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Because most NAS devices ship diskless, you'll have to provide and install your own drives. Be sure to check the compatibility list of hard drives on the NAS vendor's website so that you install supported drives. Otherwise, if something goes wrong with the NAS, you may have problems getting customer support—or worse, you may discover that you voided the warranty.
The Intel Apollo J3355 CPU is brilliant at even more intensive applications. The operating system is a little behind the times compared to the competition. It’s good enough for running a NAS at home, but you may encounter some questionable design choices, though these are expected to be addressed in future OS updates. The best part about Synology NAS compared to the competition is the operating system.
The Best NAS (Network Attached Storage) Devices of 2022
HASSLE-FREE INSTALLATION – Hard drives included, and no computer needed for setup. Simply connect the NAS to your router for instant shared network storage for all your devices at the same time. The Synology DiskStation DS1522+ is an excellent five-bay network attached storage device for homes and small businesses, with speedy performance and available 10Gbps networking.
Data can be further protected with RAID 1 disk mirroring to prevent sudden drive failure. Most NAS devices (and all the ones we're recommending here) support RAID. RAID technology takes advantage of the fact that you have multiple hard disks with multiple spinning platters. One form of RAID allows you to write on one, then the other to increase speed.
Best NAS 2022: For home, Plex, work, and budget
As is the case with other Western Digital My Cloud models, you can choose to upgrade the storage disks to 16 and 24 TB models. It features a 1.6 GHz dual-core processor and comes with 2 GB of RAM. It supports RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5 and RAID 10, which offers similar parity performance to RAID 5 with faster read and write costs. The DiskStation is a whole backup solution, offering a personal cloud server service, a media, as well as an email server.
Share is open to everyone, while Info is read-only and includes a copy of the manual in both English and Japanese. Access to folders can be set at the folder level, or by restricting individual users or groups. There are a lot of good reasons to invest in network attached storage.
Our pick: Synology DiskStation DS218+
PCMag is obsessed with culture and tech, offering smart, spirited coverage of the products and innovations that shape our connected lives and the digital trends that keep us talking. It’s a more affordable version of the F2-221, substituting the Intel processor for a Realtek RTD1296 CPU. This isn’t particularly powerful and will limit just what you can do with the F2-210. It’s not awful, but you can tell from the get-go it doesn’t have as much polish. You’ll still be able to install all your favourite services like Plex Media Server, but just don’t expect to have the best time doing everything.
The storage drive is what you’ll be using to store all your important data on the NAS. There are a few different models available and the two big players are Seagate and Western Digital. The differences between these two brands are negligible if you’re not too fussed about speeds, workloads, and other specs. Random access memory is what is used by a device to store data for quicker access. These modules are like super-fast drives, allowing the operating system to store software and other files that can be quickly accessed at request. Creating a unique user account for each person who accesses your NAS is a good idea.
Software: what can my NAS do?
When we reached out to Apollo for clarification on these results, representatives replied that the Cloud 2 Duo uses in-flight encryption by default and the user cannot disable it. As we mentioned above, both Synology and QNAP sell many, many NAS devices, all of which run the same software but vary in processor type and speed, RAM, number of drive bays, and features. Our picks offer the best combination of performance, features, and price for most home users, and Synology's and QNAP's respective software offerings are more powerful and polished than those of other NAS makers. Our testing over the years has reinforced this conclusion, as has AnandTech's two-part dive into NAS operating systems and features.
Five disks and five drives mean the usable space is 3.6TB , a big bump over the other units with only four disks. With larger disks, the unit can hold 7.5TB or 10TB, and it supports RAID levels 0, 5, 5+ and 6 . Just like with Apple, the manual and included software comes on a DVD, not a CD.
WD's NAS-oriented equivalents to the IronWolfs, for example, are dubbed WD Red. E-mail notification support is better than average, with room for five addresses, and a check list of events that will trigger e-mails. When the system is shut down properly, an e-mail goes out, a nice touch if you manage remote units. That is when I started looking for a NAS which can backup my data regularly. Our every selected item should provide you the best value for the money you spent.
Seagate includes 10 licenses of their BlackArmor Backup software for Windows clients, as well as SafetyDrill+ software to support Bare Metal Restore for Windows clients, the only unit to offer such a feature. Time Machine support wasn't included on the unit we tested, but a firmware upgrade will add that feature, along with VMware certification. With a name like BlackArmor, one expects a no-nonsense device, and the Seagate box certainly delivers. The black metal case, slightly larger than average, has an overhang on the front that reminds us of the lip of a helmet. Yet to cover all bases, this box also includes a media server and iTunes support. Configured with RAID 5 by default, the box also supports levels 0 and 1 .
All of the units support Windows, Apple, and Linux clients, but most demand a Windows PC to execute the initial setup and configuration software, and all units integrate with Microsoft's Active Directory. Beyond basic storage, Buffalo and Iomega offer workgroup document indexing and searching, for free. QNAP leads the way in running multiple applications, many of which require the included MySQL. Hosting a database and applications on a NAS unit has not been possible before. LaCie is by far the most stylish device and it offers five, 1TB disk trays for 3.6TB of usable space.
The NAS has a CPU, RAM, specific Ethernet port speeds, and maximum drive specs that you’ll need to be aware of. For example, if you need a NAS to transcode 4K video or edit video files directly over the network, it needs the hardware horsepower to make that possible. Asustor’s offerings were more limited, with access to services spread across three apps. TerraMaster has individual apps for each service, while QNAP offered more built-in cloud connections—35, as of this writing—accessible through its Hybrid Backup Sync software.
If you already own a bank of hard drives you intend to install, you'll want to look for such validation. If yours are not on the list, it doesn't mean they won't work, but if you are buying drives new, it's best to stick with the NAS maker's recommendations. The beauty of a NAS device is that it can use some version of a technology called Redundant Array of Independent Disks . This tech allows the software that manages the NAS devices to distribute and duplicate the data it stores across multiple hard disks. That means even if one of the drives fails completely, the RAID system can simply take in a new, completely empty drive and repopulate it with the data the failed drive was carrying.
A top performer, this two-bay NAS is equipped with four M.2 slots for speedy caching (using M.2 solid-state drives), two 2.5Gbps LAN ports, and two high-speed USB ports for device sharing. As its name implies, a NAS is high-capacity storage that connects to your home or office network so that you and other users you designate can access your files from mobile devices and PCs without plugging in to the drive. Read on for a breakdown of the top NAS devices we've tested, followed by a detailed buying guide that will walk you through how to find the best one for your needs. A black metal box about average size in the group, the Verbatim unit has two Gigabit Ethernet ports (one for the network, and one for clustering with another PowerBay unit for real-time data replication). There's also an eSATA connector for adding more storage capacity or backup.
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