nas Best NAS for single user 2021

[M A J O R]

Looking to step up my storage efforts after a series of recent drive failures. I've just picked up a Macbook Pro which has a 1TB SSD as my primary machine now and am looking at setting up a NAS for media and file storage/management as well as backups. I value power and ease of use (also want something professional looking), and obviously compatability with Mac & PC. I like value for money as much as the next person, but within reason. I don't want to compromise into a significantly worse option to save a few bucks in the short term. Looking to start with about 8TB which will give me a bit of headroom. My current system stores about 3TB of data, and my family are light users so I'd estimate another 1TB for their files.

 

I'm mainly looking for specific suggesitons. I've seen Synology NAS and the Seagate Ironwolf drives getting a lot of praise. Any input would be much appreciated.

Budget: ~$1000 or less.

 

Primary Uses:

- File Managament across multiple devices (Mac, PC, Phone, Tablet)

- Media Library (Moderate size, around <3-4TB total at the moment)

- Backups

 

[Fred Castellum]

You could go with a simple two drive system like the Synology DS220+ if you want, Synology's software is pretty easy to use. A cheaper option would be something from QNAP's lineup of NAS options. 

 

I personally use a Synology DS920+ which is a 4 bay system and it's been doing pretty well for me. I have 4 HGST NAS drives in them, running in a RAID 10 config. 

 

I've almost always exclusively used Western Digital or HGST drives, rarely have I used any seagate drives since I remember they had a higher failure rate on backblaze stats. Since HGST is now integrated in WDC I'd probably look at the WD red drives.  

[Blue4130]

5 minutes ago, MyInnerFred said:

 

I've almost always exclusively used Western Digital or HGST drives, rarely have I used any seagate drives since I remember they had a higher failure rate on backblaze stats. Since HGST is now integrated in WDC I'd probably look at the WD red drives.  

The red drives are smr and not a good option for a nas, red pro are cmr and ok though. 

 

The larger seagate drives have improved reliability if you go by the backblaze data. But their testing and reporting is full of controversy, use it as a single data point, but not the only data point. 

[Fred Castellum]

5 minutes ago, Blue4130 said:

The red drives are smr and not a good option for a nas, red pro are cmr and ok though. 

 

The larger seagate drives have improved reliability if you go by the backblaze data. But their testing and reporting is full of controversy, use it as a single data point, but not the only data point. 

Right good that you mentioned that, I did remember reading about some drama having to do with WD not listing SMR drives accurately. 

 

That's fair, I did hear about how Seagate has been been trying to repair they're reputation on reliability. Though it's somewhat ingrained in me to avoid Seagate drives now due to the fact all but one of the Seagate drives I've used have died.