The Best NAS for Under $250 of 2023 (so far)

foreign [Music] ERS you can buy for under 250 knicker and just like part one in this series and this is part two of three 250 knicker means 250 dollars 250 pounds 250 euros again currencies change all the time but right now in summer 2023 there are actually quite a lot of parity there apart from Canada apparently I saw your comment your right numbers are all over the place you're there but let's talk about this these are all nurses that you can pick up for under 250 knicker but there are a few disclaimers we'll need to discuss straight out about number one none of these include storage the reason we've not actually included the hard drives or ssds is one people's choices in hard drives and ssds while wildlies um differ between person to person and their sap but also largely because the pricing of hard drives fluctuates so rapidly that if I included hard drives here this video will be out of date in about six it so we've Not Included the cost of hard drives or SSD but you will have to factor that in although all of the solutions I'm going to talk about today they can run on a single hard drive if you choose or you can add another one create a raid gradually over time and expand the other thing I'll touch on is this this is the Synology ds220 plus and it came out in summer 2020 now right now this cannot be in our bracket right now this is not under 250 knicker in no region in the world are you picking this up it's out unless it's on offer for less than 250 quid but right now this is regularly on offer and indeed since it's launch I would say although it's about three years old at this point in the last year year and a half we have seen this regularly on offer and now we know about the Synology ds224 plus I hate seagulls the result is that this is going to be on offer even more again not just your Prime dating your black Fridays but also just general sales although I'm not going to include this now as the ds220 plus again a dual core Intel 2 gig expandable Synology Nas I will say that do if you use the links in the description thanks for that or search for yourself on Google and there's a good chance you might find this on offer it didn't qualify for this video but there's every possibility that it will either appear now or very soon under 250 knicker and the other thing last disclaimer is to do with WD because you can and I'm not going to include them in this list but it is worth highlighting that you can pick up certain um WD Nas products in there my book or my live and stuff like that solutions for under 250 knickers the reason I'm not included them in this video are twofold number one the majority of those Solutions cannot be purchased without the hard drive included which immediately puts them outside of the price bracket that normally I wouldn't be that tough on to be honest but the second issue is to do with firmware updates and the majority of the solutions that you can get from WD right now for under 250 knicker as a Nas a lot of them have reached the end of their service life for that software and their software is no longer getting updates less important for secure for feature updates incredibly important for security updates given that their platform is heavily built around their cloud service and a lot of users in the last 12 months have now either had them removed from online connectivity or will be facing that very very soon makes connecting with the device a little bit complex without setting out a local Lan connectivity which is a lot more complex on the WD platform than it is on any other brand so that's why I'm not including an ewd my books and my Nas live Cloud whatever it is from WD in this video although you will pick some of those up for under 250 knicker but for now let's crack on with our first Nas foreign we're starting with a Synology and we're starting with a very recent release Synology the ds-223 now I know you heard me mentioned earlier on about a different solar Engineers which frankly looks there enough chuffing identical but this is a 64-bit arm-powered nasda ds223 plus there it's utilizing a newer generation arm 64 processor the RTD 169b which is a quad-core 1.7 gigahertz processor there with a little bit of arm-based integrated graphics on board it also arrives with two gig of ddr4 memory which sadly can't be upgraded something you better get used to hearing in this video by the way um it also arrived with on connectivity there's a single lamp or there one gigabit Ethernet and it's got USB 3.2 gen 1 5 gig ports there so on the face of it of all the nurses I'm going to talk about today for its price versus what you're getting it's actually in terms of Hardware not the best on this list but of course it makes up for it with some DSM platform and unsurprisingly that is worth its weight in gold and is still to this day the best now software you're ever going to find in for less than 250 knicker it serves as a fantastic entry point into this station manager 7.2 and it is worth highlighting that although it includes a lot of the great applications surveillance station there there is support of containers in container manager there you've got the full Suite of the collaboration application there from technology office technology chat technology mail um Technology Drive then you've got a lot of multimedia applications inseology photos with AI photo recognition powered on this device alongside video station for creating your own alternative to Plex Media Server even audio station there to create your perfect music library and a whole host of mobile applications although all of that is included it is worth bearing in my book because of that arm-based architecture you're not going to get some Aussie virtual machine manager you're not going to get active backup Suite you're not going to get right once read many support in those mutable backups you're not going to get volume encryption they are very much x86 powered systems and that's when you've got our upgrade hello to something a little bit more powerful but nonetheless for its price point and for what you are getting with the inclusive software as well because you've got to price that up and in terms of overall Nas software this is by far the best option you can buy right now for sub 250 knicker foreign option on today's list and it's this one from qnap I bet you didn't see that coming qnap and their ts233 which sadly isn't in the studio but I've got the box here it's in the other studio um the ts233 is by far the best priced option for this architecture you're going to see for sub 250 now if you do lots of searching around for different nases for 200 uh less than 250 knicker what you find is they all live on that cusp 249 259 they're in that middle and then this arrives at 199 bang now it arrives with a CPU a CPU that is a quad corset as a CPU or Darth statement it is a quad core arm-based processor there and it's a quad core two gigahertz 64-bit arm process it also has a built-in mpu so the AI support on it has its own dedicated component now it also has two gig of DDR uh for memory can't be upgraded very fewer than answers on today's list I've got that and it's got USB 3.2 gen 1 5 gig connectivity there now it's running qts inside there and you have access to a lot of the iei services in surveillance to a light end of recognition and of course within Q Maggie that has facial recognition like the Synology app but it also a thing recognition so you can upload your Decades of photos onto it and it'll allow you to break down by what's in the photo not just the people if you want to search for food if you want to search for Landscapes trees dogs houses any other stuff like that along with taking advantage of embedded metadata that may have been utilized when you use your phone to take pictures and therefore the GPS coordinates are included all of that can be run within Q Maggie but alongside that you've got access to the full complement of applications and services from qnap there so again they've got their own alternative to the collaboration suite and a lot of that has to be said some of the extra elements might be a bit third-party such as using Microsoft applications and services with their file services rather than having their own uh documents manager packages there but still nonetheless they do have their own multimedia apps there they've got their own mail service applications there but they've also got access to some of their things like hybrid um uh connectivity with cloud services there so if you want to use hybrid mounts you can bolt on your cloud service there to create a more integrated single portal access to that you've also got hybrid backup sync 3 which is better than it's ever been for multi-site backup operations on top of that you've got access to the qbr elite package there with a couple of camera licenses again that AI support will rear in as well and overall for what you're getting is by far the best price normally whenever I make these lists qnap generally falls under the best hardware tier and this is the first time they've appeared here under the best price but it's very hard to argue when they've got a CPU there that is in terms of arm processors on the market higher pad than everyone else's uh 64-bit arm and within integrated mpu just makes it a fantastic choice right now for sub 250. foreign s available to the end user I think right now it would be safe to say at least externally that the Acer store Drive store Pro for again around 250 naked depending where you are in the world is the best choice for that notwithstanding it's got that RTD 1296 64-bit arm processor that we've seen all of the nas brands use and really make the most of and again remember all of the nas Solutions include software today ADM in the case of this with support containers with support of um adms btrfs included file system as well but on top of that this now is although it ADM software isn't quite as evolved as qnap and synology's apps I will say the fact this has got a 2.5 gigabit Ethernet port chef's kiss I love that because even though all the two base we talked about today have all got a decent amount of throughput internally they can kind of harness a couple of drives in a raid one all of them up to nil have been one gig if infinite Nazis this on the other hand being 2.5 g allows you to better harness the two drives inside that are in that raid now the average hard drive you buy these days even if you win budget domestic sub 8 TB you're still going to get about 160 the 180 megabytes per second and exceed the 200 megabytes per second Mark if you go for 10 12 DB drives and bigger bear in mind they will be noisier now having two of those drives in a raid configuration will add per drive around about 70 to 100 maybe 110 megabytes per second with each added Drive in the case of this 2x that means that there's two drives inside even if you went super domestic will give you an excess of two to 250 Megs on a even reasonable day and higher if possible so the inclusion of a 2.5 gig port on here which means up to 260 979 megabytes per second in real world external transmission speeds is very desirable indeed and you can attach 2.5 gigabit Ethernet adapters not five gig apparently uh from what I can see online but you can add 2.5 g adapters for about 20 25 knicker and add another Network Port onto this or use that adapter to connect it to your host system and directly interface 2.5 gig or n269 279 Megs as mentioned between your host client system and the Nas and with that arriving on a system for sub 249 with inclusive software as well is lovely stuff there and again although they don't have a lot of that AI supported stuff the lightest knowledge and Q number rolling out they do have a very robust and very well harnessed system that is incredibly user friendly and although doesn't have those AAA apps makes up for it by nailing down the fundamentals very very well in terms of multi-site backups in terms of synchronization with local clients and lots of client applications for iOS Android Windows and Android 2. Mac as well overall again a great little narrow that inclusive 2.5 gpus what really stands out for me [Music] and finally the best hardware Choice here things have really been mixed up in this video compared to the others and that is going to be the F2 221 now this NAS from Terra Master here is the only Intel powered CPU of the lotus dual core Intel and it is an old agenda j3355 but it is still a dual core 2.0 gigahertz CPU there at first and it arrives with two gig of ddr4 memory that could be upgraded to 4 gig as well now this isn't a 2.52 Nas but it does have a couple of one gig ports on the rear which support link aggregation and the latest generation of TOS 5.1 has got SMB multi-channel to make it much easier to combine no support on the Fly there's also USB 3 ports there but again they're the five gig USBS but with this Nas arriving at about the 250 Mark then bear in mind in some regions you might have to spend up to a tenor more um on top of that um so that all results in a Nas that can be utilized realistically for Plex and again early 4K but definitely all the 1080p with conversion support as well on top of that very light VMS if you choose of course support containers and with Terror Masters TLS 5.1 rolling out now with even more enhanced uh enhancements for AI photo recognition and btrf support and their own surveillance platform which is still a bit beta in my mind but lots of other apps and services being added all the time they have always been kind of the underdog of the nas World never quite getting up there in terms of AAA support but certainly having some slightly more exciting applications than Acer store's ADM again robust's um stable platform there taram after pushing the envelope sometimes annoying some users I would argue occasionally that um f221 is the only Intel powered Nas I could find for sub 250 knicker without going secondhand without going special offer and right now it being available on their own site on Amazon being an H Newegg that works for less than that price does allow you to have an Asda if you choose to you could just wipe it and stick on raid on it you could just wipe it and put a slightly low rent uh true Nas server on it all of that is supported on this device and if you want a nice accessible moderately powered with some decent throughput behind it to Bay it is by far the best choice right now for sub 2 150 knicker but just bear in mind that in some places in some regions you might have to go over that Mark but this has been the best now you can get for sub 250 Nick I hope you've enjoyed it in part three coming soon we are going straight to the bottom there and we're looking at NASA's you can pick up for about 100 quid and trust me there are actually some out there from reputable Brands and I can't wait to talk about those but if you have enjoyed this video do let me know by clicking like but also all the answers I've talked about today there are linked in the description to pick those up on different retailers if this video has helped you and if you're actually going to use those retailers in question below then please if those two things are true use those links because using those results doesn't cost you anything extra and then anything you buy and I mean anything results in a small Kickback or um fee whichever word you prefer coming back here to the channel to help me and Eddie continue what we do here at Mass Compares not just the videos but the Articles and the free advice section over on nascarberry advice um ask Nas compares the Forum and the Discord as well but apart from that thank you so much for watching and I'll see you next time

Channel: NASCompares

Views: 7,926

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Id: Y-CnITzR9U0

Length: 16min 25sec (985 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 10 2023