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The two 2.5GbE ports support link aggregation, giving you up to 5Gbps speed. Synology provides its range of software for better security, management, and cloud storage options. I own 5 different Synology NAS arrays and have yet to regret any of my decisions to purchase them. Stuffed with 16TB of Seagate's finest and 6GB under the hood, it sings for me each time I push or pull files to it. My eldest still chugs away, babysitting a UPS battery, ready to send shutdown signals to my server garden if we go to candle power. For this we used a 4.22GB folder of video files, transferred to the NAS and back.
I had it plugged into a TV monitor through one of the motherboard HDMI port and tried switching it around. Eventually I discovered that it had to be in the nVidia GPU and that the TV had to be plugged in when the PC booted. There is an excellent variety of ways to lose data while backing it up.
The Best NAS (Network Attached Storage) Devices for 2022
They're the real documents used in the production of a few of my projects. Synology had the highest satisfaction ratings on every drill-down question. Its top scores were a 9.5 for storing photos, music, and videos for access on the network and 9.6 for storing other types of files for network access, as well as a 9.6 for satisfaction with reliability.
Sure, Intel's bargain basement processors, Gbit networking, what did you expect? If you got a firecracker like the DS420+, my friend, you would look back at your previous choice and say "what a fool I was to have chosen that cracker box". Digital security is also important, and Synology has solid options baked in, from a firewall to antivirus options provided by Norton, as well as robust, customizable security options in its Control Center. If you're super-comfortable with specing PC parts and building PCs, you'll probably want to go it on your own. But if you're new to PC building, buying an appliance NAS is probably the way to go.
How we tested
If you're doing high-performance video production on a single machine, you might want to connect a DAS device right to your machine so there's no delay. I strongly recommend cloud storage as one leg in a backup strategy, but for home and small office use, a NAS can be invaluable. NAS speed varies widely depending on many factors, but expect them to be significantly slower than a typical external hard drive. These are devices primarily useful for backing up and storing data long-term where speed isn’t a significant factor. Though the DS918+ is quite expensive, you get your money's worth with the potential storage capacity.
Or you can set it to export, say, only video files from a specific folder. It takes a little effort to get the button working how you want, but Synology's guide should help you configure the feature. While QNAP models often have a front USB port, most other NAS boxes do not, so it's nice to see on this Synology unit. For better or worse, instead of having one big app with tons of features, Synology takes a piecemeal approach to its mobile apps. DS Audio, DS File, DS Photo, DS Cloud, and DS Video are for accessing media. DS Finder is for monitoring the stats on your NAS, DS Get is for managing downloads, and DS Cam is for managing IP cameras.
Small Office
At a competitive price, they offer the very best UI in the business, a wide range of apps, and great features. All the offerings we're presenting are good, but Synology does itallright. Our experience with TerraMaster is a solid offering at a budget-friendly price.
A few models will also come with an HDMI port; this would let you use the NAS as a media server with a direct connection to your HDMI-equipped HDTV. For example, that, ahem, sweet DVD rip you have of James Cameron'sTitanicin AVI format will not open on an iPhone without some jiggering. It can be complicated, though, to guarantee that a specific file or file type will play on a given device, so look at the specs of the NAS closely to determine its capabilities.
To simulate drive failure, we pulled a drive from the NAS while it was running. A NAS should beep or flash an LED to alert you that something is wrong, and the interface should show a drive-failure notification. If the NAS allows you to set up SMS or email alerts, that's even better.
I’d recommend something like the SilverStone DS380B. It has support for up to 12 drives, four being fixed 2.5-inch bays and eight supporting hot-swappable 3.5-inch drives. There’s enough internal space for a graphics card though you will need to use the PCI slot for SATA expansion as only a Mini-ITX motherboard will fit here. There’s a lot to do still, including setting up the Machine Learning libraries, getting Samba going, configuring Kodi for the media server, tweaking power settings, etc. There are some great choices to make your NAS system easy to administer such as FreeNAS.Most people will enjoy using that. Personally, I’ve been avoiding pre-built applications like this because I like fiddling around a a lower level so I know how everything works.
It’s supported by both the Intel Pentium and Core i5 processors, has more than enough capacity for most scenarios, and has a speed rating of DDR with a latency of CL38. Luckily, there’s a low-profile cooler from Noctua that will do the job just fine for either CPU. Noctua is one of the leading brands when it comes to fans and the Noctua NH-L9i is about as good as it gets. The ASUS ROG Strix B660-I Gaming WiFi is an affordable motherboard that supports 12th Gen Intel processors. The four SATA ports can be complemented by an optional SATA PCI card. The ASUS ROG Strix B660-I Gaming WiFi is a brilliant Mini-ITX motherboard with plenty to love.
Small-business owners and home enthusiasts who require a robust two-bay NAS with high-speed connectivity options should put the AS6702T at the top of their shopping lists. Still, even though Synology advertises the DS218+ as being capable of all kinds of transcoding, you'll want to use a more powerful computer than the DS218+ if you're serious about on-the-fly media transcoding. We recommend transcoding your video files ahead of time if you plan on using your NAS as a media server. You can do this with the Offline Transcoding feature in Video Station, though unfortunately you need to manually choose individual videos to convert. If you're looking for an automated option, QNAP's software allows you to set up a specific folder that the NAS monitors; the NAS then transcodes any files you drop in. Network-attached storage devices allow users to easily create personal cloud storage for their files and system backups.
One way you can do this is via "striping," in which the data will span both drives. Striping by itself is chancy; under some circumstances, it enhances the speed of reads and writes, since you're accessing two drives at once. But if either disk fails, it's possible that all your data will be lost, so we don't recommend this approach. 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.
You have access to all the same mobile apps for streaming, backup, and everything else the DS218+ offers. Since this model has two more bays than our top pick, you can use different storage configurations that offer better data protection and performance. This NAS is best suited for professionals or anyone who wants to expand a NAS system with more storage down the line. Although these devices didn’t make the cut, any one of the NAS systems we looked at for this page would make excellent additions to your home network.
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