How do you choose a NAS?
What's an NAS?
A NAS is a small computer, developed especially for storing files. With a NAS, you can share and stream different documents and media via the connected network. A NAS is comparable with your own personal cloud, which you can use both privately and for business. You can watch a movie that's on your NAS on your smartphone, for example. You can also use it as a surveillance station for your security cameras or a data station if you own a small business, for example. In short, the possibilities are endless.
Choose a NAS
Before you buy a NAS, it's important that you ask yourself a couple of questions. Questions about your usage situation, the number of hard drives you have, or which operating system you mostly work with, for example. That's why we've listed some questions for you:
- Which brand and type of NAS do you want?
- How many slots or drive bays do you need?
- How and with hoe many people do you want to use the NAS?
- What kind of hardware do you want?
- Which ports should your NAS have?
- Which functions do you want your NAS to have?
- Which extra functions do you want your NAS to have?
Which type of NAS do you want?
There are 2 types of NAS to choose from, standing or rack mount. A standing NAS is most common and often suitable for personal or small business use. A rack mount NAS is more suitable for both demanding data or as a surveillance server. As you can imagine, a rack mount NAS is a bit much for your living room. So is installing a huge data server on a started model standing NAS.
Which brand NAS do you want?
The brand of your NAS is also important. Just like with other product types, some brands offer a little bit more than others. Are you looking for a simple starter model NAS or a ready-to-use NAS? Choose Western Digital from the My Cloud series, for example. Want more software options and user-friendliness? Go for Synology. The NAS models from QNAP and Asustor offer more powerful hardware at a lower price, but have to be set up in a very technical way. In addition, every brand has applications to use your NAS. Read carefully which applications there are before you choose a brand.
How many slots or drive bays do you need?
The slots you place internal hard drives in are also known as drive bays. The more free slots you have, the more drives you can place in the NAS and the more storage space you have. In addition, you can create a RAID setup if you have more than 1 slot. With a RAID setup, the hard drives work together to create error connection codes or backups, for example. That means you can store files twice in RAID 1 and create more storage with RAID 0. Want to know more about RAID setups? Click on the advice article below.
How and with how many people do you want to use the NAS
It's also important to know how you want to use the NAS. This is partly related to the number of people that can be connected to the NAS at the same time. A surveillance station has a different usage situation compared to a small or medium-sized business where you work on the NAS with 10 people at the same time, for example. That's why you have to determine how and with who you're going to use the NAS. Once you have that information, it's a lot easier to choose the right hardware.
What kind of hardware do you want in the NAS?
Do you know how, where, and with how many people you want to use the NAS? If so, it's time to look at what hardware you need. The 2 most important things are the processor and RAM. The processor does calculations, and the RAM temporarily stores those calculations. The more powerful the processor and the more RAM, the faster the NAS works and the more work it can handle. Do you want a fast NAS? Choose a NAS with a high clock speed and DDR4 RAM. If you want to multitask, go for a NAS with at least a Quad-Core processor (4 cores) at at least 4GB RAM.
- Surveillance: Dual-Core or Quad-Core processor with 4GB RAM
- Small or medium-sized businesses: Dual-Core or Quad-Core and 4GB RAM
- Home use: Dual-Core and 2 or 4GB RAM
Which ports should your NAS have?
Though a NAS transmits and receives wirelessly, it should still be connected to a network. That's why it's important which physical ports your NAS needs, such as Ethernet ports. It's useful to have Ethernet ports if you have more than 1 network, for example. We've listed the ports below:
- Ethernet port: 1GbE, 5GbE, or 10GbE. The higher the number, the higher the transfer speed of the internet.
- Extra Ethernet ports: to connect to multiple networks.
- USB port: to connect external hard drives, USB flash drives, or other devices.
- HDMI connector: to transmit images if you don't stream wirelessly.
Which functions do you want your NAS to have?
In addition to the power of a NAS and basic functions like streaming, managing, and storing files, a NAS has more to offer. DLNA support for streaming media to other devices or creating a printer server, for example. Do you work with Apple devices a lot? Make sure that your NAS supports Apple Time Machine, so you can back up your Mac files as well. Another interesting function is IFTTT, which stands for 'if this, then that'. It indicates whether the NAS connects actions like sending an email when someone stores a file on the NAS.
Which extra functions do you want your NAS to have?
A NAS has many functions to make managing, storing, and opening files easy. But you may want more than that. It could be that you want to create an extremely fast cache memory with M.2 NVMe SSds. If you multitask a lot, this ensures your tasks are processed extra fast. Or do you want a fast transfer between your external hard drive and your NAS? Choose a NAS with a USB-C or Thunderbolt 3 port, in that case.
