PCIe slot A NAS box with a PCIe slot can be expanded with add-in cards that add more features and/or performance. A NAS box with four or more bays will enable you to run more sophisticated RAID level, such as 5, 10, etc.

How important this feature is depends on how important the data you store on the drive is. Alternatively, or in conjunction, you can attach a USB drive to keep the box backed up.

Multiple drive bays Two bays allow you to mirror two drives (RAID 1) to protect your data via redundancy (RAID is an acronym for Redundant Array of Independent/Inexpensive Discs). The same qualifiers mentioned above apply, but you’ll need a CAT6a cable to achieve that speed. A DLNA media server was used whenever possible when it wasn’t, we used Plex Media server and the relevant client app.ġ0 Gigabit ethernet You get the idea: 10GbE delivers data transfers over your network at speeds up to 10 gigabits per second. We streamed 1080p-and where possible, 2160p-video files to multiple client devices, including two second-generation iPads, the test PC, two Android phones, and a Windows Phone. Additionally, backups of 40GB of data aare performed to check real-life throughput against the benchmark. Each box was mapped under Windows 10 on a faster Core i7-5820 system with NVMe SSDs and then benchmarked with CrystalDiskMark 6. Speaking of testing, here’s how we benchmarked them. Selling for just $299 at the time of our review, it boasts dual 2.5GbE ports that support link aggregation, a fast Intel Celeron CPU, 2GB of DDR4 memory, and an HDMI 2.0a port, so you can connect it directly to a 4K TV and stream all your favorite archived movies.

The two-bay Asustor Nimbustor 2 (model number AS5202T) knocked our socks off with its price-to-performance ratio.

Best nas for home surveillance