I couldn't sleep recently.... And so I bought my first NAS.... That's normal... isn't it? 
I'm a Noob in the extreme in this case.... I received the NAS today and have not even powered it on...
So my initial choice... For better or worse was a Synology DiskStation DS223 2-Bay NAS.
Separate to my choice of NAS, I am mostly interested in what people use their NAS for and in particular if there are any HE-specific use-cases people have found.
For my own setup, I literally went at the low-end and purchased Synology's entry level model, deciding to take a very cautionary approach and seeing where it takes me. As always, I have only watched the many instructional YT clips after purchase, many from NAS Compares, and am mostly still happy with my choice in this case.
Separate to automation and HE use-cases, I am particularly interested in peoples choices when it comes to moving away (or not) from cloud services like Google Drive / Photos, etc.
This does look to be a broad and deep hole I have entered..... Hehe....
Bring it on....
Good questions to ask no matter if you make sound purchasing decisions haha. I’ll be interested in what people have to say here too.
I have mostly seen people use their NAS on HE to run Homebridge and store local files for HE access, if they don’t have another always-on computer option. I choose run my Homebridge server on my always-on Mac Mini rather than my NAS tho, since I keep my Mac Mini always on for other reasons. I believe I have some local files on my NAS that my HE hub accesses, like avatar pics, sound files, background images, etc.
As far as backup goes, be careful of only local backup on your NAS despite the new toy. You’d be advised to keep an offsite backup, cloud or otherwise, and your Synology has great tools for that. I still do a Hyper Backup to the cloud with my Synology NAS. The Hyper nature of it means it is a true backup (not just a file sync) and the offsite nature of it guards against local disaster (eg fire).
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Mainly basic storage for me -> photo and music libraries; docker containers for Node Red, Grafana, Echo Speaks, etc.; hub, phone & laptop backups, NTP, etc.
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@JustinL and @thebearmay - Basically, me too.... (that's back to it's original meaning isn't it?)
Personaly I am hoping the "personal cloud" features, plus the backup features, these combined will force me into more appropriate practices in these spaces.
Node Red, Scrypted, Homebridge, PC back up, all photo storage, my old ripped DVDs/CDs and as an NVR for my home IP cameras. I have the DS218+ upgraded to 8GB RAM (big improvement). The phone apps are a little dated but functional, the NAS has been rock solid.
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I have enough RPi's that Docker support and the related apps that may or may not be supported are less important for me....
I have a QNAP TS-832PXU-RP. The closest I come to using it near hubitat is having HA running on a container and storage from camect...
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My first NAS was also a 200 series from Synology...
In my personal opinion, the Synology software is what really sells the boxes... however some of the NAS devices from Synology are really under powered. (CPU and memory).
I use it as a surveillance storage (NVR). You can use up to 2 free cameras in surveillance station, and it's a robust, useful tool for recording.
I use my NAS for Echo Speaks (to drive Alexa devices), to store videos, to store surveillance, to store backups across my network, to store a business database (SMB, via BTRFS), etc.
PiHole, AdGuard, Plex (or Jellyfin), Surveillance Station, etc. are all awaiting you...
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Hi, my first NAS I only used for storage but when that started to develop issues after ten years I got a more highend (DS923+) and added some RAM. Running containers for HA, MSR, InfluxDB, Grafana and more on it, doing away with multiple PI's. Runs like a charm.
Cheers Rene
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Other than plex and storage in my qnaps.
Open speedtest in docker to test your local network infrastructure.
Also related iperf3.
Minim server to stream all my music.
For hubitat echo speaks also in docker.
Windows virtual server as well.
Qnap for backup of all computers, proxmox, HE, HA and pictures from family members syncing from Google photos.
Only thing I have Qnap to HA/HE: monitoring cpu temp, memory and storage.
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Mine has gone through a variety of changes over the years. But has changed allot over time.
When I first built it I used a Windows Home Server v1 on a HP EX485 Micro Server. It was really just a storage server with some windows software loaded to help it deal with media content. That evolved to WHS 2011 on a custom built solution. Because of limitations with Windows Home server and how software was managed on it, it was primarily just used for storage of Media while other systems access it. This is when I started to heavily lean on Plex in stead of media center and subsonic to manage media content. I also had many other computers at home.
WHS was discontinued by MS and has now been EOL for a while. Before that happened i migrated to Unraid as my NAS is of choice. It can do containers like docker as well as Virtual machines. In docker I have Plex(media/TV management), Telegraph(performance data collection), InfluxDB(Time Series DB), DuckDNS(Dynamic DNS), Scrypted(Server Automation), Sanoid(Data replication), Grafana(Visualization tool), Motion eye( Private NVR). unRAID also allows me to run a VPN back to my home. For VM's I generally have a HA VM to experiement with and a Desktop VM for more rubust desktop tasks my now old pixel slate can't do well. I actually have two Unraid servers one as a big do anything box, and then a mini PC. The big do anything box is pretty much overkill for anything it has a Ryzen 5950x and 128GB of ram while the Mini PC is a CWWK N305 4x2.5GB system with 32GB of ram. It also has a carrier board to run 4 NVME drives for a total of 5 in the system. both have the same docker apps on as they are backups to each other. Generally speaking though I run everything from the MINI PC to save power. The Big box can use over 100watts idling easily vs the 12-15 of the minipc.
If all you want is storage you really don't need much. You could even use a RAspberry pi with a good case to do it.
It really all comes down to what you want to do with it. That may change over time as well. I know mine has.
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Currently i've got container manager running, echo speaks, home assistant (only to interface the 2 screens that don't have a Hubitat app/driver, since I have no idea how to write one I went the easy way), owntracks (recorder & Front end), Vaultwarden, and Audio bookshelf. I am also running Synology photos for backups direct from my phone, as well as Synology Videos and Synology Audio to stream my Video and Audio files (my own personal netflix and spotify)
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I use my NAS to cleanly shutdown my HE hubs prior to a power outage.
My network rack (which includes my Synology DS918+ and HE hubs) is protected by a rack mount UPS, connected via USB to the NAS. This of course, shuts down the NAS before the UPS battery runs dry.
What I didn't know until half a year or so ago, is that the NAS implements a NUT server. NUT is a protocol that supports, among other things, UPS devices. There's a driver for HE that allows it to be a NUT client, whereby it can receive various messages from a UPS and react to them.
In the NAS control panel, under Hardware & Power, on the UPS tab, check "Enable Network UPS Server", and in the "Permitted Diskstation Devices" add the IP addresses of your HE hubs.
Then on each of your hubs. install the driver using the instructions found here:
[RELEASE] Network UPS Tools (NUT) monitor and shutdown controller (upsmon) - 
Developers / Code Share - Hubitat
Now, on an extended power outage your hubs will shut down gracefully courtesy of the NUT server on the NAS.
Also, a few docker containers for the Echo Speaks server, node red, etc.
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DS218+ here. I'm running Node-Red and Pi-Hole, other than that I back up my GDrive and OneDrive accounts to it and the picture taken on my phone.
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I bought an Asustor NAS with dual hard drives in mirror configuration. I have cloud accounts with Dropbox, Microsoft One Drive, and Google Drive. All of those accounts are stored locally on the NAS as well as the cloud.
Since most NAS devices are based around a Linux computer, they are capable of running various applications such as PLEX. Each specific NAS brand and model will have a set of supported apps. Check the Synology website to see which apps are supported on your model.
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Pretty much just Tailscale on a Linux VM (much easier than containers for me) used for getting my video/image tiles working on HD+ when I'm away from home.
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I wondered what they were referring to when talking about USB ports and UPS'.... Will give this a go at some point... Thanks.
At least in my case I was referring to the method used for most consumer UPS devices to talk to their connected computer. At least for APC most consumer or prosumer UPS devices included a cable that goes from Ethernet or serial to USB now for connectivity to the host computer. That is what the computer uses to know the state of the UPS device, and then in many os's a APCUPSD dameon is available to pull batter state externally kind of like the nut service. This is why a NAS with USB port can connect and provide battery data to Hubitat.
Allot of server grade gear will include a controller that actually has an Ethernet port and connect to a LAN. In those cases you can probably use the NUT driver to directly communicate.
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Yeah, I have two APC UPS' and currently connect them via USB to both a rpi and my mini PC (Windows), using two separate drivers on HE to receive the data.
