NAS Recommendation

[ArchDevil]

Hey there,
So I've recently picked 2 4TB WD Red Pro NAS Drives for a small inexpensive basic use home nas like for photos, videos and such, nothing serious.
Now i need to pick up a 2 bay NAS.
Plan to connect it to my asus router via ethernet.
as i really don't need anything super from it and I'm importing one so my budget is max 200$.
Is there are suggestions on 2 bay NAS systems for around 200$ for basic uses?
I'm planning to buy around Black Friday next month. Hopefully any deals will appear.
Any suggestions?

 

[L&LD]

QNAP or Synology are your best bets, even if slightly higher than your budget.

The QNAP TS-230 or TS-231K with at least 2GB of RAM would be a good match for you here.

 

[ArchDevil]

QNAP or Synology are your best bets, even if slightly higher than your budget.

The QNAP TS-230 or TS-231K with at least 2GB of RAM would be a good match for you here.

The QNAP- TS-230 is 159$ on Amazon that's good.
according to QNAP site the TS-231K have 1GB DDR3. is 1GB vs 2GB impact that much on the performance?

 

[dosborne]

is 1GB vs 2GB impact that much on the performance?

Partly depends on what apps/services you will ultimately run. If simply used as a file share (samba or equiv) then likely not, but as soon as you start something else, like rsync, torrenting, virus scanning, etc then memory is important.nbut so is cpu, so is network throughput, etc.

Remember too that the decent home market QNAP or Synology NAS units chew up memory just with their base operating systems.

As an extreme low end, I wouldn't use anything below a dual core 1.5ghz, 1gb ram. As an example, my QNAP 231P is about as low end as is usable with a stripped down overhead for basic file sharing.

At $200 or less, you can only get a basic system. Don't expect it to do much other than that.

My other NAS, QNAP TS-563 (quad core, 2ghz,2gb ram standard, 2x1g ethernet), got upgraded to 16gb ram and a 10gbe card to handle what I throw at it.

Having said that though, I still have 3x D-Link DNS-323, that continue to function, although noticeably slower than even the 231P.

My $0.02, spend as much as you can getting more cpu and ram as you can now. Drives are cheap and prices always drop so increasing the storage capacity is easier down the road, harder and more expensive to replace the NAS in a few years when a basic unit outlived it's usefulness. However, old NAS boxes make great secondary and tertiary backup units.

Stay *FAR* away from non-name brands, which is the opposite of what I usually say about other devices. Pick something like QNAP or Synology who actually support their products. Still caveats to watch out for though. Read the online reviews of firmware updates carefully before installing as QNAP (I know) and Synology (I suspect is the same) do not, or cannot, fully test on all hardware and fairly often break important things when adding new features (the most recent QNAP 4.5.1 FW is a good example of bad testing).

 

[ArchDevil]

Partly depends on what apps/services you will ultimately run. If simply used as a file share (samba or equiv) then likely not, but as soon as you start something else, like rsync, torrenting, virus scanning, etc then memory is important.nbut so is cpu, so is network throughput, etc.

Remember too that the decent home market QNAP or Synology NAS units chew up memory just with their base operating systems.

As an extreme low end, I wouldn't use anything below a dual core 1.5ghz, 1gb ram. As an example, my QNAP 231P is about as low end as is usable with a stripped down overhead for basic file sharing.

At $200 or less, you can only get a basic system. Don't expect it to do much other than that.

My other NAS, QNAP TS-563 (quad core, 2ghz,2gb ram standard, 2x1g ethernet), got upgraded to 16gb ram and a 10gbe card to handle what I throw at it.

Having said that though, I still have 3x D-Link DNS-323, that continue to function, although noticeably slower than even the 231P.

My $0.02, spend as much as you can getting more cpu and ram as you can now. Drives are cheap and prices always drop so increasing the storage capacity is easier down the road, harder and more expensive to replace the NAS in a few years when a basic unit outlived it's usefulness. However, old NAS boxes make great secondary and tertiary backup units.

Stay *FAR* away from non-name brands, which is the opposite of what I usually say about other devices. Pick something like QNAP or Synology who actually support their products. Still caveats to watch out for though. Read the online reviews of firmware updates carefully before installing as QNAP (I know) and Synology (I suspect is the same) do not, or cannot, fully test on all hardware and fairly often break important things when adding new features (the most recent QNAP 4.5.1 FW is a good example of bad testing).

Thanks for the explanation.
Yes i will just be using it for basically just an accessible file storage so i can access, upload/download files with different devices. I don't plan on using it more then that so my expectations aren't high from start.
I will put the QNAP- TS-230 as main consideration if i can't find any deals on Black Friday next month.

 

[Spile]

I am very happy with my Qnap TS 251+