I researched the best NAS for home media server to find the perfect option for storage, media streaming, backups and everyday home use. After going through expert reviews from trusted sources like Tom’s Hardware, NASCompares and TechRadar, two models consistently stand out as top recommendations:
However, I am having trouble deciding which one would better suit my needs. I care about smooth 4K streaming, reliable long-term storage for photos and videos, easy remote access from phone and laptop, good durability and whether it can handle future expansion without issues.
Has anyone tried either of these NAS systems? Which one would you recommend?Any advice or personal experiences would be really appreciated.
Thanks in advance
Both of these devices are going to have real limitations. If by streaming you mean transcoding, neither of these will be very good for that at 4K. Also, a two bay has no room for future expansion. I had the predecessor to the Synology DS225+, the DS220+. It was good, but if you are going to try and do anything other than serve files over the network, it will be slow. Synology has, IMO, the best software around. Nothing else really comes close. But Synology devices are also notorious for having weak hardware specs. You are not going to run a bunch of apps on either device, if that’s what you are thinking of.
FWIW I bought my 8 bay QNAP NAS about 10 years ago, it’s still going. What I discovered to be useful was not what I was originally looking for:
1 - it came with 4 NICs, this was handy when I later set up vlans
2 - it came with 8 IP camera licenses, handy when I needed to setup some IP cams
3 - it could / can run virtualisation but the processor and RAM soon run into limitations but does work as a secondary option.
The other thing it’s likely the NAS is on all the time so power draw might be a factor to consider.
Remote access can be achieved via OpenVPN or Wireguard, however these don’t have to run on the NAS itself but can.