Glossary · 44 terms
Homelab Glossary
The vocabulary that actually changes a buying decision, defined plainly. If a spec sheet uses it, it is explained here.
NAS
- NAS
- Network-attached storage — a dedicated file server on your network.
- DAS
- Direct-attached storage — drives connected straight to a computer.
- JBOD
- Just a bunch of disks — drives presented individually, no RAID.
- RAID 0/1/5/6/10
- Ways to combine drives for speed, redundancy, or both.
- SHR
- Synology Hybrid RAID — flexible redundancy across mixed drives.
- ZFS
- A copy-on-write filesystem with checksums, snapshots, and self-healing.
- Btrfs
- A copy-on-write Linux filesystem used by many NAS appliances.
- Hot-Swap Bay
- A drive slot you can change without powering down.
- M.2 Cache
- NVMe SSD slots used to accelerate a spinning-drive array.
- Read / Write Cache
- SSD or RAM layers that speed reads and buffer writes.
- ECC RAM
- Error-correcting memory that catches single-bit flips.
Drives & SSDs
- CMR
- Conventional magnetic recording — the NAS-safe way to write.
- SMR
- Shingled recording — denser, but slow rewrites break RAID rebuilds.
- TLER / ERC
- A drive timeout limit that keeps RAID from dropping good disks.
- NAS-Rated Drive
- A drive tuned for 24/7 array duty and vibration.
- Shucking
- Extracting a bare drive from a cheap external enclosure.
Networking
- SMB / CIFS
- The default file-sharing protocol, especially for Windows.
- NFS
- A Unix-native network file system, common for VMs.
- iSCSI
- Block storage over the network — a virtual disk.
- 10GbE
- 10-gigabit Ethernet — the fast-storage tier.
- 2.5GbE
- Multi-gig Ethernet that runs on existing Cat5e.
- SFP+
- A cage for 10GbE fiber or DAC modules.
- DAC Cable
- A cheap fixed copper cable for short SFP+ links.
- PoE
- Power over Ethernet — one cable for data and power.
- VLAN
- A logical network segment on shared hardware.
- Link Aggregation (LACP)
- Bonding two ports for more bandwidth or redundancy.
Media Servers
- iGPU
- The CPU’s integrated graphics — the transcode engine.
- QuickSync
- Intel’s fixed-function video encode/decode block.
- Hardware Transcoding
- Offloading video conversion to the GPU instead of the CPU.
- Direct Play vs Transcode
- Streaming a file as-is versus converting it on the fly.
Self-Hosting
- Docker Container
- A lightweight, isolated package for running an app.
- VM / Hypervisor (Proxmox)
- Software that runs full virtual machines on one host.
- Unraid
- A NAS OS that mixes drive sizes and expands one disk at a time.
- TrueNAS SCALE
- A free, ZFS-based NAS OS with containers and VMs.
- DSM
- Synology’s NAS operating system.
- QTS / QuTS hero
- QNAP’s NAS operating systems (ext4 and ZFS).
- Reverse Proxy
- One entry point that routes to your self-hosted apps.
- Tailscale / WireGuard
- A private mesh VPN for reaching your NAS remotely.
Backup
- Snapshot
- A point-in-time, space-efficient copy of a volume.
- 3-2-1 Backup
- Three copies, two media, one offsite.
- rsync
- A tool that syncs files by copying only what changed.
Racks & Power
- IPMI / KVM
- Out-of-band remote management of a headless server.
- UPS (Sine vs Stepped)
- Battery backup; sine-wave suits active-PFC supplies.
- U (Rack Unit)
- The 1.75-inch height unit that sizes rack gear.