I’ve been trying to train zone 2/3 and it’s so hard to stay slow.

I think a Synology is best if they lack technical skills. The GUI is nice and integrations are easy enough to manage. Longevity-wise, I’ve have the 918+ since 2018 and it’s still going strong. Plus there are packages for things like Tailscale (easy to use VPN) you could setup for a them. That way you reduce their attack surface of exposing services externally.

Hello Internet!