Happy 800th episode.
I imagine I’ve been with you for 700 of them and I still look forward to every single episode.
It’s not just because of the content, it’s the vibe: you’re good people.
Thank you so much.
Thank you for the kind words!
I think I’ve been listening since the very beginning — episode 1. Happy 800th Anniversary and looking forward to the next 800.
I’ve got my eye on that Mark Twain bio. I went through a period being obsessed with Twain when I was in my late teens and 20s. I particularly enjoy his memoirs – the Autobiography, Life on the MIssissippi and Innocents Abroad; he has a very modern voice and speaks across the generations. He was an early adopter of the telephone, typewriter and home electrification. If he were alive today, he’d absolutely be a Mac power user.
I am currently reading this book — also of interest to @MacSparky:
Happy 800! I started listening sometime around 300 or 350 – i cant believe that I have listened to over 400 episodes!
I would like to take issue with the discussion of NAS. The discussion immediately went to, well, this is a computer system with an operating system and it can run applications, etc. But that’s not the point of a NAS. Stephen touched on it briefly, but you buy a NAS because it can provide a large volume of reliable storage. RAID is important, redundancy is important, many NAS systems including synology allow for hot standby, etc. It’s much more difficult to recover from a failed drive if you don’t have RAID. If you need and want all of this and especially if you want it to be available to multiple stations on the network, then you consider a NAS. Now, all of this requires some intelligence, i.e., a CPU and software. The fact that that CPU can also run various applications is a nice add on, but its not the point (IMO). In fact, I bought a Mac Mini last year to move Plex OFF of my NAS (although the library still resides there). And yes, that Mac Mini runs a bunch of my hazel rules, etc.
Ironically, the alternative you proposed was an even more powerful CPU that could run even more apps.
The second most important feature of my synology is the synology drive capability to create my private “dropbox”. My wife and I use this continuously and depend heavily on it. There might be some Mac software that would allow me to do this (other than through iCloud) if I just put storage on a Mac Mini, but I haven’t looked so I don’t know.
I mainly work on an iPad and use a MacBook Air, with external storage, as a file server. I use a computer as my server because I need it to do a lot more than share files on my local network.
A NAS and a File Server are two ways to store and share data. A file server is more versatile and normally more powerful, but at their most basic level they do the same thing.
A NAS is a File Server. They have the same attributes. They have storage, they are accessible on a network via network protocols. Today’s NAS are clearly more powerful and more functional than the early File Servers that I have worked with like Novell Netware, Banyan, etc. back in the 80s and 90s but, in the end they are (IMO) the same thing.
There is nothing wrong with buying a MacMini and hanging a bunch of disks off of it. You can get most of the same functions as a NAS like synology. They are both file servers. You can mount them, you can copy files back and forth, etc. But without some effort it is JBOD not RAID. And, as I noted, you don’t automatically get cloud-based syncing, etc. If you want RAID and/or some of the other features then you need more stuff and the package could easily cost more than a modest NAS.
I agree. But in my case I don’t need RAID. My files are synced to both Google Drive and iCloud, and backed up locally and to Backblaze B2. And because I use a laptop I don’t need a monitor, keyboard, and UPS. 
Exactly. You do what works for you. I wasnt arguing in favor of a NAS. I was just noting that the thing that is important about a NAS is that it provides a set of file services and functions in a particular way. If that solves your problem, then great. The fact that it can do other things is nice but not really the point.
Thanks @MitchWagner. It was shocking to me how flawed Twain was. But still insightful. My takeaway … enormous talkent and no Arete. 
NAS = Network Attached Storage which in my book is the same as a File Server, at least if the File Server is on the network! And both a NAS and a file server (computer) can do other functions.
I’ve used mac Minis as home servers for 15 years, and used a spare Dell desktop computer as a server before that (to give you an idea, in the 1990’s it would autoconnect to dial-up internet when any of our computers requested Internet access!)
I switched from Dell/Windows when Apple had a very good deal on “Mac mini with Snow Leopard Server” package that had two hard drives but no DVD and a copy of Snow Leopard Server, which was an expensive purchase at the time. Since then Apple has completely abandoned the server business as well as promoting a Mac as a “digital hub”.
You can set up a private “dropbox” for free that is cross platform (including NAS!) using Resilio Sync.
Ah yes. True. And I used that before I got the NAS. Forgot. Thanks.
Keep in mind when and where Twain was born. Yes flawed, but a life rich with tragedy as well.
Buy a laptop MacSparky
Net of taxes it’s a bargain.
We once had two Apple Xserve Servers, one was our email server and the other, connected to an Xserve Raid was a file server. When I started running out of spare drives around 2013 I replaced both with Microsoft Windows servers. 
Still the coolest hardware.
This is true, but it’s not a lot of effort. Buy something like a QNAP TR-004, populate disks, and your direct-attached external drives can be configured as RAID. And they only take up one port. 
Sure. So 500 for Mac mini and 250 for the qnap.
So you can create a RAID NAS that costs more than a Synology. I guess I have lost sight of what problem we are trying to solve.
Assuming you’re otherwise buying the Mini brand new for this purpose. And I mean…you could do this with any other Mac too, if the Big Thing was just to have a huge storage array.
If you have a Mini laying around, it’s QNAP + drives. And it’s DAS to the Mini, which makes it Backblaze-eligible.