Network Attached Storage (NAS) drives might exist a slightly tedious part of the engineering science world but they can be extremely useful devices and sometimes even life-saving. Here we've tested the best NAS drives and then you can create a personal cloud storage organisation for home or office.

NAS drives can exist used to support and shop files such as music, documents, video and a lot more. You can even install apps on them so they do things like run your dwelling house security cameras, download files automatically and even host a website.

Synology is well-known for making some of the best NAS drives, but in that location are plenty of great alternatives that are often cheaper from the likes of QNAP, TerraMaster, Western Digital and others. Sadly, the contest isn't so strong these days with nothing new from the likes of Drobo, Netgear, Seagate or Buffalo.

We've reviewed and ranked them here and then these are the best NAS drives for Plex at home, back up in the office and many more uses.

All-time NAS drives 2022

1

Synology DS220j - Best Overall

Synology DS220j

  • Pros
    • Affordable
    • Piece of cake to use
    • Upgraded processor
  • Cons
    • Limited RAM
  • Best Pricedue south Today:

Another version of Synology's 2-bay NAS bulldoze might not be a huge upgrade just if information technology ain't bankrupt don't set it, right.

This is still one of the best options on the market thanks to its continued accessibility and ease of use. The actress processor ability and memory speed things up nicely making this the perfect device to sync files from multiple computers and distribute media around the home.

Those looking for extra trophy and ability should look at the DS4 range.

Read our full Synology DS220j review

2

QNAP TS-230 - All-time Synology Alternative

QNAP TS-230

  • Pros
    • Stylish
    • QTS v.0 coming soon
    • 2GB of RAM
    • SSD Caching
  • Cons
    • Some apps need actress licenses
    • Fewer apps than Synology
  • Best Tolls Today:

If we could exercise joint kickoff and then the QNAP TS-230 would be up there with the DS220j as it'due south the best Synology alternative right now.

Non simply does it offering a design that isn't the tiresome old black or silver box, just information technology's as well got 2GB of DDR4 RAM equally standard to run applications smoothly. For some, the wider range of apps on Synology's platform forth with BTRFS might swing it.

All the same, even on EXT4, the TS-230 is an excellent value NAS bulldoze that's easy to utilise and perfect for dwelling house or small role apply.

Read our full QNAP TS-230 review

3

Asustor Drivestor 2 Pro AS3302T - All-time for 2.5GbE LAN

Asustor Drivestor 2 Pro AS3302T

  • Pros
    • 2.5GbE LAN port
    • Plenty of apps
    • Powerful power
  • Cons
    • Can't upgrade RAM
    • Can't use SSDs as enshroud
  • All-time Costsouth Today:

The Asustor Drivestor 2 Pro AS3302T was designed for those home and pocket-size business users that are embracing meliorate than 1Gbit LANs.

It isn't a inexpensive NAS but offers enhanced LAN performance for those using two.5GbE and the latest ADM 4.0 operating system is a nice upgrade offering a responsive interface and plenty of functionality.

Asustor and third-party applications are available for a wide range of uses, but make sure these include the functionality you need for your deployment.

Read our full Asustor Drivestor 2 Pro AS3302T review

four

QNAP TS-251B - Best for HDMI

QNAP TS-251B

  • Pros
    • Meaty
    • HDMI output
    • Versatile
  • Cons
    • Behind Synology on apps
  • Best Prices Today:

The QNAP TS-251B is a not bad pick for a NAS drive if you're not looking for one of the cheapest models around. It does the job on the design and build front, but more chiefly, offers an fantabulous range of specs and features.

QNAP might be a little backside Synology on the app front, but the selection is still decent and we're increasingly impressed with the user interface.

Combined with a powerful processor and HDMI output, this can be used like a tiny PC. It's a great media histrion and you can fifty-fifty run office software on it if y'all like.

Read our full QNAP TS-251B review

5

TerraMaster F2-210 - Best Budget

TerraMaster F2-210

  • Pros
    • Cheap
    • Easy to employ
    • Versatile
  • Cons
    • Limited performance for encrypted storage
  • All-time Pricesouthward Today:

As long as a 2-bay drive is enough, the TerraMaster is an first-class value for money option in the NAS drive globe. It's well-made, easy to ready and use, then runs quietly and efficiently.

Chiefly, information technology offers much of the same specs and features that you'll find on much more expensive rivals such as Synology. If you just want a fairly simple NAS bulldoze for dwelling house or pocket-size office use without spending besides much then this is a keen option.

The F2-210 is perfect for tasks like basic file serving, backup and management.

Read our full TerraMaster F2-210 review

6

Synology DS420j - All-time 4-bay

Synology DS420j

  • Pros
    • Good value
    • User friendly
    • Quad-core processor
  • Cons
    • No extra RAM
    • Similar to predecessor
  • Best Prices Today:

As nosotros expected, the DS420j is even so another solid NAS drive from Synology representing a decent residue of cost, specs and features.

That's because information technology's extremely similar to the older DS418j that it replaces. What yous go hither is a quad-core processor instead of dual-core helping with running lots of apps simultaneously. However, there's no additional RAM so look to the DS418 (flagship model without the j) if you demand more performance.

The DS420j still comes recommended by united states of america, just check the toll of the DS418j now it's the older model - especially if you won't brand use of the more powerful chip hither.

Read our full Synology DS420j review

7

TerraMaster F5-422 - Best five-bay

TerraMaster F5-422 NAS

  • Pros
    • Powerful
    • 10GbE LAN
    • Upgradeable to 12GB RAM
    • Five Bays
  • Cons
    • Lacks USB iii.2 Gen 2 ports
    • No PCIe slot
    • Tricky RAM upgrade
  • Best Prices Today:

TerraMaster continues to offer excellent value for coin in the NAS bulldoze market with attractive alternatives for those who can't afford Synology or QNAP models.

While the F5-422 might only seem like a 5-bay version of the F4 for more than money, there's a lot that can be done with an extra drive. It doesn't have a PCIe slot or USB 3.2 Gen 2 but you can cleverly use it as a local storage device likewise as a network resource.

With 10GbE LAN, plenty of processing power and the ability to upgrade the RAM to 12GB if you like all add together to the charm. The TOS four.2 Os has got a lot improve over time, too.

Read our full TerraMaster F5-422 NAS review

8

Asustor Lockerstor 4 AS6604T - Best iv-bay Synology Alternative

Asustor Lockerstor 4 AS6604T

  • Pros
    • Powerful CPU
    • NVMe slots
    • HMDI ii.0 output
    • 2x 2.5GbE LAN ports
  • Cons
    • No PCIe slot
    • App selection could be better
  • Best Tolls Today:

The Asustor Lockerstor 4 AS6604T is a high-quality design that'southward packed with exactly the features that NAS owners most want including a display, powerful processor and HDMI two.0.

It isn't cheap, but information technology delivers a highly flexible NAS where the design tin exist significantly enhanced through the adding of user-installed hardware via the NVMe slots.

Asustor and third-party applications are available for a wide range of uses, merely make sure these include the job you intend to deploy the NAS to do before purchasing.

Read our total Asustor Lockerstor iv AS6604T review

9

Synology DS720+ - All-time Performance

Synology DS720+

  • Pros
    • Snappy performance
    • NVMe cache options
    • Great expansion potential
  • Cons
    • No two.5GbE LAN
    • USB limited to Gen 1
    • External bulldoze uses eSATA
  • All-time Prices Today:

Synology once again updates an existing model with upgrades, and the DS720+ even gets physical pattern tweaks, too!

Those looking for a 2-bay will find plenty of operation bachelor hither every bit well as NVMe caching options and excellent expansion potential. Yous also, of course, get the firm's form-leading DSM operating system.

On the downside, the 720+ lacks two.5GbE LAN Ports, USB is limited to Gen 1 speeds and connecting an external drive uses eSATA. And so, a cheaper iv-bay with 2.5GbE might be a better selection if y'all're not tied to Synology.

Read our total Synology DS720+ review

x

WD My Deject Abode - Best Style

WD My Cloud Home

  • Pros
    • Meaty & fashionable
    • DLNA support
    • Storage born
  • Cons
    • Can't expand storage
  • Best Prices Today:

The design and styling of the hardware in the My Cloud Home is top-notch, with all its issues lying in the software components provided for information technology.

The underlying platform is a solid 1 for which WD hardware engineers should be proud, and the software team needs to improve support.

The My Deject Home can provide DLNA storage to access with a smart TV or a personal cloud solution, just those that want more than should consider Synology, QNAP or the higher-end WD My Cloud products.

Read our full WD My Cloud Abode review

How to choose a NAS drive

NAS stands for Network Attached Storage. Put but, information technology's a large difficult bulldoze that connects to your router so you don't demand to plug directly into information technology to access the storage.

They make information technology easy to access your music, movies, photos and documents anywhere at all times. One of the nearly pop reasons to buy a NAS drive is for media playback. Your personal video library can be viewed on your TV, without having to connect a laptop. A fleck like having your ain Netflix.

Similarly, you can utilise an app on your phone to control music playback, much like your own personal Spotify. A NAS drive will use much less ability than a regular PC, also. For ease of setup and ease of utilize, a dedicated NAS drive is hard to beat out.

Hard disks for NAS drives

I of the first decisions to brand is chapters. Endeavor to work out how much storage you need correct at present, and what you'll require 5 years from now. Many NAS drives come with no disks at all - these are known every bit diskless or blank drives.

The reward is that yous tin can choose the drives you want and easily upgrade them later on on.

You can now get disks up to 12TB in size, and you can expect to pay effectually £300 for one. A 4TB drive specifically for NAS use will set you back about £100. NAS drives usually cost slightly more than normal PC hard drives, but it'due south worth spending the extra because they're designed to run constantly and tend to have a meliorate warranty.

Difficult disks designed for NAS use include more secure construction providing more resistance to vibration, which makes a lot of sense for a bulldoze that's designed to be on the whole time. They also offer power management and so they tin adjust performance based on their temperature.

A pop choice is the WD Red range. You can buy the 6TB version for around £150 from Amazon, and the 3TB is around £100. It's better to purchase 2 disks and configure them in a RAID, rather than rely on just one disk.

TerraMaster F2-422 bay

Tin I utilise an SSD drives in a NAS?

Although information technology's mutual to utilize a traditional hard bulldoze inside a NAS box, you lot can employ SSDs (solid state drive) in some. You might even be able to utilize a PCIe NVMe SSD as a cache to improve performance.

All the same, yous should choose an SSD designed for utilise in a NAS drive such equally the Seagate IronWolf 110 or Western Digital Cherry SA500. Thanks to things like DuraWrite technology, they are purpose-congenital for continuous employ, which is critical inside a NAS.

The downside of choosing SSDs is the limited capacity as they typically max out at 4TB. The other drawback is the much higher cost.

What is a RAID?

RAID stands for redundant array of cheap disks. RAID can be quite circuitous but at a basic level, y'all'll want to utilize it primarily to provide redundancy and so if a deejay fails your data is still safe. Three of the nigh popular variants are RAID 1, five and half dozen.

Most NAS drives will offer at least two bays, which means that you can set them up as RAID one. In this scenario, the 2nd drive is a mirror of the kickoff, then if one bulldoze fails completely all your information is safe on the other. Y'all tin then supersede the faulty disk, and rebuild the RAID array.

RAID 5 requires at least iii drives and offers parity information. That means a RAID 5 array can withstand a unmarried drive failure without losing information or admission to data. Every bit information is 'striped' beyond 3 drives, reads are fast, but at the expense of slower writes because of having to also write the parity data.

RAID 6 meanwhile requires 4 drives only offers both striped and dual parity, so two drives could fail and the RAID could still recover.

Whichever y'all cull all the same, don't consider your NAS to be the only backup of your data. If the box merely dies, or if something catastrophic happens like a fire, you'll nonetheless lose all your data. To mitigate this you'll desire another external backup, preferably to the cloud.

Apps

After storage, the side by side principal concern is software and features. We prefer NASes which accept an app store where you can download pop apps such as Plex instead of forcing you to apply the manufacturer's own media software.

Some NAS drives also offering apps for Android and iOS, which arrive a lot easier to get to your photos, videos and music from your telephone or tablet.

Our reviews explain exactly which apps you go with each NAS.

Synology NAS

Remote access

You'll probably demand remote access to the files on your NAS when you're not at habitation. Previously this required signing upwards to a tertiary-party DNS service, but these days with most NAS drives you tin can just sign up for an account with the manufacturer as you set the bulldoze. Log into the account and they'll handle the connectivity to your box at habitation using their own servers.

Transcoding

How powerful does your NAS'due south processor need to be? The dedicated OSes that NAS drives run are lightweight, but a faster processor and more RAM will enable features such every bit transcoding.

This means that whatever media files can be converted on the fly into a format that's playable by your Tv or set up-elevation box, then you lot don't take to worry if it tin't play the file as it exists on your NAS.

Information technology tin also exist useful if your videos are a higher resolution than your Television set can handle, and so await out for the ability to transcode 4K to Full HD in real-time.

Ports and connections

Don't overlook connectivity. If your priority is to use your NAS as a home video server, it might be worth picking one with an HDMI output like the QNAP TS-251B so you can connect information technology directly to your Television instead of requiring the video to be streamed beyond your network. And if your TV can't play video from a network source you lot'll need a dissever media streamer.

For the all-time functioning, go for a model with Gigabit Ethernet, which is 10x equally quick as 10/100 Ethernet. Look out for front-mounted USB ports and SD slots too.