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What is the best failure-proof hard drive solution?

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Oct 29, 2018

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Here’s the Deal

2 Options Considered

Best failure-proof hard drive solution	Price	RAM	CPU
-- QNAP TS-451+	$776.60	2GB ( DDR3 ), expandable up to 8GB	Quad-core Intel® Celeron® 2.0GHz ( burst up to 2.42GHz )
-- Western Digital My Cloud EX2 Ultra	$324.99	1GB ( DDR3 )	Marvell® ARMADA® 385 1.3GHz Dual Core

QNAP TS-451+

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Top Pro

Highly failure-proof

This NAS can withstand simultaneous failures of up to two hard drive making it one of the safest data storage solution in its price range thanks to it's RAID6 and RAID10 compatibility. Shall all four hard-drive bays be populated, you can use it in either RAID6 or RAID10 arrangement. See More

Specs

RAM:2GB ( DDR3 ), expandable up to 8GB

CPU:Quad-core Intel® Celeron® 2.0GHz ( burst up to 2.42GHz )

Maximum total storage volume:20TB ( 4 x 5TB, 2 x 10TB )

Data redundancy possibilities:RAID0, RAID1, RAID5,RAID 6, RAID10

Top Pro

No tinkering needed

There's no need to be an IT expert to use this NAS. All you need is just to plug it, select an appropriate hard drive configuration, and it's ready to go. See More

Top Pro

Comes with hard drives

This NAS comes pre-populated with four 2TB hard drives from Seagate. Additionally, there's an option to equip the NAS with 4TB, 6TB, 8TB or 10TB hard drives. See More

Top Pro

Expandable storage

You can expand the storage potential of this unit up to a 96TB with an eight-bay extension unit. A cheaper five-bay extension unit is also available. You can also expand the RAM from 2GB to 8GB of DDR3 RAM. See More

Top Pro

Easy to configure by using it as a standalone station

You can hook up a mouse, a keyboard and a display to this unit and use it as a standalone station to setup and configure it. This is possible because it has four USB ports and a HDMI port. See More

Top Pro

Saves power when not in use

This unit has a scheduled power management system. Rather than always staying on standby, when the NAS isn’t being used, it will switch to a system sleep mode which only consumes 0.57 W. See More

Top Pro

Excellent for home entertainment

This NAS unit performs brilliantly in terms of multimedia transcoding. It can stream Full HD videos to multiple client devices simultaneously without any lag. See More

Top Pro

Great for surveillance systems

This unit comes with two free surveillance camera licenses that can be used with special surveillance software. If you want to use more than two cameras, you can scale up your surveillance network by purchasing additional camera licenses. Up to 40 IP surveillance cameras can simultaneously stream data to this unit. It supports more than 3000 different kinds of camera. See More

Western Digital My Cloud EX2 Ultra

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Top Pro

Can withstand a single drive failure

When used in the RAID1 configuration, this NAS will not lose your data over a failure of a single hard drive. See More

Top Con

Official documentation is incomplete and unclear

Key aspects such as power consumption or read/write speeds are not available on the official documentation. On top of that, the list of features is unclear and not explained well. See More

Specs

RAM:1GB ( DDR3 )

CPU:Marvell® ARMADA® 385 1.3GHz Dual Core

Maximum total storage volume:16TB ( 2 x 8TB )

Data redundancy possibilities:RAID0, RAID1

Top Pro

More than capable of managing typical home use

This two-bay unit has a 1.3GHz dual-core Marvell CPU and 1GB of DDR3 RAM. This is more than enough for typical home use, such as web browsing or movie watching. Media transcoding also works great with this device - Full HD videos have a nice and smooth playback. See More

Top Con

No offline storage or data migration via USB

Most NAS units typically come with USB ports for connecting storage. However, this unit does not offer USB connectivity, which would have been useful for offline storage or data migration. See More

Top Pro

Simple set-up process

Setting up this NAS is as straightforward as it can get. You can get it running within a couple of minutes, even if you have no previous experience. Inserting the hard disks, plugging it in and filling out a form on mycloud.com is all that it takes. See More

Top Con

Not as many third-party apps as those found for more well established NAS brands

Western Digital is quite new to the NAS market, so it doesn’t have as many third party applications as other brands. Key applications like Plex Media Server, ARCUS and Dropbox are supported, but you may want to check app availability first before buying this unit. See More

Top Pro

Save money by choosing one of the pre-populated versions

You can buy this device pre populated with Western Digital hard drives. You can choose between 4TB, 8TB, 12TB or 16TB storage space. This options is more convenient and cheaper than purchasing the hard drives separately. See More

Top Pro

Users can choose between safety and storage maximization

This unit has two hard disk bays which can support RAID0 and RAID1 configurations. This gives you the choice of maximizing available storage, or halving your storage space in exchange for single-drive failure security. See More

Top Pro

Very affordable for a two-bay device

At $324, this two-bay 4TB NAS device offers great value. It's virtually impossible to find another solution close to this price with such a good performance. See More

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