Best NAS 2017

Winner: QNAP TS-453B

It might not be the fastest as far as network transfer speeds are concerned, but the QNAP TS-453B is our favorite NAS from among this year's NAS reviews. It looks nice and is armed with a CPU that is highly efficient but strong enough, has a decent amount of RAM to cover every home user's needs, is silent, and consumes very little power, regardless of what you put it through. The QTS operating system is a real joy to work with since it is powerful and intuitive at the same time, which means even novice users won't have a problem when it comes to fully utilizing it. There is the option to also install a 10 Gbit card should you want or need even higher speeds; that is, so long as you have a compatible switch, of course. The option to install two M.2 drives for cache purposes is also provided through an optional PCIe expansion card. QNAP also provides this unit with everything a demanding home user would ask for. Its rich multimedia capabilities are its strongest point, and are further enriched by the two HDMI (1.4b) ports it has. There are also audio in/out ports, and QNAP was kind enough to include a remote control in the bundle to make the use of Kodi easier. The OLED screen, USB Type-C port, five more USB 3.0 ports, and four licenses for an equal number of camera-recording channels are some more of its advantages.

As per usual for a NAS with such a rich feature set, the main con is its price. You will have to pay a serious amount of money for the TS-453B-4G, and to add insult to injury, the price difference to the 8 GB model is just a silly $150, given current DDR3L prices. Nonetheless, as we have highlighted many times in our reviews, you don't just pay for the hardware with NAS servers; rather, there is the software and support that have to be paid for also, and the truth of the matter is that QNAP's operating system is among the best and comes with great support. We shouldn't take software or such support for granted due to the strange belief that those two don't cost companies offering them a dime. Being a software developer myself, I know first-hand how difficult and time consuming it is to write good and usable programs.

Read out review

Runner-up: Synology DS918+

Another NAS product that managed to capture our attention was the Synology DS918+. Synology has built a great reputation for itself and is QNAP's main competitor. Both companies are by many considered to be the top NAS brands with plenty of offerings for just about every need. The DS918+ is a home NAS with some interesting features, including Btrfs file-system support (it also supports ext4), an energy-efficient quad-core CPU, compatibility with M.2 drives, and the option to expand its capacity with five more drives through an optional expansion unit. Price-wise, it isn't an affordable NAS; however, if you require a capable server with a very reliable and feature-rich operating system, and don't have a problem investing $550, the DS918+ is a very good choice.

Read our review

Looking forward to 2018

It would be a nice surprise to see Synology finally offer HDMI ports with its NAS products. I strongly believe that many users share my opinion on this, or else QNAP, Asustor and others would have abandoned this interface by now. In my opinion, there is no such thing as a media-oriented NAS without the HDMI interface since exclusively relying on streaming content to a TV also means that it cannot be directly connected to one. Streaming high-definition 4K content is tough and takes a ton of bandwidth, which makes an HDMI port the way to go, especially if you happen to install the NAS close to a TV to make sure you can effortlessly watch the 4K content your NAS stores. Even business environments may find the HDMI interface useful as administrators could then also locally configure or check on the NAS. After all, the cost of installing an HDMI port is minimal since all SoCs nowadays already provide support for this interface.