It's not just the fit-and-finish of the UI, which is clear and crisp. While the Synology hardware is on-par with many other NAS offerings, it's when that hardware is combined with the DSM software that Synology's offerings become best-in-class.Īlso: We test the Synology DiskStation DS1817+ RAID I'm showing you five machines that I am sure will serve you well over the years.īy far, the standout feature of any Synology NAS is the company's exceptional DiskStation Manager (DSM) software. It's fast, it's easy to get to, you can segment shares for family members or workgroups, and many NASes offer a wide range of additional applications that turn your box into a local, private, on-premises general-purpose business server (or, in the case of the QNAP below, a full media center computer). I strongly recommend cloud storage as one leg in a 3-2-1 backup strategy, but for home and small office use, a NAS can be invaluable. You don't have to pay for it month after month after month.ĭon't get me wrong. Sure, if you're equipping a NAS, you're paying for drives, but once you pay out the expense for the NAS and drives, you're done. Second, cloud servers can get kind of expensive. If you're doing anything with video (or other large files), you're unlikely to find cloud storage practical except, maybe, for backup. Cloud-based servers are good ( here I talk about how one saved my bacon), but for full-time work-at-home folks, cloud based servers don't always cut the mustard.Ĭloud-based servers are terrible for video editing, as it takes forever to upload and download video to the cloud ( even if you have a fast pipe). But if you work for a small business or you're working from home, your file server is likely to be in the cloud, probably something offered by Dropbox, AWS, Google, or Microsoft. If you work for a large company, you undoubtedly have access to a corporate file server.

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