How I Got a Free Synology DS412+

This is the story of how I got my Syno. I love that thing.

E Begging

I'd wanted a synology for a while. I love playing with expensive computer toys and I was actually starting to fill up my 8TB RAID1 SMB share that I was hosting on my TrueNAS VM. Ratio farming is expensive, but I couldn't afford to stop seeding all of DBZ and One Piece just yet. I'd been looking at some synology devices online but man they were expensive, it would be great if someone gave me one for free... and then I had the best idea of all time. I would beg people on the internet for a synology.

It all started with a post on x.com, the everything app. "Someone should buy me a 4 bay synology". Then comes my favorite part. My friend told me he'd give me his old one if I paid for shipping. I didn't think he was serious but then he said It was as a thanks for helping him with some proxmox questions. We were so back.

Acquisition

So I gave him my name and address and he sent it to me. Then he gave me his and I sent him money on venmo. 50 bucks and a week later I had a Synology DS412+. Not bad at all. Then I dropped 1K on drives (4x16TB Seagates) and suddenly I had a 36TB RAID5... beautiful.

I set up two shares, one 30TB to replace my existing home share and then another 1TB as persistent storage for all my docker containers. This was preparatory for my next big lift, which is converting everything to IAC with GitOps. I'd like to keep all my persistent volumes on a network share because it's more like what you'd do in a production setup.

Thoughts on Synology

Man this thing is awesome. So much better than TrueNAS, everything is legit so easy. The UI is also so cute and it looks like a little computer in your browser. Sugoi! Making and managing shares, security updates, access control, 100x better than TrueNAS and totally worth it. Having a 36TB NAS makes me feel like a big powerful man and I think this is the last storage solution I'll ever practically need.

Conclusion

Uh, that's it. I got a free(ish) syno and then bought a bunch of expensive drives. Thanks for reading. And remember, always beg for free stuff on the internet because it costs you literally nothing and sometimes it actually works.