My brother is about to buy a NAS box for home use. I've been happy with my synology. That and qnap still tops?

Anyone have a good rec for reasonably priced NAS drives? Probably looking for 2 or 3 in the 6 to 10TB range (depending on 2 or 4 bay box)

I seem to recall we're supposed to stay away from SMR drives.

thanks!

-jk

I go for reliability over price every time. Before I buy spinning rust, I look at whatever the most recent Backblaze article says: https://www.backblaze.com/b2/hard-drive-test-data.html

I'm a big fan of Synology. I am sometimes tempted to get a Qnap because they typically offer more bays and faster CPUs for the same money. But, Synology has never let me down.

Synology numbers their models by max number of bays followed by the year it's released. I have a DS414slim, DS416play, and DS420j. All have a different CPU architecture, but all get the same OS release basically at the same time with the same application support.

Last year I also added an Unraid box to my collection built from a retired HP Microserver Gen8. That's a really cool option too if you have the hardware lying around and some time to figure things out.

I would avoid a 2-bay NAS if you think you might want to expand it later. I purchased one for the office thinking I could buy the expansion unit down the road. Apparently, if the expansion unit ever loses power while the man box doesn't, it can trash the array. It sounds too chancey to me even with both units on the same UPS.

Thanks, guys! That backblaze site is fun. As to unraid, I'm afraid he's not the sort to knit one out of parts. Frankly, I'm not anymore, either. There was a time, though!

Thanks for the thought on the 2 bay box, too. I have a 4 bay and it hadn't occurred to me.

I fired up my DS211 a couple of weeks ago (I wanted to play with iSCSI). Still works. Bit slow, though.

Another vote for Synology. I have a 5 bay DS1513+ at home and a 2 bay DS218+ at my parents house for offsite backups.

I also put in approx. 250TB worth of Synology hardware for a company spread across 5 sites a couple of years ago. The centralised management tool was really useful for keeping things up to date and making sure the RAID sets were happy.

Mind: Blown.

More info <- Actually, jmwking, read this page, it has some good advice.

Nice summary! Thanks.

Another vote for Synology. I've had mine for ages now and it's still whirring away even though I rarely use it anymore

I just looked at it recently and it's still happy as a clam, wondering where I've been. I sometimes run something off of Plex or back up clients' data to it. I've had very un-fancy drives in there, too. I recall purchasing 10TB external drives a while ago because they were cheaper. I tore the drives out of them and expanded my storage. They're doing great. But I also don't have anything on there that I'd either be sad to lose or isn't backed up somewhere else.

Synology all the way.
I've used several different 5 and 6 bay units, personally and professionally. They've ALL been great. And, they ALL still work.

I am using a DS1512+ at home now. It's been in one of our branch offices, 24H, covered in dust, before we moved it to our main EU office, before we dismissed (which is when I brought it home).
10 years, 24H, tens of drives used over the years, and I just updated its OS last week. Still supported, still working, and I've even been using it as a DVR unit for my home video surveillance system.

Absolutely great products.