NAS for digital music files in FLAC and digital photos (JPEG & RAW),

1st NAS choice. I’m looking to buy my first NAS, primarily as a source for digital music files in FLAC format ripped from CDs, but also to store digital photos (JPEG & RAW), and of course to store MS Office files and the like. I’ve a Win10 desktop and an aging Win7 laptop and a very old Win XP desktop (not networked), a couple of Android tablets, my own Android smartphone and my wife’s smartphone. The data usage on the PCs is less than 1TB, including Windows OS. I do have three ancient Win98 PCs no longer in use, but there’s probably some old data that I’d like to store before finally disposing of them. My guess of 3TB required refers to available storage to allow for ripping another 500 CDs and GB’s more of digital photos. As we are both retired, there’s no work use. The home network uses HomePlug Ethernet over power adaptors to access the router for fiber broadband and to share a WiFi connected Canon printer. I was looking at Synology 218+ or QNAP TS231P2 but wonder if the former is overkill, and QNAP is more difficult to set up.

You are definitely looking in the right direction. Synology will be a good solution for FLAC audio and raw photo files. Synology comes with free apps allowing you to back up your entire PC system and mobiles devices. It also comes with artificial intelligence built in allowing you to organize your photo collection. It will amaze you to see the functionality it offers. Qnap 31p series are very simple backup solution NAS. And indeed it will be slightly more complicated to configure.

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