How to choose the right nas 2 or 4 bays? Celeron or arm?

If you decide to buy a low-priced NAS with basic features, you may feel frustrated because it does not meet your needs. In the same way, you could also spend more budget on this equipment, although you would feel the same way when you see that many functions you do not need or use.

Taking enough time to analyze what type of NAS you need will clearly save you money and get the model that fits what you are looking for, both for your personal tasks and for your work environment.

Also, referring more to the technical concept, the description "network connected storage" could be confusing, because the topic of networks is something that not everyone dominates.

Although in this case, a NAS storage device can be connected to any home network in a matter of a few minutes, without the need for great technical knowledge for installation.

Index of contents

What is a NAS?

It is a device that does not connect to a computer, but to a home, work or university network, for example. A NAS is similar to a server, which comes without hard drives and whose function is to serve files to all devices connected to the network, making this the point where all the files that will be used on that network are stored.

Low-end and cheaper models include the option of being able to install only one hard drive. In turn, the best NAS, and which are more expensive, allow you to install multiple hard drives.

If you have already decided that you need a NAS, you must take into account three extremely important points: the NAS must be from a quality manufacturer, its functions must serve what you need, and correctly choose the hard drives to install.

In short, and giving us a more graphic idea, a NAS is made up of a few hard drives carefully installed in a box and that have a direct connection to the router. The other components that we find inside a NAS are a basic motherboard, a processor, memory and a power supply. It is simple hardware, although it is usually treated as a technological device difficult to understand and aimed at advanced users.

Advantages of having a NAS

The most outstanding advantage of using a NAS is the possibility that anyone has access to the hard drive of this unit, only being necessary to be connected with a device to the network router, wired or wireless.

This assumes that the NAS will have a local central repository function, in which files will be stored that will be constantly available to be used and shared within this network.

However, this sharing may not only be limited to one network, but with the use of increasingly advanced routers, users on other networks may access files on the NAS, which is done through a personal cloud..

In order to understand the different levels of NAS equipment available in the market, we are going to summarize and group the three existing groups for individuals and companies: basic, general and advanced. We are going to make a brief description of each one and then further analyze their technical characteristics.

Basic NAS devices

These basic storage units perform a standard function, with limited specifications and low power. These devices are primarily geared towards file sharing on a small network to which few users connect.

Having basic specifications, the price is also economical, at the same time that they can be purchased without a disk, which makes them even more affordable.

Despite their modest specs and moderate power, that doesn't mean they don't have good capacity, considering there are multi-terabyte drives available on the market.

In general, even the most limited NAS computers have compatibility with multi-terabyte hard drives, although it is recommended that you check if they are really compatible from the manufacturer's own website, so as not to make an incorrect purchase.

This type of NAS does an effective job when it comes to storing and sharing data on the network, even though it is manufactured to limited specifications, including data transfer speed. The rest of the features and connectivity are also lower than those of an advanced NAS, although they are useful for certain users.

General NAS devices

In this intermediate range you can find NAS manufactured with two and four bays, and a quality in terms of performance and features that can meet the needs of most users.

The features of these units include high-end ARM or Intel processors and enough RAM modules for various tasks, which can be upgraded later. In addition, they can stream large multimedia files, which can be converted to formats compatible with the devices where they are being played.

Similarly, the connectivity they offer is superior and business-oriented. These devices include eSATA, USB 3.0, and even HDMI connections on some models, so the NAS can be used directly connected to a projector or TV to play multimedia content.

Some slightly more advanced models, in this same range, can come with several Gigabit Ethernet ports, ideal for data transfers at higher speeds, and even the possibility of making backup copies so that the network continues to operate even when some port failure.

Advanced NAS devices

As for the highest range of NAS models, these are especially aimed at all those business environments with a significant data load and tasks to perform. In addition to offering more bays, the form factor of these devices can be desktop or rack.

These advanced NAS cover all the features of the previous two ranges, but with much higher power, which can support more users connected to the NAS, storage virtualization and the simultaneous execution of multiple desktops.

In terms of connectivity, it is common for them to include four Gigabit Ethernet and 10 GbE ports that support high-speed network connections. Of course, the necessary budget that a company will have to use will be greater for these models.

Factors to consider when choosing a NAS

It is normal that when seeing the great diversity of NAS models with very different characteristics, choosing the right one is more difficult than previously thought. This is also given by the fact of the constant launches made by manufacturers, offering different specifications for different users, which makes it difficult to understand which is the correct one for each case.

However, and to make the task of buying the right one a little easier, you should focus only on four factors to analyze:

• Form factor Internal specifications External connectivity Number of bays

Form factor

There are different ways NAS are made. The most common is the cube-shaped NAS, which falls into the desktop NAS group, which is quite small in size, always depending on the number of bays it includes.

Other models come in rack form. These models, in general, are designed for companies and tend to be more expensive than desktop ones. This form is ideal for companies, which often dedicate, in many cases, small rooms to mount different wired devices such as servers and NAS, keeping everything tidy in one place.

Considering a spec-oriented perspective, there are no big differences between desktop shapes and racks. Basically, what changes in both form factors is the chassis. Not much more.

For their part, NAS manufacturers such as QNAP frequently continue to develop new form factors, such as very slim NAS that are positioned horizontally, and which are ideal for storage on shelves or cabinets along with stereo or TV.

Internal specifications

The operation of a NAS device is based on a processor and RAM memory. Although the processor was not so important in the case of a storage unit, today it has more prominence with the launch of higher capacity NAS.

In most models, the NAS processor will come integrated in the motherboard and will not have the possibility of being updated, so before buying a unit, it is necessary to analyze this point well.

As with PC processors, a NAS processor is categorized in terms of number of cores and clock speed. Gigahertz or megahertz is used to measure clock speeds on a NAS, in more basic models.

The higher these specifications, the more performance you will get from a NAS, with higher speed, more workload and responsiveness. Although it must be borne in mind that the more powerful the processor, the greater the energy consumption will also be.

For basic tasks like file management, a low-end NAS with an ARM system and up to 512 MB of RAM might suffice. Although a higher specification NAS will be required if application execution or desktop virtualization is required, for example.

External connectivity

State-of-the-art NAS devices are manufactured with Gigabit Ethernet adapters up to 1000 Mbps. The most expensive models also include additional network ports that benefit from Link Aggregation.

In addition to Gigabit Ethernet ports, you can also find USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 ports, which can be located on the front or rear of the NAS. These ports will be used to transfer data between the NAS and other devices such as digital cameras, external hard drives and smartphones.

Other models may also include HDMI connectivity, with which you can connect the NAS to a television, projector, or monitor. With this you can play multimedia content directly from local storage, without the need to saturate the network when streaming.

Number of bays

While having many available bays on a NAS is more expensive, there are also greater benefits in terms of storage capacity. And next to the largest number of bays appears the RAID array, a system that allows the use of multiple disks that interact with each other.

A RAID array is responsible for offering redundancy, so data from one hard drive is copied in real time to another hard drive. The benefit of this is that if a hard drive fails, you already have a copy of the data on the reducing disk.

In summary, the RAID array allows multiple disks to be used within the NAS as a single mass of storage space, while increasing data security by always having a copy on redundant disks.

Choose the right disk for your NAS

The first thing you need to know is that not all hard drives will be used on a NAS. The disks that we find in a conventional PC are designed to be used for several hours a day, but with a break as well. These discs are for users who use the PC for 6 to 10 hours and then turn it off.

However, there is another segment of users that needs to use a PC or NAS all day, to send and receive files, for editing tasks or to run applications continuously. This is the segment in which we find photographers and architects, who in case they use standard hard drives, at some point they will see that they do not receive adequate performance or even encounter disk failures.

In these cases, a NAS requires a hard drive that is ready to operate 24 hours a day, all year round.

Hardware manufacturers have very exciting ranges of NAS disks that require intensive work, including Western Digital, Toshiba and Seagate, which make disks that generate little heat and almost no vibration inside the NAS case.

In short, for a NAS it is recommended to avoid the use of standard disks like those used in a PC, and instead choose disks made especially for a NAS unit.

NAS operating systems

Considering that at a glance NAS devices are made up of boxes and hard drives with the same characteristics, one point where the different models differ is in the operating system.

A NAS already comes with its manufacturer-provided operating system, which is accessed through a web browser, from where all configuration is done. Most of these systems are based on Linux, and optimized by each manufacturer.

The applications that can be used for each of these operating systems will depend on the developer of the same, taking into account that the NAS can be oriented to different activities, such as streaming media or server.

It is for all this that in addition to analyzing the technical specifications, we must also pay attention to the operating system and the accessories that we can access.

Check the number of USB ports

Current models include two or more USB ports, with which other devices such as external hard drives or printers can be connected, which can be used by all users connected to the NAS.

Some models also come with “copy, ” which is a button located on the front of the NAS, and whose function is to make a complete copy of the content from an external device to the NAS. Just connect an external disk, for example, and press the "copy" button to copy all its content to a specific location on the NAS.

Remote access at any time

A NAS can be accessed remotely, allowing files and folders to be discarded from anywhere, operating similarly to cloud storage services such as Dropbox. The advantages here are much more storage than that available in Drive or Dropbox, and without having to pay a monthly subscription.

Apple compatibility

In the event that there are people using Apple devices on the network, it will be necessary to verify first that the NAS to choose has compatibility with said system.

NAS manufacturers like QNAP, Synology, and Netgear have Apple support, though it will be necessary to check the specs well to make sure any Apple computer or smartphone can be connected to the NAS.

NAS vs. Cloud storage

If you measure it with local storage, we find several advantages saving the data in the cloud: there is greater security to avoid data loss, you should not be careful to update the storage, and you can access this data from any device, such as a smartphone or computer.

However, if you must manage a large mass of files, such as thousands of movies, music and programs, the right choice would be to buy a NAS. And there are several reasons for this, among which are that to store so much data, you will have to pay monthly for a cloud service.

A second reason to choose a NAS over the cloud is bandwidth. You won't encounter any problems with the speed of transferring files to the NAS, although you will see a slowdown when you try to download large amounts of files from the cloud.

With this we end our article on how to choose the right NAS. Remember that we have our updated best NAS guide on the market.