A book sized NAS that not only fits eight M.2 SSDs, but also offers 10 Gbps Ethernet to make the most out of the drives. On top of that, it's extremely quiet during operation and boasts a compelling feature set.
The Synology DS923+ is a notable upgrade to the DS920+ when it comes to data transfers, which are the main dish for a NAS server. Besides higher transfer speeds, it can utilize NVMe drives as storage, and it comes with up to 32 GB upgradeable ECC memory, so your data is protected. The only downgrade is in the multimedia section.
The Asustor Lockerstor 2 Gen2 AS6702T is a high-performance NAS, offering two drive bays and four M.2 slots. It operates silently and power consumption is low, thanks to the efficient Intel Celeron N5105 CPU.
The Asustor Drivestor 4 (AS1104T) is a highly affordable NAS with some features that are usually only found in much more expensive products, including storage expansion and a 2.5 GbE port. It is suitable for home users who need something reliable and user-friendly without it breaking the bank.
The Synology DS1520+ is ideal for small offices or enthusiast users in need of more storage space. Should your storage requirements dramatically increase, it also provides huge expandability options. We also took a look at the new DSM 7.0 operating system and were seriously impressed.
The Asustor Lockerstor 4 (AS6604T) is a high-performing, expensive 4-bay NAS that operates quietly. It packs capable hardware, including a highly efficient Intel Celeron CPU and two 2.5 Gbit Ethernet ports. It can also take two fast NVMe drives for caching.
The Synology DS1621+ is an expensive high-performance 6-bay NAS server ideal for business environments. Its main asset is the huge total storage capacity with two optional expansion units. On the other hand, the lack of an embedded GPU means this is not the best NAS for multimedia applications.
The Synology DS620slim is one of the most compact NAS servers available today. It supports up to six HDD/SSDs for plenty of storage if you equip it with large-capacity drives. We measured power consumption to be low, and the same goes for its operating noise.
The QNAP TVS-472XT costs a bomb, but has a pair of Thunderbolt 3 ports and can take a GPU for faster media transcoding, and its operating system is probably the best in the NAS market. This NAS is mostly for video editors or small and mid-sized businesses that want a very reliable external storage device with tons of features and options.
The QNAP TS-431P2 is a home NAS for demanding users, offering good performance along with increased storage capabilities. Its external looks are appealing as well due to its modern design with a white finish, so it won't look strange in a modern office or your living room.
The Synology DS918+ is the successor to the DS916+ and features a new CPU, more RAM, a pair of M.2 slots, and trays with locks. Strangely enough, the older model seems to perform better in real-life scenarios; however, the DS918+ is fast enough to still meet the increasing demands of a home user.
The TS-453B is a feature-rich four-bay NAS that includes an OLED screen, 4K playback, HDMI port, and a PCIe expansion port for QNAP's QM2 expansion boards. Using various cards, you can add up to two M.2 slots and 10 Gigabit networking to the NAS, in addition to the two 1000 Mb/s ports.
The combination of an affordable NAS like the Synology DS416j, a couple good IP cameras, and a pair of reliable HDDs can make for a nice surveillance system with enhanced surveillance capabilities. Synology's Surveillance Station software plays a key role since it is one of the most advanced surveillance apps around.
The AS6208T is a multi-bay NAS with an Intel quad-core CPU that offers good performance while consuming very little energy. An 8-bay NAS is mostly for business environments where increased storage capacity is a necessary feature.
The DS916+ is mostly for professional users, or enthusiasts who can afford it. It is powered by a capable quad-core Intel CPU with good performance and low power consumption even when taxed heavily.
The AS3202T is equipped with a quad-core Intel CPU, which enables it to handle up to 4K resolution multimedia content playback. This means the AS3202T can also play a central role in a multimedia set-up while still acting as a regular NAS with up to 16 TB of storage capacity.
During our last stay at CES, QNAP surprised us with the TBS-453A NAS, an incredibly small NAS since it only takes M.2 SSDs. While not a NAS for the average user, it does have some really cool features we are going to explore in this review.
The TS-453A is a multimedia-specific NAS server capable of 4K video playback. This unit comes with not only one, but two HDMI ports, which allows it to be connected to two monitors or TVs.
Synology has lots of offerings for enthusiast home users and the DS416 is one of them. It uses an Annapurna Labs Dual-Core SoC that offers enough computing power while consuming very little energy.
The AS3102T is an affordable NAS by Asustor, capable of 4K-multimedia playback. On top of that, it is equipped with an HDMI port and features hardware encryption, which allows it to provide good speeds with encrypted file transfers.
The Synology DS715 is a quad-core CPU NAS with two Ethernet ports. Having two drive bays it is ideal to meet the demands of enthusiast home users and small business environments, but can also expanded to support a total of seven drives.
The Synology DS215+ is a business NAS for centralized backup and the protection of critical data. Our tests also show that it offers high performance while consuming very little power.
The N5810 Pro by Thecus is an enthusiast-grade NAS that not only includes the usual features we expect to find in a product of its category as it also comes with its very own mini-UPS device as a precursory measure against data losses caused by power cuts.
The Asustor AS5102T is ideal for home users in need of a NAS that can fullfill multiple roles, including that of a simple data-storage device. This NAS can easily be the centerpiece of a multimedia setup because of its HDMI and S/PDIF ports, or it could play a key role in a surveillance system.
Today, we get to look at and test a NAS from Netgear for the very first time. The ReadyNAS 202 is powered by a Cortex A15 CPU and has two Gigabit Ethernet ports for faster network speeds. Its key feature is that it uses the BTRFS file system instead of the far more common EXT4 file system.
Synology's DS1515+ mostly addresses SMB environments since it can combine with two DX513 expansion units to support up to 15 HDDs. Today, we have the opportunity to evaluate a DS1515+ along with one of Synology's expansion units, which make for a great opportunity to figure out how this combination performs in various usage scenarios.
QNAP has for the first time used an AMD CPU with one of their NAS offerings. The new series is codenamed TVS-x63, and today, we will evaluate the TVS-463, which, as its model number implies, can take up to four HDDs. It is also 10GbE ready through an optional expansion card.
Synology definitely put up a strong showing in the SMB category with the DS1815+ that can support up to 18 HDDs if paired with two optional DX513 expansion units. Today, we will put it to the test to figure out how it fares against the competition.
Asustor recently released their AS7004 and AS7008 NAS servers which address small- and medium-sized business environments with 200 and more users. Today, we will put the AS7004 to the test, which can take up to four HDDs and is based on an Intel i3 processor.
Lots of new QNAP offerings lately utilize Intel's Bay Trail CPU, an ideal choice for a NAS. In this review, we will take a look at the HS-251. A mixture of a NAS and HTPC, it comes with the best of both worlds, passive operation, and great looks.
The NAS market grows day by day and all companies thrive to introduce more and more innovative products. In today’s review, we will take a good look at one of these products, the Synology DS414slim, a compact NAS with a huge feature list.
The latest trend in NAS devices is to reproduce multimedia content, which home users appreciate since it provides them with the ability to also use their NAS as a media player. Synology adheres to this trend with the DS214play we are testing today - this unit's media server features allow it to transcode 1080p Full HD video on the fly.
Asustor is working hard to establish itself, and the recently released 3 Series follows through on those endeavors by targeting home and SOHO users. We will take a look at the AS-302T: It can take up to two HDDs, is equipped with a dual-core Atom processor, and includes many multimedia features.
Synology specializes in high-performance NAS servers with good price/performance ratio. Today, we will take a look at the DS713+ offering reliability and performance along with scalability to business environments, since it can be easily hold up to 28 TB with the Synology DX513 expansion unit.
QNAP recently released a major upgrade of their operating system, the QTS 4.0, and they were kind enough to send us a 4-bay NAS for testing, the TS-421, which comes with their latest operating system pre-installed. The TS-421 is a mid-level NAS best suited to home and SOHO environments.
Today, we get to fully evaluate another high-end SMB NAS server from QNAP. The TS-569 Pro can accommodate up to five HDDs for a total of 20TB storage with 4TB drives. This NAS is also compatible with QNAP's new feature, the HD Station, which transforms it into a fully capable media player.
Asustor is a new company with the purpose of providing top solutions for network attached storage and video surveillance. We are lucky to have one of their first products for review: the AS-606T NAS server. It is designed for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) or enthusiast users that need a lot of storage space and a ton of features.
Synology recently introduced several new NAS servers, including the DS213+ which includes many upgrades over its predecessor. A dual-core processor powers the DS213+ offering faster speeds in every RAID configuration it supports. Also, with only 2.6 Watts during system hibernation this NAS offers great energy savings, something many users will appreciate.
QNAP recently released their new TS-x69L series which, in essence, is the economical alternative to the Pro series, but with almost identical performance because the same hardware is used. In this review we will evaluate the TS-869L NAS, which can take up to eight HDDs for up to 32 TB of storage!
Today we will evaluate the DS412+, a NAS server specifically designed for small and medium-sized businesses that need reliability, performance and features like centralized data backups, advanced file sharing etc. In our tests we will find out if the DS412+ manages to achieve the performance levels that Synology claims, so stay tuned.
QNAP's TS-669 Pro NAS boasts six drive bays, which lets you create RAID arrays of up to 24 TB. Thanks to its Atom dual-core processor and dual Gigabit Ethernet, the device was responsive throughout all our testing. If you need more than the included 1 GB RAM, the system can be easily upgraded to 3 GB.
QNAP is one of the key players in the NAS market and offers a vast variety of relevant products that cover all needs, from home use to business environments. Today we will evaluate the flagship of their Home & SOHO category, the TS-419P II which is equipped with a ton of features and functions and can take up to four HDDs.
The Thecus N4100 Pro is a relatively low cost four bay NAS. It features basically all features the other models do and promises high performance. Where is the catch? We tested the N4100 to find out.
Nowadays a lot of people have a dedicated home server for data storage, downloads or both. The TS-109 Pro is the latest fully featured NAS server by QNAP, it allows you to house everything your home-serving heart requires in a little box without making your energy bill go through the roof. Among the included features are Gigabit Ethernet, BitTorrent Downloader, Apache+PHP+MySQL Server, FTP and more. Since the system is based on Linux it can also be customized to suit more advanced users.
The OvisLink powered AirLive WiFi enclosure may look just like a normal NAS storage device, but it has a lot more to offer than that. The well constructed and easy to use web interface can convert the enclosure to an iTunes server, can handle your FTP, HTTP and even BitTorrent downloads - straight to the internal IDE or SATA hard drive.
