Happy to help, though might I suggest you get 4 bay version of the NAS instead of the 2 bay version (if your budget allows it). I speak from experience in this where storage space required tends to grow quicker than anything else, and you may outgrow a 2 bay NAS quickly. This is especially true if you’re running any type of raid array.

You’ll also want to get a UPS to help avoid data corruption on power failures. Even if your power goes out indefinitely, doing a proper shutdown can help prevent data failure. You can see the responses I recieved asking for help on this topic here: https://lemmy.world/post/158974

I wish you luck in this endeavor.

What are you looking to host?

You should have a general idea on what you wish to accomplish to determine which solution is better.

Yeah, I’m amazed I haven’t had a need to upgrade yet.

It absolutely is viable. I do so myself. There’s pros and cons to this.

The cost of hardware is more because you have more pieces, you probably need a decent shelf to hold everything (check the local thrift stores for old home theater stands, they work great), and it may add latency for some things where they interact together.

The hardware modularity of it is really nice though. It’s kinda nice not having to worry about losing all your data if you need to reinstall everything on the server. And it gives you the ability to update in smaller pieces rather than all at once.

That being said, a NAS itself generally isn’t all that good at transcoding Plex. Most entry level NAS’s ($200-$300 range) can only transcode a few streams at a time. However you might not use transcoding all that much anyway if you store media on it in a playable format.

I’ve personally only ever used Synology, and they’re not bad, but they’ve been doing a few anticonsumer practices in more recent years that makes me want to get away from them. They’re really easy to set up though, so it’s not a bad option starting out.

If you’re going to go this route, I’d host Nextcloud on the NAS as well as your Plex media, then mount the share on your server so that your server can do transcoding while you’re NAS does bulk storage. Everything else could be hosted on the server

Considering you’re starting from square one though, it may be better to just buy a beefier NAS, and then get a server as your needs expand. Especially if you don’t plan on sharing Plex or Nextcloud with a bunch of people outside your home at this time.

I personally just use an old desktop (4th gen i7, yeah that old) and a NAS (mostly for bulk storage seperated from the server). The device you listed is probably more than enough to handle everything, unless you’re sharing Nextcloud and/or Plex with a bunch of people.

Have you looked into an actual NAS rather than a mini-pc though? It’ll give you more storage upgradeability over a mini-pc, and a quality NAS could probably host everything.

I would also consider buying used, especially first starting out. You can save some money buying a model year or two older hardware for decent savings.

I don’t think an additional UPS is really necessary here. I do have switches to other parts of my network, but they’re just for TVs and game consoles, so I don’t really think a UPS is needed there.

It’s mostly a failsafe so I can poweroff my NAS properly rather than corrupting data. Since my server and router are on the same power strip, it makes sense that they’re all on the UPS since they’re the 3 main items interacting with each other.

Something with NUT as boothin@kbin.social mentioned might be a good option so it can send alerts when it’s activated. I’ll have to research that more.

Edit: figured out how to mention other users.