QNAP TS-253B

This NAS QNAP brand has 2 bays for hard drives and is a great option if you are looking for a high performance NAS. Its main features are:

• It has an Intel Celeron J3455 64-bit quad-core CPU at 1.5 GHz and in 2.3 GHz turbo mode.
• It has an AES-NI encryption engine, so that the transfer with encrypted protocols or when encrypting the folders inside it, works as quickly as possible.
• It has a hardware accelerated transcoding engine.
• It has an Intel HD Graphics 500 graphics card.
• It has 4GB of DDR3L RAM. The RAM is expandable up to 8GB by having 2 slots.
• It has an internal flash memory of 4GB.
• Supports 3.5 ”and 2.5” hard drives, as well as SSD in 2.5 ”format. We also have a slot to install M.2 SSD through a PCIe adapter. USB 3.1 ports or a 10G ethernet port can be installed via the PCIe expansion card
• The connections available are: 5 USB 3.0 ports, 2 Gigabit Ethernet RJ-45 d ports and an SDXC card reader.
• It has an IR sensor.
• It has 2 HDMI 1.4b outputs that support a maximum resolution of 3840 x 2160 at 30 Hz.
• It has 2 microphone inputs with 3.5mm jack.
• As audio outputs it has, 1 built-in speaker, and a 3.5mm jack audio output.
• It has a consumption of 13.07 W in hard disk hibernation and 20.42 W in operation.

Without a doubt if you are looking for a high performance NAS server we recommend this model. You can currently find it on Amazon for € 507.07.

QNAP TS-251 +

This NAS QNAP brand has 2 bays for hard drives and is a great option if you are looking for a NAS for virtualization. Its main features are:

• It has a 64-bit Intel Celeron J1900 64-bit quad-core CPU at 2.0 GHz and 2.42 GHz turbo mode.
• It has a hardware accelerated transcoding engine.
• It has an Intel® HD Graphics graphics card.
• It has 2 GB of DDR3L RAM. The RAM is expandable up to 8 GB by having 2 slots.
• It has an internal flash memory of 512 MB.
• Supports 3.5 ”and 2.5” hard drives, as well as SSD in 2.5 ”format.
• The connections available are: 2 USB 3.0 ports, 2 USB 2.0 ports and 2 Gigabit Ethernet RJ-45 ports.
• It has an IR sensor.
• It has an HDMI output that supports a maximum resolution of 1080p.
• It has a consumption of 10.56 W in hard disk hibernation and 18.09 W in operation.

Without a doubt, if you are looking for a high performance NAS server, we recommend this model. You can currently find it on Amazon for € 349.00.

QNAP TS-251B

This NAS QNAP brand has 2 bays for hard drives and is a great option if you are looking for a quality-price NAS. Its main features are:

• It has an Intel Celeron J3355 64-bit dual-core CPU at 2.0 GHz and in 2.5 GHz turbo mode, with AES-NI encryption engine and built-in Intel HD Graphics 500 GPU.
• It has 4 GB of DDR3L RAM. The RAM is expandable up to 8 GB by having 2 slots.
• It has an internal flash memory of 4 GB.
• Supports 3.5 ”and 2.5” hard drives, as well as SSD in 2.5 ”format.
• It has an M.2 SSD slot through a PCIe adapter.
• The connections available are: 2 USB 3.0 ports, 3 USB 2.0 ports and a Gigabit Ethernet port.
• USB 3.1 ports or a 10G port for ultra-fast connections can be installed via the PCIe expansion card
• It has an IR sensor.
• It has an HDMI 1.4b output that supports a maximum resolution of 3840 x 2160 at 30 Hz.
• It has two microphone inputs with 3.5mm jack.
• As audio outputs, it has an integrated speaker, and a 3.5mm jack audio output.
• It has a consumption of 8.08 W in hard disk hibernation and 15.25 W in operation.

Without a doubt if you are looking for a NAS server quality price we recommend this model. You can currently find it on Amazon for € 280.50.

QNAP TS-231P

This NAS QNAP brand has 2 bays for hard drives and is a great option if you are looking for a NAS for home or small office use, its processor is clearly less powerful than the previous ones, but it is recommended for low budgets . Its main features are:

• It has a CPU Alpine AL-212 32-bit two-core 1.7 GHz. It has an encryption engine.
• It has 1 GB of DDR3L RAM.
• It has an internal flash memory of 512 MB.
• Supports 3.5 ”and 2.5” hard drives, as well as SSD in 2.5 ”format.
• The connections available are: 3 USB 3.0 ports and 2 Gigabit Ethernet RJ-45 ports.
• It has a consumption of 8.46 W in hard disk hibernation and 15.6 W in operation.

Without a doubt, if you are looking for a NAS server for your home or small office, we recommend this model. Currently, you can find it on Amazon for € 196.00.

QNAP TS-228A

This NAS QNAP brand has 2 bays for hard drives and is a great option if you are looking for a basic NAS. Its main features are:

• It has a Realtek RTD1295 64-bit quad-core 1.4 GHz CPU. It has an encryption engine.
• It has 1 GB of DDR4 RAM.
• It has an internal flash memory of 4 GB.
• Supports the following hard disk formats: 2 3.5 ”hard drives» SATA3
• The connections available are: 1 USB 3.0 port, 2 USB 2.0 ports and 1 Gigabit Ethernet port.
• It has a consumption of 5.3 W in hard disk hibernation and 12.09 W in operation.

Without a doubt if you are looking for a cheap NAS server we recommend this model. You can currently find it on Amazon with a 2TB hard drive for € 196.00.

QNAP HS-251 +

This NAS QNAP brand has 2 bays for hard drives and is a great option if you are looking for a silent NAS to use as a multimedia center in the room. Its main features are:

• It has a 64-bit Intel Celeron J1900 quad-core CPU at 2 GHz and in 2.42 GHz turbo mode. It has an Intel® HD Graphics graphics card. It has accelerated hardware transcoding up to a resolution of 1080p.
• It has 2 GB of DDR3L RAM.
• It has an internal flash memory of 512 MB.
• Supports 3.5 ”and 2.5” hard drives, as well as SSD in 2.5 ”format.
• The connections available are: 2 USB 3.0 ports, 2 USB 2.0 ports and 2 Gigabit Ethernet ports with support for Link Aggregation and failover.
• It has IR sensor.
• It has an HDMI output with a maximum resolution of 1080p.
• Its design is decoder style.
• It has a consumption of 7.1 W in hard disk hibernation and 15.8 W in operation.
• It has no fan.

If you are looking for a NAS server to use as a multimedia center we recommend this model. Currently you can find it on Amazon with a raid of 12 TB € 1664.68.

Synology DS218play

This NAS of the Synology brand has 2 bays for hard drives and is focused mainly for multimedia content by the features that we will see below:

• It has a Realtek RTD1296 quad-core CPU at 1.4 GHz and 64 bits. It has an ultra HD 4K direct video transcoding engine with the support of the H265 10-bit codec, MPEG-4 Part 2, MPEG-2, VC-1.
• It has 1 GB of non-expandable DDR4 RAM.
• The maximum resolution you accept is: 4096 x 2160 at 60 FPS.
• Supports the following hard drive formats:
  • 2 hard drives 3.5 “SATA3
  • 2 2.5 “SATA3 hard drives (with optional 2.5” disk support)
  • 2 x 2.5 “SATA3 SSD hard drives (with optional 2.5” disk support)
• Its maximum performance of sequential reading and writing is up to 112 MB / s.
• The maximum storage capacity it accepts is 32 TB, that is, 2 hard drives of 16 TB.
• It has a consumption of 5.16 W in hard disk hibernation and 16.79 W in operation.
• The connections available are: 2 USB 3.0 ports and a Gigabit Ethernet port.
• The file system supported by internal hard drives is EXT4, but if we connect an external drive it is compatible with EXT4, EXT3, FAT, NTFS, HFS + and exFAT.

If you are looking for a NAS server for multimedia content we recommend this model. You can currently find it on Amazon for € 247.96.

Synology DS218j

This Synology NAS has 2 hard drive bays and is a great option if you don’t want to spend a lot of money. Its main features are:

• It has a Marvell Armada 385 88F6820 dual core 1.3 GHz and 32 bit CPU.
• It has 512MB of DDR3 RAM.
• Supports the following hard drive formats:
  • 2 hard drives of 3.5 SATA
  • 2 2.5 “SATA hard drives (with optional 2.5” disk support)
  • 2 x 2.5 “SATA SSD hard drives (with optional 2.5” disk support)
• Its maximum sequential read performance is 113 MB / s and in sequential write it is up to 112 MB / s.
• The maximum storage capacity it accepts is 32 TB, that is, two 16 TB hard drives.
• It has a consumption of 7.03 W in hard disk hibernation and 17.48 W in operation.
• The connections available are: 2 USB 3.0 ports, a Gigabit Ethernet port.
• The file system supported by internal hard drives is EXT4, but if we connect an external drive it is compatible with EXT4, EXT3, FAT, NTFS, HFS + and exFAT.

If you are looking for a cheap NAS server we recommend this model. You can currently find it on Amazon for € 176.00.

Synology DS218 +

This NAS of the Synology brand has 2 bays for hard drives and is a great option if what you are looking for is an optimized solution to protect your data. Its main features are:

• It has a 64-bit Intel Celeron J3355 dual-core 2.0 GHz CPU and 2.5 GHz turbo mode. It has AES-NI hardware encryption. It has an ultra HD 4K direct video transcoding engine with the support of the H265 10-bit codec, MPEG-4 Part 2, MPEG-2, VC-1.
• It has 2 GB of DDR3L RAM. The RAM is expandable up to 6 GB by having 2 slots.
• The maximum resolution you accept is: 4096 x 2160 at 30 FPS.
• Supports the following hard drive formats:
  • 2 hard drives of 3.5 SATA
  • 2 2.5 “SATA hard drives (with optional 2.5” disk support)
  • 2 x 2.5 “SATA SSD hard drives (with optional 2.5” disk support)
• Its maximum sequential read performance is 113 MB / s and in sequential write it is up to 112 MB / s.
• The maximum storage capacity it accepts is 32 TB, that is, two 16 TB hard drives.
• It has a consumption of 5.4 W in hard disk hibernation and 17.23 W in operation.
• The connections available are: 3 USB 3.0 ports, a Gigabit Ethernet port and an eSATA port.
• The file system supported by internal hard drives is EXT4 and Btrfs, but if we connect an external drive it is compatible with Btrfs, EXT4, EXT3, FAT, NTFS, HFS + and exFAT.

If you are looking for a more advanced NAS server focused on the security of your data, this equipment is highly recommended. You can currently find it on Amazon for € 339.00.

Synology DS718 +

This NAS of the Synology brand has 2 bays for hard drives and is a great option if you are looking for a high performance NAS. Its main features are:

• It has a 64-bit Intel Celeron J3455 quad-core CPU at 1.5 GHz and in 2.3 GHz turbo mode. It has an ultra HD 4K direct video transcoding engine with the support of the 10-bit H265 codec, MPEG-4 Part 2, MPEG-2, VC-1.
• It has 2 GB of DDR3L RAM. The RAM is expandable up to 6 GB by having 2 slots.
• The maximum resolution you accept is: 4096 x 2160 at 30 FPS.
• Supports the following hard drive formats:
  • 2 hard drives of 3.5 SATA
  • 2 2.5 “SATA hard drives (with optional 2.5” disk support)
  • 2 x 2.5 “SATA SSD hard drives (with optional 2.5” disk support)
• Its maximum sequential read performance is 226 MB / s and sequential write is up to 184 MB / s.
• The maximum internal storage capacity it accepts is 32 TB, that is 2 hard drives of 16 TB.
• Supports external expansion unit to expand storage capacity up to 5 hard drives of 16 TB each.
• It has a consumption of 9.1 W in hard disk hibernation and 20.4 W in operation.
• The connections available are: 3 USB 3.0 ports, 2 Gigabit Ethernet ports (compatible with failover or Link Aggregation) and 1 eSATA port.
• The file system supported by internal hard drives is EXT4 and Btrfs, but if we connect an external drive it is compatible with Btrfs, EXT4, EXT3, FAT, NTFS, HFS + and exFAT.

If you are looking for a high performance NAS server, we recommend this model, since it has a very competitive price.

As you have seen, both the QNAP brand and Synology currently have very powerful 2-bay NAS server models, suitable for home use and also for small and medium businesses. One aspect to note is that QNAPs are usually more powerful than Synology for the same price, but Synology has a really intuitive operating system, easy to manage and very pleasant, in this aspect there is a technical tie between both brands.