+++
title = "A desktop AND a NAS?"
author = ["Michał Sapka"]
date = 2024-08-31T21:05:00+02:00
categories = ["blog"]
draft = false
weight = 2001
image_dir = "blog/images"
image_max_width = 600
abstract = "How many computers does one need?"
+++

I've been using a Synology NAS for a few years now.
It served me well, but I never liked the UI... nor the lack of ZFS.

With the coming of autumn (which can't come soon enough) I am starting to prepare to build a desktop for myself.
I don't really need it, but I've never done it before.
Somehow I always had someone to do it for me, and then the era of notebooks came upon us.

But this makes me think if I still need a NAS?
My Synology just sits in the corner and serves movies to TV and backups photos.
None of this requires a 24/7 on device, and serving movies in 2024 is pretty taxing on the little fella.
Too taxing, since transcoding a 10 bit HEVC monster in real time is impossible.
Having a dedicated GPU for that would solve this pickle, so I'd install Jellyfin on my new desktop either way.

I also don't have that many hard drives - just 4, plus 2 SSDs for cache.
Any decent non-gamer oriented case should accommodate that.
I'd need one that **also** fits a recent Radeon, as Baldur 3 seems to be a must-play for me.
I don't care about big AAA games, so except of BG3, I'd most likely mostly play whatever [Adventure Gamers](https://adventuregamers.com/) rates high.

How dumb idea is this?
Are there any downsides?
I have no idea!

I would not be able to run things like photo gallery for my family, but I could relegate a Raspberry Pi just for this.
We are currently using Apple something-something, so it's also not the case where anyone can access all the photos.
Or I could go crazy with it, and get myself a tiny PC and treat is firewall (about which I've been thinking for some time) and make it the actual computational server.
Just decouple the storage.