Enterprise File Server Advice?

Hardware Hub
1

I need some advice.

My small business is currently growing out of our Synology 4 bay NAS. We need something with faster networking. So the way I look at it, I have two options.

Option #1 take the easy route. Upgrade to a beefier Synology box with 10gbe networking. Easy and familiar, but less scalable and flexible.

Option #2 build my own file server with 10gbe. I love building computers, and have built many, but I don’t like the idea of having to micromanage every little thing on the software side of things. TrueNAS doesn’t seem all that complicated, but I know networking can be very annoying, and it has just enough settings that could be a nightmare under certain conditions.

What should I do here? Are there any other options I’m not considering? I would LOVE to build the server hardware. But I’m not a server admin and I don’t have any desire to be. But I also want data control, privacy, and security…

2

Personally I’d always advocate option #2. More customization for you use cases, better control, but with it also accountability. You need to maintain it, keep it up, and justify any future work on it. So, depends on whether or not you’re ready for that undertaking, and whether or not your superiors are okay with it, or want a one click solution that some other company is responsible for.

3

Depends on the server size and requirements.

I lean to #2, especially with software like TrueNAS out there that is basically set and forget. Ongoing maintenance is not much, but you will be required to pick out the hardware. Part of that is how much downtime is acceptable to you, and how much redundancy is needed. Server grade stuff tends to be built better (more stable BIOS, ECC memory, IPMI) and have more redundant options then consumer based hardware. But if you are fine with some downtime, you can also have spare parts sitting on the shelf for the consumer stuff.

4

I think I might have found a solution.

I might pick up a TrueNAS Mini R since hardware is so crazy right now. Has some flexibility and since it’s a TrueNAS product, I can still call the vendor support hotline in an emergency for some help troubleshooting.

5

Also look at 45Drives. They have a lot of options and will provide support.

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6

+1 for 45 drives buy a supported platform, load a supported OS. Then plug it into claude/codex/etc and let the LLM do the administrative tasks for you.

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