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New user, amazed and a little confused


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Hi,

I am a new user of xpenolgy and I am slowly learning. I am an experienced linux sysadmin, and I am going to build during christmas my first nas.

I chose a DIY solution to save money and to be able to expand my config as much as I like.

I am now studying the different NAS distributions and after testing OpenMediaVault and Freenas, I came to XPEnology.

This solution really attracts me a lot, because it's a commercial product and should be more solid and versatile, compared to open source ones.

What scares me is the future. While with freenas (a little bit overkill for my home NAS expectations) and Openmediavault I think there will be no problems in getting support and updates for the years to come, I feel a little more uncertain on xpenology, because in a future, synology may be able to add locks and break the wonderful work people in this community is doing.

 

So the final question is: do you think that I can install xpenology on my rig and live safe for the next 5 years, counting on updates and support?

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Hi,

I am a new user of xpenolgy and I am slowly learning. I am an experienced linux sysadmin, and I am going to build during christmas my first nas.

I chose a DIY solution to save money and to be able to expand my config as much as I like.

I am now studying the different NAS distributions and after testing OpenMediaVault and Freenas, I came to XPEnology.

This solution really attracts me a lot, because it's a commercial product and should be more solid and versatile, compared to open source ones.

What scares me is the future. While with freenas (a little bit overkill for my home NAS expectations) and Openmediavault I think there will be no problems in getting support and updates for the years to come, I feel a little more uncertain on xpenology, because in a future, synology may be able to add locks and break the wonderful work people in this community is doing.

 

So the final question is: do you think that I can install xpenology on my rig and live safe for the next 5 years, counting on updates and support?

 

It will depend on what sort of updates you mean. Ones that resolve security issues or add new features?

 

If it is just security that concerns you then as long as you don't have it internet facing you should be able to keep it running.

If you want to take advantage of new features as Synology implements them then I wouldn't count on it.

Some people try Xpenology and when it comes time to upgrade buy Synology hardware as they like the environment so much.

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Hi,

So the final question is: do you think that I can install xpenology on my rig and live safe for the next 5 years, counting on updates and support?

Xpenology is secure, as long you don't directly connect it to the interwebz.

Use a VPN to connect to your nas. This way you will be safe for a newer version of CryptoLocker.

 

As for software updates:

- As long the bootloader keeps working you can install updates (Use a VM to test this)

- Some parts of DSM are opensource (see: http://sourceforge.net/projects/dsgpl/files/ )

 

I had the same problem as you have when i builded my NAS.

The interface from freenas / nas4free is just too ugly for my, i like eye candy xD.

At the end, i took the gamble and picked xpenology, and never looked back =).

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Thanks for yuor replies.

I see quite often people talking about VMs, now question is, do you really prefer to run the NAS as a virtual machine instead of bare metal? Why? Does this give any benefit? What are the best practices to run xpenology?

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Thanks for yuor replies.

I see quite often people talking about VMs, now question is, do you really prefer to run the NAS as a virtual machine instead of bare metal? Why? Does this give any benefit? What are the best practices to run xpenology?

I use bare metal setup, that is the fastest option imo

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Thanks for yuor replies.

I see quite often people talking about VMs, now question is, do you really prefer to run the NAS as a virtual machine instead of bare metal? Why? Does this give any benefit? What are the best practices to run xpenology?

Definitely Bare Metal for 24x7 operation as you can use some pretty lean H/W specs to keep power usage down. The VM option is great for testing updates etc. Different strokes I guess.

 

If you are a Linux admin and asking the kind of question you do, I see no reason to be confused, you are well ahead of many already. Welcome aboard

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I'm using XPEnology for 2 and a half years and I've had that question for at least 3 or 4 times in my mind.

The community is quite strong and it always provided the right expectation (at least for me)

Worst case scenario that would happen is to have no bootloader developed for a long period of time, resulting in no security patches being delivered (inside the DSM). This can be tackled with firewall rules and NAT, in a very simple way.

 

So stay close and be an active player in the community :smile:

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Thanks Shnapps, I finally made my decision, I will go with xpenology.

Accidentally we have almost the same configuration, since I am building my nas on a ASRock q1900-itx; I only have 4 GB of ram that I think are quite enough for my needs.

Just out of curiosity, why are you using hyper-v? I may take your advices and use it too, if I need it, right now I can't see why :smile:

 

In the end, another question: what do we lose by using xpenology on a diy nas in place of buying a real synolgy rig? Are there some add-ons that can't work on it or is it exactly all the same? I may borrow a mac address and a sn from a real synology nas if it's the case, but I have not a clear idea what's that for.

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I just came from freenas to xpenology. I've got to say I like it a lot more than freenas. As I finally got it to work off network I'm very happy with it. I thought at one time of buying a synology box but I had a i3 with 8gb of ram and 2 2tb hard drives for my freenas box so this saves me from doing that. I wanted to thank everyone who posted on this site as I've used it to figure out how to set it up.

 

Sent from my SM-N920G using Tapatalk

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