If a NAS with two disks is not enough, then a model with four disks is a logical choice. But do you get other benefits in addition to extra storage or is a 4bay NAS mainly more of the same? We test five current 4bay-nas systems with a maximum selling price of 450 euros. Are these larger NAS devices worth the extra cost and what is the right choice?
The basis of a NAS is its storage capacity. One or more drives where you store all your personal documents and photos, which you can optionally share with other users. This alone does not make the NAS the ideal device for the home network, its position is due to the ease with which it can also be set up as a media player, as a surveillance server for storage and processing of images from security cameras, as a personal cloud, as a download station. for movies and music, etc. The extra functionality places increasingly higher demands on the NAS: a faster processor, more memory, more storage capacity. According to Björn Heirman of webshop mobile-harddisk.nl, the NAS with space for four disks is unmistakably on the rise. In 2015, Heirman sold five times as many 2bay as 4bay NAS models, last year that ratio had already halved to two and a half.
4 cheaper than 2
Four instead of two disks has a number of advantages. First of all, the maximum storage capacity doubles. If you use raid, which protects your data against the failure of one or more disks, storage capacity becomes even more important. The extra protection comes at the expense of part of the storage space. With two disks, this is only possible via raid1, where all files are written twice. The downside is clear: raid1 halves the storage capacity. If a NAS has four drives, you can also choose raid5, -6 or -10. Raid5, like raid1, protects against a single disk failure, but costs only a quarter of the storage capacity. With raid5 you have relatively much more storage capacity with four disks than with raid1 with two disks.
In addition to the storage capacity, this is also important for the total price of the NAS. Because you have more storage capacity with four disks and raid 5, you can achieve the same storage capacity with smaller disks as with raid1 with two disks. And because smaller drives are cheaper, a NAS with four smaller drives may end up costing less (and offering more storage) than one with two large drives.
More benefits
A four-disk NAS has even more advantages. For example, the material and workmanship of the 4bay models are without exception better than comparable 2bay models. With the exception of Synology, all NAS devices have a metal housing. Netgear and Western Digital even have a small LED screen for system notifications and information. The number of connections is also (with Synology as an exception again) higher than with comparable 2bay models of the same brand. So more USB3.0 ports, sometimes an eSata port or HDMI port and two LAN ports on all NAS devices. In fact, the QNAP TS-431x2 is the first NAS in this segment to be prepared for a 10 Gbit/s network connection.
A second LAN port offers the possibility to connect the NAS to a second network simultaneously or you can combine both ports into one super-fast connection. This requires a network switch that supports this and that preferably offers the possibility to configure the port settings. Moreover, trunking usually only offers real speed gains if several users simultaneously use the same NAS, since these users usually have a normal gigabit connection.
Again with the exception of Synology, the 4bay models in this test all have a much larger fan than the equivalent 2bay models. Together with better airflow in the larger housing, this also ensures sufficient cooling when the fan is running at a lower speed. So the average 4bay NAS makes less noise than a 2bay NAS.
Apps and packages
At least as important as what the nas manufacturer itself puts into the nas in terms of hardware and software, is what you can add to it as a user. This concerns the apps or so-called packages with which you add extra functionality to the NAS. These extensions can be installed just like an app on a smartphone from an app store on the NAS. At Netgear, QNAP but especially Synology you also have a large community that develops extensions. The range of apps is huge, but the number and quality differ per brand.
The main categories are backup, multimedia, utilities such as a log server, a mail server, virtualization, but also home automation and business applications such as a word processor or spreadsheet. Synology still has the best offering in both proprietary apps and third-party packages. The company offers a full-fledged office suite (similar to Microsoft Office 365) with a word processor, spreadsheet, notes, mail and calendar program, all of which can be used in the browser. It is striking that the collaboration between QNAP and smarthome manufacturer Fibaro, announced in 2017, has still not yielded anything.
The last distinguishing factor are the apps to let your smartphone and tablet easily work together with the NAS. All brands have such apps for iOS and Android, but the differences are very large. If you expect to use the NAS mainly via your mobile, then give this part of the test extra weight in your assessment of the various NAS devices in this test.
Asustor AS6104T
The AS6104T has by far the most external connections of all the devices in the test. The two USB3.0 and two eSata ports are especially suitable for connecting extra storage, a DVD player or making backups. By connecting a keyboard and mouse to the USB2.0 ports and a screen to the HDMI port, you can also use the NAS as a Linux PC. More interesting, however, is to connect the HDMI port to the television and use the NAS as a media player. You can also use the optical audio output.
The AS6104T can display 4K movies without interference. The processor of the AS6104T is an Intel Celeron N3050, an older model that still works fine, supplemented with 2 GB of memory. The Asustor Data Master operating system provides a virtual desktop on which you can place applications. These can be easily installed via App Central. The offer is large, but the quality is often slightly less than with the competition. LibreOffice and VirtualBox are examples of open source products that Asustor ported to the NAS to keep pace with Synology and QNAP, which also provide office software and virtualization. If you want to virtualize containers in addition to containers (a form of virtualization in which all necessary components are contained in the container) you also want to use 'real' virtual machines on the Asustor, something the AS6104T is the only one to support in this test, then we recommend expanding the memory to at least 4GB.
Good are the real nas apps such as FFmpeg, Surveilllance Center, Plex, Asustor Portal for using the nas as a PC with LibreOffice, Chrome, Netflix and YouTube, and also the various backup and sync apps for Google Drive among others and Microsoft OneDrive.
Asustor AS6104T
Price€ 422,29
Website
www.asustor.com 8 Score 80
- Pros
- External connections
- HDMI port
- 4K transcoding
- Virtualization
- Negatives
- Quality packages
Netgear ReadyNAS RN214
The hardware is never a problem with Netgear and also well taken care of with the ReadyNAS 214. The challenge is the software. For example, the ReadyNAS does not provide a virtual desktop for every user, but only a web interface for configuration and management. Now that the competitors are expanding the possibilities to work on the NAS, Netgear is increasingly falling behind. There are certainly strong points. For example, the proprietary X-RAID offers the possibility to combine disks of different sizes and also add storage capacity later. The NAS itself chooses the right raid technology. Furthermore, the btrfs file system takes snapshots of the files on the NAS so that you can always revert to an earlier version without taking up much storage space. Synology also offers btrfs, but only on the more expensive models. There is a reasonable range of extensions for the NAS, but the range is erratic and of highly variable quality. Highlights include Plex (which also supports full-HD transcoding well) and the DVBLink TV Server. The ReadyNAS Surveillance app is sufficient, but not as comprehensive and flexible as the others, while apps for smart home and virtualization are missing. Setting up your own cloud, on the other hand, works fine.
Netgear ReadyNAS RN214
Price€ 384,79
Website
www.netgear.nl 6 Score 60
- Pros
- Display
- X-RAID
- Full HD Transcoding
- Simplicity management
- Negatives
- No virtual desktop
- Number of packages
- Quality packages
- No virtualization
QNAP TS-431X2
QNAP has as many as fifteen 4bay NAS models in its portfolio and the TS-431X2 is one of the cheaper ones. The plastic housing offers space for three USB3.0 ports, two LAN ports and a 10Gbit/s port as the first NAS in our test lab. To actually use this fast port, an SFP+ transceiver is still needed (from 57 euros for a so-called direct-attach cable or 97 euros for an optical transceiver) plus an associated switch. QNAP is about to release such switches itself.
The Annapurna Labs AL-314 processor is fine for all NAS tasks except transcoding, which is completely lacking. Besides the neat hardware, the great strength of this TS-314x2 lies in the QTS operating system and the huge range of extensions. There are many useful applications that each user can use within their own virtual desktop such as apps for email, note taking, photo management etc. The hobbyist and business user can take advantage of the possibility of using containers and setting up a private cloud. The latter is of course also interesting for the ordinary user who prefers to store all content from smartphones and tablets of himself and, for example, the family members in their own cloud, rather than with a public service. As an alternative to btrfs provided by Netgear, QNAP has the built-in Snapshots feature that makes it easier to recover the NAS after an unexpected failure or ransomware infection.
Synology DS418
At Synology, the differences between two model series are sometimes difficult to see, but not with this DS418. The new NAS housing is more compact and the strange front panel is finally gone. Despite the two smaller fans, the noise production is good. The number of ports is economical, with only two LAN and two USB3.0 ports. No HDMI, no eSata, and no 10Gbit/s network connection. The fact that the DS418 is still a big step forward is due to the new quad-core Realtek RTD1296 ARM processor in combination with 2 GB DDR4 memory. So not only twice as much memory compared to what was common with this series, but also faster memory. The DS418 is the first Synology in the Value series to transcode 4K video without interference. You will have to use the Synology Video Station package for this, because Plex does not support the Realtek processor and it is unknown if it will ever support it. However, the quality of Synology's own packages, including those for media, is more than adequate and often even better than alternatives. New are Moments for photo management (including facial recognition) and Synology Office (with Chat, Calendar and Drive and many options for private cloud and backups). Unfortunately, this Value model doesn't support btrfs - there must be something to be desired.
Synology DS418
Price€ 403,90
Website
www.synology.nl 10 Score 100
- Pros
- Quality packages
- Number of packages
- 4K transcoding
- Synology Hybrid RAID
- Negatives
- No Plex
- Number of ports
- exFAT driver not free
