With or Without Disks: Many people purchase NAS units with the disks already installed. I recommend using RAID 5, which is the default RAID on most turnkey devices today. The best devices walk the user through the setup process which includes designating how the NAS will be used (NAS file server, NAS backup, cloud-based storage, etc), how many users will access the device along with various RAID options. A few years ago Drobo came along and made setup so easy that other NAS backup and storage vendors have followed their lead making NAS units much easier to configure. The best NAS backup and storage products make setup and installation a simple affair. Software: All NAS units run an operating system that's usually a scaled down version of Unix or Linux. There's no need to pay extra for Wi-Fi if you don't need it.

Some newer NAS models include built-in Wi-Fi, but they are not as popular. Wired connections are still the best for performance and reliability. Connectivity: Most NAS boxes connect to your network via a wired gigabit connection to your router. If you need more than 40TB of storage, you'd be better off (cost-wise) with a rackmount solution rather than portable NAS device. In terms of capacity, you'll want at least 8TB to 12TB for a department and 20TB to 40TB for a small business. Even speedy SSDs have reached 2TB capacity which is double what one could purchase about a year ago. Today, you can purchase traditional platter drives with 10TB of capacity.

Storage Capacity: One development driving the popularity of small NAS solution is drive capacity. What Are the Best Things to Look For in a NAS

Best nas for home media server