How to Choose a NAS for a Small Office

Choosing a NAS comes down to five decisions. Get the first two right and the rest follow.

1. How many bays

Work out how much space you need in three years, including room for versions, then choose the bay count that reaches it with drives you can afford. Two bays suit a handful of people. Four or five bays suit most small offices. Six to eight bays allow RAID 6. If you are within one size of the limit, go up: empty bays are cheap, and replacing a NAS is not.

2. What it will run

File sharing and backup need very little processing power. Virtual machines, surveillance with many cameras, media transcoding and ZFS with deduplication need a stronger processor and more memory. Decide this before looking at models.

3. Memory

4 GB is enough for file sharing and backup for a small team. Allow 8 GB or more for snapshots with many users, Active Backup, containers or virtual machines. Prefer a model whose memory can be expanded.

4. Network speed

A 1GbE port moves about 110 MB per second, which is fine for documents. 2.5GbE is now common and works over existing cabling. Choose 10GbE, built in or by add-on card, if people edit video from the NAS or backups must finish in a short window.

5. Drives

Budget for NAS-rated drives from the compatibility list for your model, all the same type, plus one spare for a business that cannot wait for a delivery. Drives usually cost as much as the NAS, or more.

Then the things people forget

• A UPS, so a power cut does not corrupt the volume
• Where the off-site copy will live
• Who gets the alert email when a drive fails
• Warranty length, and who handles a replacement

Common questions