while nice, near 600 for the unit alone without drives is mad, i could build a 1u rack nas for a lot less with drives in and probably better performance.

Personally why I miss from Asustor, QNAP, etc. is that no other company has anything remotely similar to the SHR (Synology Hybrid RAID), and now with DSM 7 coming out, improving it even more... I hate to have to sling out big bucks for a Synology, but if I want an easily upgradable RAID, it's the only good option out there. So you spend a bit more on the NAS, but you can start out with a few drives and easily increase the drive amount and even the size of the drives without losing space to "unused space" as in traditional RAID 5 and 6. Search for "Synology RAID calculator". Example/screenshot: https://i.**********/Znc2zrD2/SHR.jpg Edit: I'm not sure why the link is censored in the forum (though it shows in the news page), I've tried several combinations but I can't manage to fix it. Is PostImage.cc banned for some reason? If so, any alternative that isn't? I've searched the "Terms and Rules" of this forum and I haven't found anything. Been using this forum for almost 18 years and I wasn't aware that I couldn't post images/screenshots.

And here I am, still using my old QNAP TS-210 at home, fully satisfied 🙂 What a beasty NAS, athough that $600 price tag... Great review, thanks HH!

Is there a list of current best NAS around here? I have have seen a few references in reviews that make me think there might be one? I'm NAS curious and am about to need to help a friend find one also...

insp1re2600:

while nice, near 600 for the unit alone without drives is mad, i could build a 1u rack nas for a lot less with drives in and probably better performance.

there many similar specs nas at similar price point, right ? such synology 920+ $550usd (amazon) i think the thing with NAS nowdays is that its not all about the hardware, but it also bundle/include the software side also

dwolvin:

Is there a list of current best NAS around here? I have have seen a few references in reviews that make me think there might be one? I'm NAS curious and am about to need to help a friend find one also...

its all depends on your needs, all known brands (synology, qnap, asustor etc.) over similar things specs/performance-wise i think many will recommend u synology NAS i also using few synology nas, their DSM (OS) is easy to use, i personally quite statisfied with synology but if you into various specific things, then u starting to find some issues, even though those usually only minor and only effect specific usage such hibernation system in synology is inconsistent and conflicting with some packages that prevent system going into hibernation mode well i guess that will be same with other brand either, nothing perfect anyway simple guide for choosing SOHO NAS : basically decide which CPU, there are x86 (mostly intel) or arm, and storage-slot then try their OS-live-demo https://demo.synology.com/ https://www.qnap.com/en/live-demo/ https://www.asustor.com/live_demo all NAS maker usually provide live-demo rest such ram / 10gbps port etc. is optional based ur need

slyphnier:

there many similar specs nas at similar price point, right ? such synology 920+ $550usd (amazon) i think the thing with NAS nowdays is that its not all about the hardware, but it also bundle/include the software side also its all depends on your needs, all known brands (synology, qnap, asustor etc.) over similar things specs/performance-wise i think many will recommend u synology NAS i also using few synology nas, their DSM (OS) is easy to use, i personally quite statisfied with synology but if you into various specific things, then u starting to find some issues, even though those usually only minor and only effect specific usage such hibernation system in synology is inconsistent and conflicting with some packages that prevent system going into hibernation mode well i guess that will be same with other brand either, nothing perfect anyway simple guide for choosing SOHO NAS : basically decide which CPU, there are x86 (mostly intel) or arm, and storage-slot then try their OS-live-demo https://demo.synology.com/ https://www.qnap.com/en/live-demo/ https://www.asustor.com/live_demo all NAS maker usually provide live-demo rest such ram / 10gbps port etc. is optional based ur need

Still extortion, nothing wrong with freenas or omv

Thanks to both- I'll look around and check freenas & omv.

Am I the only one who still doesn't use a NAS and just uses a case that supports many 3.5" HDDs? Sure a hell of a lot cheaper that way.

I noticed you was recommending using RAID5 with hotspare that's very bad advice, Never use hotspare with RAID5 it offers little protection and can result in total array loss if another disk is having problems (if your thinking of wasting a bay on hotspare on RAID5 use RAID6) Use RAID6 before you even start considering hotspare because RAID6 constantly protects you from 2 disk fail or dual faults (still protected if 1 disk failed or rebuilding and then a URE or a second failed disk) RAID5 has zero redundancy once a disk has failed hotspare Should only consider hotspare when you have 8+ disks in RAID6 usually