Deeper Dive: Our High Examined Picks
Greatest Finances NAS Gadget for Most Customers
QNAP TS-233
- Fairly priced
- Simple to put in and handle
- Strong efficiency
- Good choice of apps
- Drives not included
- No multi-gig LAN ports
The TS-233 packs some good options into its trendy white enclosure, together with two hot-swappable drive bays, a quad-core CPU, and a pair of USB ports for connecting exterior drives. Set up was simple, and the NAS turned in very respectable file switch scores in testing. Furthermore, it presents a pleasant choice of QNAP-branded and third-party apps that flip the TS-233 right into a multifunction server.
The QNAP TS-233 is an reasonably priced two-bay NAS designed for budget-conscious house customers who’d slightly retailer information in their very own private cloud than pay for a subscription-based cloud service. It’s simple to handle utilizing the Home windows-like QTS working system and presents one-touch backups, nevertheless it lacks the multi-gig LAN and HDMI video ports that you just get with dearer NAS gadgets.
Connection Kind
Ethernet, USB 2.0, USB 3.0
RAID Stage
JBOD, single, RAID 0, RAID 1
Onerous Disk Configuration
RAID
Community Medium
Wired
Rack-mount or Standalone
Standalone
Wired Community Pace
10/100/1000
Variety of Bays
2
Bay Dimension
2.5 and three.5-inch
Study Extra
Greatest Two-Bay NAS Gadget for Small Enterprise
Asustor Lockerstor 2 Gen2 (AS6702T)
- Speedy file-transfer efficiency
- Twin multi-gig LAN ports
- 4 slots for M.2 NVMe SSDs
- HDMI video output
- Extremely expandable
- Big catalog of apps
- Costly
- Instruments required for setup
Low-cost NAS gadgets are nice for house use, however for those who’re a small-business proprietor, you’ll desire a NAS that provides speedy efficiency, multi-gig LAN connectivity, and high-speed growth choices. With the Asustor Lockerstor 2 Gen2, you get all that and extra. A high performer, this two-bay NAS is supplied with 4 M.2 slots for fast caching (utilizing M.2 solid-state drives), two 2.5Gbps LAN ports, and two high-speed USB ports for system sharing.
Small-business homeowners and residential fanatics who require a strong two-bay NAS with high-speed connectivity choices ought to put the AS6702T on the high of their purchasing lists. It’s simple to put in, and the Asustor Knowledge Supervisor software program makes it simple to create storage volumes, share folders, and obtain greater than 340 apps for workplace productiveness, information backup, safety, house leisure, and different features.
Connection Kind
2.5GbE, USB 3.2, HDMI
RAID Stage
JBOD, single, RAID 0, RAID 1
Onerous Disk Configuration
RAID
Community Medium
Wired
Rack-mount or Standalone
Standalone
Wired Community Pace
10/100/1000 2.5GbE/5GbE
Variety of Bays
2
Bay Dimension
2.5 and three.5-inch
Study Extra
Greatest 4-Bay NAS Gadget
Asustor Lockerstor 4 Gen 3 (AS6804T)
- Quick efficiency
- 4 multi-gig LAN ports
- USB4 connectivity
- 4 M.2 slots
- Beneficiant app catalog
- Costly
- Drives not included
With regards to ports and efficiency, the expensive Asustor AS6804T is a category chief. It delivers blistering file switch speeds alongside a wonderful assortment of I/O ports—4 multi-gig LAN ports and 5 high-speed USB ports—and a strong AMD Ryzen CPU. It additionally presents a number of RAID configurations and 4 M.2 slots that may be populated with NVMe solid-state drives for added speedy storage or caching. You’ll have to produce your individual drives, however that’s the case with almost each NAS system that we take a look at.
Two-bay NAS gadgets usually supply greater than sufficient storage capability for individuals who need to create their very own private cloud server. Nonetheless, for those who plan on backing up and sharing giant chunks of information for a small enterprise, a higher-capacity NAS just like the AS6804T is the higher possibility and our Editors’ Selection winner for four-bay NAS gadgets.
Connection Kind
10GbE (2), 5GbE (2), USB 4.0 Kind-C (2), USB 3.2 (3)
RAID Stage
JBOD, single, RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, RAID 6, RAID 10
Onerous Disk Configuration
RAID 5
Community Medium
Wired
Rack-mount or Standalone
Standalone
Wired Community Pace
10/100/1000 2.5GbE/5GbE/10GbE
Variety of Bays
4
Bay Dimension
2.5 and three.5-inch
Study Extra
Greatest 5-Bay NAS Gadget
Synology DiskStation DS1522+
- Simple to put in and handle
- Extremely scalable
- Quiet
- Quick file switch efficiency
- A lot of ports
- Costly
- Drives not included
Whether or not you’re a house person seeking to retailer multimedia recordsdata and share them within the cloud, or a small enterprise that requires a scalable storage answer with a number of RAID choices, the Synology DiskStation DS1522+ NAS is a superb alternative due to its 5 drive bays. (That is greater than most different small-business NAS gadgets supply.) Plus, you get two embedded M.2 NVMe SSD cache slots, and the flexibility so as to add 10 extra drives through an growth unit.
For a lot of companies, scalability is the secret in the case of community storage. The DS1522+ delivers scalability in spades. It is also an excellent alternative for houses and companies with cutting-edge networking parts, since you’ll be able to outfit it with a 10Gbps LAN adapter for high-speed community connectivity.
Connection Kind
USB 3.2, Ethernet, eSATA
RAID Stage
JBOD, Fundamental, SHR, RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, RAID 6, RAID 10
Onerous Disk Configuration
SHR
Community Medium
Wired
Rack-mount or Standalone
Standalone
Wired Community Pace
10/100/1000
Variety of Bays
5
Bay Dimension
2.5 and three.5-inch
Study Extra
Greatest NAS Gadget With SSD Caching
Asustor AS5402T
- Speedy efficiency
- Multi-gig LAN
- 4 M.2 SSD slots for caching
- Excessive-speed USB ports
- Beneficiant app catalog
- Dear
- Drives not included
The Asustor AS5402T makes use of high-speed parts—together with a strong state drive (SSD) cache—to ship excellent efficiency. That is the primary two-bay NAS we’ve seen that’s geared up with 4 M.2 slots for putting in NVMe SSDs; few shopper choices have this characteristic, and most that do are geared up with simply two such slots. The high-speed SSD modules can be utilized for caching and to speed up content material creation and different labor-intensive duties. Hyperlink aggregation and 4K video transcoding are additionally supported.
Should you’re available in the market for a robust two-bay NAS for content material creation, private cloud storage, or as an information backup repository, look no additional than the Asustor AS5402T. It is the go-to two-bay NAS for content material creators and energy customers.
Connection Kind
2.5Gbe (2), USB 3.2 (3)
RAID Stage
single, JBOD, RAID 0, RAID 1
Onerous Disk Configuration
RAID 1
Community Medium
Wired
Rack-mount or Standalone
Standalone
Wired Community Pace
10/100/1000/2.5GbE
Variety of Bays
2
Bay Dimension
2.5 and three.5-inch
Study Extra
Greatest Mainstream Single-SSD NAS Gadget
LatticeWork Amber X
- Simple to arrange and use
- Compact design with wired and wi-fi connectivity
- Speedy efficiency
- HDMI output
- AI picture group
- No multi-gig ports
- Small 512GB storage capability
- Scanty app library
LatticeWork’s Amber X is a single-drive, SSD-based NAS that makes it simple to again up your recordsdata to a personal private cloud. It is a snap to arrange, and it consists of many beneficial software program options to streamline your digital life, together with AI facial recognition that may set up your picture library. It is also fairly transportable. At simply 0.6 pound, the Amber X is small and light-weight sufficient to take alongside wherever you go, in case you are so inclined. Inside, it has a 512GB SSD for its solely storage drive, which can replenish shortly for those who retailer lots of high-res pics and movies, however you’ll be able to add storage by connecting an exterior drive to the gadget’s USB 3.1 port.
The Amber X makes it simple to again up your images, movies, and different vital information and share it with trusted household and mates. It is sufficiently small to tackle the highway, and it helps TV casting and media streaming too, making it a wonderful alternative for individuals who want a flexible network-connected backup and storage answer for private use.
Connection Kind
Ethernet
Community Medium
Wired, Wi-fi
Rack-mount or Standalone
Standalone
Wired Community Pace
10/100/1000
Study Extra
Greatest Six-Bay M.2 SSD NAS Gadget
Asustor Flashstor FS6706T
- Quick efficiency
- Massive catalog of apps
- Slim kind issue
- Quiet operation
- Makes use of costly SSDs as an alternative of cheaper exhausting disks
- Restricted storage capability
The FS6706T is a six-bay NAS system. That alone units it other than most different shopper and small-business NAS drives, which usually high out at 5 bays. However the variety of bays is not the one factor uncommon about it: The FS6706T is the primary NAS drive we’ve examined that makes use of M.2 NVMe strong state drives (SSDs) slightly than conventional platter-based exhausting drives for the first storage (not simply as caching for exhausting drives). This interprets to screaming-fast efficiency. Plus, it has a modern, streamlined design, and it comes with a lot of Asustor and third-party apps.
The FS6706T presents small companies extraordinary velocity and reliability, however solely when it is linked to a state-of-the-art community that has multi-gig connectivity. It additionally requires a giant finances. By the point you populate the FS6706T with, say, six 4TB M.2 drives, you’ll have spent round $2,200 for 24TB of storage, making this an expensive acquisition if you wish to package out all of the M.2 slots from the beginning.
Connection Kind
Ethernet, USB 3.2, USB 3.0
RAID Stage
single, JBOD, RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, RAID 6, RAID 10
Onerous Disk Configuration
RAID 5
Community Medium
Wired
Rack-mount or Standalone
Standalone
Wired Community Pace
10/100/1000/2.5GbE
Variety of Bays
6
Bay Dimension
M.2 NVMe
Study Extra
Greatest Eight-Bay M.2 SSD NAS Gadget
TerraMaster F8 SSD Plus
- Small kind issue
- Simple to put in
- Speedy efficiency
- Quiet
- Costly
- Makes use of expensive SSDs for storage, which aren’t included
- Restricted choice of apps
The TerraMaster F8 SSD Plus is an eight-bay NAS system that makes use of M.2 NVMe SSD drives to ship quick, whisper-quiet networked storage. It does not take up lots of desktop area, and our intensive testing reveals that it is easy to put in and configure. At $800 (with out the drives), it does not come low cost, however its rarified worth displays that NAS drives with this many bays and M.2 help are few and much between.
The TerraMaster F8 SSD Plus is an efficient alternative for house energy customers or small companies that require the velocity of an SSD NAS however don’t have a lot desktop actual property. It performs effectively based on our testing and is simple to handle utilizing TerraMaster’s TOS 6 working system. Then again, its $800 worth is prohibitive, and it will value much more than that for those who populate it at most capability, so it isn’t a good selection for budget-conscious companies.
Connection Kind
10GbE, USB 3.2 (2), USB-C, HDMI
RAID Stage
TRAID, TRAID +, single, JBOD, RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, RAID 6, RAID 10
Onerous Disk Configuration
TRAID
Community Medium
Wired
Rack-mount or Standalone
Standalone
Wired Community Pace
10/100/1000/2.5GbE/10GbE
Variety of Bays
8
Bay Dimension
M.2 NVMe
Study Extra
The Greatest NAS (Community Connected Storage) Gadgets for 2025
Evaluate Specs
Shopping for Information: The Greatest NAS (Community Connected Storage) Gadgets for 2025
How Do I Select a NAS Gadget?
When you resolve that you’ll want to retailer recordsdata on a community drive, you then want to determine what you imply to do with them, as a way to decide what sort of NAS you want.
For instance, a typical enterprise state of affairs is likely to be sharing entry to Workplace recordsdata, like spreadsheets and Phrase paperwork, together with your coworkers and maybe backing up choose workplace gadgets frequently. All of that’s comparatively easy for a NAS. Making certain further layers of information safety, and serving recordsdata to a comparatively giant variety of customers, are usually the place companies should be cautious about NAS storage.
Dwelling customers might not want to fret about giant numbers of customers; lately, it is the variety of simultaneous gadgets that makes the distinction. Should you’re utilizing the NAS to again up your laptops in a single day, that is fairly simple. However for those who’re serving high-resolution movies over your house community to 2 tablets, a laptop, and your good TV, all on the similar time, you may desire a NAS with increased specs for reminiscence, processor, and community capabilities. You may additionally want a extra highly effective NAS if you wish to retailer large media libraries, like a group of 100,000 inventory images on your graphic arts studio, for instance.
(Credit score: Joseph Maldonado)
Since a NAS system is, on the easiest degree, only a container for a tough drive or drives (with some added intelligence), the number-one spec for any NAS unit is its most potential storage capability. That is decided by the variety of drive bays it consists of and to a lesser extent what sorts of drives it could actually carry. Most consumer-grade and home-office NAS items have one or two bays, whereas fashions designed for the workplace have 4 or extra. However that is not an absolute guideline, particularly now that newer NAS gadgets are exhibiting up with help for two.5-inch laptop-style drives, each platter-based and strong state. These drives will permit NAS makers to suit extra drives into their chassis, or the identical variety of drives right into a smaller chassis.
We do not typically advocate NAS drives with only a single bay, except they’re for use strictly for backing up information that may additionally reside on computer systems on the community. That is due to the dearth of redundancy out of the field. (Some single-bay NAS drives will can help you connect a second NAS system or an exterior exhausting drive, to that finish.) You don’t need the one copy of your information residing on only one drive on the community.
The great thing about a NAS system is that it could actually use some model of a expertise referred to as Redundant Array of Unbiased Disks (RAID). This tech permits the software program that manages the NAS gadgets to distribute and duplicate the info it shops throughout a number of exhausting disks. Meaning even when one of many drives fails fully, the RAID system can merely absorb a brand new, fully empty drive and reconstruct the info the failed drive was carrying. Completely different ranges of RAID carry out this operate in several methods (and notice that some lack the redundancy/security facet), relying on precisely what customers want. Take a look at our RAID explainer for extra info.
Nonetheless, for many house customers who aren’t rabid video-file hoarders, a two-bay NAS ought to be enough, supplied that you just purchase sufficiently big drives from the outset for those who’ll be mirroring them, that means merely making one drive a precise duplicate of the opposite. Err on the excessive facet of capability, although; it will value extra now, however you do not need to should rebuy two exhausting drives on your NAS to get a better efficient mirrored capability. Keep in mind: Mirroring takes two bodily drives. Extra on redundancy beneath.
Ought to I Purchase a NAS With Drives Put in, or Diskless?
Some NAS drives are offered pre-populated with disks, oftentimes already formatted to be used in a specific RAID configuration. Many others are bought empty of drives, or “diskless.” This was an vital consideration some years in the past as a result of it was that the NAS distributors who additionally manufacture exhausting drives would ship their NAS items as sealed gadgets pre-filled with their very own drives. At present, the overwhelming majority of present NAS gadgets are exhausting disk-neutral, so far as disk model is worried. As a result of most of those gadgets at the very least have a diskless possibility, you are actually solely involved with general drive capability, their interface expertise, and the way a lot shopping for them will add to the general value of your NAS.
(Credit score: Joseph Maldonado)
If a given NAS is obtainable in each pre-populated and diskless kind, we recommend testing the associated fee distinction and ensuring that the drives which might be supplied within the populated mannequin work out to a great worth. With pre-populated-only NAS drives, the price of the interior drives tends to be tougher to differentiate from the general value of the NAS unit.
Which Drives Ought to I Use With a NAS?
NAS makers that promote diskless NAS drives advocate sure drive fashions or households which have been examined to be used with their NAS drives. Check out these drive-compatibility lists before you purchase. Should you already personal a financial institution of exhausting drives you plan to put in, you may need to search for such validation. If yours are usually not on the checklist, it doesn’t suggest they will not work, however in case you are shopping for drives new, it is best to stay with the NAS maker’s suggestions.
Some drives from Seagate, Toshiba, and WD are tagged as specifically designed for NAS use. Most of those “NAS licensed” exhausting drives have been examined to run 24/7/365, which is a bit a lot for normal, consumer-level drives.
(Credit score: Joseph Maldonado)
In case you are Seagate drives, for instance, the NAS-class drives are referred to as the IronWolf, IronWolf Professional, IronWolf SSD, and IronWolf SSD and HDD strains. Straight IronWolf drives are what you are after for outfitting a NAS drive in a house. IronWolf Professional is designed for considerably heavier enterprise use, whereas IronWolf SSD is supposed for NAS items that want solid-state velocity to serve up information shortly for high-performance purposes. The final, the IronWolf SSD and HDD drives, mix each applied sciences in a single drive that then has its personal firmware logic to distribute information for optimum efficiency past what SSD delivers by itself.
Different drive makers could have related merchandise obtainable, so far as storage and interface applied sciences are involved, although they will differ considerably by way of capability and pricing. WD’s NAS-oriented equivalents to the IronWolfs, for instance, are dubbed WD Purple.
RAID, and RAID Once more: Let’s Speak Redundancy
As we talked about earlier, a key advantage of most NAS items is the redundancy possibility, so in two- and four-drive configurations the additional disks can merely “mirror” the contents of the opposite drive or drives. Relying on which RAID degree you select (extra concerning the completely different ranges in a second), this may affect the general capability of the NAS system versus the exhausting disks it has put in. Instance: A two-bay unit with two 4TB drives that mirrors one drive onto the opposite would supply solely 4TB of efficient (usable) storage. The opposite drive is, in a sensible sense, invisible, as a result of within the background, it is used to make a second copy of all of the recordsdata from the opposite drive.
You too can configure your NAS to make use of the complete capability of all its drives, if desired. A technique you are able to do that is through “striping,” wherein the info will span throughout two or extra drives. Striping by itself is chancy; beneath some circumstances, it enhances the velocity of reads and writes, because you’re accessing two or extra drives directly. But when anybody disk fails, it is doable that each one your information can be misplaced, so we do not advocate this method. (Together with your information spanning throughout two or extra drives, you now have a number of factors of failure.)
RAID modes that incorporate striping and mirroring are a lot safer, as that ensures that every bit of information is replicated on at the very least two drives, in order that if one drive within the array fails, the NAS can reconstruct its contents onto a substitute drive. After all, this requires some redundancy and reduces the general capability obtainable to the drives.
RAID Ranges Defined
In brief, for primary NAS use, the important thing RAID varieties are referred to as RAID Stage 0, 1, and 5. RAID Stage 0 is straight-up striping, together with your information unfold throughout a number of drives for velocity, with no redundancy. (Consider it as “zero margin for security” if a drive fails!) RAID Stage 1 is easy mirroring, with 1:1 copies maintained throughout two or extra drives and full redundancy. There is no velocity profit to RAID 1 however full security in case of a drive failure. RAID Stage 5 delivers the very best of each worlds, with mirroring and striping carried out throughout at the very least three exhausting drives; if one drive fails, you’ll be able to reconstruct its contents to a substitute from the bits of it on the drives which might be nonetheless working. (There’s additionally RAID Stage 10, the place you will have mirrored pairs which might be additionally striped; it requires at the very least 4 drives.)
Many NAS items additionally help a JBOD mode (“Only a Bunch of Disks”), which helps you to handle every drive as a separate drive letter and save information to discrete drives throughout the NAS field. This isn’t a lot safer than striping; any information you save to a given drive remains to be weak to the failure of that particular mechanism. To mitigate this, some JBOD NAS administration software program permits customers to mix disks into a number of logical volumes and even apply redundancy measures throughout volumes. That is normally solely dependent upon the software program used to handle the NAS, nonetheless, so make sure you perceive your NAS drive’s software program capabilities earlier than buy, notably for those who’re a small-business purchaser.
Should you suppose a NAS drive will allow you to stream any kind of media it’s important to any system or TV, be mindful sure gadgets will solely play sure varieties of recordsdata, and you may have to get software program and {hardware} to work collectively to make this occur.
For instance, that, ahem, candy DVD rip you will have of James Cameron’s Titanic in AVI format won’t open on an iPhone with out some jiggering. (It must be in MP4 format to be acknowledged.) Software program can get round that downside, such because the ever-useful VLC Media Player utility, and a few NAS items work with Apple TV, Chromecast, Roku, Android telephones/tablets, and different varieties of {hardware}. It may be sophisticated, although, to ensure {that a} particular file or file kind will play on a given system, so have a look at the specs of the NAS carefully to find out its capabilities.
(Credit score: Synology)
A late growth in NAS circles is particular sorts of help for streaming 4K video, and the spec sheet is your good friend in these circumstances. Some NAS items with 4K acceleration will convert this high-resolution video on the fly to codecs higher suited to the bit charges of vacation spot gadgets, reminiscent of smartphones, which might be requesting it. That is an esoteric want in the meanwhile, however know that some NAS makers will cost a premium for a few of these options. It is also doable to get such on-the-fly transcoding for different, lesser resolutions. That is the place the CPU that powers a NAS comes into play: say, a low-end dual-core chip versus a way more strong quad-core processor, for instance.
NAS Connectors and Controls: What to Look For
Most NAS drives have one or two USB ports that you should use to attach a printer or exterior storage drive, letting you add these to your community through the NAS itself. As soon as they’re plugged in, similar to all the things else on the NAS, they are often shared with all linked customers. An instance of a standard association: A NAS drive could have one USB 2.0 port that’s normally used for printer sharing, and a USB 3.0 port that can be utilized for exterior storage. (USB 2.0 is way, a lot slower than USB 3.0, however a printer does not want the quick pipe, so a USB 2.0 port is simply superb for that.)
(Credit score: Joseph Maldonado)
Some NAS items even have a “copy” button on the entrance panel designed to make copying the contents of an exterior drive, reminiscent of a flash drive, to the NAS a single-button-press affair. You simply join the drive and faucet the button, and all the things on the exterior drive is safely copied to the NAS to a predesignated location.
NAS drives, by definition, will include at the very least one Ethernet jack, or typically two for redundancy or channel-bonding. (The latter, basically, is combining two smaller Ethernet pipes into one logical, giant pipe.) NAS drives are inclined to keep away from wi-fi connectivity as a result of solely wired connections give them the sleek site visitors circulate they should serve up information, particularly streaming information, to a number of recipients at an optimum price.
(Credit score: Joseph Maldonado)
Current high-end fashions go as far as to supply 10-gigabit Ethernet, for screaming information switch charges. Nonetheless, this solely makes a distinction if the remainder of the community is operating at 10Gbps (or at the very least the first site visitors goal is). Moreover, the throughput of platter exhausting drives makes this moot for many shopper and small-office use circumstances. That stated, a couple of fashions include a PCI Specific slot which will allow you to set up an enhanced community card. Others help utilizing SSDs as an alternative of exhausting drives, or along with exhausting drives (a configuration wherein the SSDs are used for caching and the exhausting drives are used for storage) for quicker throughput.
A number of fashions will even include an HDMI port; this is able to allow you to use the NAS as a media server with a direct connection to your HDMI-equipped HDTV.
Distant Entry: Serving Recordsdata From Right here to Wherever
Along with the above sharing options, most NAS drives allow you to ship net hyperlinks to individuals to permit them to entry sure recordsdata or folders situated in your NAS. Your NAS can thus serve like your individual non-public Dropbox or Google Drive, however with far more storage capability—and no month-to-month invoice. Many NAS makers tout this. (Search for the much-bandied time period “private cloud” round this type of characteristic.)
How every vendor presents this functionality, nonetheless, can differ. Some might do as little as supply a easy File Switch Protocol (FTP) supervisor as an app or just a command line characteristic. This can actually work, however you may have to know one thing about configuring a safe FTP server to ensure your recordsdata aren’t all of a sudden open to the entire web. Most NAS gadgets now supply a Home windows-like app that handles distant web entry. These include easy-to-learn person interfaces and extra superior safety choices, together with the flexibility to encrypt no matter recordsdata you are opening as much as the cloud.
With this performance, it’s also possible to entry the NAS itself from any web connection, not simply through your native community. Consequently, you’ll be able to obtain recordsdata you want on the highway, or stream a film or music recordsdata resident on your house NAS to your laptop computer in a lodge throughout the nation or the world, community bandwidth allowing. Most, however not all, NAS drives supply this type of characteristic, so make sure you do your analysis earlier than you pull the set off if it is a must-have. (Ourselves? We would not get a NAS with out it.)
Able to Purchase the Proper NAS Drive for You?
One among our high suggestions is nearly sure to suit your network-attached storage wants. However what if a NAS system will not be fairly proper for what you need? For extra storage choices, have a look at our choices of the best external hard drives and the top external SSDs we have examined, in addition to our top-rated cloud storage services.