The 2 Best NAS Devices for Most Home Users in 2025
Top pick
The QNAP TS-264-8G is the two-bay NAS we recommend for most people. It typically sells for less than $420 (diskless) as of this writing. In addition to its role as a base station for all your family’s file and photo backups, its ability to stream and serve media files like music and videos is among the fastest of any NAS we’ve tested.
It includes a modern Intel Celeron processor, hardware-level encryption, and a flexible and easy-to-understand interface with a wide variety of third-party apps. The NAS supports media playback through its own apps or Plex Media Server, has dual hard drives that help save your data (RAID 1 drive mirroring), has four USB ports (including one on the front), has an HDMI port for connections to a monitor or TV, and supports features Wirecutter readers have asked about, such as VPN server capabilities, IP camera support, UPS compatibility, and SSDs.
It supports extra-speedy gigabit internet. The TS-264’s pair of 2.5 GbE (gigabit Ethernet) ports will keep it fast for a while. Newer high-end routers like the Synology WRX560 come with 2.5 GbE ports, which are capable of up to twice the speed of one gigabit Ethernet ports found on other routers and NAS boxes. It doesn’t necessarily guarantee the fastest performance in every case (see Flaws but not dealbreakers below), but they are a leg up over older systems.
It has a powerful processor and plenty of memory. The TS-264 has a modern quad-core 2.0 GHz Intel Celeron processor and 8 GB of RAM. Some NAS devices below this price range use slower ARM-based processors from Realtek, Alpine, or Marvell, or older-generation Intel processors. Some ship with 1 GB of RAM or less. All of these affect the NAS’s speed. You’ll utilize the processor’s speed and abundant RAM when copying lots of files, streaming videos, or performing multiple backups simultaneously.
NAS file-transfer test speeds in MB/s (higher is better)
The TS-264 is a fast server. The QNAP two-bay NAS was at its fastest when transferring files from its storage to a waiting laptop. It topped our charts with speeds of over 105 megabytes per second (MB/s) while copying over 6,100 music files in 5 minutes, and almost 220 MB/s when sending 15 GB of large files to the laptop in just over a minute. The latter was double the speed of any of the other two-bay NAS. Speed is more critical when serving or streaming files: Like when downloading files from the internet, a slow copy to your laptop can be agonizing. We attribute the speed to the QNAP TS-264’s 8 GB of memory, its speedy quad-core Celeron processor, and its 2.5-GbE ports.
It’s expandable beyond two hard drive bays. The TS-264’s two drive bays are only the beginning. You can add storage via portable SSDs or external hard drives connected to the NAS’s USB and SATA ports. Inside the NAS, you’ll find two M.2 internal SSD slots for adding even faster storage. And if that’s not enough, there’s a PCIe expansion slot capable of adding more internal storage, a connector to external drive arrays, a Wi-Fi 6 adapter, or faster 10 GbE networking ports. Simpler NAS boxes, such as our budget pick, the QNAP TS-216G, as well as the Synology DS224+ QNAP HS-264, are limited to external USB expansion.
Administering the server is easy if you’re familiar with Windows. QNAP’s QTS operating system looks like Microsoft Windows, and lets you configure the server using familiar icons and window panes. Basic setup is guided: Just follow a few setup screens, and you’ll have the NAS operating on your network in about a half hour to an hour.
You can do a lot from your phone. If you download QNAP’s apps like Qmanager and sign in using a QNAP cloud account, you can check if the NAS is running, reboot it remotely, and monitor use. You can also backup files and photos from your phone to the NAS, freeing space to take more photos and videos.
The TS-264 is also a computer and media player. The “network-attached” part of network-attached storage means that most people leave their NAS connected to the router to access it from their web browser, but the TS-264 has an HDMI port that allows you to play video files directly from the NAS to a connected display, plus work on the NAS directly with a keyboard and mouse. This is one feature that Synology NAS boxes omit.
Virtual machines are supported. Some technical-minded folks will want to offload functions from their primary PC to a side server like the QNAP TS-264. The NAS supports up to four virtual machines (VM) running simultaneously. These VMs act like independent Linux or Windows PCs running on the NAS, which can be dedicated to functions like downloading and transcoding 4K video files, or running a personal VPN, a security system (firewall), or a test web server for your projects.
QNAP provides easy access to many server-side applications. QNAP provides access to many applications you can run on your NAS. They download from an app center, like the app store on your phone. Some of the more popular apps are Plex for media streaming, and WordPress for creating and serving your own web content.
Flaws but not dealbreakers
The drive bays aren’t lockable. The QNAP TS-264 has simple slide-in drive trays, which can’t be locked for security. The Synology DS723+ and DS923+ have more robust drive bays with a key lock. Synology’s locks aren’t high security by any means, but they should keep wandering fingers from popping a spinning drive out inadvertently.
QNAP NAS drives are limited to ext4 format. Synology NAS drives can be formatted to ext4 and SHR+btrfs format. The ext4 format is faster but has less data flexibility.
The TS-264’s memory upgrades are limited. It comes with 8 GB of memory, which you can double to 16 GB. Folks who want to upgrade beyond that for their business should look at the Synology DS723+.
The TS-264 is slower than other NAS systems during write operations. This QNAP two-bay array took a bit longer to copy files from the laptop to the NAS storage than some of the competition. Considering the TS-264’s prodigious output however, it’s acceptable. Besides, you’re probably backing up a laptop while it’s sitting idle, so it will have plenty of time for writing files to storage.
