We get that we are all just saying we had identical thought patterns and it just didnt work out
. We all learned that hard lesson and some of us have smart siblings too haha
But you ask a fair question
Lets answer it simply first with a TLDR. There is no best, there is no betterā¦ Only trade offs and things you need to think about.
From am ease of use perspective synology has the VERY intuitive interface called the DiskStation Manager (DSM) and it is praised beyond most other products for its ease of use, making it accessible to even the most tech illiterate of people hands down no competition at all. It also has integrated apps like most dedicated NAS stuff does. It offers a rather a wide range of first-party applications too and they seemlessly integrate into DSM.
Examining truenas from the same perspective requires accepting to hard truths open source folks dont like to accept. It is FAR more complexā¦ It has a much steeper learning curve with a more technical interface, suited for users who prefer fine tuned control. Thats great. No shame in that for users like you and Iā¦ And ONLY users like you and I. Idk how to explain this to tech nerds enough. Simple to you is NOT simple to the average person and never will be haha. But ill get off my soap box in that
As for hardware and upgradability which pretty much should be your next big concernā¦
Synology is an appliance. Which means its designed to be a turnkey solutionā¦ Pre-configured hardware with optimized performance for DSM, though with limited upgrade options compared to custom builds should you make a custom system yourself. However its raid filesystem is second only to ZFS. In fact id say they are pretty neck and neck but built for different purposes. Thing is with a synology. You can mix disks of different size and not care as much. You can replace with a dissimilar disk too (only larger not smaller). Hit by a bus factor here means the end user can buy bigger hard drives and push button do ā¦
TrueNAS on the other hand sacrifices that convenience but gives you a ton of flexibility and customization. You can choose any compatible hardware, offering flexibility but again the more you veer from the defaults the ever more difficult it gets for you to maintain it and also your momā¦ Should you get hit by a bus
So now we are left with support. Synology destroys truenas in this aspect. You get extensive support, regular updates, and a broad ecosystem of first-party tools and solid documentation (true nas has this to a degree)ā¦ And decent technical support on their end when you reach out to them
TrueNAS relies largely on community support, with commercial options available through iXsystems but they are expensive as all get out and when you rely on the community support you gotta get used to the kind of crud you see in opinionated forum posts as often your best pool of answers and thats sometimes painful to put up with.
So really Synology would be better if you want to prioritize ease of use, integration, and support and want a plug-and-play NAS experience with less technical involvement. Which is ideal for your particular use case
However should you decide you want to make it more than what you are telling us ā¦TrueNAS might be preferable but only if you need verbose and detailed control over your NAS, are comfortable with DIY setups, and want to leverage ZFS features and the headache that can come with them and the steep learnning curve associated with all of its nuances and best practices.
Thatās really all I can give you manā¦up to you the decide how involved you want a hobby project to be