My main hesitation with a prebuilt NAS is having to use a separate app to access the media (TV shows, movies) on my AppleTVs. I sometimes use Windows for gaming and work, so the solution would need to be accessible to a Windows PC.
I am primarily an Apple user with 1 iMac as main computer, an iPhone, MacBook Pro and several AppleTVs and HomePods across the house.
SSD NAS FOR MAC MINI ARCHIVE
With the NAS, I would convert and tag on my iMac and copy the files over afterwards (slower).Ģ- Store backups (Time Machine, System images and other files I archive manually)ģ- Store my Apple Music library (formerly iTunes) This requires me to convert and tag the video files on a computer before copying to the storage solution, which the Mac mini would do wonderfully. I currently use the native Apple apps for this ( TV.app on my Mac holds the library and I access it on the AppleTV by going to the "Computers" app using HomeSharing. I also don't want to deal with the vibration and fragility of HDDs.ġ- Store archived and downloaded movies and TV series (H.264 & H.265 format) for streaming on my AppleTV 4K. The alternative I am considering is getting a M1 Mac Mini that I would use as a file server, with an external Thunderbolt 4-bay enclosure.Įither solution would be populated by 4 or 5 2TB SSDs since I don't need obscene amounts of storage and want something small and as silent as possible. However, I am not 100% convinced this is the way for me and would like to read some of your input.
I want to build a home storage solution for my needs and I keep hearing good things about NAS solutions (Synology in particular).