Any NAS Recomendations

[Samvmp]

Hello Community,

 

So I want a home NAS to back up my various computers and laptops and also to have my work files on the network so I can switch what computer i am using and not have to bugger around with emailing it to myself or saving to a stick. I know Dropbox and other cloud stuff is nice, but I really want my information on hardware I own.

 

My question is: does anyone know of or have any decent pre-built NAS? Price matters, I want this to be a lower budget project, I don't really want to build a PC and go the free NAS route, I like the idea of the out of the box, (maybe have to stick a few WD reds in), plug in and go.

 

What are your experiences, what have you bought and loved/hated, what would you recommend?

[mpsparrow]

I own a Synology DS415+. It is the first NAS that I have owned. It is quite easy to set up and works straight out of the box with no assembly. I know that QNAP and Drobo have good NAS's as well from what friend have told me.

[ThomasStolberg]

build one it fun and easy plus it way cheaper and can be customised to what you need.

[ThomasStolberg]

[ThomasStolberg]

get a case like this and use old server ram it cheap and reliable

 

 

[Randomrdp]

I have a WD Mycloud, it works but I'm using the PlexMediaServer plugin. At the time I bought it the 2*4TB disks inside were only £60 cheaper than the NAS itself.

[jasonvp]

14 hours ago, Samvmp said:

My question is: does anyone know of or have any decent pre-built NAS? Price matters, I want this to be a lower budget project, I don't really want to build a PC and go the free NAS route, I like the idea of the out of the box, (maybe have to stick a few WD reds in), plug in and go.

I have fairly extensive experience with QNAP and their 4-bay (469 Pro, fails your "inexpensive" rule) NAS.  I know there are other brands, but I can't offer much of an opinion on them as I haven't used them.  The QNAP is pretty much a plug'n'play device, driven completely by the web browser or the QNAP app that you can install on a Windows or Mac box.

 

The QNAP can do native NFS, SMB/CIFs, and AFP.  It can also serve as a target for Time Machine backups, again, if you have any Macs.  All of these things are fairly easy to configure and get going.

 

My dig against the QNAP is that it uses BusyBox Linux in an effort to keep its base OS as tiny as possible.  QNAP went out of their way to make CLI access to the box very challenging, thought it is available.  But if none of that matters to you, it'll work fine.

 

At this point, I've relegated my QNAP to backups only.  All NAS-related stuff that I do is on a FreeBSD server that I built and turned into a NAS.  But, that fails your requirements.