Question on DIY NAS

[Enquiries]

Hello, I've started reading and watching your videos and they are detailed and great, thank you!
I had some questions.
My primary use case is backing up photos and videos from my phone, sharing them with friends and family globally. Also storage of my important documents, files, resumes, taxes, stuff like that.
Also, what I'd like to do is have my brother in another state have a NAS that we can back up to each other for catastrophic loss mitigation.
I do not anticipate streaming content from it, as I dont even quite understand how or why someone would do that. If not using a DVD/Blueray, nor Netflix/streaming platform, where and why would you stream content? Something illegally downloaded? I don't do that.

Looking for advice what sort of hardware you'd recommend focusing on VERY COTS products. Like a used Dell 3050 MT or XPS 8900 or something Dell/HP that can be bought used, cheap.
If i'm not editing and streaming videos, do I NEED SSD for chache?

[ed]

You're absolutely on the right track with something like a Dell Optiplex 3050 MT or XPS 8900. These systems are widely available, inexpensive, and well-suited for a home NAS. As long as the machine has:

A relatively modern CPU (Intel i3/i5 or AMD equivalent),

At least 8GB of RAM (more is better, especially if you want to run Docker or light VMs),

A few available SATA ports and physical space for drives,

And a reliable gigabit Ethernet port,

…it will serve you well as a NAS base.

Do You Need SSD Cache?

In your case, no—you don’t need SSD caching. SSDs are useful for improving performance in high-demand scenarios, like editing large media files or streaming multiple 4K videos at once. Since your primary use will be backup and file sharing (and not real-time editing or streaming), standard hard drives will be perfectly sufficient.

Storage Options

To achieve around 12TB of usable storage with redundancy, you have a couple of good options:

Two 12TB drives in RAID 1 (mirrored), giving you 12TB usable with one-drive failure protection.

Three 8TB drives in RAID 5, which would give you around 16TB usable with one-drive redundancy.

Both options are reasonable and depend on what drive deals you can find. Starting with two drives and expanding later is also perfectly fine.

Offsite Backup with Your Brother

Setting up offsite backup between you and your brother is an excellent idea for added protection. There are multiple ways to achieve this securely:

Use software like Syncthing or rsync combined with a VPN (such as Tailscale or Zerotier).

Many NAS operating systems support remote replication, which can be scheduled to run overnight or during off-peak hours.

This setup provides a low-maintenance way to keep both sides backed up in case of disaster.

A Note on Streaming

Thanks for your honesty in asking about streaming—it's a common question. In the context of NAS, "streaming" often means watching your own media (like home videos, or personally owned movie rips) on TVs, phones, or tablets from anywhere in the house or even remotely. It’s not necessarily tied to piracy; many use Plex, Jellyfin, or similar tools to create a personal media server. But if that’s not something you need, then your setup can stay simpler, with less demand on the hardware.