Sep 29, 2026 - eRacks: The Value of a NAS Is in Its Open Apps, and the Storage Should Be Open Too

Sep 29, 2026 - eRacks: The Value of a NAS Is in Its Open Apps, and the Storage Should Be Open Too

Campbell, CA - Sep 29, 2026

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

eRacks: The Value of a NAS Is in Its Open Apps, and the Storage Should Be Open Too

After an XDA writer replaced Synology's own apps with Immich, Navidrome, Plex and Jellyfin, the open-source server maker explained how it builds NAS systems with no vendor in the middle.

eRacks Open Source Systems today published its case for open NAS (network attached storage) systems, prompted by a September 19 XDA Developers article in which the writer kept his Synology NAS but replaced almost every Synology app with open-source ones: Immich for photos, Navidrome for music, Plex and Jellyfin for video and Paperless for documents, all running in Docker containers.

The writer's reasons were specific: Synology Photos had gone without major new features, the music app was thin, and Synology discontinued its own video streaming app, leaving a basic DLNA server. He also valued that open apps can move with him to other hardware.

"A NAS is storage plus apps, and appliance vendors sell the two as one box," said Joseph Wolff, founder and CTO of eRacks. "Once the apps are open and run in containers, the box is just storage, and the storage should be open too. We have been saying that for years."

eRacks NAS systems default to ZFS, an open-source file system that checksums every block, in a RAIDZ2 dual-parity layout that survives two drive failures. The company offers an IT-mode host bus adapter so ZFS sees each drive directly, uses standard NAS drives (currently the 24TB Seagate IronWolf Pro by default), and ships Ubuntu LTS, Debian, TrueNAS Community Edition, OpenMediaVault or other operating systems on request. A ZFS pool exported from one machine imports on another running a current OpenZFS, so the data is not tied to the hardware. The line runs from the 1U four-bay NAS4 to the 4U NAS100 with 102 bays, plus the QUIET3 for homes and offices.

Customers can name the apps they run, and eRacks installs and tests them before the system ships.

The full post is on the eRacks blog: https://blog.eracks.com/2026/09/open-nas-apps-not-the-box/

About eRacks Open Source Systems

eRacks Open Source Systems, founded in 1999 and headquartered in Campbell, California, specializes in open-source servers and storage. The company builds custom-configured rackmount servers, NAS (network attached storage) systems, and AI servers, ships them with the operating system installed and tested, and supports them with a three-year warranty.

Media Contact

Joseph Wolff eRacks Open Source Systems joe@eracks.com https://eracks.com