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The Best NAS for Most Home Users

By Joel Santo Domingo
Updated
Four different NAS devices pictured together.
Photo: Michael Hession

If you’ve ever needed to back up your phone and your PC’s data, store and stream music and videos around your home, or offload business functions from your PCs, a network-attached storage (NAS) device might be worth buying. After testing six new network-attached storage (NAS) devices and comparing them against our previous picks, we found that the QNAP TS-264-8G is the best home NAS for most people. It is one of the fastest media servers we’ve tested, has forward-looking 2.5-gigabit Ethernet ports found on new high-end routers for speedy transfers, and comes with software that’s easy to use.

Everything we recommend

Our pick

The QNAP TS-264 does all the things you’d expect from a home NAS, plus its 2.5-gigabit Ethernet ports keep it ready for the future.

Buying Options

Upgrade pick

The four-bay QNAP TS-464 has the same hardware as our pick, but adds two hard drive bays for additional storage, redundant backup, and a bit more speed when serving files.

Buying Options

NAS explained


  • What is a NAS?

    Network-attached storage (NAS) is a shared computer that backs up the data from and serves those files back to your phones and PCs.

  • A NAS is best for multiple devices

    Back up documents, photos, and videos from multiple laptops and phones, or create file storage for a business with a few employees.

  • If you don’t need a NAS

    A NAS is overkill if you have just one phone or laptop. In those cases, we recommend online cloud backup services or portable SSDs.

Our pick

The QNAP TS-264 does all the things you’d expect from a home NAS, plus its 2.5-gigabit Ethernet ports keep it ready for the future.

Buying Options

With two hard drive bays and up to two internal SSDs, the QNAP TS-264-8G offers a variety of backup and syncing options, plus it can act as a media streamer, file manager, VPN box, web development server, BitTorrent box, or security footage recorder simultaneously, while taking that load off your primary PCs.

Upgrade pick

The four-bay QNAP TS-464 has the same hardware as our pick, but adds two hard drive bays for additional storage, redundant backup, and a bit more speed when serving files.

Buying Options

For video and photo professionals who need expandable storage space or business owners who need a NAS with multiple backups, it’s worth upgrading to the QNAP TS-464-8G. This model’s two additional bays permit different storage configurations that offer better data protection and performance, all with the same server-side speed as our pick.

Joel Santo Domingo has tested and written about networking products, storage, PCs, and personal tech at Wirecutter, PCMag, and other outlets for more than 20 years. Prior to writing for a living, Joel was an IT tech and sysadmin for small, medium, and large companies. He has professionally backed up a diverse array of data, including medical breakthroughs, international news stories, and original Mariah Carey album photos.

A network-attached storage device, or NAS, is a small always-on computer generally used for backing up computers and serving files to devices on your local network. It includes at least one, but usually two or more, hard-drive bays, a Linux-based operating system optimized for network storage, and enough CPU power and RAM to do everything it needs to do while using far less power than a repurposed old computer.

Unlike a portable SSD or an external hard drive, a NAS with two or more hard drives can provide data redundancy, copying the contents of one drive over to the other automatically.

A NAS is great if you have a large media library, because you can store your files in one place and stream them locally to computers, phones, tablets, speakers, or media centers throughout your house (or even outside it). A NAS is a useful tool for the people who need to store thousands of raw photo files, terabytes of raw video, gigabytes of digital music, or backups of their Blu-ray collection.

You should consider a NAS if you have more than one computer at home, since you can back them all up to the NAS rather than connect an external backup drive to each computer. And if you want to protect your data and backups from theft and natural disasters, a good NAS is capable of uploading files directly to a cloud backup service, too.

A NAS is useful if you have too much data to store in Dropbox or Google Drive, or if you don’t trust your data to cloud storage providers.

Most NAS devices can also act as email, database, and virtual private network (VPN) servers. You can use them for BitTorrent, to host CMS, CRM, and e-commerce software, or as DVRs for networked security cameras. A NAS is a computer, so it can do almost anything a Linux computer can do.

Since this guide’s original publication in 2011, we’ve surveyed many two- and four-bay NAS from reputable vendors. That includes models from Asustor, Buffalo, Netgear, QNAP, Seagate, Synology, Thecus, WD, and Zyxel. We’ve read professional NAS reviews on CNET, PCMag, PCWorld, SmallNetBuilder, and StorageReview.com, and we’ve also looked at customer reviews on Amazon and Newegg.

When deciding which models to test, we paid attention to a number of key features that most home NAS buyers needed:

  • Two drive bays: For most home uses, a two-drive NAS protects your data by mirroring the contents of one drive to the other (RAID 1). Single-drive NAS devices provide less data protection, while NAS boxes with more bays offer more complex RAID configurations.
  • Price: For home use, we’re searching around $250 to $500 for a two-bay NAS (sans hard drives). More than that, and you’re entering business-class territory. You sacrifice speed and utility on a cheaper model.
  • CPU and RAM: We prefer a multicore Intel Celeron or AMD Ryzen processor. We looked for 2 GB of RAM at minimum.
  • Hardware-level encryption acceleration: File encryption is good because it protects your data if someone physically steals your NAS or your disks.
  • Easy-to-use software: Some NAS operating systems, like those from QNAP and Synology, are better than others.
  • Wide support for backups: A NAS should support computer backups on Windows, Macs, and Android or iPhones. It should also allow you to back up easily to a cloud storage service like Backblaze or iDrive.
  • Media-streaming capabilities: NAS boxes can stream videos and music to various devices in your home. You can do this using software from the manufacturer or third-party programs like Plex.
  • At least two USB ports: Between backups, dongles, and other accessories, it’s nice to have at least two USB ports on a NAS.
  • Third-party application support: If you want to add features or services to your NAS, you need to do that with third-party software—including media center software, web-server software, analytics, and more.
  • Warranty and support: The models we tested come with two-year warranties. They also offer tech support via phone, email, online knowledge bases, and forums. Tutorials and videos are accessible on their websites.

We set up each NAS while looking at the web interface’s organization and features. We tested ease of use by configuring user and group accounts, as well as file and folder access permissions. We checked to see if the NAS offered secure remote access via Android and iOS mobile apps or the web. We checked each NAS for drive trays or slots that make the drives easy to remove but are sturdy enough to ensure that the drives fit tightly and securely.

The easiest way to measure real-world NAS performance, at least for how a home NAS is typically used, is to copy files to and from the NAS and calculate the data rate. Since 2015, we’ve run read-and-write tests the simplest way we can: by copying files over Ethernet and measuring the elapsed time. This round, we installed Western Digital Red Plus hard drives in each NAS, connected each model via 2.5-gigabit Ethernet to a Synology WRX560 router through a 5-port Netgear 2.5-gigabit switch, and connected a PC with a 2.5-gigabit USB-to-Ethernet adapter to the switch. If the NAS had dual 1-gigabit Ethernet ports, we connected both to the switch and enabled link aggregation. We used Windows’ built-in Robocopy file-copying tool to read and write two folders to each NAS: a 32 GB music folder with 6,154 MP3 files, as well as a folder with an 8.1 GB MKV video file and a 7.07 GB Linux ISO file.

A QNAP TS-264-8G NAS device.
Photo: Michael Hession

Our pick

The QNAP TS-264 does all the things you’d expect from a home NAS, plus its 2.5-gigabit Ethernet ports keep it ready for the future.

Buying Options

The QNAP TS-264-8G is the two-bay NAS we recommend for most people. It typically sells for less than $420 (diskless) as of this writing. In addition to its role as a base station for all your family’s file and photo backups, its ability to stream and serve media files like music and videos is among the fastest of any NAS we’ve tested.

It includes a modern Intel Celeron processor, hardware-level encryption, and a flexible and easy-to-understand interface with a wide variety of third-party apps. The NAS supports media playback through its own apps or Plex Media Server, has dual hard drives that help save your data (RAID 1 drive mirroring), has four USB ports (including one on the front), has an HDMI port for connections to a monitor or TV, and supports features Wirecutter readers have asked about, such as VPN server capabilities, IP camera support, UPS compatibility, and SSDs.

It supports extra-speedy gigabit internet. The TS-264’s pair of 2.5 GbE (gigabit Ethernet) ports will keep it fast for a while. Newer high-end routers like the Synology WRX560 come with 2.5 GbE ports, which are capable of up to twice the speed of one gigabit Ethernet ports found on other routers and NAS boxes. It doesn’t necessarily guarantee the fastest performance in every case (see Flaws but not dealbreakers below), but they are a leg up over older systems.

It has a powerful processor and plenty of memory. The TS-264 has a modern quad-core 2.0 GHz Intel Celeron processor and 8 GB of RAM. Some NAS devices below this price range use slower ARM-based processors from Realtek, Alpine, or Marvell, or older-generation Intel processors. Some ship with 1 GB of RAM or less. All of these affect the NAS’s speed. You’ll utilize the processor’s speed and abundant RAM when copying lots of files, streaming videos, or performing multiple backups simultaneously.

NAS file-transfer test speeds in MB/s (higher is better)

A chart depicting the test speeds of each NAS we tested while performing various operations.
The TS-264 is a speedy music and file server, up to twice as fast when acting as a server. Source: Wirecutter Staff

The TS-264 is a fast server. The QNAP two-bay NAS was at its fastest when transferring files from its storage to a waiting laptop. It topped our charts with speeds of over 105 megabytes per second (MB/s) while copying over 6,100 music files in 5 minutes, and almost 220 MB/s when sending 15 GB of large files to the laptop in just over a minute. The latter was double the speed of any of the other two-bay NAS. Speed is more critical when serving or streaming files: Like when downloading files from the internet, a slow copy to your laptop can be agonizing. We attribute the speed to the QNAP TS-264’s 8 GB of memory, its speedy quad-core Celeron processor, and its 2.5-GbE ports.

Hard drive bays shown on the side of a QNAP TS-264-8G NAS device.
Photo: Michael Hession

It’s expandable beyond two hard drive bays. The TS-264’s two drive bays are only the beginning. You can add storage via portable SSDs or external hard drives connected to the NAS’s USB and SATA ports. Inside the NAS, you’ll find two M.2 internal SSD slots for adding even faster storage. And if that’s not enough, there’s a PCIe expansion slot capable of adding more internal storage, a connector to external drive arrays, a Wi-Fi 6 adapter, or faster 10 GbE networking ports. Simpler NAS boxes, like the Synology DS224+ and QNAP HS-264 in our Competition section, are limited to external USB expansion.

Administering the server is easy if you’re familiar with Windows. QNAP’s QTS operating system looks like Microsoft Windows, and lets you configure the server using familiar icons and window panes. Basic setup is guided: Just follow a few setup screens, and you’ll have the NAS operating on your network in about a half hour to an hour.

You can do a lot from your phone. If you download QNAP’s apps like Qmanager and sign in using a QNAP cloud account, you can check if the NAS is running, reboot it remotely, and monitor use. You can also backup files and photos from your phone to the NAS, freeing space to take more photos and videos.

A close-up of the ports on a QNAP TS-264-8G NAS device.
Photo: Michael Hession

The TS-264 is also a computer and media player. The “network-attached” part of network-attached storage means that most people leave their NAS connected to the router to access it from their web browser, but the TS-264 has an HDMI port that allows you to play video files directly from the NAS to a connected display, plus work on the NAS directly with a keyboard and mouse. This is one feature that Synology NAS boxes omit.

Virtual machines are supported. Some technical-minded folks will want to offload functions from their primary PC to a side server like the QNAP TS-264. The NAS supports up to four virtual machines (VM) running simultaneously. These VMs act like independent Linux or Windows PCs running on the NAS, which can be dedicated to functions like downloading and transcoding 4K video files, or running a personal VPN, a security system (firewall), or a test web server for your projects.

QNAP provides easy access to many server-side applications. QNAP provides access to many applications you can run on your NAS. They download from an app center, like the app store on your phone. Some of the more popular apps are Plex for media streaming, and WordPress for creating and serving your own web content.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

The drive bays aren’t lockable. The QNAP TS-264 has simple slide-in drive trays, which can’t be locked for security. The Synology DS723+ and DS923+ have more robust drive bays with a key lock. Synology’s locks aren’t high security by any means, but they should keep wandering fingers from popping a spinning drive out inadvertently.

QNAP NAS drives are limited to ext4 format. Synology NAS drives can be formatted to ext4 and SHR+btrfs format. The ext4 format is faster but has less data flexibility.

You can’t upgrade the TS-264’s memory. It comes with 8 GB of memory, which is more than enough for most home networks. Folks who want to upgrade beyond that for their business should look at the Synology DS723+.

The TS-264 is slower than other NAS systems during write operations. This QNAP two-bay array took a bit longer to copy files from the laptop to the NAS storage than some of the competition. Considering the TS-264’s prodigious output however, it’s acceptable. Besides, you’re probably backing up a laptop while it’s sitting idle, so it will have plenty of time for writing files to storage.

A QNAP TS-464 NAS device.
Photo: Michael Hession

Upgrade pick

The four-bay QNAP TS-464 has the same hardware as our pick, but adds two hard drive bays for additional storage, redundant backup, and a bit more speed when serving files.

Buying Options

A two-bay NAS is the best option for most people who want to use theirs for home backup, but if you need more storage space with additional file protection for your business records, get the four-bay QNAP TS-464. It has the same processor and memory as the TS-264, but with two more drive bays. On our tests, it performed similarly to the TS-264, and even a little faster while serving music.

It gives you more storage options. 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. A four-bay NAS also lets you expand your storage capacity more easily since you can start with two drives and add more as needed, whereas the primary way to expand the storage space on a two-bay NAS is to replace first one drive and then the other with higher-capacity drives.

The extra storage space will come in handy if you’re looking to run more server-side apps on the NAS, such as if you’re a heavy downloader and you need to simultaneously run a Plex media server or record video and sound from multiple security cameras.

If you’re running a business in your home: Synology DiskStation DS723+ and DS923+

Synology DiskStation DS723 and DS923+ NAS devices.
Photo: Michael Hession

If you need to back up a lot of office data, if you need a NAS for your home office, or if you simply prefer the Synology administrator interface over QNAP’s, the Synology DiskStation DS723+ and DiskStation DS923+ are other solid choices in the two-bay and four-bay NAS category. They’re not as fast at serving files as the QNAP TS-264-8G or TS-464-8G, but they make more sense if you need to speed up your laptop or external drive backups while storing business-related assets. They come with 2 GB of RAM, which is less than our pick, but are capable of being upgraded to 32 GB, which is beneficial if you are planning to run multiple apps and virtual machines on the NAS. The Synology NAS boxes also have sturdier lockable sleds in their drive bays, which will help in case you need to swap out worn or outdated drives for new ones.

Both Synology and QNAP sell many, many NAS devices, all of which run the same software but vary in processor type and speed, RAM, number of drive bays, and features. Our picks offer the best combination of performance, features, and price for most home uses, and Synology’s and QNAP’s respective software offerings are more powerful and polished than those of other NAS makers.

We tested the QNAP HS-264 because its slim horizontal body, dual HDMI ports, and fan-less operation looked attractive. It will fit well in a studio apartment or in your living room. While it was fast across the board, the top surface of the NAS became hot during operation. It also required a screwdriver to install hard drives, so it’s not as quick to set up as our pick. Consider it if you’re a cinephile who wants to watch movies directly from the NAS and if you need a media server to store your 1080p and 4K video file collection.

The Synology DS224+ was less expensive than our pick, but it came with less RAM and lacked 2.5 GbE ports, M.2 SSD expansion, and an HDMI port. It might be a viable choice if all you want is a file server and backup station, but our picks are much more versatile.

Our former picks, including the Synology DiskStation DS220+, QNAP TS-251D-4G-US, QNAP TS-451D2-4G, and Synology DiskStation DS420+ may still be available online, but they have been supplanted by the newer picks above.

Other NAS boxes we’ve looked at and dismissed because they lagged our picks on performance, price, or features include the WD My Cloud Home Duo, Buffalo LinkStation SoHo, Asustor AS5202T, and the Asustor AS5304T.

This article was edited by Signe Brewster and Caitlin McGarry.

Meet your guide

Joel Santo Domingo

Joel Santo Domingo is a senior staff writer covering networking and storage at Wirecutter. Previously he tested and reviewed more than a thousand PCs and tech devices for PCMag and other sites over 17 years. Joel became attracted to service journalism after answering many “What’s good?” questions while working as an IT manager and technician.

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