

A NAS that is in the home may be accessed by the whole family, whereas a business may want to grant access to many, many more users.

It is often the case that when you set up a NAS, that it will be accessed by more than one person. How many people will be accessing this NAS Server? So always be sure to factor this in when purchasing the Hard Drives for your NAS from. Never forget that once you install a RAID on a NAS or DAS device, that some RAID types will reduce your total capacity. What does 1TB typically hold:ġTB = Approx 1 Million Word Docs if they were dense 1MB each and contain images and tablesġTB = Approx 300,000 standard Mobile Phone pictures – However this number is more than halves for professional photographers when some photos can be 10-20MB each Typically you can look at the following Capacity vs File Numbers for more information. Not only the amount of space that you will need, but how many hard drives you should buy and if you require a RAID, how much space will you lose to redundancy. One of the first considerations for anyone buying NAS is about capacity.

However the general guidelines In this guide should still apply even 5 years from now and if you want a direct NAS recommendation, why not contact me in the comments below or e-mail me How many Terabytes do I need? How many Hard Drives should I buy? I should mention that where possible I won’t mention any particular NAS by name as trends change, new devices get released and older ones disappear. So today I would like to talk about how to choose your NAS device and what you should look for based on your own NAS needs. Choosing the right NAS device is something that without a deeper understanding of the different uses of NAS can lead to you spending too much or ending up with a NAS device that is not fit for purpose. There are so many different manufacturers and models that it can all get a bit confusing. Buying your first Network Attached Storage (NAS) device can be quite a daunting task.
