Two drive bays: For most home uses, a two-drive NAS protects your data by mirroring the contents of one drive to the other (RAID 1). Single-drive NAS devices provide less data protection, while NAS boxes with more bays offer more complex RAID configurations. Some models of NAS will come with an HDMI port to allow you to connect it to an external display, but this isn’t as important when you can access the NAS through a web-based interface anyway. If you want a 4 bay NAS to simply plugin and start using, the Buffalo TeraStation is a good option, but you may find purchasing a diskless NAS and then buying the hard drives separately offers better value for money and potentially better performance. CPU: Realtek RTD1296 | Drive bays: 2 | RAM: 512MB DDR4 | Features: 1x 1Gb LAN, 2x USB 3.0, upgradable RAM

Choosing the right NAS for your needs can be a daunting task with the vast choice that is available. Before purchasing a new NAS, ask yourself the following questions to ensure you choose one that is suitable for your needs: Bays, Intel PT/i3/i5 8th Gen 2/4/6-Core CPU, 8-64GB DDR4 Memory, 1x 10Gbe Port, 2x 1GbE, USB 3.2 Gen 2, PCIe 3×16 + 3×4, 2x M.2 NVMe, HDMI 2.0 4K 60FPS, 2x Thunderbolt 3, 2-5yr Warranty The more hard drive bays you have, the greater the flexibility you have in terms of RAID configurations. For example, having just two bays available limits you to RAID 0 or RAID 1, whereas having four bays allows you to use RAID 5, RAID 6, and RAID 10 as well.The most modern and regularly updated NAS systems will support the very latest 20TB NAS hard drives (such as the Seagate Ironwofl 20TB and WD Red 20TB) The most modern and regularly updated NAS systems will support the very latest 20TB NAS hard drives (such as the Seagate Ironwofl 22TB and WD Red 22TB) If you don’t have much time, my favorite 4 bay NAS for home is the Synology 4 Bay NAS DiskStation DS418 for its performance, ease of use, storage options and flexibility when setting up redundancy. The Comparison Table Most NAS drives have one or two USB ports that you can use to connect a printer or external storage drives, letting you add those to your network via the NAS itself. Once they are plugged in, just like everything else on the NAS, they can be shared with all connected users. An example of a common arrangement: A NAS drive will have one USB 2.0 port that is usually used for printer sharing, and a USB 3.0 port that can be used for external storage. (USB 2.0 is much, much slower than USB 3.0, but a printer doesn't need the fast pipe, so a USB 2.0 port is just fine.) Many thx if someone far more intelligent then me , possible a bit younger while containing much more knowledge then me could help me.

The DS418 is powered by a new 64-bit quad-core processor which allows for excellent data transfer speeds in addition to 10-bit 4K H.265 video transcoding should you wish to stream 4K video files from it also. Third-party application support: If you want to add features or services to your NAS, you need to do that with third-party software—including media center software, web-server software, analytics, and more.

More hard drive bays also means more flexibility when it comes to setting up redundancy. The DS418 supports Synology’s hybrid raid in addition to JBOD, RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, RAID 6, and RAID 10. Synology DiskStation DS120j: Best entry-level NAS Synology DiskStation DS120j. (Source: NAS Master)