Where do you guys host your external DB?

Hey,
I’m thinking of setting up an external DB for my hassio (on RPi3) as many of you guys suggest.
It is mainly to increase the life span of my sd card.
I have two main questions:

  1. Where should I host the database?
    I have a dlink dns320 NAS which is the only device running 24/7. I have read that through a software called funplug you can make it host an sql database. Will that do the job?
    I don’t have any other devices running 24/7 and frankly I would like to avoid it.
    Any other ideas?

  2. What happens if the hassio cannot connect to the database? Say the NAS is offline for some reason.

Lastly, is it possible to hook up an external hard drive on the RPi and boot the hassio instance from there?
Does this work better?
And how do I do it?

Thanks in advance for any input,
Any links or reading material would be greatly appreciated.
K.

If the NAS can host a SQL database it should work. Similar NAS devices use MariaDB (the opensource fork of MySQL) so the directions should work just fine. I would use Ethernet for the Pi to ensure a consistent connection.
If your NAS goes offline, nothing gets recorded until it becomes available.