Appropriate Storage Solution for my use case

[Enquiries]

Dear NASCompares

Thank you for your great work to the NAS community. I have recently came across your channel and they are all but excellent content on NAS.

My use cases are as follow:
1. Back up two iPhone backup data (256GB x2)
2. Back up with remote access to ever growing photo library for my kids (1TB atm, growing ~50GB per year)
3. Store and remove access to kids media including story sound tracks, pictures, videos (3TB atm, growing ~ 200GB per year)

Interested in DS923+ because of the new CPU and I don't plan on setting up a Plex (unless necessary to play back those kids videos/sound tracks/images via hardware transcoding?). I am interested to explore Dockers/VMs but I spent hours looking at some use cases and at this point, just don't feel I have a real need for this.

I'd prefer 4-bay for future upgradeability but looking at my storage growth, I might as well buy 2-bay now and a different model in the next upgrade cycle.

Advice would be appreciated. Thanks!

[ed]

Hello there!

Thanks for reaching out and for your kind words about our content. We're thrilled to hear that you find our channel valuable!

Considering your use cases, the Synology DS923+ seems to be a great choice for your needs. It's well-suited for local usage, and it also supports remote access for videos up to 1080p quality, which should be sufficient for your requirements. However, if you have any plans of upgrading to 4K content in the future, you might want to consider the Synology DS423+, which provides more power and capacity.

Since you're not planning to set up Plex at this time, the DS923+ should serve you well. It's a versatile NAS that can handle your backup needs, provide remote access, and store your growing media library.

As for the 4-bay vs. 2-bay consideration, given your current storage growth rate, starting with a 2-bay now and upgrading to a different model in the next cycle is a reasonable strategy. It provides you with the flexibility to adapt to your changing needs without overcommitting on capacity initially.

If you have any more questions or need further advice, feel free to ask. We're here to help you find the best solution for your NAS setup!