Top 5 NAS Solutions To Keep Up With Medium Sized Businesses

Photo by Taylor Vick on Unsplash
4 years ago

NAS, or network attached storage, is a server connected to a network that allows your business to access files with computers connected to that network.

The best NAS systems are in this list, because they’ve been recommended by experts that we’ve reached out to during our research.

#1 WD 24TB My Cloud EX4100 Expert Series

WD 24TB My Cloud EX4100 Expert Series
Who suggested this product?
The WD 24TB My Cloud EX4100 Expert Series was recommended by David McHale from HailBytes. You can find out more about David McHale here or read their product recommendation below.

The workhorse NAS I regularly recommend to small-to-medium business owners is the WD My Cloud EX2 Ultra NAS drive for 7 reasons.

  • It comes with RAID capability usually only seen in more expensive NAS devices.
  • It supports Windows Active Directory.
  • It can act as a file server, P2P server, backup server, or FTP server.
  • It has flexible sizing (4TB, 8TB, 12TB, 16TB, 20TB, 24TB, and 32TB), plus 2-bay and 4-bay options.
  • It comes in diskless variants which makes it a great upgrade for businesses which own smaller NAS devices already.
  • The MyCloudOS software has a great GUI that’s easy-to-use and fast.
  • It has Gigabit Ethernet and USB3.0, plus a dual-core processor.

#2 NetApp

NetApp
Who suggested this product?
The NetApp was recommended by Shayne Sherman from TechLoris. You can find out more about Shayne Sherman here or read their product recommendation below.

Everyone makes them from HP to Sandisk but the industry best is NetApp. They give you the ability to buy a chassis to expand storage if you need, all the software and hardware features you’d want, and are best in the industry for medium to large businesses.

#3 WD My Cloud Mirror NAS

WD My Cloud Mirror NAS
Who suggested this product?
The WD My Cloud Mirror NAS was recommended by Jon Deak from Hot Juice. You can find out more about Jon Deak here or read their product recommendation below.

With our increased web traffic and purchase we needed an automated system and this system backs itself up. Keeping our data secure without draining our resources.

So secure its two-bay unit produces a mirrored backup of our data, duplicating the files on both drives, using RAID configuration. It is an advanced feature for a consumer unit ensuring you get superb value for money. A premium service at a reasonable price.

Simple to set up and efficient to use. The WD’s has a user-friendly presentation, with an intuitive, browser-based control screen.

It’s available in a 4, 6, 8 and 16TB units giving flexibility and room to grow should you scale up. With the opportunity to sync to Dropbox for a failsafe backup and full storage control.

#4 TrueNAS from IXSystems

TrueNAS from IXSystems
Who suggested this product?
The TrueNAS from IXSystems was recommended by William Warren from Emmanuel Technology Consulting. You can find out more about William Warren here or read their product recommendation below.

With it’s ZFS filesystem and the ability to run multiple virtual machines it gives you high performance t a reduced cost. With the snapshot abilities and data integrity features built into ZFSW TrueNAS also has cloud backup to several cloud providers built right in.

The snapshots and cloud backups, when configured correctly, make your data very ransomware resistant without multiple vendors and extreme addon costs. I have used the free version of this open-source storage OS for years as my primary storage and while I have not been hit with ransomware, I have had malware infections get through and accidental file deletions occur.

Both the snapshot features(which allow local recovery on a file level basis if required) and the ability to recover from a cloud backup make your data very safe. You can get more information about TrueNAS. IXSystems sells through resellers which you can find a list of them on the site.

#5 Drobo B810n

Drobo B810n
Who suggested this product?
The Drobo B810n was recommended by Ahmed Amin from GuruSquad. You can find out more about Ahmed Amin here or read their product recommendation below.

Drobo has been around for a long time and have proven to be very solid.

You can add up to 3 SSD drives so data access can be accelerated.

Can scale up to 64TB of data.

Ideal for 100 users.

Has a battery backup for RAM, if the power goes out, the NAS would not risk data corruption scenario. This feature is usually available in enterprise storage.

Drobo the B810n works with computers running OS X, Windows, or Linux operating systems. By default, the Drobo B810n uses the SMB file sharing protocol to talk to OS X or Windows. If you set up a share for Time Machine backup, it uses Apple’s AFP protocol. Linux users pick which file sharing method to use on their system.

Offsite Data Replication Built-in.


Who contributed to this article?

David McHale from HailBytes

Shayne Sherman from TechLoris

Jon Deak from Hot Juice

William Warren from Emmanuel Technology Consulting

Ahmed Amin from GuruSquad

David Friedland

Bit of a gear addict.

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