Nas storage advice

[Enquiries]

I am a home user. Hobbies include photography and videography. I'd like to find a back up storage solution for my home. I have a Pc which I do my photo and video editing from and would like to back up the system and files.

I'd like to connect my wifes laptop to back up her data.

I'd like to also be able to back up our phones and tablets.

I'm currently paying google cloud storage 2tb.

I've had my eye on the Ugreen dxp4800 plus, seen it on sale for around £490. Watching your videos, I think I'm set on a 4 bay nas rather than 2 bay. My videos are shot in 4k.

For hdd i was thinking wd red as I read they were quieter and the unit will be in my lounge! If I have understood correctly, 4X 8TB nas will recommend RAID 5 and ultimately I'll have 24TB of capacity?

Regarding cache size of the hdd, the dxp4800 plus has m.2 bays, so would it be reasonable to have smaller cache size hdd? Do both m.2 bays need to be populated?

[ed]

Thanks for getting in touch, and you’ve already done a lot of the right research here — you’re asking all the right questions. Let me break it down for you.

First off, the Ugreen DXP4800 Plus is a very solid choice at that price. It’s a good balance of features, quiet operation, and expandability — and for a home user, it’ll handle your 4K video files, photos, PC and mobile backups perfectly. Going with a 4-bay unit was also a smart move — you’ll appreciate the flexibility and resilience compared to a 2-bay.

On drives, yes — WD Red Plus 8TB is a good call. They’re among the quieter NAS HDDs (in this size range, nothing is truly silent, but these are sensible in a lounge environment).

With 4×8TB drives in RAID 5, you’re correct — you’d get about 24TB usable capacity. RAID 5 gives you a single-drive redundancy, so one drive can fail without losing your data. You could also consider RAID 6 if you wanted two-drive redundancy, but you’d lose more capacity.

On Cache

You don’t need to overthink HDD cache size in this setup — the onboard M.2 slots can be used as cache instead. NAS HDDs already have plenty of onboard cache for sequential work.

And no, you don’t have to populate both M.2 bays — you can install one NVMe SSD as a read/write cache and leave the other empty. If you want full redundancy on the cache itself, you can install two, but it’s not essential, especially for a home setup.

So in short:
• 4×8TB WD Red Plus drives (or even Seagate IronWolf if you find a better deal — also quiet and reliable)
• RAID 5 for 24TB usable
• 1 or 2 NVMe SSDs for cache (optional, but can help with lots of small file access)

The NAS will also handle your wife’s laptop backups and your mobile devices too — Ugreen’s software (or third-party apps) can back up Windows, Mac, Android, and iOS without issue.