the first time without stepping on the pit? 6 practical advice

1. Think about what NAS can help you do

1. core rigid needs

   • Automatically back up

     phone/computer without losing your photos

   • go out to retrieve files at any time, no need to bring a USB flash drive

   • AI album is automatically classified, and you can find baby photos in 3 seconds

2. bonus (can be left alone for the time being)

   • 4K film and television walls, surveillance videos, music and comic servers

   • Docker, virtual machines, AI training stations

conclusion: Let's get the two rigid needs of "backup + access at any time" first, and then talk about others.

2. How to choose a brand? In a word: Whoever buys with peace of mind

• pure novice, just want to "plug in and use": Ji Space, Green Link

• know some technology, want to toss but don't want to hurt too much: Flying Bull OS, Black Qunhui

• data maniacs, enterprise-level redundancy: Synology, QNAP, TerraMaster

reminder: One step is a false proposition, and the old machine can also be used as a backup warehouse after the demand is upgraded.

3. Before buying, prepare the "3 tickets"

1. network: external network of more than 300 m, indoor full gigabit, starting with six types of lines; IPv6 is easy to open, public IP is not forced, and official intranet penetration is sufficient.

2. camera position: ventilated, protected from light, low, not shaking; The plate starts with 4bay, and the hard disk is not distressed in the later stage.

3. power supply: UPS or smart plug-in to prevent power loss and prevent direct plugging.

4. Hard disk capacity quick calculator

• photo party: 3 mobile phones ≈ 1 TB, leave 1 redundancy = 2 TB

• Film and Television Party: H265 drama 500 episodes≈1 TB

• conclusion: 4×2 TB for ordinary households is enough for 5 years, and the cost ≈ 1k; True Blu-ray/Miss Party Please start directly at 4×4 TB.

5. data security "3-2-1" mantra

3 data → 2 media → 1 off-site

• automatically backs up to another hard drive every night

• package and push another copy every week to the network disk/mobile hard drive

• RAID can be turned on or not, it is just "redundancy", not "backup".

6. Resource acquisition and audio-visual management

• download tools: qBittorrent, TR, Aria2, one-click installation in the NAS store.

• Film and Television Wall: Extreme Space "Extreme Film and Television", Greenlink "Cinema", Synology Video Station, choose TMM or NAS built-in scraper, and complete the poster wall in 10 minutes.

• subtitles: Subtitles, OpenSubtitles, player selection Infuse, Kodi, DS Video, TV 2K broadcast.

Bonus: Don't rush to buy a membership, play through the free plugins first, and then decide whether to upgrade.

step on the above 6 steps, and you can let the NAS work quietly in the corner for you in 30 minutes. I wish you a chance to go ashore and never drop the plate!