Chrispy_In terms of hardware these are very similar to the entry-level DS223J and DS423J. The MSRP of these is also very similar to those competing models, but having used TerraMaster's F5 NAS a year ago, I wouldn't want to pay Synology prices for TerraMaster's software.

This range needs something else to sell it - like an M.2 SSD slot or 2.5Gb networking, otherwise it needs to undercut Synology on price. The TerraMaster OS and web interface is okay, certainly usable enough but it's a long way behind both Synology and QNAP. I'm an enterprise QNAP user of both QuTS and QuTS Hero interfaces, and even though it's great, Synology DSM is still the best offering by a decent margin. It's a shame Synology are just total d*cks about disk, ssd and RAM compatibility!

TheLostSwedeWhen it comes to value for money, Asustor seem hard to beat. Not convinced about their software still, but they're getting there.

I'll stick to my DIY OMV NAS though, at least it's less chance of getting hacked, as it has no cloud services that I have no control over installed on it.

Chrispy_I should probably look at OMV for simple home network NASes, I use TrueNAS a bit (from back when it was called FreeNAS) but I've always thought it bit too much work for your average Joe at home.

TheLostSwedeYeah, the True/Free NAS people see, to be elitists as well that point out you need at least 32 GB of ECC memory for your ZFS pool so you don't get bit rot...

I'm sure bit rot can happen, but considering I've recovered data from half failed 15 plus year old floppy disks and the files that weren't corrupted due to the poor storage of the disks, didn't suffer from bit rot...

OMV looks pretty slick these days, it's obviously not super fancy, but as it's quite a basic NAS OS on its own, it doesn't need a super fance GUI.
Is it perfect, nah, but it does the job and it's regularly updated.

ymdhisI haven't checked OMV since at least 3-4 years, does it allow you to set up iscsi natively without needing legacy plugins? That was the deal breaker and why I had to go with truenas.

ymdhisI haven't checked OMV since at least 3-4 years, does it allow you to set up iscsi natively without needing legacy plugins? That was the deal breaker and why I had to go with truenas.

TheLostSwedeYeah, the True/Free NAS people see, to be elitists as well that point out you need at least 32 GB of ECC memory for your ZFS pool so you don't get bit rot...

I'm sure bit rot can happen, but considering I've recovered data from half failed 15 plus year old floppy disks and the files that weren't corrupted due to the poor storage of the disks, didn't suffer from bit rot...

OMV looks pretty slick these days, it's obviously not super fancy, but as it's quite a basic NAS OS on its own, it doesn't need a super fance GUI.
Is it perfect, nah, but it does the job and it's regularly updated.

Chrispy_It's actually been a while since I looked at homebrew NAS hardware and it's remarkably expensive/difficult to get a low-power mITX motherboard+CPU combo these days. For re-using old hardware that people would otherwise retire or throw out, something like TrueNAS or OMV looks great - but for something efficient and low-power there doesn't seem to be much. I kinda miss the days of cheap mITX boards with <5Watt Z-series Atoms soldered next to a SoDIMM slot and some SATA ports.

What is there to replace that these days, or is it a market segment that died for good?

TheLostSwedeLike this?
www.asus.com/motherboards-components/motherboards/prime/prime-n100i-d-d4/

Maybe not the ideal motherboard, due to the PCIe x1 and only one onboard SATA, but that's obviously just something cheap.
The issue is cases, not really motherboards. None of the low power mini-ITX boards have been good to build a NAS around though, as there have always been some stupid compromise.

I got a "proper" NAS case with four hot swappable drives and obviously went a bit crazy on the hardware side, but I had the CPU and RAM and wanted something I wouldn't have to upgrade for years to come.