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We found the user interface to be clean and well done and the overall usage experience to be solid. Now, to be clear, this is not a QNAP or Synology, but those devices are considerably more expensive. By far, the standout feature of any Synology NAS is the company's exceptional DiskStation Manager software.
You can repurpose an old PC or even build a very custom NAS solution to meet your exact needs. As with many of my other "best of" lists, this one comes out of my experience. A few years ago, I had the opportunity to bring boxes in from seven vendors and stress test them in the lab. I have a five-bay model, but I've recommended a two-bay model here simply because they are quite expensive due to the added protection.
Our pick: Synology DiskStation DS218+
Everything else can largely remain the same as the home NAS build. On second thought, if I just wanted to run blender, I could configure the vnc server to start a gnome-session on a Xorg instance when it starts up. The only disadvantage of that is that it won’t control the actual TV for media server use. For a CPU, I was surprised that my 2011 laptop CPU is still doing pretty well with a Passmark score of 6,619 and a power rating of 45 Watts. For the sake of simplicity, think of transcoding as scaling down a video resolution for easy transmission over a network. At first glance, the device may seem slightly underpowered to expect it to transcode videos, and it is.
A NAS with four or more bays gives you more storage options than a two-bay NAS does. For starters, you can opt for RAID 5, 6, or 10; those data storage configurations require three or more disks but provide better data protection and can offer better performance. Like the DS218+, the TS-251B uses an Intel Celeron J3355 processor and 2 GB of RAM, which is significantly faster than the older Celeron and ARM-based processors in the other NAS devices we've looked at. Like the DS218+, we recorded speeds of 109 MB/s for large multi-gigabyte files, and around 90–101 MB/s transfer rates for folders filled with thousands of music files. Unlike our main pick, the TS-251B can encrypt whole volumes, not just folders.
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And as a media server specifically, the DS220+ stands out as well. The truth is that any of the NAS systems tested would make a great home media server, depending on your situation. And if you have a media player with good software compatibility, hardware transcoding is a non-issue.
The device features an impressive set of connectivity features, which includes dual-band Wi-Fi ac, a trio of Ethernet ports, and a USB 2.0 slot. You may want to pick one up sooner than later because Apple has reportedly disbanded its division that develops wireless routers. Network-attached storage devices offer a convenient way to store files and easily and securely access them from any location via a computer or mobile device.
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At the beginning of each test, I installed two 2 terabyte drives in each machine and made sure the RAID mirroring was active. I used relatively small drives for initial testing because the RAID rebuild process takes quite a while. That way, even if a drive completely fails, you can still access your data. You should be able to remove the failed drive, install the new drive, and keep working. The RAID will rebuild the redundancy on the new drive and your data remains secure. PCMag.com is a leading authority on technology, delivering lab-based, independent reviews of the latest products and services.
Simply connect the NAS to your router for instant shared network storage for all your devices at the same time. The number of bays governs the total storage your NAS device can have. This is dependent on the type and capacity of drives that you use. Hence, an HDD/SSD drive will offer up to 16TB storage per drive. While HDD drives tens to be economical, SSDs deliver better performance.
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It offers all the essential features of a NAS device and manages to keep a lower price tag. It supports transcoding to allow you to stream 4K content in 1080p over a network. It’s also easy to set up backups to additional NAS systems, both local and remote, and everything sits in one app, called Hybrid Backup Sync.
WD engineers designed these drives to tolerate heat and vibration better than typical hard drives (though not as much as enterprise-server drives), so these drives are ideal for multidrive NAS setups. They've received accolades from both professional reviewers and NAS owners because they provide good performance and large storage capacity at a decent price. TeraStation 3420DN 4-Bay Desktop NAS is a powerful dual-bay desktop NAS for sharing data and providing backup for your hard drives and laptops. Buffalo TeraStation is one of the best and most affordable NAS devices compared to other brands. With this powerhouse of 4 TB hard drives, your whole home or office can be your data storage hub. Plus, with 128 MB RAM & 64MB Flash Cache, TeraStation 3420DN helps you to run fast & efficient applications like web surfing and video editing with blazing speed.
Logging in to DSM, we found another notification as well as instructions for how to rebuild the drive array in the Storage Manager once we replaced it. The interface in DiskStation Manager offers an overlay for system health as well as easy access to all the settings you need. Ideally, a RAID NAS box would allow you to swap out drives, growing your array capacity over time. To accomplish this, I removed the existing two terabyte drive from the 2/3 array and replaced it with a four terabyte drive. When I first bought my first Drobo seven years or so ago, all the drives were mere 1 terabyte drives. Today, you can get a 10 terabyte drive for under four hundred bucks.
It is similar to Plex and allows you to access your files over a network. The network connections are made via the two Gigabit Ethernet ports with link aggregation. The Asustor AS6604T is a power-packed NAS device that supports 4K streaming and transcoding using Plex. The hefty price tag means it is not the ideal solution for everyone. But the device is perfect for users who consider their media collection valuable and want to secure it.
If a drive fails and the NAS doesn't produce a notification, you're at risk of data loss if the second drive also fails. The machine I tested here has eight bays, but you can get Synology boxes with as few as two bays and as many as 24 . Earlier this year, I tested a four bay Synology 916+ and it was quite excellent. When it comes to RAID performance, the clear winners are the Synology, ioSafe, QNAP, and Drobo. If you want lots and lots of features, you'll be happy with the Synology, the armored ioSafe, or the QNAP.
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