Online Accounts 2025: Some Early Thoughts About the NAS (Premium)

I won’t buy a NAS until we return home from our trip to Mexico, so it will be May or later. But it’s never too early to think about it. I don’t have any radical ideas here, just a list of requirements and some NAS models from which to choose.

(My plan is to buy two NAS devices, one for Pennsylvania and one for Mexico. But I will almost certainly buy one to start with so I can get it configured and make sure it meets my needs before getting a second identical NAS.)

? NAS brand

As for the brand, I feel like Synology is the obvious choice for the NAS. If you have other thoughts, do let me know, I’m open to whatever. But in my research over time, I’ve always come back to Synology. It seems to make the most sense.

?️ NAS model

What I am on the fence about is which model. Synology offers a semi-useful NAS selector tool to help you choose, but it doesn’t cover all my needs, so the choices it gave me weren’t quite right when I stepped through it the first time. So I just listed out some of the key requirements and came up with a list of choices of my own. Beyond the obvious file storage and media needs, those requirements are:

• File management for current work that will sync to my PCs in real time
• File management for our photo collection with a phone-based sync app
• NAS to NAS sync so that each device is a replicated copy of the other

Given this, I was left looking at three models, the Realtek-based DS223j, the Intel Celeron-based DS224+, and the AMD Ryzen R1600-based DS723+. But the Realtek supports just 2 GB of RAM, and so I ended up eliminating that as well. The DS723+ is appealing because it supports 32 GB of RAM, NVMe-based SSDs, and eSATA expansion. But it’s also a lot more expensive ($449 in diskless form) and may be overkill. It’s also potentially quieter than the Intel choice, which is especially a concern for our tiny Mexico City apartment. But they’re close enough in that regard, I think (and hope).

Oddly, the less expensive DS224+ has a few advantages over the DS723+, the biggest being that its integrated graphics mean that Plex and other media apps can do transcoding on the NAS, whereas the latter does not, requiring all transcoding to happen on the client.

Add it all up, and I’m currently focused on the DS224+, which is about as classic a Synology NAS as there is. This device comes with only 2 GB of RAM, but it can be upgraded to 6 GB of RAM (and will be, if I buy it), supports hot-swapping, and has two Ethernet ports and two USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports (with USB copy support).

? NAS configuration

I will use two identical drives in whatever NAS I get, in a RAID 1 configuration (unless Synology has a similar but superior option) in which the two mirror each other and are identical for redundancy purposes. I believe this is the right compromise vs. the size and noise (and cost) of a four-bay unit, plus I’ll be syncing the two for additional geographically isolated redundancy.

The question is … how much storage?

My previous NAS, the WD MyCloud EX2 I purchased 10 years ago–that is now out-of-support but still limping along–has/had 12 TB of total storage, but 6 TB effectively because of the RAID 1 disk mirroring configuration. When I purchased this in 2015, it was $625. At that time, I calculated what I would need storage-wise, and depending on the year, sometimes used most of it but never ran out of space. I don’t recall where it landed after my 2023/2024 digital decluttering work, and can’t check now, as it’s no longer Internet-connected because it’s out of support. And I’m actually not sure what I’ll need today.

I will eventually calculate that number and then roughly double it, I guess. But Synology sells 8 TB NAS hard drives (HDDs) for about $210 each, and 12 TB HDDs for $280. (WD Red drives, which are optimized for NAS devices, are even pricier at $240 and $320 in those same capacities.) So this gives me a rough idea of the total cost for each NAS, assuming my storage guess is correct (I’ll go with 12 TB for now, but will adjust accordingly in time).

? NAS cost

The total cost is about $900. That’s $300 for the NAS, $560 for two 12 TB drives, and $41 for a 4 GB RAM upgrade. (So, really, about $1800, or probably $2000 or more with taxes and other fees, for two of them.)

It is perhaps ironic, but certainly coincidental, that the cost of each NAS I am currently considering is close to the cost of each of those external hard drives I purchased 20 years ago. Of course, each NAS is dramatically more powerful, with apps, phone integration and other services, and online connectivity. And assuming I go with the 12 TB disks I’m also considering now, the storage capacity will be 12x what it was 20 years ago. (And 2x was it was 10 years ago with that WD NAS.) Technology marches on.

Let me know what you think. More soon.