The 10 Best Budget Nas Of 2024, Tested By Our Experts

Nicolas Ward By, Nicolas Ward
Updated
Best Budget Nas
Best Budget Nas

The Rundown

1. Best Overall: Synology 2 bay NAS DiskStation DS220

With the Synology 2 bay NAS, you can now access, share, and sync your data easily. It comes with dual 1GbE LAN ports to support network failover. Featuring Intel dual-core processor with an AES-NI hardware encryption engine, this compact yet powerful unit is an ideal solution for small businesses in particular. Read Review

2. Best Design: Synology 2 Bay NAS DiskStation DS218

The DS218 is a 2-bay NAS disk station with a sleek and compact design. Equipped with 2 GB DDR4 memory, it supports up to 32 TB of storage capacity and can handle even the most demanding of tasks. The DS218 takes a 10-bit H.265 video transcoding on the fly, supporting 4K content even at 60 fps. Read Review

3. Best Smart: Western Digital 6TB WD Red NAS Internal Hard Drive HDD

With the latest in NAS technology, the Western Digital Red hard drive is designed to be dropped into any PC or Mac computer and serve as a storage device for your media files. With a 5400RPM performance class, 8 bays, and up to 6TB of capacity, the WD Red NAS hard drive has everything you need for your media needs. Read Review

4. Best Reliable: BUFFALO NAS Network Attached Storage

The BUFFALO NAS Network Attached Storage (NAS) is the ideal storage solution for your home or small office. You get a hard drive included, and no computer is needed for setup. The NAS features a closed system to reduce vulnerabilities and offers enhanced data security with file-level encryption, ensuring your data is protected from prying eyes. Read Review

5. Best For The Price: Western Digital WD 6TB Network Attached Storage

The Western Digital My Cloud Home is the perfect centralized storage solution for your favorite photos, videos, and files. Organize and easily find your content with the intuitive My Cloud Home app. The WD 6TB network attached storage offers all-around easy storage for you and your family. Read Review

If you are looking to buy a new NAS for your home or office, then you have come to the right place. This article is going to tell you everything you need to know about searching for the best NAS for your money. A network-attached storage device is an essential part of any modern home that also happens to be tech-savvy.

The main function of these storage devices is to act as a repository for all the digital files that we keep on our computers and other electronic gadgets. That way, instead of storing those files on different drives or folders, we can put them all into one central location where they are accessible at once. In addition, investing in a network-attached storage device will give you access to all these files from different devices locally as well as remotely through the internet.

You can count on our team of experts who have spent over 19 hours conducting results through 3,648 real customer reviews. Because of this, We came to the conclusion that the best budget nas is Synology 2 bay NAS DiskStation DS220. And Synology 2 Bay NAS DiskStation DS218 is another choice for you while keeping the product's quality and functionality.

Our Top Picks

TOP Choice #1 Synology 2 bay NAS DiskStation DS220
Our Score:
9.8
Synology

By default, two camera licenses are installed; extra licenses can be purchased (CLP1, CLP4, or CLP8)

Featured dual 1GbE LAN ports to support network failover, and with Link Aggregation enabled, DS220+ provides over 225 MB/s sequential read and 192 MB/s sequential write throughput. Data can be further protected with RAID 1 disk mirroring to prevent sudden drive failure.

Average 15% performance boost to photo indexing and other computing-intensive operations, as well as database response time.

Intel dual-core processor with AES-NI hardware encryption engine; 2 GB DDR4 memory (expandable up to 6 GB)

Access, share, and sync your data easily across different operating systems and devices.

TOP Choice #2 Synology 2 Bay NAS DiskStation DS218
Our Score:
9.7
StarTech

Versatile 2-bay NAS for small offices and home users

64-bit quad-core processor, delivering sequential throughput at over 112 MB/s reading and 112 MB/s writing

2 GB DDR4 memory, 4 times the capacity than its predecessor

4K 10-bit H.265 video transcoding on the fly. Supported client- Windows 7 and 10, Mac OS X 10.11 onwards. Supported browser- Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer 10 onwards, Safari 10 onwards; Safari (iOS 10 onwards), Chrome (Android 6.0 onwards)

Running on Synology DiskStation Manager (DSM). Maximum Single Volume Size:108 TB

TOP Choice #3 Western Digital 6TB WD Red NAS Internal Hard Drive HDD
Our Score:
9.5
Western Digital

3-year limited warranty

NAS systems with daily workloads associated with personal and home office environments and idle time available to perform necessary background operations

5400RPM performance class

Supports up to 180 TB/yr Workload Rate* | * Workload Rate is defined as the amount of user data transferred to or from the hard drive. Workload Rate is annualized (TB transferred ✕ (8760 / recorded power-on hours))

NASware firmware for compatibility

Available in capacities ranging from 2-6TB with support for up to 8 bays

4 BUFFALO NAS Network Attached Storage
Our Score:
9.4
BUFFALO

SUBSCRIPTION-FREE PERSONAL CLOUD – Store and back up videos, music, and photos and access them from anywhere without paying any monthly storage charges.

BACK UP MULTIPLE COMPUTERS & DEVICES – PC backup software included, and you can set up automated backups of data on your computers and mobile devices.

SECURELY SHARE FILES WITH FAMILY & FRIENDS – Create individual access of folders to ensure your data remains private while securely share storage space or files with others.

HASSLE-FREE INSTALLATION – Hard drive included, and no computer needed for setup. Simply connect the NAS to your router for instant shared network storage for all your devices at the same time. Product is compatible with PC, macOS, Android, and iOS.

24/7 US-based support, with 2-year warranty, including hard drives.

ORGANIZE AND SECURE YOUR DATA – Use NAS as an easy-to-access central storage location. No more searching through different external drives or cloud accounts.

PURPOSE-BUILT STORAGE WITH DATA SECURITY FOCUS – Storage designed to keep your data safe, the NAS features a closed system to reduce vulnerabilities from 3rd party apps and SSL encryption for secure file transfers.

Made in Japan – Quality Devices.

8 TB Total capacity – 2 Drive Bays ships with RAID 1 (Automatic Backup) = 4 TB usable capacity. Set to RAID 0 to use the full 8 TB.

5 Western Digital WD 6TB Network Attached Storage
Our Score:
9.2
Western Digital

Invite family and friends to share and collaborate on content.

Stream music and movies with Sonos, Google Chromecast, Plex Media server and more. ( Services may be changed, terminated or interrupted at any time and may vary by country.)

Access your content from anywhere you have internet.

Organize and easily find your content with the intuitive My Cloud Home app.

Centralized storage for your favorite photos, videos and files from your devices and popular cloud accounts.

Dual 10 and 2.5 Gigabit ports. Take advantage of up to 20 gbps of speed with both 10-Gigabit ports or up to 5 gbps on both 2.5-Gigabit ports.

2 x M.2 NVMe PCIe Gen2 SSD ports for fast cache. Bringing Double Performance

Intel Atom Quad core C3538 2.1 GHz CPU with 8GB DDR4 RAM (expandable up to 64GB) for power user and business

Compatible with 2.5" or 3.5" SATA SSD/HDD drives up to 180TB (18TB x 10). Expand as much storage as needed with ease

3 year manufacturer warranty

7 Western Digital NAS Network Attached Storage
Our Score:
8.8
Western Digital

Integrated backup software for PC users and time machine support for Mac users

RAID 0, 1, 5, 10 or JBOD and spanning

Integrated 1.6 GHz Marvell Armada 388 dual-core processor and 2GB DDR3 memory

Twonky DLNA-certified media server and iTunes support

Centralized storage with anytime, anywhere access

8 QNAP NAS Network Attached Storage
Our Score:
8.7
QNAP

Effortlessly backup your Windows Computers with QNAP’s NetBak Replicator software and Mac computers with Time Machine

Budget-friendly home NAS for file storage and multimedia streaming

Securely access your Files from anywhere with MyQNAPCloud

Future-proof high speed 2.5GbE port x 1, 1GbE port x 1

ARM Cortex-A55 quad-core 2.0GHz processor with 4 GB DDR4 RAM

Centrally store and organize personal or family photos, music, and videos

Centralized storage to organize media and improve your workflow

Built-in video transcoding for HD streaming through Plex

Intel Pentium N3710 Quad-Core 1.6GHz Processor with 4GB DDR3L Memory

Comprehensive security through password protection and AES 256 bit volume encryption

Quick, easy setup and a robust Device Manager with My Cloud OS 3

8 TB Total capacity – 2 Drive Bays ships with RAID 1 (Automatic Backup) = 4 TB usable capacity. Set to RAID 0 to use the full 8 TB.

SECURELY SHARE FILES WITH FAMILY & FRIENDS – Create individual access of folders to ensure your data remains private while securely share storage space or files with others.

HASSLE-FREE INSTALLATION – Hard drives included, and no computer needed for setup. Simply connect the NAS to your router for instant shared network storage for all your devices at the same time. Product is compatible with PC, macOS, Android, and iOS.

SECURE YOUR PRECIOUS DATA - Storage designed to keep your data safe, the NAS features a closed system to reduce vulnerabilities from 3rd party apps and SSL encryption for secure file transfers.

SUBSCRIPTION-FREE PERSONAL CLOUD – Store and back up videos, music, and photos and access them from anywhere without paying any monthly storage charges.

24/7 US-BASED SUPPORT - With 3-year warranty, including hard drives.

MADE IN JAPAN - Quality Devices.

SMALL OFFICE / HOME OFFICE NETWORK ATTACHED STORAGE: Optimized to organize, store, share, and back up your important files.

DIRECT COPY - Back up your devices via USB. Copy photos/videos/files without a computer.

BACK UP MULTIPLE COMPUTERS & DEVICES – PC backup software included, and you can set up automated backups of data on your computers and mobile devices.

Product Images, Product Titles, Product Highlights from Amazon Product Advertising API

Our Tips to decide which one among best budget nas is the best

Researchers all know how difficult it is to make a decision when there are so many options. It's something that originally stood out, and you want to get the most bang for your buck, but our advice will help you make good decisions.

Before making a purchase, please read the following key factors to save oneself time and prevent trouble later.

Capacity

In simple terms, the more drives you can cram into a NAS the greater its potential storage capacity. In most cases, we suggest something with four or five bays like the Synonology DS-1511. Loaded up with a swag of 1TB or 2TB drives it offers plenty of capacity.
If your needs are more modest then a two-bay unit is also handy and won't break the bank.

RAID

RAID stands for redundant array of inexpensive disks. RAID can be quite complex but at a basic level, you’ll want to use it to provide redundancy so if a disk fails your data is still safe. Three of the most popular variants are RAID 1, 5, and 6.
Whatever RAID you choose, however, don’t consider your NAS to be the only backup of your data. If the box just dies, or if something catastrophic happens like a fire, you’ll still lose all your data. To mitigate this you'll want another external backup, preferably to the cloud.

Ease Of Use

A NAS is a great option for small businesses that need a solution that can run without much maintenance. Choosing a NAS that can be set up quickly with minimal labor is always a wise decision. For enterprise solutions, higher labor and administrative costs are insignificant when compared with the benefits that a NAS can bring.

Apps

After storage, the next main concern is software and features. We prefer NASes that have an app store where you can download popular apps such as Plex instead of forcing you to use the manufacturer's own media software. NASes also offer apps for Android and iOS, which make it easier to get to your photos, videos, and music from your phone or tablet.

Form Factor

The form factor of a computing device affects the design of hardware components that go into the larger unit. For NAS storage devices, form factor usually comes in two variations: rack-mount, and tower type cases. Choosing between these two options is straightforward. For example, rack cases would be suitable for enterprise networks since they have an expandable capacity. Tower type casing is better for consumers or small-to-medium businesses.

Transcoding

What type of processor does your NAS need? NAS drives run dedicated OSes that require a lightweight processor and more RAM. A faster processor and more memory will enable features such as transcoding, which means that any media files can be converted on the fly into a format that's playable by your TV or set-top box. It can also be useful if your videos are a higher resolution than your TV can handle, so look out for the ability to transcode 4K to Full HD in real-time.

Ports And Connections

Don't overlook connectivity. If your priority is to use your NAS as a home video server, it might be worth picking one with an HDMI output like the QNAP TS-251B so you can connect it directly to your TV. And if your TV can't play video from a network source, you'll need a separate media streamer.

FAQs

What is a budget NAS?

budget NAS (Network Attached Storage) is a device that allows you to store and share files over a network. It is typically a more affordable alternative to enterprise-level NAS solutions.

What are the benefits of a budget NAS?

budget NAS is great for those who need to store and share files but don’t have the budget for an enterprise-level NAS solution. Budget NAS devices usually come with basic features such as file sharing, backup, and remote access.

Do I need to install any software to use a budget NAS?

No, you do not need to install any software to use a budget NAS. Most budget NAS devices are plug and play and can be set up in minutes.

What features do budget NAS devices offer?

Budget NAS devices typically offer a range of features, such as multiple hard drive bays for storage, the ability to share files over a network, and remote access capabilities. They also usually support RAID configurations, enabling data redundancy and improved performance. Other features may include built-in media streaming, automated backup solutions, and data encryption.

What types of hard drives can I use in a budget NAS?

Budget NAS devices typically support both 3.5-inch and 2.5-inch SATA hard drives. Some devices may also support solid-state drives (SSDs). It is important to check the compatibility of your chosen hard drives with your NAS device before purchasing.

Conclusion

Follow these guidelines to ensure that you purchase best budget nas in 2024. Take into account what characteristics are most essential for your topmost issue right now, and then look into different products that meet those requirements. If you are unable to choose a product, please see TERRAMASTER NAS Network Attached Storage for another option.

With this advice, you should be able to find a great new product with much less difficulty! Do you have any inquiries? Please notify us as soon as possible.


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About Nicolas Ward

Nicolas Ward

Nicolas Ward is an elite author with many years of experience in the music field and the owner of many engaging articles at TheAudioInsights. He studies music production and has many years of passionate research into sound systems. Appearing in many popular newspapers, Nicolas Ward provides useful knowledge and the latest information on music and sound.