Best NAS for under $499

0:00 Hello and welcome back. And that is right. Today I want to talk about the best NAS device you can buy for less than $500. Before we go any further, real quick, we're halfway through 2025. So if you're watching this a little way into the future, better options may be in the market. And also I will highlight although all of these solutions are combined hardware and software solutions, none of them include the storage media. So although the NAS itself is going to cost you 500 nicker, keep in mind you're still going to have to go out and buy yourself hard drives or SSDs. very very important. But without further ado, let's crack on. How the hell did we get to a point where UniFi was nothing in the world of NAS? And now with one solution, they have changed the game. The UNAZ Pro, a 7 by 10 gig rack mount solution for $499

0:49 has changed a lot of people's preconception towards what not only a NAS is, but what exactly you can get for your money. Now, the UNAZ Pro has got seven solder base there on the front. It runs on a quad-core ARM processor uh with 8 gig of DDR4 um pre-attached memory. It's not a particularly scalable solution, but I will say that as a pure storage box, it really is hard to question what you're getting for your money there. It has its own uh drive uh storage configuration supporting up to um uh RAID 6 and RAID 5 configurations there in the latest update in their drive app. Alongside that, you can integrate it with an existing UniFi network or you can run it standalone as well as integrating it with cloud services for a multi-tered uh

1:35 backup solution. You can even integrate it over SMB with an existing storage setup you may have in one direction or another. Don't look at this as a solution for running containers, dockerized applications there, virtual machines or something like Plex. This is pure pure storage. But at $499, a 10 gig 7 bay sarda solution is very hard to argue with. And if we're going to talk about brands that have changed the status quo, these guys, you green with a DXP 4800. Now I'm listing this at $499 and a few places actually listed a little lower than that. I've seen it on offer at 429 in some places and 519, but we're splitting our heads down in the middle and we're going to say right there at 499. This arrives with an N100 quadcore CPU, 8 gig of DDR5 memory, four SATA bays there on

2:22 the front, two M.2 MVME bays at the base. It also has 2.5 gig two ports there on the rear, USB type A and the UGOS software included with it. It really is challenging I think to brands like Synology and QAP and the status quo and the base level hardware software that you can get for this price point because this solution from Synology or QAP who arguably do have more evolved software um this level of hardware they would be charging $599 to $699 very easily and tipping the post at just under 500 nicker makes this very very appealing. also right now with SD card readers there on the front, USB type-C and ultimately a very unique design philosophy there on the front. I'm going to say right now there is a reason that

3:08 when users right now are getting slightly apprehensive and slightly annoyed with Sonology's policy towards hard drive um support, a lot of people are talking about UG Green more than they are QAP. It's really weird but true. It's not a perfect solution. The software still has a ways to go, but it's more evolved than the UniFi offering that we just talked about. And it has BTRFS support. It has multi-ter backup support. It has containerization and Plex multimedia and Docker and virtual machine. It has the feature subset that you're going to need to get things up and running. Just don't expect the universe from this right now. And before we move on, it's worth highlighting one that even if that software doesn't float your boat, you can still go ahead and install True NAS or Unrade on this without invalidating

3:55 your hardware warranty. And moreover, there is a pro version of this that arrives with a Pentiumbased CPU there and 10GB and Gen 4 architecture on the M.2s. You have to spend a little bit more, but nonetheless, at $499 for the nonpro version, this is still quite a bargain right now. For a lot of users, it's not about the hardware, it's about the software. And when it comes to software, we still all have to kind of agree that Sonology do still rule the roof with DSM. And therefore, for users looking at the best NAS for 499, for some it is going to be what's the best Sonology NAS for 499. Now, that is a divisive question in 2025. Um, now it'd be very easy to say their modern release, the DS425 plus rocking out with uh an Intel quadcore processor there, 2 gig of DDR um 4

4:42 memory and arriving with 2.5 GB Ethernet on the rear. One port, 2.5, one port, one gig, and a couple of M.2 slots on the base is a reasonably powered solution to make the most of DSM at that price point. However, keep in mind that the DS425 Plus for all of the benefits that Sony's DSM platform provides you, which by the way, there are many alongside support of things like their Synology hybrid RAID mix storage system and more. It's worth highlighting that the newer generation of 2025 series does have that somewhat restrictive hard drive policy. Therefore, if you want the hardware that the DS425 Plus arrived with, sands the 2.5 gig, then go for the DS423 Plus. But if you're happy to buy Sony's hard drives, uh, such as the

5:28 Synology Plus series of drive, which are comparatively priced, uh, to the likes of Seagate, Iron Wolf, then if that's not, you know, a bothersome thing for you, the DS425 gives you a fantastic access point into Synology DSM platform. Just keep in mind that the kind of flexibility you have in terms of storage media on that may put you off enough that the previous generation box may be the one for you. I know a number of you probably didn't see this coming, but this the Linkstation N2 is worthy of discussion. I've seen this online at 429 to $439 and it is both a two times 2.5 Sarta SSD and at the base a 4* M.2 MVME NAS system

6:15 here arrives with the M100 CPU. Alongside that, it also arrives with 10 GB Ethernet there. This is a sub500 uh $500 pure SSD NAS system. Again, great CPU. 16 gig, by the way, of DDR5 memory pre-attached on the board. You can't upgrade it, but nonetheless, that is a decent amount of storage. And again, although there is a lack of failover there because there's only one 10 gig port, that's a great amount of bandwidth to play with. Also, I'm going to highlight right now, this has Unrade included with it. That's right. You get an Unrade license for all six of those drives. And do you know what else you get with Unrade? Unrade now supports Wi-Fi dongles in Unrade 7. Why is that important? That means that you can take

7:01 advantage of the Wi-Fi connection inside this as that failover. This is a sub $500 sixbay flash NAS system with an unrade license included. What the actual one year on and I'm still raving about this. This is the Flash Door 6. The Flash Door 6 is a sixbay M.2 2 MVME storage system. It has again six times MVME with two times 2.5 GB Ethernet there on the rear. It also adds their ADM software with a myriad of client application for iOS, Android, and desktop computers there. It also has BTRFS. It also has write once read many support. It also has a myriad of RAID storage and backup applications all

7:46 included there. And it's $449. Remember earlier on when I mentioned about the cost of media and how it's not included. Do keep in mind that some of the systems like this one arrive with their operating system on an area of uh flash or eMMC storage inside. You want have to have extra storage in here for that operating system which is the case when you look at some NAS OSS. Moreover from that at the moment even without big seasonal sounds on you can pick up 4TB M.2 two MVME SSD drives for about $200. It's only about twice the price of a hard drive, which although is more, it does make sixbased storage systems like this. [Music]

8:34 Right there at the 11th hour, in the time between me recording the video that you watched on screen and now I've got to introduce this. This is the Terram Master F4 SSD. And although I stand by pretty much everything I said about the Flash Door 6, you know, for your money at $499 or under, I'll say right now, this thing has suddenly come into the fold. And I wanted to include it here in the video cuz I do think you might want to go for this one for some of you. This F4 SSD is a four times MVME SSD NAS system. Now, yes, it doesn't have six bays. So, you might be thinking, "Oh, we're working from behind." Well, let's carry on. It arrives at $399 right now.

9:21 And again, we said this about Terra Master before. They are a brand that have a tendency to rock out discounts all the live long day. On top of that, the system arrives with a 5 GB Ethernet port there on the rear. So, again, some of you are going to prefer the fact that this has got 2* 2.5 gig cuz you got the failover. Others don't really want to muck around with SMB multi- channelannel port chunk in link aggregation, that sort of thing. And maybe they just want to go straight for the 5 gig. And again, remember 5 gig isn't exactly common, but if you do have a 10 gig port, at least you can make more of that bandwidth. Those four M.2 MVMEs inside here, although this has got six, all six of those are gen 3* 1. Two of these are gen 3* 1, but the other two are gen 3* 2.

10:07 That's twice the performance threshold for the M2 MVMEs inside here. Now again, whether you're weighing up performance versus capacity is a debate to be had. Also, four of these, if you raid them together, you're probably going to get bottlenecked on those other two by the slower two MVMEs. But still, that high performance with two parallel running storage pools is an option. Alongside that, this arrives with 8 gig of DDR5 memory, not 4 gig of DDR4 memory. So higher performing memory as well with on ECC, not truly ECC obviously. Um but alongside that, this has the CPU, the N97. It's the Intel twin lake CPU there rather than the Intel Celeron that's

10:54 inside. This is a much newer processor with a better balance between its low um performance uh I think it's 0.8 GHz there, but it can be burst up to 3.4 four when it needs to with a higher integrated graphics rating as well. Also, both of these are turnkey NAS solutions, but there's actually a lot more AAA features on the Terra Master platform on toos6. We talked about it in its own dedicated review. And Asus's platform is good, but between the two of them, the Acus one feels more incon feels more consistent. It feels more designrich across the apps, but there's more featurerich applications on the toos platform. Both of them support third party operate uh third party

11:40 operating systems due as unrade without invalidating the hardware warranty. I wanted to add this section to the video cuz as I say, I stand by everything I said about the ASA store, but as soon as this F4 SSD arrived here in the studio, I wanted to include it in this, but it's available now, and it's $100 clear of our target in this video. But there you go. Those are the best NAS devices I'd recommend buying right now, halfway through 2025, for $500. Now, some of you are going to be wondering, where's QAP? Where's Terra Master? And you are right to ask why aren't QAP on this list? Well, because the nearest solution to that priced one that I could find for that money was the 4262. And it was just outpaced financially as some of the options that we've talked about today. And when it comes to Terra

12:27 Master, Terra Master, if you just spend $1 to $200 more, you've got things like the Pro and the Max in some of those two, four, and six bay solutions right the way up to about $8 or $900 where they really will give you phenomenal hardware value as well as supporting the likes of True Naz and Unrade installations there. But none of them really conformed to the $500 remit of today's video. But let me know what you guys think in the comments. Maybe there's something I've missed. And for those thinking about DIY, you're right. You can probably save a bit of buns with DIY, but this video is about out of the box solutions. But thank you so much for watching. There's links in the description to every one of the solutions I've talked about today. So, do use those links. It results in a small commission here to NASCA Compares, allowing me and Eddie to keep doing what we do. And there's also links to reviews for every single solution we talked

13:13 about today, linked below as well. Thank you so much for watching and I'll see you next