09-26-2025, 01:09 PM
Thanks for reaching out. For your budget and use case, you’ll want a simple, beginner-friendly 2-bay NAS with around 10TB of total storage (for example, 2 × 6TB drives in RAID 1, which gives you ~6TB usable with protection if one drive fails).
Here are some good options:
• Synology DS223j – very beginner-friendly, excellent mobile apps for photo backup, and easy to expand with larger drives later.
• QNAP TS-230 – slightly more features for tinkering (Docker, more apps), but still easy to use.
• Asustor Drivestor 2 (AS1102T) – affordable, quiet, and includes good photo backup apps.
For drives, I’d recommend Seagate IronWolf or WD Red Plus NAS drives. Two 6TB or 8TB drives would fit your needs and give you redundancy.
Synology has the easiest software for beginners, so the DS223j would be my top pick if you want “set and forget” backups.
Here are some good options:
• Synology DS223j – very beginner-friendly, excellent mobile apps for photo backup, and easy to expand with larger drives later.
• QNAP TS-230 – slightly more features for tinkering (Docker, more apps), but still easy to use.
• Asustor Drivestor 2 (AS1102T) – affordable, quiet, and includes good photo backup apps.
For drives, I’d recommend Seagate IronWolf or WD Red Plus NAS drives. Two 6TB or 8TB drives would fit your needs and give you redundancy.
Synology has the easiest software for beginners, so the DS223j would be my top pick if you want “set and forget” backups.