Kvistofa, I have to respectfully disagree with everything you just said.
The purpose to having a DNS server at home is the same reason to use it on a corporate LAN--convenience and flexibility. I do have all my static IP addresses memorized, but what about my spouse and kids? Or guests? Or devices that cannot be static?
-Anyone running a NAS or dedicated home server is serious enough that they want it to work well for all users and not just for the IT person in the family.
-Static IPs are not suitable for laptops, phones, iPad, iPod, etc--all of which I or members of my family have. I still want them in my DNS, automatically, when they get DHCP they go into DNS. Among other reasons, the foremost is so my network management system can give me the names of what is on my network, not just a bunch of hosts that ping. Should I ever get a rogue device on my network, I'll know right away.
-I have some web sites on my server and want to use distinct names for them. One site is for controlling playing audio to various Squeezebox devices; so instead of a static IP address, non-technical users can just go to
http://music.local and I do not have to have my server named "music". I can use host headers in IIS for different sites if I want. There is no way to run separate sites without your own DNS unless you memorize more ip addresses.
-I have a LAN-to-LAN VPN to my office and use a conditional forwarder to the office DNS server to look up the _internal_ addresses of devices on that remote LAN. My ISP's DNS would naturally not have any internal DNS records for the remote LAN, which would mean I would need to memorize all the IP addresses on that other LAN, and also that services which depend on SSL certificates (Outlook, Entourage, etc.) would not work because of no DNS.
I could find other reasons If I thought about it, but there are many reasons to run your own DNS server. If you don't want to or are not capable of doing so, then it's your choice and you can get by. But if you have the capability to run your own DNS I feel the (minor) complexity is well worth it. I mean, it's possibly 3 or 4 steps to turn on DNS on a Windows Server and configure it--probably a lot simple on a router or NAS. On some level, DNS makes a network finished, more elegant, and easier to use than just going for IP addresses.
Back to lasikdr's question--he clearly has a lot of devices to keep track of and is a perfect candidate for running a DNS service on his LAN.
As to which device to use, I feel the desired capabilities are:
1. DHCP devices have their DNS records created automatically
2. Ability to manually create DNS records as required.
3. Ability to forward lookups to outside/ISP servers in a manner of your choosing.
