The Best NAS Servers with 4 or More Bays

QNAP TS-453Be

This QNAP NAS server model has a total of 4 bays to host hard drives inside, it is one of the best value for money, and it has very interesting features for less than 500 euros. Its main features are:

• It has a 64-bit Intel Celeron J3455 CPU with quad cores at 1.5 GHz and in turbo mode up to 2.3 GHz, it has an AES-NI hardware encryption engine, and it also has Intel HD Graphics 500 GPU with accelerated transcoding by hardware.
• It has 4 GB of DDR3L SO-DIMM RAM expandable up to 8 GB.
• It has an internal flash memory of 4 GB.
• Supports the following hard drive formats:
  • 3.5 SATA3 hard drives
  • 2.5 SATA3 hard drives
  • 2.5 SATA3 SSD drives
  • An additional M.2 SSD disk slot can be installed through the PCIe port.
• It has 1 PCIe Gen 2 slot, so we can expand the default ports that we have on this NAS server. For example, we can incorporate a card to have USB 3.1 Gen 2 ports at 10Gbps, to have M.2 SSDs and that work as an SSD or Qtier cache, and even to install a network card at 10Gbps speed or a Wi-Fi card. Fi.
• The connections available are: 5 USB 3.0 ports, 1 USB 3.0 Type-C port, SDXC card reader and 2 Gigabit Ethernet ports with Link Aggregation support.
• It has an IR sensor.
• It has 2 HDMI 1.4b outputs with a resolution of up to 3840 x 2160 at 30 Hz.
• It has 2 3.5mm dynamic microphone input connectors.
• As audio outputs it has, 1 integrated speaker, and a 3.5mm jack audio output.
• It has a consumption of 24.53 W in hard disk hibernation and 49.43 W in operation.

If you are looking for a NAS server with a powerful processor, and very good specifications for less than 500 euros, this model is ideal.

QNAP TVS-672N and TVS-872N

The QNAP manufacturer has launched the QNAP TVS-672N and the QNAP TVS-872N models, both models have exactly the same technical characteristics, but the TVS-672N model has a total of 6 bays to accommodate 3.5 hard drives », And the TVS-872N model has a total of 8 bays to accommodate 3.5” hard drives.

These NAS server models feature a 3.1GHz Intel Core i3-8100T quad-core processor, with an Intel UHD Graphics 630 GPU, hardware encryption engine and hardware accelerated transcoding. The RAM memory ranges from 4GB DDR4 SO-DIMM for the TVS-672N and 8GB for the TVS-872N to a maximum capacity of 32GB. In addition to the bays for hard drives, we also have 2 slots for M.2 2280 PCIe Gen3 x2, so we can use it as an SSD or Qtier cache.

Other features are the incorporation of a PCIe 3.0 x16 slot, and another PCIe 3.0 x4 slot, in addition to a USB 3.0 port, 2 USB 3.1 Gen 2 ports at 10Gbps type C, and 2 USB 3.1 Gen 2 ports at 10Gbps type A. Also They have an IR sensor, HDMI 2.0 output at 4K resolution, 3.5mm microphone input, built-in speaker and 3.5mm audio output.

QNAP TS-832X

This NAS server if you are looking for a large number of bays, is a great option due to its low price. This model has a total of 8 bays to accommodate hard drives inside, in addition, it has two SFP + ports at 10Gbps speed each so that we do not have a bottleneck in the professional local network.

• It has a 64-bit Alpine AL-324 ARM® Cortex-A57 CPU with four 1.7 GHz cores.
• It has 2 GB of DDR4 SO-DIMM RAM expandable up to 16 GB.
• It has an internal flash memory of 512 MB.
• Supports the following hard drive formats:
  • 3.5 SATA3 hard drives
  • 2.5 SATA3 hard drives
  • 2.5 SATA3 SSD drives
• It has 2 PCIe Gen 2 slots, so we can expand the default ports that we have on this NAS server. We can have M.2 SSDs, USB 3.1 Gen 2 ports, and even additional 10GbE ports or a Wi-Fi card.
• The connections available are: 3 USB 3.0 ports, 2 Gigabit Ethernet ports for the LAN with support for Link Aggregation, and we also have 2 10GbE SFP + ports.
• As audio outputs it has 1 built-in speaker, and a 3.5mm jack audio output.
• It has a consumption of 24.53 W in hard disk hibernation and 49.43 W in operation.

If you are looking for a NAS server compatible with multiple RAIDs thanks to its 8 bays for hard drives, this model is very interesting without costing too much money, since we can find it around 700 euros.

QNAP TVS-682

This QNAP NAS server has a total of 4 bays for 3.5 ”hard drives, and 2 bays for 2.5” hard drives or SSDs. This model provides great performance thanks to its built-in Intel Pentium processor.

• It has a 64-bit Intel® Pentium G4400 dual-core CPU, has a hardware encryption engine with AES-NI, and also an Intel HD Graphics 510 GPU.
• It has 8 GB of RAM DDR4 UDIMM expandable up to 64 GB.
• It has an internal flash memory of 512 MB.
• Supports the following hard drive formats:
  • 3.5 SATA3 hard drives
  • 2.5 SATA3 hard drives
  • 2.5 SATA SSD drives
  • It has 2 SATA3 M.2 slots for the installation of SSD and use Qtier or SSD cache and accelerate the overall performance of the NAS.
• It has 2 PCIe Gen3 slots to expand the ports and functionalities.
• The connections available are: 5 USB 3.0 ports and 4 Gigabit Ethernet ports with support for Link Aggregation.
• It has 3 HDMI outputs.
• It has 2 3.5mm dynamic microphone input connectors.
• As audio outputs it has, 2 built-in speakers, and a 3.5mm jack audio output.
• It has a consumption of 29.51 W in hard disk hibernation and 45.5 W in operation.

If you are looking for a very versatile high performance NAS server, this model is really interesting, although it is not cheap, since it exceeds € 1,500. An important detail is that if you need a more powerful processor, we have the Intel Core i3 7100 available instead of the Pentium.

QNAP TVS-1282T3

This QNAP NAS server is one of the manufacturer’s top end. The most important thing is that we have two different processor configurations, so, depending on the chosen processor, it will be more or less expensive:

• Intel Core i5-7500 Quad Core 3.4GHz
• Intel Core i7-7700 quad-core 3.6GHz

Both processors have hardware accelerated transcoding, and also AES-NI encryption engine so that data encryption and decryption work at maximum speed. The RAM of the i5 version is usually 16GB of DDR4 UDIMM RAM, but it is expandable up to 64GB capacity. Both processors have an Intel HD Graphics 630 graphics card.

• Supports the following hard drive formats:
  • Up to 8 hard drives of 3.5 SATA3
  • 4 dedicated bays for hard drives or 2.5 SSDs »
  • It has 2 SATA3 M.2 slots for SSD and Qtier cache.
• It has 3 PCIe Gen3 slots, 1 x8 port and 2 x4 ports. These expansion ports will allow us to increase the capabilities of this NAS server.
• The connections available are: 5 USB 3.0 ports, 4 Gigabit Ethernet RJ-45 ports and 2 10GBASE-T ports.
• It has 3 HDMI outputs.
• It has 4 Thunderbolt 3 ports.
• It has 2 6.3mm dynamic microphone input connectors.
• As audio outputs it has, 2 built-in speakers, and a 3.5mm jack audio output.
• It has a consumption of 110.87 W in operation.

If you are looking for a high-performance NAS server, with great hardware and expansion possibilities, this model is really interesting, although logically it is not cheap.

QNAP TS-677, TS-877 and TS-1277

We have to make a special mention on the NAS servers of more than 4 bays to the TS-677, TS-877 and TS-1277. All these NAS servers mount AMD Ryzen processors, with a large number of processing cores and threads, ideal for operating system virtualization.

The QNAP TS-677 model incorporates a total of 4 bays for 3.5 “hard drives and 2 bays for 2.5” drives, mounts an AMD Ryzen 5 1600 processors, and has 8GB of RAM expandable to 64GB capacity . This model has 2 slots for SATA M.2 SSD for use as an SSD and Qtier cache, in addition to having a total of 4 Gigabit Ethernet ports for the LAN with support for Link Aggregation and Jumbo Frames, as well as a total of 6 USB ports 3.0, a USB 3.1 Gen 2 type C port at 10Gbps, and a USB 3.1 Gen2 type A port at 10Gbps. This NAS allows to extend the functionality through PCIe slots, specifically we have a PCIe Gen3 x8, a PCIe Gen3 x4 and a PCIe Gen2 x4.

The QNAP TS-877 model incorporates a total of 8 bays for 3.5 ”hard drives and 2 bays for 2.5” drives, assembles an AMD Ryzen 5 1600 or Ryzen 7 1700 processors, and has 8GB or 16GB of RAM expandable to 64GB maximum capacity. The rest of the features are exactly the same as the previous model.

The QNAP TS-1277 model incorporates a total of 8 bays for 3.5 ”hard drives and 4 bays for 2.5” drives, assembles an AMD Ryzen 5 1600 and Ryzen 7 1700 processors, and has 8GB or 16GB of RAM expandable to 64GB capacity. The rest of the features are exactly the same as the previous model.

QNAP TS-1677X

This NAS server model is geared towards companies that need large internal storage, as it has a total of 12 bays to host 3.5 ”hard drives, and 4 additional bays for 2.5” hard drives or SSDs. This model also assembles different processors, specifically we can have the AMD Ryzen 3 1200, AMD Ryzen 5 1600, and the AMD Ryzen 7 1700. As for RAM, we can install from 4GB to 64GB of storage maximum.

This model has a total of 4 Gigabit Ethernet ports for the LAN with support for Link Aggregation and Jumbo Frames, we also have two 10GBASE-T ports for 10G networks and have the best possible performance. This model has a total of 8 USB 3.0 ports, but this NAS allows you to expand the functionality through PCIe slots, specifically we have a PCIe Gen3 x8, a PCIe Gen3 x4 and a PCIe Gen2 x4. Thanks to these slots, we can install USB 3.1 Gen 2 at 10Gbps, 10G network cards etc. Other features of this model are the incorporation of an IR sensor, 2 3.5mm dynamic microphone input connectors, audio outputs with an integrated speaker, and a 3.5mm Jack audio output.

Synology DS918 +

This NAS of the Synology brand has 4 bays for hard drives and is focused on high performance users, thanks to its powerful hardware with the features that we will see below:

• It has a 64-bit Intel Celeron J3455 CPU and quad-core at 1.5 GHz and in turbo mode at 2.3 GHZ.
• It has 4 GB of DDR3L RAM expandable up to 8 GB using the two slots it has.
• It has an ultra HD 4K direct video transcoding engine with the support of the H265 10-bit codec, MPEG-4 Part 2, MPEG-2, VC-1.
• Supports the following hard drive formats:
  • 3.5 SATA3 hard drives
  • 2.5 “SATA3 hard drives (with optional 2.5” disk support)
  • 2.5 “SATA SSDs (with optional 2.5” disk support)
• Using the expansion unit you can expand up to a total of 9 bays.
• It has two slots for M.2 2280 NVMe SSD drives for use as an SSD cache.
• The maximum storage capacity it accepts is 64 TB, that is, 4 hard drives of 16 TB.
• Using the external storage unit I would accept a maximum of 144 TB, that is, 5 extra hard drives of 16 TB extra.
• It has a consumption of 12.6 W in hard disk hibernation and 28.8 W in operation.
• The connections available are: 2 USB 3.0 ports, 2 Gigabit Ethernet ports for the LAN (with support for Link Aggregation and failover), and an eSATA port.
• The file system supported by internal hard drives is Btrfs and EXT4, but if we connect an external drive it is compatible with Btrfs, EXT4, EXT3, FAT, NTFS, HFS + and exFAT.

This model has a great value for money, since we can find it for about € 600, and has everything necessary to mount our own private cloud of high performance.

Synology DS1618 +

This NAS of the Synology brand has 6 bays for hard drives, and is focused mainly for high performance in multitasking environments by the characteristics that we will see below:

• It has a 64-bit Intel Atom C3538 CPU and quad-core at 2.1 GHz.
• It has 4 GB of DDR4 RAM expandable up to 32 GB using the two slots available.
• Supports the following hard drive formats:
  • 3.5 SATA3 hard drives
  • 2.5 “SATA3 hard drives (with optional 2.5” disk support)
  • 2.5 “SATA3 SD discs (with optional 2.5” disk support)
• Using the expansion unit you can expand up to a total of 16 bays.
• The maximum storage capacity it accepts is 96 TB, that is, 6 hard drives of 16 TB.
• Using the external storage unit would accept a maximum of 256 TB, that is, 10 extra hard drives of 16 TB extra.
• It has a consumption of 25.76 W in hibernation of the hard disk and 56.86 W in operation.
• The connections available are: 3 USB 3.0 ports, 4 Gigabit Ethernet ports with Link Aggregation support and failover, and 2 eSATA ports.
• It has a PCIe 3.0 expansion port to extend functionalities, such as adding support for dual M2 SSDs to the cache.
• The file system supported by internal hard drives is Btrfs and EXT4, but if we connect an external drive it is compatible with Btrfs, EXT4, EXT3, FAT, NTFS, HFS + and exFAT.

This model is more expensive than the previous one, but it is more powerful, it has more disk bays, and a PCIe 3.0 expansion slot to extend functionalities.

Synology DS1019 +

This NAS of the Synology brand has 5 bays for hard drives, and is focused above all to be versatile with storage by the features that we will see below:

• It has a 64-bit Intel Celeron J3455 CPU and quad-core at 1.5 GHz and in turbo mode at 2.3 GHZ.
• It has 8 GB of DDR3L RAM.
• It has an ultra HD 4K direct video transcoding engine with the support of the H265 10-bit codec, MPEG-4 Part 2, MPEG-2, VC-1.
• Supports the following hard drive formats:
  • 3.5 SATA3 hard drives
  • 2.5 “SATA3 hard drives (with optional 2.5” disk support)
  • 2.5 “SATA3 SSDs (with optional 2.5” disk support)
• Using the expansion unit you can expand up to a total of 9 bays.
• It has two slots for M.2 2280 NVMe SSD drives for use as an SSD cache.
• The maximum storage capacity it accepts is 80 TB, that is, 5 hard drives of 16 TB.
• Using the external storage unit would accept a maximum of 60 TB, that is, 5 extra hard drives of 16 TB extra.
• It has a consumption of 13.32 W in hard disk hibernation and 38.59 W in operation.
• The connections available are: 2 USB 3.0 ports, 2 Gigabit Ethernet ports with failover and Link Aggregation and 1 eSATA port.
• The file system supported by internal hard drives is Btrfs and EXT4, but if we connect an external drive it is compatible with Btrfs, EXT4, EXT3, FAT, NTFS, HFS + and exFAT.

If you are looking for a NAS server with five disk bays, this model is one of the few to incorporate this number of bays.

Synology DS3617xs

This NAS of the Synology brand has 12 bays for hard drives, and is focused above all to be high performance and versatile with storage by the features that we will see below:

• It has a 64-bit Intel Xeon D-1527 CPU with quad-core at 2.2 GHz and in turbo mode at 2.7 GHZ. It has an AES-NI hardware encryption engine
• It has 16 GB of RAM DDR4 ECC SO-DIMM expandable up to 48 GB.
• Supports the following hard drive formats:
  • 3.5 SATA3 hard drives
  • 2.5 “SATA3 hard drives (with optional 2.5” disk support)
  • 2.5 “SATA3 SSDs (with optional 2.5” disk support)
• The maximum storage capacity it accepts is 192 TB, that is 12 hard drives of 16 TB.
• Using the external storage unit would accept a maximum of 576 TB, that is, 24 extra hard drives of 16 TB TB.
• It is compatible with hot swap units.
• It has a consumption of 53.4 W in hard disk hibernation and 108.2 W in operation.
• The connections available are: 2 USB 3.0 ports, 4 Gigabit Ethernet ports with failover and Link Aggregation.
• It has a PCIe 3.0 expansion port, thanks to the PCIe port, support for dual M2 SSDs for the cache can be added.
• The file system supported by internal hard drives is Btrfs and EXT4, but if we connect an external drive it is compatible with Btrfs, EXT4, EXT3, FAT, NTFS, HFS + and exFAT.

Without a doubt if you are looking for a NAS server with 12 bays and a powerful Intel Xeon processor, we recommend this model.

Synology FS1018

This NAS of the Synology brand has 12 bays for hard drives, and is focused mainly for intensive applications of sensitive I / O with latency for the characteristics that we will see below:

• It has a 64-bit Intel Pentium D1508 CPU and quad-core at 2.2 GHz and in turbo mode at 2.6 GHZ.
• It has 8 GB of RAM DDR4 ECC SO-DIMM expandable up to 32 GB.
• Supports the following hard drive formats:
  • 3.5 SATA3 hard drives
  • 2.5 “SATA3 hard drives (with optional 2.5” disk support)
  • 2.5 “SATA3 SSDs (with optional 2.5” disk support)
• The maximum storage capacity it accepts is 96 TB, that is, 12 8 TB hard drives.
• Using the external storage unit would accept a maximum of 428 TB.
• It is compatible with hot swap units.
• It has a consumption of 48.36 W in hibernation of the hard disk and 107.92 W in operation.
• The connections available are: 3 USB 3.0 ports, 4 Gigabit Ethernet ports with support for Link Aggregation and failover.
• It has a PCIe 3.0 expansion port to extend functionalities, such as adding support for dual M2 SSDs to the cache.
• The file system supported by internal hard drives is Btrfs and EXT4, but if we connect an external drive it is compatible with Btrfs, EXT4, EXT3, FAT, NTFS, HFS + and exFAT.

Conclusions

As we have seen, as soon as we need a NAS server with more than 4 bays, the price of the equipment goes off because the hardware is clearly more powerful than the previous ones. The most important thing to look for is whether they incorporate or can install cards at 5 or 10Gbps, so that Gigabit Ethernet ports do not make a bottleneck, and we can obtain the best possible performance in any circumstance.