Author Archives: brandonio21

Using a Synology NAS: 1 year later

My Synology 920+ and custom-built “compute”

My Long Relationship with Dropbox

For basically as long as I’ve been doing my own software development, I’ve used “the cloud” to store a lot of my data. Specifically, I used Dropbox with the “packrat” option which backed up all of my data to the cloud and even kept track of per-file history. This worked very well – I stored all of my important information in my dropbox folder and when I got a new PC I would just sync from dropbox. When I was away from the PC, I could always access my important documents through the Dropbox App. Dropbox even gave me a reason to avoid learning how to use proper version control because I could just write code directly in Dropbox and let Packrat keep track of the rest.

The list of Dropbox pros is long – but after a decade of using it, I started to run into some problems:

Removal of the “public” folder: For the first 5 years of using Dropbox, I made heavy use of the “Public” folder. This folder would allow you to share files with anyone on the internet. I personally used it as a sort of FTP server to host all of my software and updates. Once the public folder was removed, I migrated to a proper FTP server which was much harder to use and diminished the value of Dropbox’s offering.
Cost: With Packrat, I was paying $15 per month. In total, I’ve paid ~$1,800 to Dropbox to store my files for the past decade. This is a lot of money – and it’s always been worth it for me to not have to manage things myself, but it’s something to consider.
Proliferation of Cloud Services: There are many cloud services available – and all seem to specialize in different things. Google Drive is great for photos and google docs, OneDrive is great for word documents, and Dropbox is great for everything else. Using all of these services meant that my files were never in one place. This isn’t a Dropbox problem – this is more of a me problem – but it was a problem nonetheless.
Security: Finally, Dropbox is nice for things that aren’t very private; but I found myself storing passwords and other important information in my Dropbox for lack of a more secure solution. Not good.

The cost of dropbox: I don’t have complete billing history, but I’ve definitely paid more than $1,800 in total

The Synology 920+

The issues with Dropbox nagged at me for a while, but I didn’t do anything about it until Black Friday of 2021 when I purchased a Synology 920+ with 4 Seagate Ironwolf 4TB drives on a whim. I didn’t have a plan – but I had the vague idea that I’d get rid of my Dropbox subscription entirely.

And that’s exactly what I did. The software that comes with the NAS is pretty nice (Synology DSM), so I was able to quickly setup RAID on my drives with single drive fault tolerance and began migrating Google Photos to Synology Photos, my media off of my desktop drive and only the Synology (to be consumed with Jellyfin), and my Google Drive and OneDrive files migrated.

The migration went smoothly, but was basically an archaeological dig through all of my old stuff. I found old screenshots (embarrassing), gamesaves (impressive), and plenty of old schoolwork that I didn’t care about across the 12 harddrives that I had lying around.

I haven’t thought through a proper full review of the 920+, but I’ve been pretty happy with it. The stock fans are a little noisy (fixable, but “voids the warranty”), the stock RAM is not quite enough (fixable, but “voids the warranty” if you buy RAM that’s not Synology branded), and the plastic case leaves a bit to be desired. But functionality wise, I’m happy with it and I’m also happy that I got an “out of the box” software experience and have no need to go digging for other software to manage my photos and files.

Once the migration was complete, I was able to cancel my Dropbox subscription. In all, I paid $1,115 for the hardware which is quite the lump sum (that would have paid for 6 years of Dropbox!) – but I now have 5 times the raw storage and more flexibility to store whatever I want with the peace of mind that it’s not being stored on someone else’s server.

It’s the homelab bug

But my adventure did not stop with buying a Synology. As soon as I got my files switched over to the Synology, I decided I wanted to use the built in Docker features to manage Minecraft, Valheim, and Jellyfin servers – but I soon found that running all 3 of these at once wasn’t a challenge that the 920+ was particularly equipped for…

So I ended up building another system to serve as my “compute” and relegated the Synology to be just storage (I’m hoping to have another post on that “other” system later).

And now that I had these two servers, I needed to buy a fancy network switch to hook them together and then buy a fancy network router to hook to the switch and then fancy APs to enable my wifi…

And even now, I have the aching feeling that running services (eg Photos) from the Synology is not a great idea – instead, I should move the Photos app to the compute layer. And once I do that, I’ll probably need to get a few more servers to ensure high availability for the apps I run.

Oh, what have I done?

The elephant in the room: backups

One of the major selling points of getting a Synology is eliminating the costly monthly bills that you have to pay to cloud providers. The elephant in the room with my new “homelab” is offsite backups which I am currently using Backblaze B2 to achieve. Backblaze B2 requires a monthly subscription, however, so I’m back to where I started: paying a monthly subscription for cloud services.

That said, the monthly subscription is cheaper and I only use it for automated backups (haven’t had to recover yet!).

So what’s the takeaway?

The pessimistic takeaway is that I’ve spent a lot of time and money building Cloud services myself. Besides security, I don’t think there are any actual tangible benefits to doing this – and I wouldn’t recommend it to folks who are looking for storage of a few terabytes.

I’d only recommend this if you have huge amounts of data or if you’re doing it for fun. I guess in my case, I’m having “fun”.

Maximizing My Free Time

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Lately, I’ve been feeling pretty stressed about my free time. I’ve taken on so many commitments, both at work and in my personal life, that I don’t seem to have much time for myself. My weekday schedule follows the same pattern of: wake up, do “morning chores” (feed cats, take out their litter, empty the dishwasher, put in a load of laundry, make breakfast, water plants on patio/garden), work from 9-5, exercise, feed the cats, make dinner, watch TV for an hour, go to bed. My weekends are no better. On Saturday, I go grocery shopping at the farmer’s market, tend to our garden for several hours, clean the bathroom or wash our bed sheets depending on which week it is, do any other chores which came up during the week, cook dinner, watch TV, sleep. On Sunday, I: clean the espresso machine, sweep, mop, vacuum, squeeze in an hour of video games, and finish up with an outing that usually lasts the entire day.

By the end of Sunday, I’m exhausted from the long week and disappointed that I didn’t have a solid multi-hour block to sit back, unwind, and do something that I really want to do: like take a really long flight in Flight Simulator, play Minecraft or Valheim, tweak my homelab, or read a book. I usually wake up on Monday anxious about all the chores I need to get done with the goal of getting them done before Sunday so that I will have free time at the week’s end.

I don’t even have kids! I know it will get worse when I do.

Of course when I stumbled upon the “What is your time really worth to you?” quiz from clearerthinking.org on hackernews, I took it immediately. Turns out, my free time is worth a lot to me: on the order of hundreds of dollars an hour. I’m desperate to get just a few more minutes of free time out of my days.

I’m taking the results of my “test” to the extreme – for the past month, every time I have the thought “am I wasting my time?”, I try to find a way to spend money in order to give myself more free time. Here are some examples that I’ve found so far – some of which spend money and some don’t.

I registered for Global Entry (and by extension TSA Pre-Check) to save myself time at the airport. This cost $100 and so far, I’ve saved a few hours on our vacation to Banff National Park.
I hired cleaners to come bi-weekly to help clean areas which I spend a lot of time on: the stove, bathroom, cabinet doors, and vacuuming cat hair off the couch. This cost $75 per visit and have saved me a few hours so far.
In general, I’m trying to look things up on the Internet less. I find that I spend way too long searching for something “perfect” when in reality a single recommendation will do. For example, we recently went on a vacation to Banff National Park and actually used the Visitors Center that we seemed skip on all of our other vacations. We had spent a few hours trying to figure out plans for Canoeing – the visitors center gave us an answer in less than 5 minutes. Easy.
If I buy food and water when I’m hungry, even if it means paying a bit more or sacrificing quality, I noticed that I’m happier than if I waited for something better (while starving). Again, this helped us out in our recent Banff vacation.

I’ll continue looking for ways to give myself back some time. There are a few things that I’d like to try that I haven’t been able to yet: hiring a laundry service to pick up my laundry, hiring a personal assistant to help me manage my email inbox, hiring someone to help come up with my weekly meal plans.

I fully realize that several of these are only possible because I’m fortunate enough to have money to spend. The concept of spending money to get back time is still new to me, however, since I grew up in a relatively frugal household.

On Fredericksburg Removing the Slave Auction Block

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After the killing of George Floyd, the city of Fredericksburg, Virginia removed the historical slave auction block from the sidewalk on the corner of William St. and Princess Anne St. outside of Hyperion Espresso.

The slave auction block on a street corner in Fredericksburg, VA — By Sarah Stierch – originally posted to Flickr as Slave Auction Block, Fredericksburg, VA, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10596228

At first, I was surprised by the decision. When I visited Fredericksburg, I saw the auction block and it reminded me of atrocious events in American History and how we overcame them. The blocks placement in the middle of a highly-trafficked sidewalk strengthens the point: Hundreds (maybe even thousands) of slaves were stripped of their humanity and traded hands at this very spot. This was part of everyday life in pre Civil War Fredericksburg. Why would th ecity choose to remove such a good reminder of the past and the great progress we’ve since made?

White Fragility and Tears We Cannot Stop gave me insight: Have we made as much progress as I previously thought? When I first appreciated the auction block, was I viewing the events of history through my white-privilege-tinted glasses? What does the auction block mean for a black person in America today? I imagine their life – struggling everyday with systemic racism and discrimination. Every time they walk by this auction block, they are reminded that only 200 years ago black folk were auctioned off to whites in this very neighborhood. That’s the reason they are treated poorly today. That’s the reason 1 in 3 black folks are sent to jail in their lifetime. That’s the reason that innocent blacks are shot down by police.

Black Americans are forced to remember this every time they walk this street or sit down to drink a cup of coffee. Meanwhile, white folk look at the block and remind themselves of how great things are today.

I didn’t understand the burden that the auction block might impose on Black Americans. I now believe that the city’s choice to remove the block was a good one. The block did not represent great progress or achievement. Instead, it only reminded us of why there is such great racism in American today. Removing it from the streets gives black folk the opportunity to walk around this particular corner without being reminded of the immense historical baggage and systemic racism that black folk face every day in America.

That said, the auction block surely still belongs in a museum where people can see it and be reminded while they are in the right mindset and surrounded by historical context.

The Moment Between Flips

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In today’s fast paced world, pancakes are a great way to slow down. Each pancake needs to cook for a minute on each side. During that minute, you have to stay close – you can’t go off and do something else. It’s a great time to think. The mind wanders about this and that as the bubbles rise to the surface of the pancake. It’s a peaceful moment with nothing to do except wait for the next flip.

I cherish these pancake moments. I love to image that I’m living in the country and I’ve just completed the morning chores – nothing to do but think. I think about how nice the weather is and how interesting it is to be alive.

Today, I thought about how much we consume. Why do I feel the urge to browse Amazon for new things? Why isn’t what I have sufficient? I am addicted to that small burst of happiness when the next Amazon package arrives. But like pancakes, there’s no need to rush – slow down and enjoy the current moment.

Collectibles: Use Them or Lose Them

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When I was a child, I was spoiled rotten. My parents had a dual income that they apparently chose to spend on toys and collectibles for my brother and I. We had a huge room above our garage dedicated to only our toys. In retrospect, it was ridiculous – but of course we loved it.

As I grew, things changed. My parents got divorced and we had to move. All our toys and collectibles went into boxes and moved with us as both my mom and dad changed houses every year. Those boxes stayed with my parents until I graduated college. Then, I chose to take everything my parents were storing when I moved to Silicon Valley.

Turns out, having those boxes sit around is a huge burden. They are always at the back of my mind and any time I try to make a big decision, they get in the way. “Should I get a rug to bring the place together? No, I should go through the boxes first.”; “Should I get a bike to commute to work? No, I should go through the boxes”. The boxes give me some form of decision paralysis, so I am finally deciding to go through them.

The majority of the boxes are filled with old toys and stuffed animals. After reading Marie Kondo’s The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up, I decided it would be best to donate these things to Goodwill. Now, I’m left with collectibles and gifts from relatives – a lot of them are still in their original packaging. These are harder to deal with: they’re probably worth some money, they have a nice handwritten note on the packaging, and they’re from someone who loves me.

But I’m not interested in these collectibles. I’m not going to display them, I don’t want them, and they’re taking up space – both physically and mentally. I almost feel cursed. Why did my parents choose to keep these collectibles wrapped up for twenty years? Why am I dealing with them now? Did they feel too guilty to get rid of them, but too scared to display them?^[1]

I’ve decided to do something with them. For the collectibles that I actually enjoy (there are only one or two), I’m going to unwrap them and display them. They’re not giving me any happiness sitting in a box – they’re much better on display where I can see them everyday. Most importantly, I’m going to throw away the box.

For the collectibles that I don’t enjoy, I’m going to take a quick stab at selling them on eBay and Craigslist. If they don’t sell in a couple weeks, I’ll donate them. I’ll forget about them a few weeks after and I will be burden-free.

I’m going to start applying this philosophy to other collectible-like things: stickers, books, greeting cards. If they’re sitting in a box, use them or lose them.

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References
↑1	My parents have always had a big garage: I wonder if putting the boxes in the garage had some sort of “out of sight, out of mind” effect and they were completely free of this burden.