Replacing a failing NAS by not buying one
A NAS that advertised everything and served nothing. The likely causes, a comparison of replacements, and the decision to use a computer I already owned.
The problem
My old two-bay NAS had become unreliable. It advertised everything (DLNA, SMB, NFS), but the Apple TV either couldn't connect or showed empty folders, even though the files were plainly there. I wanted to stream video to the TV, reuse the drives I already owned, and spend as little power and money as possible.
Why folders showed up empty
Empty is almost never missing data. It is usually a handshake that completes without letting you see anything. Three causes, in the order I'd check:
- SMB version. Modern Apple devices expect SMB 2 or 3. An older NAS that offers only SMB 1, or a newer one with an awkward minimum version, will connect and then list nothing.
- Guest access. Many TV apps connect as a guest unless you give them credentials. If the NAS disables guest access, the share appears but the folders are hidden. The fix is a dedicated user with a password, entered in the app.
- NFS export rules. An NFS export only serves the client addresses it is configured for. If the TV's address isn't allowed, it mounts an empty-looking share.
# On a Mac, test the share the way Apple TV would:
smbutil statshares -a # protocol version and signing for mounted shares
mount_smbfs //guest@<nas-address>/<share> /tmp/test # does guest access work at all?
showmount -e <nas-address> # what NFS exports are offered, and to whomI couldn't confirm which of these it was without sitting at the old unit, so I treat these as the likely causes, not a proven diagnosis. The old NAS was also an aging device with outdated software, which made fixing it less appealing than replacing it.
The options I compared
| Option | Good | Trade-off |
|---|---|---|
| Prebuilt 2-bay NAS (UGREEN DH2300 / DXP2800, Synology) | Polished apps, easy drives, low effort | Another box to buy and keep updated |
| Ready-made N100 kit (AOOSTAR R1) | Cheap, low power, two 3.5" bays, can run anything | You maintain the software |
| DIY build | Most flexible | Most work; rarely the efficient choice |
| Use what I already have | Zero new hardware, always-on already | Not RAID; needs its own backup plan |
What I actually did
I bought none of them. I already had a small always-on Mac that spends most of its life idle, so the decision became: a NAS is really a computer, a disk and some software, and I owned the first and last of those. A USB drive enclosure took care of the disks, and the Mac became the server. The same machine now runs the photo library (that write-up) and a nightly mirror to a second drive.
The old NAS went offline for good. A security check of the home network had flagged it as the riskiest device on it.
Would I recommend it?
For one household with a spare always-on computer, yes. If you don't have one, a prebuilt 2-bay NAS is the least stressful way to get a reliable, supported box. Whichever you pick, the lesson from this is the same: a single copy of anything is not a backup, and RAID isn't one either.
This is entry 09 of AI Lab Work.