Published May 15, 2026, 1:30 PM EDT Richard is the PC Hardware Lead at XDA and has been covering the technology industry for almost two decades. He's been building PCs since young, and when not creating content, you can often find him inside a chassis somewhere. Synology used to power my entire smart home. The single prebuilt turnkey network-attached storage (NAS) box ran it all. Home Assistant, backups, media streaming, office suite, and home surveillance. You name it, it was on my Synology NAS. DiskStation Manager (DSM), which powers all DS NAS models from the brand, is absolutely wonderful to use, both as a beginner and someone with years of experience with network storage. It works and works well with the hardware inside the metal and plastic shell. The main issue with Synology NAS isn't limited to this vendor specifically, but is something that affects most turnkey NAS options.…