KhunHeineken

I purchased my first NAS a little while ago. I'll update a thread I started about it because I have a few questions. I love the NAS also,and I am still playing with it and learning how to use it to its full potential, but I nearly fell off my chair when seeing the price of Seagate Ironwolf Pro NAS hard drives. I have 8TB of storage as well but if you have a lot of TB's to store the cost can really start to mount up, but from what I read the NAS hard drives are reliable. I didn't know you could torrent with a NAS. I'll check that out.

The 183 day rule goes both ways. Stay in Australia 6 months of the year and you will be fine, stay outside of Australia for more than 6 months of the year and you have exposed yourself to the ATO for at minimum, a please explain, to at worse, a tax bill at the non-resident rate, from dollar zero. Who wants to spend 6 months of the year, every year, in Australia? Who can afford to pay non-resident tax rates, and who would pay, on principle? Most have been flying under the ATO radar for the last several years, including myself, but as I previously posted, I have always had the feeling the day was coming when the ATO starts chasing money from expat retirees by declaring them non-residents for taxation purposes. I have been relying on the domicile test should they go after me, but an adjustment to the 183 day rule, making it override the other tests, could make things very difficult or expensive. Given Australia has record debt, the ATO will be chasing every dollar they can, from everyone they can, and being outside of Australia for 183 days of the year makes expat retirees an easy target. I hope I'm wrong, but only time will tell. If, or when, that day comes, the only options I see for myself is staying 6 months in Australia, or selling up everything and moving the cash offshore and having nothing in Australia that can be taxed. I had a look at your link, and when I read things like below, I think I can see the writing on the wall for the future. It reads to me, stay inside Australia for 183 days, no problem. Stay outside of Australia 183 days, and here's your non-resident tax bill. "The proposed stage one test (being the primary test) is based on physical presence in Australia and will be a ‘bright line test’ – that is, a person who is physically present in Australia for 183 days or more in any income year will be an Australian tax resident."

Has Foxtel blacklisted the Australian servers for this Kodi VPN?

If still working, one could financially recover from The Issan Hustle. It's the retired guys that have a set amount of money to last them until they pass, or a small pension. They put a significant portion of it into a Thai family, and into rural Issan, in a country where laws are not favorable to foreigners. I don't need the bright lights of a city such as Bangkok, but I need more options for leisure time activities in retirement than what Issan can offer.

As discussed in previous posts, it turns from "choice" to "no choice" because they have ploughed all their life savings into a Thai family, and rural Issan. In effect, they made a rod for their own back, and they have every day until they die to deal with the consequences of this.

What part of my post do you see any "assumption" in? In your own words the house must be sold in 12 months, the house can be left to family, and a farang can't own land. Put one, or a combination of these together, and how does a foreigner maintain access, that is, living in the house, that sits on land, that he paid for, should his Thai wife die before him? He has to sell it in 12 months, and he can't own the land it sits on, or, it's left to a Thai son, for example, who gives notice to the foreigner because he wants to live in it himself or sell it and keep the money. How often do you think the foreigner could sell it to the Thai family for 1 baht, and the family allow him to live in it until his demise?

There are a lot of toxic relationships / marriages based solely on the exchange of money here. I have no problem with that. There are many western women in "kept relationships / marriages" as well. If one enters into a financial agreement with a Thai lady, that's fine, but they should pay as they go, not buy land, build a house, throw in a bar, shop, or farm, all up front, and expect the Thai lady to then uphold her end of the deal, especially when it's all in her name. Often, when the Thai lady accepts the financial agreement, and thinks now she got the guy on the hook and start to go to work on him, she can manipulate that agreement and he will bend. As you say, guys don't put their foot down. I suppose it's guys feeling comfortable in the relationship and are too afraid to start again, so, they bend, and it's all downhill from there. So funny to hear the threat, "I'll have to go back and work bar again." I'd be saying, "See ya." ???? A lot of guys don't call their bluff, and even if they were serious and did go back to the bar, what's that say about the relationship or financial agreement you entered into? Neither were real in the first place. Foreigners can't own land here, but there's some ways to cover yourself. One way is to have the Thai lady take a mortgage out on a property and you pay the bank every month. Paying the loan interest can be looked upon as insurance. The money in your own bank earns some interest, so it's only the difference you are paying. She leaves, you stop paying the mortgage, the bank can have the house back, and both can move on. The guy you met is correct. It's his house, just not the land it sits on. It's my understanding he would be perfectly entitled to put a bulldozer through it and face no criminal charges. Another phenomenon that you see in these relationships if when the Thai lady starts to compare the money, assets, or wealth of one of their friends or family's foreign partners. The Thai scammer version of "keeping up with the Jones" and what does the foreigner do, he goes and buys a bigger car, or more expensive gold, or more land etc. The two Thai ladies play the foreigners off on each other for spending on them, because each foreigner doesn't want to be seen as not "taking care" as good as the next guy. Too funny. ????

I would try that also. Like I said, rather than updating drivers, roll them back to a working driver. Could roll the machine back to pre windows updates using a restore point, and then be selective with the windows updates.

Aussies might find this article interesting, and disturbing. Some eye watering figures. https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/australia-drives-up-debt-to-menzian-levels-with-no-end-in-sight-20211228-p59kg1.html I can only imagine what new taxes and cost cutting awaits the present generation, and many generations to come. With a country of only 25 million people, having only around 12 million people in the workforce, it will take generations to pay back the debt. How could a country with such an abundance of resources be so mismanaged, for so long?

I have decided to buy my first NAS. I've never owned one, nor do any of my friends, so posting here for some discussion. I've done a bit of online research and I can definitely see their benefits. I've settled on the Synology brand. It's probably going to be a 4 bay NAS. I don't think I will outgrow a 4 bay NAS, so it should do me well into the future. Hard Drives will be Seagate Ironwolf, maybe the pro model. I don't have a lot of data to back-up, but what I do have I would like to take care of. I have between 1TB and 2TB, but currently I am backing up to 2 portable hard disk drives. One recently died, which started me on my NAS journey. It also occurred to me that it was useless having my laptop and 2 hard drives all at the same location. I would like to practice the 3-2-1 back-up policy and will leave the NAS at a relative's house. I have a question about this. Can I set the NAS up on my network, loading some data onto it and the settings I like, and then just connect it to my relative's network? They won't be using the NAS, and I will be always backing up from a remote location to it. Any problems with this, other than a slower speed? I'm learning about the different RAID's available, but what I don't understand is, if you have 3 or 4 HDD's in a 4 bay NAS, and each HDD is greater than the amount of data you need to store, why not use the mirroring RAID, where all the HDD's are clones, or mirrors? Why use a RAID 5 in this case? I've read Synology's Hybrid RAID is good also. Is anyone using it? I was pretty shocked seeing their prices. They are pretty expensive for a low spec device, but I understand there's some good wizardry going on inside them. I understand there's a bit involved in the initial set up, but thought it might be a good project during lock down. ???? I'll have more questions as the thread progresses. I'm in no hurry to buy, but it will be sooner rather than later. Do any member have a NAS? What are your experiences? Do you have any advice to share? Thanks.