I currently have a 10-year old off-the-shelf NAS (Synology) that needs replacing soon. I haven’t done much with it other than the simple things I mention later, so I still consider myself a novice when it comes to NAS, servers, and networking in general, but I’ve been reading a bit lately (which lead my to this sub). For a replacement I’m wondering whether to get another Synology, use an open source NAS/server OS, or just use a Windows PC. Windows is by far the OS I’m most comfortable with so I’m drawn to the final option. However, I regularly see articles and forum posts which frown upon the use Windows for NAS/server purposes even for simple home-use needs, although I can’t remember reading a good explanation of why. I’d be grateful for some explanations as to why Windows (desktop version) is a poor choice as an OS for a simple home NAS/server.
Some observations from me (please critique if any issues in my thinking):
- I initially assumed it was because Windows likely causes a high idle power consumption as its a large OS. But I recently measured the idle power consumption of a celeron-based mini PC running Windows and found it to be only 5W, which is lower than my Synology NAS when idle. It seems to me that any further power consumption savings that might be achieved by a smaller OS, or a more modern Synology, would be pretty negligible in terms of running costs.
- I can see a significant downside of Windows for DIY builds is the cost of Windows license. I wonder is this accounts for most of the critique of Windows? If I went the Windows route I wouldn’t do a DIY build. I would start with a PC which had a Windows OEM licence.
- My needs are very simple (although I think probably represent a majority of home user needs). I need device which is accessible 24/7 on my home network and 1) can provide SMB files shares, 2) act as a target for backing up other devices on home network, 3) run cloud backup software (to back itself up to an off-site backup location) and, 4) run a media server (such as Plex), 5) provide 1-drive redundancy via RAID or a RAID-like solution (such as Windows Storage Spaces). It seems to me Windows is fine for this and people who frown upon Windows for NAS/server usage probably have more advanced needs.
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Windows bad. Linux good. BSD better.
For real though. Windows cost money, it uses a lot of resources. And Desktop Version is missing vital parts you might want to use on a windows server like Domain Controller, DHCP, Server, Web Server, Hyper-V. Etc.
Those reasons also have most running Limix or even BSD because they are pretty lightweight especially when used headless. Also as open source they are mostly free of cost. And when you virtualize on a free and open source Hypervisor like XCP-ng or Proxmox you can run way more smaller VMs than Windows VMs as they need more resources.
Not that I encourage it, but home users seldom pay MSRP for Windows licenses or at all. Getting around the licensing while ridiculously unlikely to get you busted is a hassle.
The answer is there’s just better options you can install on top of Linux or BSD that are easier to manage, a better experience (nice web panels and not an RDP GUI or clunky thick client) and they have 0 licensing concerns to pay or work around.
I wouldn’t host a share directly from the Linux CLI for some reason I always found this to be kind of a pain but it works, there’s easy solutions like TrueNAS or OpenMediaVault, container based options and you can take the cowards way out with Portainer (that’s what I do) to run tons of really lightweight services.
Windows is fine just not the best unless you’re doing something that works better or needs it
You could use windows fine I am sure. It is just the majority of us have other things we like to run and there all developed for Linux or Docker. The other reason people go away from Windows is it uses more RAM and CPU, you are doing so little that it isn’t really that big of an issue for you. If you decide to add anything else or run docker, you will probably see why the majority go with Linux, because you will run into issues.
If you run only system resources, or task manager, or whatever windows is calling their resource manager these days to monitor CPU, right next to a headless debian server running only htop you will straight up see the answer to your question.
That, is overhead.
Windows storage spaces performance is far lower than what you get with Linux MD options. SMB in Windows performs better than in Linux, but over all my basic synology box shares files MUCH better than I could ever achieve with Windows. If you have 1gbps it doesn’t really matter but it’s much more important when you use 2.5-25 gbps networking. A windows Desktop also has a much wider attack surface than a specialized NAS appliance / hardened Linus server. It is so much easier to be safe with a Linux server. Lastly docker is a Lifesaver for the homelab vs local installations. The isolation is just amazing when you want to add a New app, get rid of an old one, or do an upgrade of an existing one.
Forced updates and forced restarts. If you want a server that’s available 24/4 that’s a no no.
That’s what did it for me. I started my selfhosting journey on a Windows 10 machine, I stalled Docker on it and all of my containers. Every time Windows forced an update and auto reset, I had to manually go back in, log in, spin up Docker again and every container (I now know that a lot of this can be automated but it’s a lot easier to manage a Linux server now). Plus the system requirements are significantly less. The Windows OS alone takes up a chunk of your storage and RAM right off the bat.
I do have one Windows server VM because I enjoy the file system, and it doesn’t do forced resets, but most of my infrastructure is made up of Linux VMs on bare metal Proxmox machines.
Desktop editions of Windows can be used for a simple home NAS. However, it doesn’t have a lot of advanced features supporting that use-case. Once you have a NAS, all of your digital data tends to end on it, which makes it a very critical system. Desktop Windows has one significant advantage, that you can run Backblaze personal computer unlimited backup on it to secure a backup of your critical and non-critical data in case of a disaster. On the down-side, there are no good RAID-features available for desktop Windows, making your data very vulnerable to drive failures, which are quite common. I personally prefer to run a homeNAS on something supporting the ZFS file system, such as Linux with OpenZFS or TrueNAS,but it is very important to choose a system based on your own skills, so you are able to set it up and manage it safely.
I’ve run a NAS from Windows Pro (and still do, unfortunately). I also have a server running TrueNAS scale and another running Linux Mint for NAS. My TrueNAS and Linux Mint servers are much better at reliability and uptime. The Windows server has reboots often and sometimes services don’t seem to launch before login. This could be due to configuration issues but it’s harder to find resources since very few people use it like this. I only have it for backing up family photos to Backblaze for $7 unlimited plan. If Backblaze offered this on Linux I’d leave in an instant. Also, ZFS is a lot better than storage spaces.
Limited connections to smb to and from. License violation. Etc etc
I use windows, and its great.
Too bloated, too unstable, too insecure.
Will just reboot all the time and whore memory. Way more susceptible to malware.
I’ve used windows 10 for servers, was fine honestly
Windows has a lot of overhead. It also doesn’t have the capability to run common NAS filesystems like ZFS (to my knowledge) which adds good redundancy and performance increases. If you really wanted to run a Windows file server, you could look at Windows server as it’s built more for the task but you’d run the risk of running an unlicensed Windows Server product which Microsoft doesn’t like.
My advice would be to keep what you have currently and build something, probably virtually, that runs on a common Linux NAS OS like TrueNAS and see how you like it. Once you install TrueNAS, you don’t have to manage it from a shell if you don’t want to. It has a very nice web GUI.