Selecting my hardware

#homelab

November 28, 2025

I’m going on paternity leave during Q1 2026 and I’m thinking about starting a new project: ditching streaming services in favor of my own media server, which I could also repurpose for other things.

I began by exploring the ecosystem and quickly narrowed it down to two main options: Plex and Jellyfin. That, in turn, created the need for buying a dedicated NAS (or similar device), which opened up a whole set of purchase decisions.

Hardware Alternatives

As for my hardware alternatives I’ve evaluated two:

Option 1 - Synology ds425

An out of the box solution with a NAS server and 32T (4x8T) HDD for about ~1,460.57€

Option 2 - DIY NAS: 2026 Edition

I following this guide to the letter, my purchase options are:

  1. AliExpress – Fan, case and motherboard – 557.88€
  2. Amazon – Fan, internal cable, boot SSD (only 1 due to stock issues), SSD for Apps/VM – 395.47€
  3. PcComponentes – Storage (2x8T) and RAM – 685.25€

A nice grand total of 1,638.60€.

12% more expensive (~178€), which honestly isn’t a lot of money. Well, it’s 16 TB less; if I match the same amount of storage it comes out to 2,057.66€ (+40% over the Synology option).