In the age of high-resolution photos and near-constant video capture, storage space on PCs and mobile devices is filling up faster than ever. Although you can use an external hard drive to upload and backup files from your computer (and, accordingly, from your phone). If you disconnect the hard drive and leave it in the office, it will be impossible to access these files from home. There are ways that other users can share files on the hard drive and access them, but they can be difficult to implement or pose a security risk. Home NAS is a great solution. This is a module consisting of several media.
As the name implies, a NAS is a mass storage device that connects to a home or office network, so users and their designated guests can access files from mobile devices and PCs without connecting to a storage device. Here is what you need to know in order to choose the right device.
What is used for
NAS storage for home is suitable for a variety of purposes. It is mainly used in business and in software development. However, storage is often used at home. As soon as the user decides that it is necessary to store files on a network drive, it will be necessary to decide what needs to be done with them in order to understand what type of NAS is suitable.
For example, sharing access to Office files, such as spreadsheets and Word documents, with colleagues is a simple task for the NAS. If a client uses a NAS to backup laptops overnight, this is also quite simple. But if the user simultaneously broadcasts HD video on his home network to two tablets, a laptop and Smart TV, you will need a NAS with higher characteristics for memory, processor and network capabilities. You will also need a more powerful NAS if you need to store large multimedia libraries, for example, a collection of 100 thousand photos for a graphic studio.
Like any computer peripherals, the functions offered by the various NAS units vary greatly to meet these requirements. Thus, you need to understand the conditions and functions of the device before you go shopping.
Buying Basics
Since a NAS storage device for a home at its simplest level is a small container for a hard drive or disks (with some additional intelligence), the number one specificity for any NAS device is its potential capacity, determined by the number of drive bays it includes. Most consumer-level and home office devices have one or two compartments, while models designed for the office have four or more. But this is not an absolute reference.
Usually, experts in surveys of NAS storage for home do not recommend using drives with a single bay, unless they are used strictly for backing up data that will also be on computers on the network. Some drives with one bay will allow you to connect a second device or external hard drive for this purpose.
Most home users who don’t have video file storage can have a device with two bays, provided that they purchase large enough disks from the very beginning.
Full or diskless system
Some home NAS drives come with pre-populated drives, often already formatted for use with a particular RAID configuration, while others come with diskless drives. Each equipment supplier has its own trends in this regard.
But there is a nuance - manufacturers of drives, which are also manufacturers of hard drives (Seagate, Western Digital), prefer pre-filled drives for obvious reasons - they sell their own hard drives when they sell such equipment. When assembling a NAS storage for a home with your own hands, you should remember this.
Other manufacturers that are not disk manufacturers, such as Synology and QNAP, are more likely to sell their devices without disks, although they (or, more precisely, their resellers) can also offer devices that are pre-populated and equipped with drives for the convenience of customers.
If this NAS is offered both in pre-filled and diskless forms, experts recommend checking the difference in cost and making sure that the drives presented in the filled model are available at an affordable price. With only-fill drives from Seagate and WD, the cost of internal drives is generally much lower than the price of the storage devices themselves.
What drives to use inside
When assembling your own NAS-storage for your home, you need to determine the type of disks. Manufacturers who sell diskless drives recommend specific drive models or families that have been tested for use with their drives. These models either match the hard drives that they actually produce, or not. Before buying, take a look at these disc compatibility lists. If there is already a bank of hard drives that the user is going to install, you need to do such a compatibility check. If the hard drives are not listed, this does not mean that they will not work, but if you buy new drives, it is better to follow the manufacturer's recommendations.
NAS NAS for home storage has a separate drive specification. Some drives from HGST, Seagate, Toshiba, and WD are marked as specifically designed for use with remote access. Most of these NAS-certified hard drives have been tested 24/7/365, which is much higher than conventional consumer-level drives.
Seagate IronWolf 12TB Hard Drive
If you look at Seagate drives, NAS drives are called the IronWolf and IronWolf Pro lines. IronWolf direct drives are what you need to equip your NAS drives at home. At the moment, they have a capacity of 1 to 14 TB. IronWolf Pro drives are designed for service in corporate or commercial environments. HGST drives are the Deskstar NAS line, and Toshiba are the N series. As for Western Digital, NAS drives are characterized by WD Red capacities ranging from 1 TB to 10 TB, and the WD Red Pro series is designed for corporate use.
Safe (storage) space
Blocks with more than one drive are designed to provide redundancy, so in configurations with two and four drives, additional drives can simply mirror the contents of another drive. When assembling a NAS storage with your own hands, this moment is considered especially important.
For example, a device with two bays and two 4 TB drives can offer only 4 TB of available storage if you leave it in mirror mode. The other disk is invisible in a sense, as it is used to create a second copy of all files from another disk in the background.
Typically, the user is able to reconfigure the drives to obtain the capacity of the second drive, if necessary. One way to do this is by interleaving, in which data will span both disks. In some cases, this increases the speed of reading and writing, as the user gets access to two disks simultaneously. But in the event of a failure of one of the drives, all data may be lost, so this approach is not recommended. This substantially doubles the risk of system failure.
Many NAS devices also support JBOD (Just Drive Set) mode, which allows each drive to be addressed as a separate drive letter and stored on separate drives inside the NAS unit. This is a little safer than simple striping, but any data that is stored on this drive is still vulnerable to the failure of this particular mechanism. In reviews of NAS storage you can often find mention of this.
It is also possible to combine striping and mirroring on three or more disks to increase data speed and security. With this arrangement, the NAS will copy the data through the disk array in such a way that a failure of one of the disks will allow the NAS to restore the array (and therefore save the data) if the client replaces the disk with another one. This is mainly of interest to business users who need to maximize redundancy and data transfer rates.
Media Streaming Subtleties
If the user believes that the NAS data storage will allow transferring any type of media files to any device or TV, it should be borne in mind that some devices will play only certain types of files, and joint software and hardware will be required for this.
For example, a DVD copy of an AVI movie will not open on iPhone without any additional codec. It must be in MP4 format in order to be recognized. Software can work around this problem, for example, the VLC Media Player utility. Additionally, some NAS devices work with Chromecast, Apple TV, Roku, Android phones / tablets and other equipment. However, it is difficult to guarantee that a particular file or file type will play on this device, so you should carefully study the NAS specifications to determine its capabilities.
Connectors and controls
Most NAS drives have one or two USB ports that you can use to connect a printer or external drives, which allows you to add them to the network through the NAS itself. Once connected, like everything else on the NAS, they can be accessed by all users on the network.
Some NAS devices also have a “Copy” button on the front panel for copying the contents of an external drive, such as a flash drive, to the NAS with the click of a button. NAS drives come with an Ethernet port, possibly with two for redundancy or linking of channels (in fact, using two Ethernet connections to increase speed) with very high-end business models.
Remote access
In addition to the sharing features listed above, most drives allow you to send web links to users so that they can remotely access specific files or folders located on the drive. Thus, the data warehouse for home NAS can work as its own Dropbox or Google Drive, but with much greater storage capacity and without monthly costs.
Using this feature, you can also access the NAS itself from any Internet connection, and not just through the local network. As a result, you can download the necessary files on the go or transfer streaming movies or music files stored on your home network storage to a laptop in a hotel across the country or around the world, if network bandwidth allows.
Below will be presented the rating of NAS-NAS for home according to users and experts.
1. Synology DiskStation DS718 +
Pros:
- Easy to install.
- Offers 4K video transcoding.
- Supports numerous RAID configurations.
- Lots of ports to connect.
- Lots of applications.
Minuses:
- Not supplied with hard drives.
Bottom line: Synology DiskStation DS718 + is a versatile multi-functional NAS with two drives, providing stable performance.
2. Synology DiskStation DS218j
Pros:
- Very easy to install and manage.
- Reliable applications.
- Stylish design.
- Reasonably priced for sale.
Minuses:
- Average file transfer speed in testing.
- Not supplied with hard drives.
Bottom line: Synology DiskStation DS218j is an excellent NAS device with two entry-level bays, which is supported by many management options and third-party applications.
3. Synology DiskStation DS418play
Pros:
- Easy to install.
- Sleigh for the drive, allowing you to put the hard drive without additional tools.
- Dual LAN ports.
- Generous application directory.
- Good file transfer performance.
Minuses:
- Long parity check procedure.
- Storage drives are not included.
Bottom line: The Synology DiskStation DS418play with four bays is a multimedia network attached storage (NAS) that offers many applications, access to toolless disks and relatively high performance.
4. Asustor AS3202T
Pros:
- Intel's fastest quad-core processor.
- Supports many common applications.
- Supports 4K HDMI video output.
Minuses:
- It requires downloading and installing most services, including media servers and download managers.
- Uses several mobile applications instead of one mobile interface.
Bottom line: Asustor AS3202T is a powerful file server and NAS, but it requires a lot of effort and additional utilities to use all its multimedia capabilities.
5. Asustor AS6302T
Pros:
- 4K video output.
- USB Type-C connection.
- Convenient web and mobile management applications.
- Supports many third-party applications.
Minuses:
- Dear.
- Average file transfer speeds.
- Meticulous installation process.
Bottom line: This equipment fell into the NAS storage rating due to its wide functionality. This is a dual-bay device that offers a wonderful selection of ports and feature sets, but it's hard to install, and the file transfer speed is mediocre.
6. Promise Apollo
Pros:
- Easy to install, access and share.
- Automatically downloads videos and photos from the phone’s camera.
Minuses:
- Weak system.
- Cannot display drive for direct access.
- You must use applications to access the repository.
Bottom line: Promise Apollo with a capacity of 4 terabytes is a personal cloud device that connects to the router and automatically downloads and saves photos and videos from a smartphone or tablet to free up more space on devices.
7. Promise Apollo Cloud 2 Duo
Pros:
- Easy to install and use.
- Stylish design.
- Mobile and web user interface.
- Auto backup camera.
Minuses:
- Hard disk access.
- Average file transfer performance.
Bottom line: Promise Apollo Cloud 2 Duo is a standard, attractive device that offers plentiful and easy-to-use personal cloud storage, although it works a little slower than its competitors. However, its functionality and affordability is at the level of NAS QNAP storage.