Please recommend good quality NAS

Plex Media Server NAS & Devices
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So I’ve read some of the other threads of people asking for NAS recommendations, but none of them fit my parameters, therefore I’m making my own topic to ask.

So my question is, could someone recommend a good quality NAS that gives you the most bang for your buck. So price isn’t a big deal, but nothing crazy like above $1200-2000, would prefer to keep it well below that but if needed. So I’m looking for anything around 6-8 drive slots, I could probably do 4 drive slots and it doesn’t need to come with hdds because I’ve already gotten plenty, although the hdds I have are 8 TBs and are not NAS specified hdds. I do not plan on running Plex on the nas, just gonna use it as storage and run Plex from my pc and connect it to the nas. Thanks.

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If you don’t want to use it as a “server” so you can run things like Plex, you could just get a “DAS” instead.

DAS=direct attached storage
NAS=network attached storage

A DAS is kind of just a “dumb” box. You plug hard drives into it, connect to your PC, and it’s detected as external storage.

A NAS is a computer. It has a CPU, memory, maybe some flash storage for the OS, etc.

If you don’t need that extra functionality for running a server, then it’s not really worth paying $1,200-$2,000 for a NAS IMO. It would be kind of like buying a Macbook Pro to use as an external HDD.

Even if you got a DAS that supports “RAID” (redundant array of independent disks):

Most will probably be cheaper than a NAS.

In terms of costs, it would probably be:

DAS (Non-RAID): $100-300
DAS (RAID): $200-400
Entry-level NAS, 4-bay: $300-600

Those are just guesses, prices vary widely depending on what exact features you need.

Beyond that it’s hard to gauge how much you’d want to/need to spend without knowing the exact things you want to do with the NAS and the exact features you expect.

But if all you need is essentially just a multi-bay hard drive “enclosure”, a NAS really isn’t worth the extra money.

Try reading some reviews/doing some comparison on a site like NewEgg for “DAS”:

https://www.newegg.com/p/pl?N=100008040%20600535778%20600535780%20600553213%20601276191%20601276194%20601276195&Order=BESTMATCH

versus “NAS”:

https://www.newegg.com/p/pl?N=100161337%20600016039%20600016040%20600016043%20600016046%20600418375%20600418376%20600418381%20600521581%20601296264%20601296266&Order=BESTMATCH

And you can get an idea of just how drastically it varies.

So, that being said… is all you want to use it for is a hard drive enclosure? Do you need RAID? Do you have any plans for it besides just plugging it into one PC?

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Been using the QNAP TS832X since a few months for storage-only.
It already has 2 Gbit Ethernet port and 2 SFP+ ports for 10 GB Ethernet, which should be good for the foreseeable future.
It has 8 regular drive bays and can be extended by another 8 bays in a separate (DAS) unit, which is connected by USB 3.

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Wow awesome! Thank you guys for the awesome replies/suggestions. Really appreciate you guys taking the time to reply and help me out. Appreciate it!

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Yea I was originally going to go with just a docking station (das) but I couldn’t find and good quality built ones. And no I don’t want to use any raid so… Any good dad recommendations, cuz I look at reviews of some and ppl say they’re junk.

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The MediaSonic has decent user reviews:


And most of the negative reviews seem to be by people who didn’t do enough research (it doesn’t have built-in RAID).

But at that price, it’s much less of a risk than buying an expensive NAS and realizing you don’t like it, right?

I already have two Qnap NAS’s, so I’ll probably just get their 4-bay RAID enclosure when it’s time to expand:

I think it’s about expectations, personally. Whether you expect a DAS to be a NAS, or a DAS to have RAID, etc.

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