I currently have a 10-year old off-the-shelf NAS (Synology) that needs replacing soon. I haven’t done much with it other than the simple things I mention later, so I still consider myself a novice when it comes to NAS, servers, and networking in general, but I’ve been reading a bit lately (which lead my to this sub). For a replacement I’m wondering whether to get another Synology, use an open source NAS/server OS, or just use a Windows PC. Windows is by far the OS I’m most comfortable with so I’m drawn to the final option. However, I regularly see articles and forum posts which frown upon the use Windows for NAS/server purposes even for simple home-use needs, although I can’t remember reading a good explanation of why. I’d be grateful for some explanations as to why Windows (desktop version) is a poor choice as an OS for a simple home NAS/server.
Some observations from me (please critique if any issues in my thinking):
- I initially assumed it was because Windows likely causes a high idle power consumption as its a large OS. But I recently measured the idle power consumption of a celeron-based mini PC running Windows and found it to be only 5W, which is lower than my Synology NAS when idle. It seems to me that any further power consumption savings that might be achieved by a smaller OS, or a more modern Synology, would be pretty negligible in terms of running costs.
- I can see a significant downside of Windows for DIY builds is the cost of Windows license. I wonder is this accounts for most of the critique of Windows? If I went the Windows route I wouldn’t do a DIY build. I would start with a PC which had a Windows OEM licence.
- My needs are very simple (although I think probably represent a majority of home user needs). I need device which is accessible 24/7 on my home network and 1) can provide SMB files shares, 2) act as a target for backing up other devices on home network, 3) run cloud backup software (to back itself up to an off-site backup location) and, 4) run a media server (such as Plex), 5) provide 1-drive redundancy via RAID or a RAID-like solution (such as Windows Storage Spaces). It seems to me Windows is fine for this and people who frown upon Windows for NAS/server usage probably have more advanced needs.
Never been a better time to try Linux. Ubuntu is pretty easy to get started with (download and setup a bootable USB, stick it and go) and ChatGPT is extremely good about walking you through any questions. You don’t even need to ask highly technical questions, just tell it your goal and your system.
“I just installed Ubuntu 22.04 on my computer and want to SSH into it from a Windows computer on my network, how do I do that?”
“I want to download a file from my Ubuntu command line, how do I do that?”
“I want to setup a share that both Windows and Linux computers can access over my network, how do I do that?”
“I have a github action runner provided by github that includes a run.sh file that needs to run constantly. I want to setup as a background service on my Ubuntu Linux computer so it will always be running as long as the computer is on, how can I do that?”
It will spit out every command line you need in what order, contents of a .service file, tell you how to monitor it, and so on. You can ask it what each line does, what the parameters mean, etc. It’s like having a mid-level sys admin at your fingertips. It will interpret any errors you get, and tell you how to fix them.
Perfect? Maybe not, but its close for a remarkable variety of tasks. It may be, and I’m not joking, 20 times more productive and time efficient than Google searches, reading stackoverflow posts, reading documentations/man pages and trying to decipher what you really need out of any of those sources.
I’m sure some are too paranoid to ask ChatGPT certain things for privacy reasons, and I would anonymize anything you paste in, probably just be a bit mindful of anything involving permissions (you can also ask what security risks exist doing something). Just normal ChatGP3.5 (free) is extremely knowledgeable about Linux CLI and administration along with common packages and apps you’d want to use.
For server:
docker is linux in a jailed namespace (network, filesystem, process tree, etc jail)
Docker hosted on linux is efficient.
Docket hosted on anything else less so.For me, #1 is license costs. I’ve taken home some servers which would require me to buy 4+ windows server licenses because 16 physical cores is a number for entry-level servers at this point. For the cost of those licenses, I could almost buy a new server with a similar amount of cores every single year.
Second, the brand new filesystem, ReFS, (which needs licenses), has just about caught up to what ZFS had in 2005. The biggest omission is that 2005 ZFS could be your root filesystem. This is less important on *nix systems where your root can be tiny, but windows insists on storing tons of stuff on C, which still needs to be NTFS. ZFS also has 22 years of production testing and still has lots of development.
Third, I want to use containers, and windows uses a Linux VM to do that, so why not skip the middle man?
SMB only (There is/was a way to make Windows do NFS, but it sucked.)
License cost. The desktop versions of windows (used to?) have a limit on concurrent SMB sessions in order to force users to buy the server version and pay for CALs. No idea how any of that works now.
NTFS is kind of a shitty filesystem.
Limited (native) backup options. No tape support, for example.
Management effectively requires GUI access.
No native way to mirror the OS drive in software. You need either a hardware RAID card (LSI, etc.) or that stupid Intel BIOS RAID thing.
These may or may not be issues for OP, but they are issues for many.
Lots of great responses here, I won’t reiterate what everyone has already explained. The big benefits imo are redundancy using better file systems like ZFS (Truenas) or BTRFS (Synology, unraid), and in general better management of the drives, and data stored on them. These appliances support more robust raid configs as well, so you have a lot less risk losing data. The other big one is simplicity for what you need it to do. Creating an SMB share on a PC using windows isn’t hard, but it’s not nearly as simple as the 3 clicks it takes on the purpose built OS. These OSs also usually have built in solutions for hosting any other apps you may also want to play with. That’s just my two cents.
I sit in r/datahoarder a lot and the general consensus is that BTRFS is unstable and should not be used, and instead people should use EXT4 or ideally ZFS. I know ZFS is the gold standard and expected to be more resource intensive and RAM hungry. Can you shed some light on why you’d use BTRFS?
I am by no means an expert, mostly a home tinkerer with a Plex server. I use BTRFS because my Synology supports it and I use ZFS on my Truenas box. I also use SHR with my Synology so BTRFS makes adding and upgrading drives really flexible as my media library grows. BTRFS and ZFS are very feature rich, as you mentioned ZFS is very RAM hungry which can be a limitation for people just looking to get into the server space on a budget. I think the instability of BTRFS comes from the way it stores data, it can get very fragmented. EXT4 in comparison is pretty boring but it works well and if you’re just writing data to store it you might not need the features and overhead of the other file systems. Personally I have no real preference, I like my Synology and I like my Truenas machine and as a hobbyist they both serve me well, and I would take either over NTFS for a storage appliance.
You could run desktop Windows but if you get the Pro version then you can RDP into from your desktop/laptop. It makes administering it very easy, like working on it locally. .
Personally, I run Ubuntu Server (took a little learning) which I choose to run on Proxmox. You can just run on bare metal. I then just install the media-related packages I use : plex, Sonarr, radarr, SAbnzbd etc
I always recommend windows to people who want a home server that’s easy to maintain. Homelabbing is more about learning and trying new things out.
A nuc with a nice size external can do a lot and they come with windows not to mention it can run fine free. A lot of the services people run are all using mono to run the windows app. Anyone who has used Windows can install an exe but not anyone is willing to use command line in Linux.
Home server and self hosted are more focused on what you’re looking for.
The S in NAS refers to storage and storage requires being able to use multiple drives together as a single disk. Windows doesn’t work well for this primary NAS use case.
There are a lot of good responses here that I won’t reiterate. I will say that, in my own personal and professional experience, Linux simply is a far better server OS than any Windows OS.
That said, use what works for you. If you are experienced and comfortable with Windows, and aren’t too keen on climbing the Linux learning curve, then by all means use Windows.
My only suggestion would be to use Windows Pro (for RDP), or find a Server Standard license for sale at less than retail.
Client and server Windows are very similar since Server 2008. A client Windows has many limitations which are mostly non issues for home use.
The biggest annoyance for me is the update mechanism and how they tried to enforce it more on newer versions and even started crippling the Professional version in many ways. For some time I even felt the need to have a WSUS setup at home.
Many might also be tempted to run their Windows as kind of mainframe, like a jack of all trades. Virtualization, even in pure Windows environments, opens a lot of possibilities. If something sounds complicated in Windows, just setup a specialized VM to do it. Not that Windows can’t do something, but other tools might be more suitable for people that don’t work with Windows Server day to day. Like, I would never build a firewall with Windows, even though it is possible.
If you want, you could try Openmediavault. It is a very simple and clean os for Nas functionality, based on debian. It has simple plugins to use the basic functions, but you can install anything on it in docker. There are great tutorials online.
The cost of Windows Server is basically zero with https://github.com/massgravel/Microsoft-Activation-Scripts . Yes. It can be used to activate Windows Server 2022.
Windows Server 2022 is basically another full desktop. There is no comparison to RDP in the Linux world.
The thing missing is Synology’s SHR raid. But you can use DrivePool I guess.
All those concerns over resource overhead are useless, unless you want to use a very weak computer. Windows Server is extremely fast with modern day computer.
Too bloated, too unstable, too insecure.
Will just reboot all the time and whore memory. Way more susceptible to malware.
Windows reboots randomly and updates whenever it wants. More prone to viruses or other windows issues
Windows has a lot of overhead. It also doesn’t have the capability to run common NAS filesystems like ZFS (to my knowledge) which adds good redundancy and performance increases. If you really wanted to run a Windows file server, you could look at Windows server as it’s built more for the task but you’d run the risk of running an unlicensed Windows Server product which Microsoft doesn’t like.
My advice would be to keep what you have currently and build something, probably virtually, that runs on a common Linux NAS OS like TrueNAS and see how you like it. Once you install TrueNAS, you don’t have to manage it from a shell if you don’t want to. It has a very nice web GUI.