8 of the best projects I did with my NAS

A Network Attached Storage, or NAS, is somewhat of a misnomer. as it can do a whole lot more than just store files. It’s the principle usage of a NAS, but particularly if you have a more powerful one, there’s quite a lot that you can actually do with it. These are some of the best projects that I’ve executed on my NAS!

Access your entire media library from anywhere

If you have a NAS, then one of the first things you should do is consider moving your entire media library to it. Tools like Jellyfin can transcode and stream your video files for playback to any device, and it’s entirely free. It works with any device on the same network, and you can make it accessible from outside of your network, too.

Jellyfin is just like Plex, except it’s free and open source. It lacks some features that Plex has, but many features that cost money with Plex (the big one being transcoding) are entirely free here. It may have a bit of a learning curve too, but trust me, it’s absolutely worth it.

Access your home network with a VPN

WireGuard is my VPN of choice

To safely access your NAS from outside of your home network, you should use a VPN or other reverse proxy service like Tailscale. WireGuard is the VPN service that I use, and you can create profiles that you can add to all of your devices to connect to your NAS from anywhere in the world.

From there, you can then access your home’s internal network as if you were actually at home. It’s a great way to protect your services on your NAS if you don’t want to expose them to the wider internet, as it means then that WireGuard (or whatever VPN/proxy service you use) is the only point of failure, rather than multiple applications all exposed to the internet.

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Run a Minecraft server and play with your friends

MineOS is ridiculously easy to set up

If you like playing Minecraft with your friends, you can setup a Minecraft server for free on your NAS. There are countless tools to do that, and the one that I use is MineOS. It’s a Docker container that has everything you need to configure and run a Minecraft server, and all you’ll need to do is make sure that the Minecraft server is accessible outside of your network.

In theory, you could give players WireGuard VPN profiles to use to connect to your server, but I’d just recommend port forwarding and opening your server up to the wider internet. Your friends can then connect to your NAS and play with you, and it means you save on server renting costs, too.

Hosting Python Flask projects

If you’re a developer, this is a fun one

If you’re a software developer who likes to build web projects through the likes of Flask or other tools, you can easily build your own Docker container and containerize a Flask instance running your own code. I’ve played around with some of my own homebrewed applications that I run on my NAS to track things online or act as a front-end for applications that I’m building, and it’s a surprisingly easy thing to set up.

This requires you to have a system capable of running Python, but anything with Docker support will work. That means anything from your own custom-built NAS to a Synology NAS to even a Ugreen NAS will be able to do this.

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Host an emulator on a website

EmulatorJS lets you play retro titles in your browser

If you’ve never heard of RetroArch, it’s an emulator front-end that has “cores” with support for emulating various different consoles. That’s what EmulatorJS essentially supports; it can embed an emulator right in your browser, and all you need are the game files to play whatever title you want to play. It’s really quite simple, and you can install EmulatorJS on your NAS so long as it supports Docker.

With EmulatorJS, you can play those games anywhere, and that includes when you’re out and about if you port forward or set up a VPN to access it from outside of your home network. If you’re a retro gamer, this is one you shouldn’t pass up.

Host a Google Photos alternative

PhotoPrism supports photo syncing and more

PhotoPrism is a great alternative to Google Photos, and all you need is a NAS with Docker support. You can pair it up with another cloud service like Nextcloud for automatic backups, too. As for what it is, PhotoPrism is an AI-powered photo app, capable of tagging photos and using AI to recognize their contents.

PhotoPrism all runs on-device, meaning you don’t need to worry about where your data is going or what companies might be doing with it. Just like Google Photos, it can recognize faces and show you photos of all the same people, and it can also recognize and tag objects in photos for later retrieval. If you like to backup your photos but want more control over them, then PhotoPrism might be the way to go.

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Filter trackers on your network

Pi-hole isn’t just for the Raspberry Pi

Source: Pi-hole

If you’re worried about all the tracking on the internet around you, Pi-hole is a pretty popular piece of software that people configure on a Raspberry Pi. Did you know that it’s not just for the Raspberry Pi, though? You can actually run it on anything, including a NAS.

I have a Pi-hole running on my NAS, and all I need to do is add the internal IP address of my NAS to the DNS field on any of my devices, and the NAS will then filter out any trackers and other online nonsense that tries to access my device. It’s peace of mind, and it takes minutes to setup.

Host your own Google Drive replacement

Nextcloud is the best

Nextcloud is a great Google Drive replacement with a mobile app that makes backing up files automatically an easy process. You can create folders and upload files just like you would on Google Drive, and again if you can access Nextcloud from outside of your network, you can access them at anytime, too.

It doesn’t require any real setup aside from giving it access to your NAS storage, and once it has it, you can access it from a client or a web browser anywhere on your home network. It’s quick and easy to use, and I highly recommend setting it up, even if it’s just for peace of mind.