1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:04,560 I love my setup. My talk to your gaming PC not only brute forces its way through modern game 2 00:00:04,560 --> 00:00:13,840 optimization, but it handles my Plex Streaming. You know what? I mean what? I've got a great CPU with lots of cores and the GPU is great at transcoding. 3 00:00:16,560 --> 00:00:23,600 Yes. He's not wrong and if you've only got one PC combining these functions is perfectly 4 00:00:23,600 --> 00:00:29,280 reasonable. But if you're looking to step up your reliability, not to mention the safety of 5 00:00:29,280 --> 00:00:36,080 your data storage. A dedicated NAS or network attached storage server is the way to go and 6 00:00:36,080 --> 00:00:41,200 it costs less than you might think. Not at the price I bought my hard drive that. I may have 7 00:00:41,200 --> 00:00:45,840 splurged a bit elsewhere too. Yeah well look I can't do anything about the way that you dive 8 00:00:45,840 --> 00:00:52,000 into a new hobby but you don't have to do things his way because everything Ploof wants to accomplish 9 00:00:52,000 --> 00:00:57,280 today. Sharing Plex with family and friends, offsite buddy backup, not to mention good old 10 00:00:57,280 --> 00:01:02,640 fashion local file share can be accomplished on basic or even secondhand hardware. And if you're 11 00:01:02,640 --> 00:01:07,120 not any good at this stuff that's okay because I'm not either. Notice I've never done a single 12 00:01:07,120 --> 00:01:12,640 network or storage video in the last five years? No. So we'll be learning together. But not until 13 00:01:12,640 --> 00:01:18,320 we all learn about our sponsor. Here's what I've got. A computer in the living room, a computer in 14 00:01:18,320 --> 00:01:25,200 my office, and me a lazy pile of trash who doesn't want to get up once I've sat down. I could use 15 00:01:25,200 --> 00:01:30,560 Google Drive or OneDrive to share all of my documents across my computers but I hate the idea 16 00:01:30,560 --> 00:01:36,160 of sending things to the cloud when all of my PCs could just be connected locally. Also, 17 00:01:36,160 --> 00:01:40,320 both of those companies, Google and Microsoft, they just kind of keep getting worse to the point 18 00:01:40,320 --> 00:01:46,240 where I might even be running Linux on my main gaming PC in another year or two. The plan is to 19 00:01:46,240 --> 00:01:52,640 pop a NAS down under my desk here. It'll act as a central repository and if someone wants to access 20 00:01:52,720 --> 00:01:57,600 my Plex account while I'm gaming, it won't cost me any frames. I am well aware that I could just 21 00:01:57,600 --> 00:02:02,720 buy an off-the-shelf box. Ugreen in particular has some really compelling options. But as soon as 22 00:02:02,720 --> 00:02:08,640 I started looking at anything with six hard drive bays or more, I ran into the starting at monster. 23 00:02:08,640 --> 00:02:12,720 Also, since I want this to be more than just a NAS and I'm not sure yet of all the things I want 24 00:02:12,720 --> 00:02:18,240 it to do in the future, a custom upgradable build feels like the right choice. It's also just more 25 00:02:18,240 --> 00:02:25,040 fun to pick exactly what I want, starting with the CPU, an Intel Core i3-12100. And I'll tell you 26 00:02:25,040 --> 00:02:30,080 all about it while I transfer all of the data from my two 8TB drives that I'm going to be upgrading 27 00:02:30,080 --> 00:02:36,000 from today. This ended up being an even better choice than I initially expected. With GPU prices 28 00:02:36,000 --> 00:02:40,240 being what they are, I asked the lab to run some encoding tests to see if I can get away without 29 00:02:40,240 --> 00:02:46,080 one. And it turns out the 12100 is great when it comes to direct play, software encoding, 30 00:02:46,080 --> 00:02:53,360 and can even use quick sync on the integrated GPU for great power efficiency. Also, unlike AMD's 5800G 31 00:02:53,360 --> 00:03:01,120 or the spare GTX 1660 Ti I would have used, the Intel chip has native AV1 support, if that ever 32 00:03:01,120 --> 00:03:05,760 ends up actually mattering. Guess I get to save some power, which is one of the reasons I spent 33 00:03:05,760 --> 00:03:11,920 a little more in the first place. There are much older and much cheaper CPUs that would work fine 34 00:03:11,920 --> 00:03:16,960 for basic storage, but that would come at the expense of some efficiency. Plus, you know, who 35 00:03:16,960 --> 00:03:21,440 knows what I want to actually do with this thing, so I might as well buy modern-ish hardware. Let's 36 00:03:21,440 --> 00:03:29,280 check out the motherboard. I chose the ASUS Prime B760M-AD4. It's a little overkill, but it's got 37 00:03:29,280 --> 00:03:36,640 two and a half gig LAN, decent I-O, and tons of expansion slots in an MATX form factor. And 38 00:03:36,640 --> 00:03:40,880 since it's a couple of generations old, it's not that expensive. Now, you might be saying, 39 00:03:40,880 --> 00:03:46,080 Bluf, you fool, that board only has four SATA ports. But don't worry, I've got a surprise tool 40 00:03:46,080 --> 00:03:50,800 that I'll show you later. Thanks ASUS for sending this guy over. For memory, work agreed to give 41 00:03:50,800 --> 00:03:57,280 me some on the condition that I dig for our worst kit of DDR4. But with how things are out there, 42 00:03:57,280 --> 00:04:01,440 I'm not complaining. Capacity is more important than speed for what I'm doing anyway, 43 00:04:01,440 --> 00:04:06,640 especially if I want to run a virtual machine or two. And if memory ever does come down in price, 44 00:04:06,640 --> 00:04:12,720 I can always upgrade later thanks to my four dim slots. What I don't have that luxury for 45 00:04:12,720 --> 00:04:18,480 is storage. While I was planning this project, the humble hard drive got hit by the same shortage 46 00:04:18,480 --> 00:04:24,400 that has rocked memory and SSDs around the world. And it's at the point now where it's not even a 47 00:04:24,400 --> 00:04:30,320 question of price. Many drives are just plum out of stock. So on top of the couple of 8TBs I picked 48 00:04:30,320 --> 00:04:36,320 up from Weyler about a year ago, I had to ask my brother to buy me four 8TB Iron Wolf CMR 49 00:04:36,320 --> 00:04:42,160 NAS drives all the way over in Edmonton for about 1200 Canadian dollars. Now this is another area 50 00:04:42,160 --> 00:04:46,640 where you could definitely save some money. Unless you have multiple heavy users working off of your 51 00:04:46,640 --> 00:04:52,960 NAS, you probably don't need CMR or conventional magnetic recording. The alternative is SMR or 52 00:04:52,960 --> 00:04:58,240 shingled magnetic recording, which is cheaper and uses less power while still offering reasonable 53 00:04:58,240 --> 00:05:04,560 read speeds. The only downside is that it suffers during intensive write operations, which those 54 00:05:04,560 --> 00:05:09,760 won't come up for me unless I ever need to rebuild the data on my array in the event of a failure. 55 00:05:10,400 --> 00:05:16,960 Please don't fail me hard drives, please. The plan was to tell you guys all about the stuff 56 00:05:16,960 --> 00:05:22,640 while I installed the sleds. And then I realized that these don't have sleds. They just have little 57 00:05:22,640 --> 00:05:28,480 rubber stoppers that we're going to put on there. And then they've got these nice front handles that 58 00:05:28,480 --> 00:05:32,080 you put on the front. So if you haven't guessed it, the case is a Johnsbow case, which we'll get to 59 00:05:32,080 --> 00:05:36,960 in a bit. If I was really smart, what I could have done was waited a week or two before sticker 60 00:05:36,960 --> 00:05:43,440 bombing my hard drives. Most failures occur at the very beginning of life or near the end. 61 00:05:43,440 --> 00:05:48,240 But let's face it, I wasn't going to put together a system that wasn't covered in stickers. I'll 62 00:05:48,240 --> 00:05:52,800 live with my choice. And if I have to, I'll rip the stickers off and RMA the drives. By the way, 63 00:05:53,520 --> 00:06:00,080 great tool for building a computer, LTT screwdriver, LTTstore.com. For my OS drive, I was lucky enough 64 00:06:00,080 --> 00:06:06,560 to have a random 500 gig WD blue kicking around. I took one look at SSD pricing on new egg and decided 65 00:06:06,560 --> 00:06:13,760 to use it. If it dies, it dies. It won't be holding any of my precious Linux ISOs anyway. 66 00:06:13,760 --> 00:06:19,840 I also have a one terabyte Samsung 980 Pro that I was planning to use as a cache, but Linus told me 67 00:06:19,840 --> 00:06:24,800 that if I end up going with Trunas or HexOS, I may not have enough system memory to properly take 68 00:06:24,800 --> 00:06:29,920 advantage of L2 Arc. He recommended either using it to store virtual machines or to simply sell 69 00:06:30,000 --> 00:06:34,480 it and recoup some of my project budget because these hard drives cost a pretty penny. 70 00:06:35,280 --> 00:06:38,640 Now it's time to answer the question of how I'm going to hook up all these drives to this 71 00:06:38,640 --> 00:06:42,960 little motherboard. Well, the case does have a nice backplane, but to connect all of that, 72 00:06:42,960 --> 00:06:48,640 we're going to use an HPA or host bus adapter card. The go-to brand for best reliability is LSI. 73 00:06:48,640 --> 00:06:52,800 And you can get them pretty much anywhere. Just be cautious of counterfeits and make sure you get 74 00:06:52,800 --> 00:06:58,400 one that explicitly supports IT mode. That way you can avoid flashing the card's firmware. With 75 00:06:58,400 --> 00:07:04,240 this installed, one of my unused PCIe slots turns into eight SAS ports, which can be used for either 76 00:07:04,240 --> 00:07:11,200 SAS or SATA drives. And just what case can store all of these hard drives? Only the Jonsbo N5. 77 00:07:11,920 --> 00:07:17,120 Okay, many others could. Hell, two strips of acrylic could hold them all, but this is what I 78 00:07:17,120 --> 00:07:24,320 chose. It's massive, but I wanted it for a few reasons. First and foremost, it's beautiful, 79 00:07:24,320 --> 00:07:30,480 and it really vibes with my space. Second, it supports up to 12 three and a half inch drives, 80 00:07:30,480 --> 00:07:35,840 getting me a ton of room to grow into my new data hoarding obsession. And third, cable management 81 00:07:35,840 --> 00:07:40,320 is going to be a breeze. Oh, and I like that it has USB-C on the front. That's great if I ever need 82 00:07:40,320 --> 00:07:44,880 to adjust bulk data a little faster in the future. Since we're not sucking back much power without a 83 00:07:44,880 --> 00:07:51,360 dedicated GPU, I went with a little 500 watt SFX power supply from Silverstone. I decided on this 84 00:07:51,360 --> 00:07:56,560 and asked Silverstone to send it over before choosing the Jonsbo N5. Could have used a regular 85 00:07:56,560 --> 00:08:01,040 size unit, but this one will fit just fine. Besides, you know, if you're building a NAS 86 00:08:01,040 --> 00:08:05,840 at home, you're probably building it in an SFF case until you'll need something small like this. 87 00:08:05,840 --> 00:08:10,320 But before I install the power supply, my copy's done. So I'm going to pop these last two drives in 88 00:08:10,320 --> 00:08:23,280 first. Minor issue, the adapter plate that came with the Silverstone power supply. It's got this 89 00:08:23,280 --> 00:08:30,320 lip on it and it makes our screws sit really proud and flipping it over just looks wrong. And also, 90 00:08:30,320 --> 00:08:34,480 it doesn't look like that's supposed to happen that way. So luckily, I work somewhere that has 91 00:08:34,480 --> 00:08:41,520 extra power supplies kind of just lying around. That means I grabbed this Mag A550BN 550 watt from 92 00:08:41,520 --> 00:08:46,960 MSI and I'm going to use this today. Luckily, this supports ATX power supplies. So I'm sorry, 93 00:08:46,960 --> 00:08:50,880 Silverstone. Thanks for sending it. I'm sure it's a great unit. Let's pop this in. 94 00:08:56,720 --> 00:09:02,400 Moment of truth. It's all put together. Let's see if I did anything wrong. The monitor detects 95 00:09:02,400 --> 00:09:16,000 something. One, two, three, four, five, six drives. And then where is my SSD? SSD? The system works. 96 00:09:16,960 --> 00:09:21,840 All right, overall, I feel pretty good about this build. Yeah, it was almost $2,000, 97 00:09:21,840 --> 00:09:27,280 not counting my two old eight terabyte drives, which is a lot of money. But most of that budget 98 00:09:27,280 --> 00:09:31,920 went to the storage, which one way or another, I was going to pay for anyway. Have you looked at 99 00:09:31,920 --> 00:09:36,240 the cost of cloud storage these days? And that's only going to go up as drives get more and more 100 00:09:36,240 --> 00:09:41,680 scarce. At least I've kind of locked in on my pricing. But this was the easy part. I know how 101 00:09:41,680 --> 00:09:46,160 to build a computer. I kind of do it for a living. The hard part is the software element of turning 102 00:09:46,160 --> 00:09:53,760 a computer into a NAS. The way I see it, I've got three options. True NAS, Unrayed, or HexOS. 103 00:09:53,760 --> 00:09:58,640 True NAS seems to be the best bet for power users, but I don't really know if that's me. 104 00:09:58,640 --> 00:10:02,960 Unrayed is pretty flexible in how you utilize your storage. Pretty sure you can also just chuck in 105 00:10:02,960 --> 00:10:08,080 kind of whatever size drives you want, and it'll figure it out. But Linus really recommends HexOS. 106 00:10:08,080 --> 00:10:13,920 And because I was able to get a license because I work where I work, it was kind of a no-brainer. 107 00:10:13,920 --> 00:10:18,800 So I've got my HexOS media right here. We're going to try to install it. I've never done this 108 00:10:18,800 --> 00:10:25,200 before. We'll see how it goes. I went to HexOS's website, followed their instructions to flash my 109 00:10:25,200 --> 00:10:30,080 thumb drive with some media. This should be easy. That's the reason I picked HexOS. So I'm really 110 00:10:30,080 --> 00:10:34,320 hoping it is. I'm going to hit save and exit here, and away we go. All right, we're going to select 111 00:10:34,320 --> 00:10:42,080 our USB partition two for our boot device. Start HexOS installation. All right, it's doing something. 112 00:10:42,720 --> 00:10:50,000 Install, shell, reboot, shutdown. I want to install or upgrade. Okay, install HexOS to a drive. If 113 00:10:50,000 --> 00:10:54,640 desired, select multiple drives to provide redundancy. HexOS installation drive are not 114 00:10:54,640 --> 00:10:59,520 available for use in storage pools. That's fine. Okay, so I'm just picking which ones to select, 115 00:10:59,520 --> 00:11:04,080 and then pressing space bar. Oh, pressing space bar to select. So not big backup. That's going to 116 00:11:04,080 --> 00:11:12,000 get wiped. I want this 500 gig WD. This will erase all partitions and data on SDH. That is fine. 117 00:11:12,000 --> 00:11:18,480 Proceed, yes. Enter your TrueNAS admin user password. Group password login will be disabled. 118 00:11:18,560 --> 00:11:26,000 Extracting, extracting, creating data set, creating boot pool. The HexOS installation on SDH succeeded. 119 00:11:26,640 --> 00:11:32,160 Please reboot and remove the installation media. That should be all it takes to install. Now I 120 00:11:32,160 --> 00:11:37,760 should have to set up my actual storage pools and whatnot. Let's do it. Let's get started. We'll 121 00:11:37,760 --> 00:11:42,320 guide you through setting up your new server. All right, cool. Looking for servers. If you recently 122 00:11:42,320 --> 00:11:46,880 installed HexOS, it should automatically be detected when this device is on the same network. 123 00:11:46,880 --> 00:11:52,480 And then if this doesn't work, I'll hit the having problems button. Okay, we gave looking for servers 124 00:11:52,480 --> 00:11:56,160 a few minutes here and it's not finding anything. This is the sort of thing that normally it'll 125 00:11:56,160 --> 00:12:00,160 detect it within like 10 to 30 seconds. But we gave it an extra few minutes, you know, just in 126 00:12:00,160 --> 00:12:04,800 case. But I'm going to click having problems. Troubleshooting steps. Make sure that the server 127 00:12:04,800 --> 00:12:08,960 is running and has an internet connection. Check. Ensure the device you're using is connected to 128 00:12:08,960 --> 00:12:14,880 the same local network. It should be. Check that MDNS, multicast DNS, is enabled and functioning 129 00:12:14,880 --> 00:12:18,720 correctly on both devices for proper discovery. If the above are correct, then try restarting 130 00:12:18,720 --> 00:12:23,440 the server. If you have a custom network configuration, try entering the IP manually. 131 00:12:23,440 --> 00:12:28,560 Let's enter the IP manually because if I was at home, I'd probably try just restarting it. But 132 00:12:28,560 --> 00:12:32,560 we have a pretty different network than like what my home network is going to be like. 133 00:12:32,560 --> 00:12:39,280 Try to connect. Looking for servers. A new server is detected. That's great. And it matches my IP. 134 00:12:39,280 --> 00:12:44,080 Perfect. So I'm going to claim that. I'm going to enter my admin password. Claim server error. 135 00:12:44,080 --> 00:12:49,200 You do not have any licenses available. Elijah. All right. Day two. Elijah got my code from 136 00:12:49,200 --> 00:12:54,320 HexOS squared away and I should just be able to hit get started here. And this time it should work. 137 00:12:54,320 --> 00:12:59,520 Zero SSDs of six and six HDDs. Yep. That's correct. I don't know why that's a warning. 138 00:12:59,520 --> 00:13:04,560 This drive has existing. Oh, very cool. Okay. So luckily I backed up all of my data, 139 00:13:04,560 --> 00:13:08,480 but I like that it's telling me that two of my hard drives actually have data on them and it 140 00:13:08,480 --> 00:13:13,280 lets you know they're going to be wiped. Storage pools. 40 terabyte usable storage. 141 00:13:13,280 --> 00:13:16,720 It automatically configured to either RAID Z1 or RAID 5. I'm not sure which, 142 00:13:16,720 --> 00:13:21,120 but 40 terabyte. One drive can fail. Yeah, that sounds good to me. 143 00:13:21,120 --> 00:13:27,520 Almost done. We've collected everything we need to get your server up and running to make it easier to find and identify your server. You should also give it a name. 144 00:13:27,520 --> 00:13:30,720 You know, most of ours are named after little municipalities around town. 145 00:13:30,720 --> 00:13:39,760 I'm going to name mine after where I'm from. Yellow knife. So let's do that. And yes, this is going to wipe it. Finish setup. Initializing. Preparing drives. 146 00:13:39,760 --> 00:13:42,800 Welcome to Hexa West. Here are some shortcuts. Configure storage. 147 00:13:42,800 --> 00:13:46,480 Configure users. Add folders. Install your first app. I'm on the dashboard. 148 00:13:47,280 --> 00:13:51,040 Everything seems to be running normally. I've installed Plex. Once I take this home, 149 00:13:51,040 --> 00:13:55,200 I'll actually sign into Plex and get all that set up. But that happens a little later. I just 150 00:13:55,200 --> 00:13:59,920 want to make sure everything's, you know, running properly. My RAM is working. My hard drive pool 151 00:13:59,920 --> 00:14:09,280 has got 38.19 TB of storage available. Folders. Okay. So the other thing that I'm really worried 152 00:14:09,280 --> 00:14:16,080 about because networking is not my strong suit. Permissions. I hate figuring out permissions 153 00:14:16,080 --> 00:14:21,600 in Windows. It is terrible. I am terrified of trying to do that in Linux without running into 154 00:14:21,600 --> 00:14:27,040 issues. A huge part of why I'm going to Hexa West that I've said multiple times is this should be 155 00:14:27,040 --> 00:14:33,520 brain dead easy and I should just be able to make folders and assign users and we'll see if that works. 156 00:14:33,520 --> 00:14:37,680 So the next step is taking this home, making sure it connects on my local network 157 00:14:37,680 --> 00:14:45,280 and getting Plex installed. So let's go. All right. It's been one week since you got a NAS. 158 00:14:45,280 --> 00:14:51,440 How's it going? Pretty good so far. Okay. The whole experience was a little easier than expected, 159 00:14:51,440 --> 00:14:57,840 but also much harder at the same time. Okay. Now, before we get any further into that, 160 00:14:57,840 --> 00:15:02,160 what operating system did you end up going with that was easier and harder than expected? 161 00:15:02,160 --> 00:15:07,280 I ended up going with Hexa West. Really? Because I was going to say like it wasn't that long ago. 162 00:15:07,360 --> 00:15:10,960 Investment disclosure. I'm an investor in the company that makes Hexa West. 163 00:15:10,960 --> 00:15:16,160 It wasn't that long ago that we and everyone else under the sun recommended Unraid for its simplicity. 164 00:15:16,160 --> 00:15:20,880 I know. And even then watching because I watched a bunch of videos on installing and how to do 165 00:15:20,880 --> 00:15:24,480 initial setup and everything. TrueNAS was definitely like, no, I don't want to do that. 166 00:15:26,160 --> 00:15:30,960 And Unraid was definitely the more simple looking option. But then I watched a few Hexa West videos 167 00:15:30,960 --> 00:15:37,360 and it's about 1.0 now. Almost. Almost. So I figured, okay, fine. Plus I get the key. 168 00:15:37,360 --> 00:15:41,360 Right. Okay. So I didn't pay for it, which makes a massive difference, 169 00:15:41,920 --> 00:15:46,320 but I really did go with that route just because I thought it would be the easiest. 170 00:15:46,320 --> 00:15:49,920 Well, Unraid's a paid option too. Yeah. So they're both paid either way. 171 00:15:49,920 --> 00:15:53,280 Yeah. Hexa West still just seemed the easiest and it kind of was. 172 00:15:53,280 --> 00:15:57,440 What wasn't easy? Because I already know a lot of answers to that question. 173 00:15:57,440 --> 00:16:03,200 Okay. So the install went fine. I took it home. It ran into issues exactly where I thought I would. 174 00:16:03,200 --> 00:16:09,680 Windows file sharing stuff. Really? Yeah. That's one part of my Hexa West NAS at home. That does work perfectly. 175 00:16:09,680 --> 00:16:13,280 The funny thing is I've got two main desktops that I'm booking up to, right? 176 00:16:13,280 --> 00:16:18,480 Yeah. My living room PC that I went to do second, it was fine. 177 00:16:18,480 --> 00:16:27,280 Literally just logged in with the credentials. No problem at all. My desktop PC, the one I wanted to do first was an absolute nightmare to the point where 178 00:16:27,280 --> 00:16:32,960 I spent like an hour or so troubleshooting and I got to a point where everything I was looking at 179 00:16:32,960 --> 00:16:37,280 was telling me to like buy Windows 11 Pro and enable stuff and I knew that was wrong. 180 00:16:37,280 --> 00:16:43,760 What? No. I knew that was wrong. I knew that was wrong. No. I don't know. I knew that was wrong. Okay. So I enabled SMB protocols. 181 00:16:43,760 --> 00:16:48,480 All my private network stuff was working fine. Everything was seeing everything. 182 00:16:48,480 --> 00:16:52,880 So I could see the machine on my network, but I couldn't access any folders. 183 00:16:52,880 --> 00:16:57,280 I couldn't do anything with it. Do you want to know what happened? It had to be Windows credential manager. 184 00:16:57,280 --> 00:17:02,240 Pankrats went there first. We had to open PowerShell and he had to change 185 00:17:02,240 --> 00:17:07,200 SMB client configuration setting, requires security signature. It was set to true. 186 00:17:07,200 --> 00:17:13,920 We had to set that to false. Why was that set to true? I have no idea. This is even a pretty fresh Windows 11 install. 187 00:17:13,920 --> 00:17:17,120 That's so weird. I reset my computer like six months ago or so. 188 00:17:17,120 --> 00:17:21,840 So it's not even an issue with your NAS? No. This was an issue with your desktop? Yes. 189 00:17:22,400 --> 00:17:27,200 Why is SMB still like this? Microsoft? 190 00:17:27,200 --> 00:17:28,320 One in a million chance. 191 00:17:31,920 --> 00:17:35,040 With it working? Yes. What's the first thing you did? 192 00:17:35,040 --> 00:17:40,560 I started backing everything up, which took a while. It was like eight terabytes worth of data, but it was awesome. 193 00:17:40,560 --> 00:17:43,760 Like I just, I set the transfer going and I didn't even worry about it. 194 00:17:43,760 --> 00:17:46,320 It doesn't require security signature anymore. So it's all good. 195 00:17:47,120 --> 00:17:51,840 I've got TailScale set up and running now. I just finished that as well. 196 00:17:51,840 --> 00:18:00,480 Want to explain what TailScale is for people who are not in the know? TailScale is basically a way to SSH into your machine and add virtual networking to 197 00:18:01,200 --> 00:18:05,360 other users so that like if my cousin wants to go onto my NAS, I give him my, 198 00:18:05,360 --> 00:18:09,440 well, he has his own TailScale and then he logs in and through my invite and gets access. 199 00:18:09,440 --> 00:18:16,880 And you can do that without opening up ports. The traditional way that you would allow someone else to access a resource that's on 200 00:18:16,880 --> 00:18:22,480 your internal network. Yeah, it's much safer. But the funny thing is what really has been enjoyable about this whole experience 201 00:18:22,480 --> 00:18:26,800 is I feel like I'm learning stuff about computers again. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. Like I actually like, 202 00:18:26,800 --> 00:18:31,920 Oh, networking is a whole new Pandora's box. So I'm well aware and it was a terrifying one for the longest time. 203 00:18:31,920 --> 00:18:37,120 But now that I have like my own, I mean, it's not really a home lab, but now that I kind of have my own little home lab, I'm like, Oh yeah, 204 00:18:37,120 --> 00:18:41,040 I'll try that. Like whatever. I'll set this up and dig through troubleshooting guides and 205 00:18:41,040 --> 00:18:45,440 spend a bunch of time doing it. And it's enjoyable because everything works. 206 00:18:45,440 --> 00:18:48,480 And if it breaks, it's not the end of the world. So I know how to set it up again. 207 00:18:48,480 --> 00:18:54,880 With that said, there's a big difference between, yeah, this is a pretty good experience for me and I enjoy working on it. 208 00:18:54,880 --> 00:18:59,360 And this is something I would recommend to my family and friends or my parents. 209 00:19:00,480 --> 00:19:04,880 Where are we at right now? If everything had gone as smoothly as it was supposed to. 210 00:19:04,880 --> 00:19:12,240 It's a big if. 100% it is. I would be okay with helping my dad or someone else who's less tech literate 211 00:19:12,800 --> 00:19:16,080 set this up in their home remotely with me being remote. 212 00:19:16,080 --> 00:19:19,280 The setup and everything was really simple. Yeah. 213 00:19:19,280 --> 00:19:22,640 The UI is good. It's really easy to use and navigate. 214 00:19:22,640 --> 00:19:27,680 But as soon as they get into some kind of error that the documentation isn't going to cover, 215 00:19:27,680 --> 00:19:31,280 like what I encountered, like sure, I know how to fix that now going forward. 216 00:19:31,280 --> 00:19:33,840 And so that's something that's added to my own troubleshooting repertoire. 217 00:19:34,400 --> 00:19:38,720 But like, yeah, I wouldn't expect them to do this on their own, 218 00:19:39,760 --> 00:19:44,240 assuming there's something that goes wrong. If the process is perfect or like, 219 00:19:44,240 --> 00:19:49,760 perfecter than it is now. Yes, I think this is something even my sister or my dad could do. 220 00:19:49,760 --> 00:19:52,880 Now that that's all sorted, it's fine. And it works great. 221 00:19:52,880 --> 00:19:59,120 And like, I'm just doing whatever I want. The flexibility overall of everything has been so nice. 222 00:19:59,120 --> 00:20:03,600 Yeah. Like, I just, you know, I make sure that whatever I'm working on is on my NAS. 223 00:20:03,680 --> 00:20:09,040 Instead of on my desktop locally. And then I can just move to the couch and open the file there. 224 00:20:09,040 --> 00:20:12,800 Yep. And then all I'm halfway done and all I want to sit at my desk with like music playing or something, 225 00:20:12,800 --> 00:20:15,440 I just go over there. And you're on tail scale. 226 00:20:16,000 --> 00:20:19,280 So if you wanted to go to a cafe. 100%. And work on it there. 227 00:20:19,840 --> 00:20:27,920 Boom. It's pretty cool. And you never worry about, okay, I'm in the middle of this draft and coffee spills on my laptop. 228 00:20:27,920 --> 00:20:33,520 Who cares? It's gone. Or I'm taking all of this personal information and I'm synchronizing it 229 00:20:33,520 --> 00:20:38,160 with some corporate cloud service somewhere. Yep. You own your data. 230 00:20:38,160 --> 00:20:42,400 Yeah. That's the bottom line with a NAS. Which is a huge deal to me. 231 00:20:42,400 --> 00:20:46,880 Is it more work than subscribing to, you know, Google One? 232 00:20:46,880 --> 00:20:53,360 I mean, yeah, it's more work. Yeah. But like in the longer time, you can pay yourself to do that work in the money that you will 233 00:20:53,360 --> 00:20:58,400 eventually save, not subscribing to someone's service because it's just math. 234 00:20:58,400 --> 00:21:04,320 Yeah. Eventually, if you're going to use that storage, eventually you must pay for those hard drives. 235 00:21:04,320 --> 00:21:08,640 Yeah. 100%. Whether you buy them and put them in your home or whether you pay for Google to put 236 00:21:08,640 --> 00:21:13,920 them in a data center somewhere. And now I've got all my digital photos backed up somewhere safe. 237 00:21:13,920 --> 00:21:22,240 I've got other files, like everything. With that said, a single NAS offers redundancy, but is not in and of itself a backup. 238 00:21:22,240 --> 00:21:27,120 So the next level would be that I've talked to the HexOS team and I've told them it's a huge 239 00:21:27,120 --> 00:21:31,680 priority for me as kind of an activist investor that they implement buddy backup. 240 00:21:31,680 --> 00:21:37,120 Yeah. And so that's intended to be a feature where for no additional subscription fee, 241 00:21:37,120 --> 00:21:42,560 you and a buddy, like me and Ploof could be like, okay, here, I bought an eight terabyte drive. 242 00:21:42,560 --> 00:21:45,680 Here you go, buddy. Yep. You buy an eight terabyte drive. You give it to me. 243 00:21:45,680 --> 00:21:53,840 Here you go, buddy. We put those into our NASs. We now have some extra space and we can set aside an encrypted folder that can automatically 244 00:21:53,840 --> 00:21:57,680 synchronize. But yeah, right now it's just, I feel like I can breathe easy. 245 00:21:57,680 --> 00:22:01,360 Knowing that everything's backed up and like, yeah, it's not a three, two, one fully because 246 00:22:01,360 --> 00:22:08,480 I don't have an offsite yet. But once that's there, I will finally actually be practicing what I've preached to so many people 247 00:22:08,480 --> 00:22:09,760 over the years. 248 00:22:12,240 --> 00:22:16,080 You know what else we preach? What? The gospel of the segue. 249 00:22:16,080 --> 00:22:22,960 To our sponsor. If you guys enjoyed this video, why not check out the build that we did for Mark Rober, actually? 250 00:22:22,960 --> 00:22:30,000 Oh, yeah, yeah. I'd say that's a pretty good modern take on a like, balls to the wall, home NAS.