My Synology Setup
I’ve been using Synology for the past year, and during this time it’s become the center of my home computing. I’m still discovering new use cases, so I’ll keep this post updated. Today, I want to share how I ended up with this setup - the how and why. Here are the main things I use my NAS for: Media Server - My Synology stores and serves my entire collection of movies, TV shows, and music. Using Plex, I can stream this content to any device, creating a personalized Netflix-like experience. Usenet / Torrent Client - I have the standard *ARR stack setup for managing my media library. I can’t recommend it enough. This suite of apps is a crown jewel of the entire setup. HomeBridge - HomeBridge allows me to integrate non-HomeKit devices into my Apple HomeKit setup. Time Machine Backup Destination - My Synology serves as a Time Machine backup destination for all my Macs. This is a major improvement over manually connecting external HDDs. DNS Server - I run AdGuard Home on my Synology as a DNS server. Similar to Pi-hole, it blocks ads across all devices on my network. You can read more about it here. Personal Cloud Storage - While I use iCloud for critical documents, my Synology acts as a personal cloud for miscellaneous files. It’s a great way to keep less important documents accessible without cluttering my primary cloud storage. In the following sections, I’ll dive deeper into this setup, providing a high-level overview and sharing useful resources that have helped me create this system. ...