Reliable NAS: Recommendation Wanted

[Joliet_Tech]

I currently have a Western Digital MyCloud EX2 Ultra NAS and it often, randomly goes offline. I am looking to buy a new NAS but I want it to be VERY reliable especially from a connectivity perspective.

I would like to buy an NAS without HDD's as my drives are relatively new. I have two 4 TB HDD's in the WD. I want to operate in a RAID 1 Configuration. I don't need much else as far as features goes. Just a reliable drive that will be on line all the time. I have 5 shares created on the WD.

I would appreciate first hand experience and recommendations. Thanks

 

[RMerlin]

Any product from QNAP or Synology would be fine. Be warned however that you will have to backup and restore your data - you cannot reuse the disks with their existing data, as the new NAS will erase them when configuring the RAID.

From QNAP I would take a look at the TS-231.

 

[Joliet_Tech]

Thank you so much for your response (and its quickness). I will look into the QNAP product. For comparison, do you have a similar Synology recommendation or are you biased toward QNAP? Thanks

 

[RMerlin]

Thank you so much for your response (and its quickness). I will look into the QNAP product. For comparison, do you have a similar Synology recommendation or are you biased toward QNAP? Thanks

I have no first-hand experience with Synology products so I can't recommend one in particular. I can only say that in general, both Synology and QNAP have a fairly similar reputation in terms of quality and features. So maybe a Synology owner might be able to chime in on a specific model recommendation.

I deployed roughly 6 or 7 QNAP devices over the years for my customers, that's why I'm most familiar with them.

 

[Skeptical.me]

I use a QNAP TS-253Be, its a smaller sized two bay NAS with a number of great features. Initially QNAP released the TS-253B with some advanced features for a smaller NAS. However, those features came at a cost, and so it was largely ignored. Then they released the TS-253Be, practically the same minus a few things, and the price was lowered. I have 2 6TB WD Reds in RAID1, with the QM2-s2 card in the PCIe slot and two Crucial 500GB M.2 2280 SSD's. Thats the great thing about this model is the fact it has a PCIe slot, as well as two Gigabit ethernet ports, two HDMI out, several USB 3, Audio IN/OUT. Also, the J3455 board officially takes 8GB of DDR3L 1600MHz SODiMM RAM but it can support up to 16GB unofficially. It also take DDR3 1867MHz, which I've used and the difference in performance is amazing. I highly recommend this model.