✗ A refreshed model with NVME support and newer CPU is probably due ✗ Expensive if you aren't making money with it ✗ Gamer aesthetic and features may not appeal to some ✗ Requires a paid Plex Pass to get the most from the hardware ✗ Might be a little too expensive upfront for very small startups ✗ Some user reviews cite reliability issues and trouble accessing the NAS over the internet ✗ CPU and RAM aren't up to media transcoding or any heavy lifting ✗ Having just one drive removes any redundancy ✓ BeyondRaid allows incredible drive flexibility ✓ Option of an mSATA SSD to act as a cache accelerator ✓ Dual-gigabit ethernet that can be bonded or used in failover mode ✓ Good for a studio setup with multiple Macs ✓ RAM is expandable if needed down the line ✓ Good specifications to handle media encoding ✓ Listed in the Plex database for up to 4K hardware transcoding

✓ Lots of room to grow with RAM and M.2 SSD cache drives ✓ Supports Plex Media Server and comes with 3-month trial ✓ Plug-and-play solution with included storage out of the box ✓ A feature-complete NAS for very little money ✓ Read/Write speeds are actually pretty good for the money ✓ Extremely cheap, especially if you use it with a drive you already have

✓ Surprisingly powerful CPU and upgradable RAM ✓ Dual Gigabit LAN with either failover or link aggregation ✓ Offers RAID 1 disk mirroring for the basic redundancy most people require ✓ The best jack-of-all-trades NAS with a fair price Most NAS devices will work with Mac, but the Drobo 5N2 works well with creatives with video editors and BeyondRAID technology. This NAS allows 4K transcoding at a great price point. If you're looking for a NAS mainly for media and Plex, you can make it easy with the Asustor AS5202T. If you're looking for a NAS for business, you need something that will scale as you grow. This one includes storage right out of the box and is compatible with Plex servers. WD's My Cloud NAS is perfect for many home setups. Provided you're not doing any media transcoding, this is a solid NAS choice. Getting a NAS set up for just $100? That seems too cheap, but the DS120j is anything but. It's good for archiving data, can be used with Plex, and is relatively inexpensive. Synology's DS220+ is one of the best NAS devices around, and perfect for most anyone's needs.

2 bay nas