Home NAS?

[Enquiries]

I have been looking for a while and think I have a good handle on the NAS basics, I want a NAS that I can store and access mainly photos and video from multiple devices. I plan on editing the files on the NAS as well, but no video streaming. I don't really trust the cloud and would like a local storage/backup solution. I have had several external hard drives go bad and I don't really think that is the best solution for me as it takes a routine to back things up as well. I started out looking at the 2-bay NAS but it seems to me that they just another "external drive" with a built-in backup. For a few bucks more I can get a 4-bay with a RAID 5 set up and have the same backup capabilities.

If you agree with all that, what do you think the best 4-bay NAS would be for me?

Thanks in advance... I love your website!

[ed]

Many people choose a 4bay NAS with 2 or 3 drives inside. This extra bay can be used to increase storage later on.Qnap 53D models come with faster LAN ports and can be upgraded with a 10GbE card. This can be useful when editing large files straight from the NAS.RAID5 is the most sensible option since you give away only one drive for sake of redundancy, unlike RAID1 where you give up half.Having your own cloud is cheaper and safer in a long run.I hope this helps.