[SOLVED] When buying NAS for home use, is it better to get a 2-bay or 4-bay one?

[modeonoff]

Hi, I am considering to buy a NAS for home use. It will mainly be used to backup data from old drives under different OS (Windows, Linux, and Mac), iOS as well as Android devices,. It will also serve as a dropbox replacement to share files among different computers/OS/mobile devices and also serve as a iCloud replacement. I may get a pair of 2TB drives and later upgrade to higher capacity ones. In this case, is it recommended to get a 2-bay or 4-bay NAS?

 

[USAFRet]

2 or 4 is entirely based on your needs.

I have a 4 bay QNAP TS-4453a. And then a 4 bay TR-004 connected to it via USB.

Obviously, 4 bay gives you more drive options.
In the TS-453a, I have a 480GB SSD as the system drive, and then 3x 8TB for the other 3 slots.
In the TR-004, 4x 4TB Ironwolf.

 

[modeonoff]

Is it true that 4 would allow easier upgrade if I want to increase the capacity of the NAS later?

How is QNAP compared with Synology (e.g. DS220+, 420+)?

 

[USAFRet]

Is it true that 4 would allow easier upgrade if I want to increase the capacity of the NAS later?

How is QNAP compared with Synology (e.g. DS220+, 420+)?

QNAP and Synology are pretty much equals. Possibly slightly different feature set and included/accessible software.
I like my QNAP. Another Mod is firmly in the Syn camp...
Mine has been rock solid stable for 3.5 yrs, running 24/7.

For future capacity....obviously 2x 4TB is smaller than 4x 4TB. Or whatever combination fits your requirements and budget.

 

[modeonoff]

If I buy a Synology DS220+, can I just put in one 4TB hard drive to it first to see how it goes and add one more later when needed? Somewhere I read that two drives need to be the same so it is recommended to get both drives at the same time. Is it really true? I also heard that they can be different in recent NAS.

Also, is it recommended to get IronWolf drives that run at 5900 RPM with 64MB cache or IronWolf Pro drives that run at 7200RPM with double the cache? I will access the NAS via wireless home network. Will the difference be noticeable?

 

[USAFRet]

If I buy a Synology DS220+, can I just put in one 4TB hard drive to it first to see how it goes and add one more later when needed? Somewhere I read that two drives need to be the same so it is recommended to get both drives at the same time. Is it really true? I also heard that they can be different in recent NAS.

Also, is it recommended to get IronWolf drives that run at 5900 RPM with 64MB cache or IronWolf Pro drives that run at 7200RPM with double the cache? I will access the NAS via wireless home network. Will the difference be noticeable?

Yes, you can run that from one drive by itself.
Obviously, there can't be any "RAID" with a single drive. But it will run just fine.
When I changed my whole drive setup in the QNAP, I set up up with the single 480GB SSD. Added the 3x 8TB drives later.

Of course, if you wish to have 2 drives in a RAID situation in that...it WILL require both drives be fully wiped and formatted during that process. You can't just add a second drive and make it a RAID 1.

IronWolf or IronWolf Pro? For a home user..you'd see zero difference. The RPM is irrelevant.

 

[modeonoff]

Thank you. Do you expect any significant improvements in the next generation in 6-12 months? I can wait that long if the improvements are worth.

 

[USAFRet]

Thank you. Do you expect any significant improvements in the next generation in 6-12 months? I can wait that long if the improvements are worth.

I have not looked into it, but I doubt there is anything earthshattering on the horizon.

Except for maybe a Thunderbolt or 10GBe connection...there is nothing a new NAS in 2020 does that my 2016 era QNAP does not do.

These things are meant to be stable, not cutting edge.
Mine is rock solid stable, in 24/7/365 ops, since Jan 2017.

 

[mdd1963]

Thank you. Do you expect any significant improvements in the next generation in 6-12 months? I can wait that long if the improvements are worth.

99% chance most NAS devices are likely on a wired 1 GbE port, so, no matter how many bays you utilize in whatever RAID 5, 6, etc, any newer models (including 8 bay options) would also be just as limited by the approx ~115 MB/sec cap throughput of the 1 GbE wired port.