Bay count, drive interface and the processor behind the applications
A NAS enclosure is a small computer whose job is to hold drives and serve them, and some of this shelf is sold empty and some of it arrives with the drives already in, which changes what the price compares against. Bay count is the first figure and the hardest to change afterwards, because adding a bay usually means buying another enclosure. The drive interface follows: bays for 3.5-inch SATA drives, often with mounting for 2.5-inch ones, and increasingly one or two M.2 slots whose intended use — caching, or a separate fast volume — is published by the maker and differs between models. Redundancy arrangements are named on every listing, and this site describes them for exactly what they are: a way of carrying on through a drive failure, which is a different thing from having the data in a second place. A copy on separate hardware is a separate arrangement, and no redundancy level stands in for it. What decides how the unit behaves day to day is the processor and memory, since transcoding video, running containers and serving several people at once all lean on them, and memory is sometimes expandable and sometimes soldered down. Then the connections: Ethernet port count and speed, whether two sockets can be aggregated, and USB ports for copying to an attached drive. The operating system is the least comparable part and the part people live with; read the list of applications the maker publishes rather than the marketing around it. Noise and idle draw matter in a flat. We compare bay count and drive interface, solid-state slot count, processor and memory, Ethernet port count and speed, USB ports, supported redundancy levels, published operating system, stated idle power, stated acoustic figure and stated dimensions.
one bay, sold empty · DSM named and license-free · surveillance with people and vehicle detection · 24 months · no processor, no memory, no socket
One of two Synology listings on this shelf that name DSM, and one of three here that publish a surveillance function — on a page that publishes no hardware figure at all.
Best for: A first one-bay machine chosen for DSM and the surveillance function, by someone who will pick the drive themselves.
≈ $160
two bays · Intel Celeron J4125, quad-core · 2 GB DDR4 to 6 GB · one 2.5GbE and one 1GbE socket · compatibility list required
A two-bay enclosure that publishes its processor, its memory ceiling and the exact module that raises it, and one 2.5GbE socket beside a 1GbE one — but no drive size, no array level and no software name.
Best for: A household or small office replacing an older two-bay unit, where the applications matter more than the price and where a compatibility list is not an obstacle.
≈ $421
two bays · 4 TB of drives included · ships in RAID 1 with 2 TB usable · $143.00 per usable terabyte · 24 months covering the drives · macOS 15 ceiling
The bottom rung of the LinkStation 220 ladder, and the most expensive terabyte on it: two terabytes usable for $285.99, where the twelve-terabyte version of the same box asks less than a third as much per terabyte.
Best for: The smallest mirrored LinkStation, for someone who wants two terabytes protected and nothing else, and will not want more later.
≈ $286
two bays · 8 TB of drives included · ships in RAID 1 with 4 TB usable · $90.75 per usable terabyte · 24 months covering the drives · macOS 15 ceiling
The middle rung of the LinkStation 220 ladder, and the one the arithmetic favors: four usable terabytes at $90.75 each, against $143.00 on the smaller box and $112.00 less than the SoHo version of the same capacity.
Best for: Four protected terabytes at the best price on the LinkStation ladder, for a household that will not need a third year of warranty.
≈ $363
one bay · 6 TB drive included · the 4 TB page word for word · $38 for 2 TB more · 24 months covering the drive
The same one-bay machine as the 4 TB LinkStation 210 with a larger drive in it, on a page identical but for the capacity line — which makes the two prices the only thing to compare.
Best for: The same sealed one-bay machine as the 4 TB version, for anyone who would rather pay $38 than run out of room.
≈ $231
one bay · 8 TB drive included · macOS 26 supported · hybrid cloud sync named · no RAID claimed · 24 months covering the drive
The range five other listings on this shelf tell their buyers to look at, with current macOS support, cloud sync to three services, and — on a one-bay machine — no RAID claim at all.
Best for: Eight terabytes of network storage on a current Mac, all of it usable, where a second drive is not wanted and a backup will live somewhere else.
≈ $383
two bays · 4 TB of drives included · ships in RAID 1 with 2 TB usable · macOS 26 supported · hybrid cloud sync named · $204.50 per usable terabyte
The two-bay LS 700, with current macOS support and named cloud services, and the most expensive usable terabyte on this shelf: two terabytes protected for $408.99, where the one-bay unit beside it gives eight for less.
Best for: Two terabytes that have to survive a drive failure on a current Mac, where the small capacity is the point and the price per terabyte is accepted.
≈ $409
one bay · 4 TB drive included · RAID claimed on a single bay · one network socket, speed unpublished · closed system · 24 months covering the drive
A one-bay unit supplied with its 4 TB drive, whose first bullet offers RAID on a machine with a single bay and whose own first line recommends a different range for current macOS.
Best for: A first network drive that has to work out of the box, on a Mac running macOS 15 or earlier or on Windows, with no interest in configuring anything.
≈ $193
eight M.2 2280 NVMe bays, no SATA · Core i3-N305, eight cores to 3.4 GHz · 16 GB DDR5 4800 · one 10GbE at 1024 MB/s · off-site backup named · under 19 dB in standby · 600 g (21.2 oz)
The only all-solid-state enclosure on this shelf: eight M.2 NVMe bays, no SATA bay at all, in six hundred grams — and the only listing here that names an off-site backup arrangement.
Best for: Eight solid-state drives in a space that will not take a tower, where an off-site copy is part of the plan from the start.
≈ $765
two bays · 64 TB ceiling on RAID 0 · processor unnamed · 4 GB soldered down · one 1GbE socket at 125 MB/s · no Docker, no virtual machines
A two-bay enclosure that publishes a list of what it will not do — no Docker, no virtual machines, no Wi-Fi — and whose headline capacity rests on the array arrangement that carries no redundancy at all.
Best for: A first NAS for photographs and backups, where knowing in advance what it will refuse to run is worth more than a specification sheet.
≈ $240
six SATA bays and two M.2 NVMe · 208 TB on RAID 0 · Core i3-1215U, six cores and eight threads · memory not published · one 10GbE and one 2.5GbE · JBOD, Basic, RAID 0, 1, 5, 6 and 10 named
The only listing on this shelf that lists every array level it supports — seven of them — and the only six-bay machine here, on a page that publishes no memory figure at all.
Best for: Six bays where the array level has to be chosen from a published list, by a buyer who will look the memory up elsewhere.
≈ $939
four bays, two of them U.2 · two M.2 slots · AMD Ryzen R2514, four cores and eight threads to 3.70 GHz · 8 GB DDR4 to 64 GB, ECC on upgrade · two 10GbE sockets
The most completely specified enclosure on this shelf: a processor with cores, threads and a clock, a 64 GB memory ceiling with an ECC upgrade path, two ten-gigabit sockets and bays that take three different kinds of drive.
Best for: A four-bay machine asked to transcode, run containers and serve several people at ten gigabits, where the specification has to be readable before buying.
≈ $660
four bays · Intel Celeron N5095, four cores to 2.9 GHz · 8 GB · two 2.5GbE sockets, 5 Gbps trunked · M.2 NVMe and a PCIe Gen 3 slot · no drive size, no RAID level, no software name
A four-bay enclosure whose Amazon.com description names an Intel Celeron N5095, two 2.5GbE sockets that trunk to 5 Gbps, M.2 and PCIe Gen 3 expansion and 8 GB of memory — and whose title and bullets carry almost none of it.
Best for: A household or small office that wants faster-than-gigabit transfers on existing cabling and a slot to add 10GbE or an SSD cache later.
≈ $1,003
two bays · 8 TB as two 4 TB drives · ships in RAID 1 with 4 TB usable · copy from USB without a computer · three years covering the drives · macOS 15 ceiling
The longest warranty on this shelf at three years, the only LinkStation here that copies from a USB device without a computer, and the only one whose network speed can be inferred only from the model it recommends instead.
Best for: A small office that wants eight mirrored terabytes, a third year of cover on the drives, and a card or stick copied straight to the machine.
≈ $475
two bays · 12 TB of drives included · ships in RAID 1 with 6 TB usable · RAID 0 for the full 12 · redundancy named in the bullet, not the title · 24 months covering the drives
One of five LinkStations on this shelf that publish both the array they ship in and the usable capacity it leaves — 12 TB of drives, 6 TB available, and the cheapest usable terabyte of the three LinkStation 220 capacities here.
Best for: A two-bay machine wanted working and mirrored on the day it arrives, by someone who would rather read the usable figure than calculate it.
≈ $462
two SATA bays and two M.2 2280 NVMe, both filled · Ryzen R1600, two cores at 2.6 GHz · 32 GB DDR4 ECC · two 1GbE with aggregation · one eSATA · DSM named · drives and memory supplied uninstalled
The most expensive listing on this shelf by a factor of three and a half, arriving with 40 TB of drives, 1 TB of NVMe and 32 GB of ECC memory — none of it installed, and all of it behind two gigabit sockets.
Best for: A buyer who wants ECC memory, forty terabytes and DSM in one delivery, and whose network will never need more than a gigabit.
≈ $3,529
four bays · 144 TB claimed on RAID 0 · processor unnamed · memory unpublished · one 10GbE socket · 24 months of warranty
A ten-gigabit four-bay machine whose page publishes neither a processor model nor a memory figure, and translates its 144 TB ceiling into one photograph count that disagrees with its own three other figures.
Best for: A four-bay machine wanted for its ten-gigabit socket and its container support, by a buyer willing to look up the specification elsewhere.
≈ $657
two bays · Realtek RTD1619B, four cores at 1.7 GHz · 1 GB DDR4 · one 1GbE socket · Btrfs and iSCSI snapshots named · sold without drives
A two-bay enclosure whose title states the processor, the memory and the single gigabit socket, and whose page never names the drive interface, an array arrangement or the software that runs it.
Best for: A first enclosure for a household copy of photographs and documents, where one gigabit is enough and where the buyer is content to look up the drive compatibility elsewhere.
No Amazon.com offer on October 26, 2026
two bays · 2.5GbE named in the singular · Docker supported · RAID and snapshots named without a level · no processor, no memory, no port count
A two-bay enclosure with a 2.5GbE connection and Docker support, on the thinnest hardware page on this shelf: no processor, no memory figure, no socket count.
Best for: A first two-bay machine for someone who wants Docker and a 2.5-gigabit connection and will accept not knowing what runs it.
No Amazon.com offer on October 26, 2026
four bays · Intel x86 quad-core · 4 GB memory · one 2.5GbE socket · TRAID named · 22 dB(A) · 30 TB per bay, 120 TB in total
A four-bay enclosure that publishes an acoustic figure, a per-bay ceiling and the name of its array scheme, and that never says what size of drive its four bays take.
Best for: A media collection that has outgrown a two-bay unit and lives in a room where people sleep, bought by someone who will confirm the drive sizes separately.
No Amazon.com offer on October 26, 2026
four HDD bays and two M.2 slots · up to 136 TB · 8 GB DDR4 · 128 GB PCIe 3.0 SSD · 2.5G and 1G LAN · processor and software not named
A four-bay enclosure whose Amazon.com listing fits its whole specification into one line — four HDD bays, two M.2 slots, 2.5G and 1G LAN, 8 GB DDR4 and a 128 GB SSD — and names no processor and no software.
Best for: A buyer who already knows this model and the software they will run on it, and wants four HDD bays plus two M.2 slots in one box.
No Amazon.com offer on October 26, 2026
Memory is what runs out first as soon as several services run on the unit at the same time.
Port speed decides what actually leaves the box, whatever the drives inside can do.
On this shelf, the eight LinkStations arrive with their drives fitted and the DS723+ bundle ships its drives uninstalled; the other twelve are sold empty, with the drives chosen separately.
The published bay count decides capacity and the redundancy layouts possible. It does not extend afterwards.
Depending on the model, a cache in front of the hard drives or a fast volume of its own. Where a listing publishes the slots, the count is shown on its page.
That depends on the model. This site publishes the memory supplied, as the maker states it.
It decides which services the unit can run beyond storage. Seven listings here name the chip; the LinkStations and several of the empty enclosures do not.
Ethernet port count and port speed are shown separately, as each listing states them. The two are read together: a second socket helps several clients, a faster one helps a single client.
Depending on the model, backups from a drive or a camera, or peripherals. Most listings on this shelf do not count them.
No. A mirror keeps the unit running through a failed drive; it does not survive a deletion, ransomware or a fire, which a copy kept somewhere else does.
Bay count sets the ceiling, memory sets what runs on top, and port speed sets what gets out. The processor decides whether the unit does anything more than store.
The table shows only the data published by four devices in five. Under that threshold, a column compares empty fields.
| Model | Price | Bay count | Published operating system |
|---|---|---|---|
| Synology DiskStation DS124 | $160 | One — stated in the title as a 1-Bay diskless unit. Twelve of the twenty-one listings on this shelf are sold without a drive, and this is one of them | Synology DiskStation Manager, DSM — named in the description, which states that its solutions are license-free and cover a private cloud, access from any device and collaboration. Three listings on this shelf name their operating system: DSM here and on the DS723+ bundle, and UGOS Pro on the UGREEN DXP4800 GT |
| BUFFALO LinkStation 210 LS210D0401 | $193 | One — stated in the title as 1-Bay and in the seventh bullet as one drive bay with the drive included. The first bullet calls the unit a NAS with RAID, which a single bay cannot provide | Not named, and described as closed — the fourth bullet states a closed system chosen to reduce exposure from third-party applications, with SSL encryption for transfers. The fifth names the NAS Navigator management utility, with NAS Navigator 2 for macOS 15 and earlier |
| BUFFALO LinkStation 210 LS210D0601 | $231 | One — stated in the title as 1-Bay and in the seventh bullet as one drive bay with the drive included. The first bullet calls the unit a NAS with RAID, which a single bay cannot provide | Not named, and described as closed — the fourth bullet states a closed system to reduce exposure from third-party applications, with SSL encryption for transfers. The fifth names NAS Navigator, with NAS Navigator 2 for macOS 15 and earlier |
| UGREEN NASync DH2300 | $240 | Two — stated in the title and in the first bullet as an entry-level two-bay unit for beginners | Not named on the listing, but its limits are published — the first bullet states no Docker and no virtual machines, the eighth adds no SAN Manager and states that Plex cannot be run through Docker, and the seventh calls the unit unsuitable for server applications |
| BUFFALO LinkStation 220 LS220D0402 | $286 | Two — stated in the title as 2-Bay and in the seventh bullet as two drive bays holding 4 TB in total, with the drives included | Not named, and described as closed — the fifth bullet states a closed system to reduce exposure from third-party applications, with SSL on transfers. NAS Navigator is named as the management utility, with NAS Navigator 2 for macOS 15 and earlier |
| BUFFALO LinkStation 220 LS220D0802 | $363 | Two — stated in the title as 2-Bay and in the seventh bullet as two drive bays holding 8 TB in total, with the drives included | Not named, and described as closed — the fifth bullet states a closed system to reduce exposure from third-party applications, with SSL on transfers. NAS Navigator is named as the management utility, with NAS Navigator 2 for macOS 15 and earlier |
| BUFFALO LinkStation 710 LS710D0801 | $383 | One — stated in the title as 1-Bay and in the seventh bullet as one drive bay with the drive included. Unlike the one-bay LinkStation 210 pages on this shelf, the first bullet makes no RAID claim | Not named, and described as closed — the fourth bullet states that the LS700 uses a closed system to reduce exposure from third-party applications, with SSL on transfers. The fifth names NAS Navigator and PC backup software, with no macOS version caveat attached |
| BUFFALO LinkStation 720 LS720D0402 | $409 | Two — stated in the title as 2-Bay and in the seventh bullet as two drive bays holding 4 TB in total, with the drives included | Not named, and described as closed — the fourth bullet states that the LS700 uses a closed system to reduce exposure from third-party applications, with SSL on transfers. The fifth names NAS Navigator and PC backup software, with no macOS version caveat |
| Synology DS225+ | $421 | Two — stated in the title, and the second bullet places the model in the two-bay Plus series as the replacement for the DS224+ | Not named on the listing — the description covers syncing, mobile apps, desktop clients, a browser interface and file versioning without naming the software |
| BUFFALO LinkStation 220 LS220D1202 | $462 | Two — stated in the title as 2-Bay and in the seventh bullet as two drive bays holding 12 TB in total, with the drives included | Not named, and described as closed — the fourth bullet states a closed system to reduce exposure from third-party applications, with SSL encryption for transfers and RAID for redundancy. The fifth names NAS Navigator, with NAS Navigator 2 for macOS 15 and earlier |
| BUFFALO LinkStation SoHo 220 LS220D0802B | $475 | Two — stated in the title as 2-Bay and in the seventh bullet as two drive bays holding 8 TB in total. The title specifies the division as 2 × 4 TB, which no other LinkStation page on this shelf does | Not named, and described as closed — the fifth bullet states a closed system to reduce exposure from third-party applications, with SSL on transfers. The sixth names NAS Navigator, with NAS Navigator 2 for macOS 15 and earlier |
| UGREEN NASync DXP4800 Plus | $657 | Four — stated in the title as a 4-Bay unit. The second bullet gives a capacity ceiling of 144 TB without publishing the per-bay figure that would produce it | Not named on the listing — the first bullet names Docker and virtual machines and the last states that all DXP models support both and that Plex can run through Docker. The software is described by function throughout and never called anything |
| UGREEN NASync DXP4800 GT | $660 | Four — stated in the sixth bullet as four drive bays for SATA drives up to 32 TB each, with up to two of those same bays also accepting U.2 NVMe solid-state drives | UGOS Pro — named in the second bullet, with Docker, virtual machines and SAN Manager, and Plex, Emby, Jellyfin, Home Assistant and web hosting named as workloads. The eighth bullet states that Plex runs through Docker and must be set up by hand |
| TERRAMASTER F8 SSD Plus | $765 | Eight — stated in the title and in the second bullet as eight M.2 2280 NVMe slots, each taking up to 8 TB for 64 TB in total. The arithmetic holds, and it is the highest bay count on this shelf | Not named — the fifth bullet names the TerraMaster Business Backup Suite and its five parts: Centralized Backup, TerraSync, Duple Backup for off-site recovery, CloudSync and Snapshot for ransomware protection. The system that runs them is never called anything |
| UGREEN NASync DXP6800 Plus | $939 | Six SATA bays, plus two M.2 NVMe slots — stated in the title and in the fourth bullet. It is the only six-bay machine on this shelf; the rest are at one, two, four or eight | Not named — the fifth bullet describes an app gathering Storage Manager, Files and Photos in one place, and the last states that all DXP models support Docker and virtual machines and that Plex can run through Docker |
| QNAP TS-464-8G | $1003 | Four, in the model designation TS-464 — the Amazon.com title, bullets and description never count the bays in words | Not named on the listing — the description lists multi-cloud backup, a cloud storage gateway, real-time transcoding and 4K HDMI output without naming the software that provides them |
| Synology DiskStation DS723+ with drives and memory | $3529 | Two SATA bays, plus two M.2 2280 NVMe slots — stated in the second bullet, with 40 TB as two 20 TB drives and 1 TB as two 500 GB modules. All four positions arrive filled | Synology DSM — named plainly in the third bullet and again in the description. Three listings on this shelf name their operating system, and two of the three are Synology |
| ACEMAGIC N3A | — | Four HDD bays, plus two M.2 slots — stated in the title as 4-Bay and in the bullet as 4×HDD+2×M.2 Slots | Not published on the listing — the unit is sold diskless and no software is named; the 128 GB SSD is listed without saying what it holds |
| Asustor AS1102TL | — | Two — stated in the title as a 2 Bay enclosure, and the range name Drivestor 2 Lite carries the same figure | Not published on the listing by name — the software is described through its features, Btrfs snapshots and Wake on LAN among them, and is never called anything |
| TERRAMASTER F4-425 | — | Four — stated in the title as a 4 Bay unit and repeated in the fifth bullet as a 4-Bay NAS | Not published on the listing by name — the third bullet names the TNAS Mobile app used to set the unit up without a computer, and the software on the enclosure itself is never called anything |
| Yxk Zero1 | — | Two — stated in the title as a 2-Bay desktop NAS and repeated in the first bullet | Not named on the listing — the third bullet describes a phone app, a desktop client and any web browser across Windows, macOS, iOS and Android, and the first names Docker support. The software itself is never called anything |
$160 – $286
5 models
Synology DiskStation DS124, BUFFALO LinkStation 210 LS210D0401, BUFFALO LinkStation 210 LS210D0601
$363 – $462
5 models
BUFFALO LinkStation 220 LS220D0802, BUFFALO LinkStation 710 LS710D0801, BUFFALO LinkStation 720 LS720D0402
$475 – $3529
7 models
BUFFALO LinkStation SoHo 220 LS220D0802B, UGREEN NASync DXP4800 Plus, UGREEN NASync DXP4800 GT
Specifications: manufacturer sheets for network and storage gear and the matching Amazon product pages. Prices and availability: Keepa. Every figure in this table names its source.
Most recent revision in this category: October 26, 2026.
Every price named in a summary was read on the date that review carries. What a shop asks today is shown beside the product, and it moves.
