April 2025

Serving Academic: The Synology DS923+ Server

Well, I have done it now.

I’m now that girl who sends files with an unfortunate and ugly long link – but its my link. There are none like it, and it is my own!

A few years back I landed a tech internship as a grad student and decided to take the plunge into the world of self-hosting by purchasing a Network-Attached Storage (NAS) unit. Essentially your own “cloud”, akin to Google Drive or iCloud. NAS’ had been in my world for many years before it, but the price and the lack of software infrastructure always made me scared to take the plunge and offload my world onto one device. I have always been adamant about owning your own data and doing whatever we can to ensure our tech is owned by us, private, and secure. Having all of my most valuable documents and precious photos on a server in California(?) held hostage by an ever-increasing yet arbitray cost never sat right with me. But, having a series of external hard drives stack up in my closet was not chic.

With Synology’s excellent, robust, and well-tested software offerings plus the rising cost of cloud storage felt like the perfect storm to try out the NAS life.

So, What’s the Point? Is This Just for Tech Enthusiasts?

Perhaps a decade ago, yes, but now absolutely not! With the current landscape of NAS’, you can purchase, setup, and start using your new NAS in less than 15 minutes. Yes, it will take more time to upload everything onto the NAS, but that’s just how transfer speeds go nowadays! So, if the system is easy to set up, what is so special about having a really big hard drive? Good question, here are some use cases to consider!

1. 1. It’s your very own personal cloud! Yep, just like Google Drive or iCloud, a NAS can be accessed wirelessly, which means all of your files/photos/movies available on any internet-connected device. For us non-Apple users, using a NAS also means access to all your files seamlessly across your phone, tablet, and laptops!
   2. Media Streaming. I personally use Plex, but there are plenty others. Whether it is home movies, your MP3 collection, or a full library of every movie and TV show your heart desires you can self-host your own Netflix clone! Plus, no monthly fees!
   3. Host an ad-blocker! Ever heard of a PiHole? You can block ads coming through your WiFi network.
   4. Host your own mail server. Ever get pissed that Google is churning through your emails to train its machine learning models? Well, hosting your own email takes care of that.
   5. Have a personal website? Self host!
   6. Do you have a Ring or other home security camera? You can buy your own cameras and use Synology’s software to manage and store the footage!
   7. Host a videogame server! This surprised me, but some people host a Minecraft or Valheim server to play with friends!
   8. Google Docs? Yep, we have an alternative too. Synology has a suite of Office clone software complete with collaboration tools. It’s way better than Office 365, but not quite as seamless as Google Docs.

Many of these are accessible via Docker, which allows your to host instances of software through your server. Because of this, the breadth of what can be done with a NAS is really endless. People host their 3D printing software, Wiki pages, and more! Any use case you have, just do a quick search and you’ll quickly find out if you can move it over to your server. This is my favorite review that convinced me to finally purchase and setup the system.

Okay, But How Much Does it Cost?

The Synology 923+ NAS was purchased for $600 and two 16TB hard drives were $300/ea for a total of $1200 US. Note that you have to buy double the storage as NAS’ use RAID backup systems, essentially meaning it keeps a redundant backup of all your data, hence the need for double the hard drives.

Yikes! That is a huge up-front cost. While I made the purchase when I landed a tech internship, this is easily over a month’s rent on a grad student budget, so what’s the rationale? Here are a few services that could be replaced by your NAS:

• • Zotero: $20-$120/year or $1.67-$10/month (see my write-up on how to do it here)
  • Google Drive: $2-$10/month (100GB-2TB)
  • Apple iCloud: $1-$11/month (50GB-2TB)
  • Streaming Services: $18/month (Netflix); $19/month (Hulu); $9/month (Amazon Prime); $10/month (Apple); $17/month (Max); $16/month (Disney+); $13/month (Paramount+); $14/month (Peacock); $12/month (ESPN+)
  • Website Hosting: $9-$20/month
  • Home Surveillance System: $5-$20/month (Ring)

Will you replace all of these services with what I have listed above? Probably not, but even if you pick one or two, the $1200 system pays itself off in a few years. More importantly, you won’t be subject to price hikes, data breaches, or have someone else own your most precious documents. Google Photos used to provide unlimited storage, streaming services have nearly doubled in monthly cost, iCloud has been the subject of data breaches, and there is not expectation things will get cheaper or more secure in our current political environment.

Whether it is about the principle of owning your own data or frustration about having no say in your paid services (“Netflix took down my comfort show :'(“) or simply wanting one place to store your photos and your movies, having a NAS is a sound investment in your digital future.

How’s the Server Life?

This is a tougher question to answer than I originally anticipated. While services like QuickConnect are convenient, they have opaque effects on connection speeds that I am too lazy to diagnose or fix. Also, when the server goes down, there is really nothing you can do about it unless you have someone nearby. So, power outages are particularly rough, especially if you live alone. I haven’t gotten 4K streaming to work flawlessly yet, but am looking into it.

There are quirks, but ultimately I am so happy with the system! The Synology ecosystem is excellent and easy to use. It doesn’t take an IT certificate to get the system up and running and doing 90% of what you need to get done. There is also no replacement for the relief that having my phone constantly backing itself up to my server provides. If I can smooth out media streaming and website hosting, it will truly be a perfect system.

But, it doesn’t need to be perfect. My data and files and photos are my own and the system has already paid itself off for me! That peace of mind was well worth the money.