QNAP Buying Guide

Posted By Ethan R on April 2025

Step 1. Identify your storage requirements.

The basic function of a NAS is backup and storage, it makes sense that the NAS you purchase has the capacity to store your data both now and into the future. We suggest trying to calculate the approximate total data requirements you have now, include external HDD’s, laptops, desktops, phones, media libraries containing photo’s, movies, backups and general data. Once you come up with a figure of how much data you have now, you can also estimate how much you will have in 3 or 5 years. This number would be your storage requirements.

As an example, if you end up calculating 2TB of storage requirements, it doesn’t make sense to buy a NAS with 6 or 8 HDD bays, you simply won’t use them. A 1, 2 or 4 Bay NAS would be much better suited.

If you ended up calculating 20TB of storage requirements, you would be better with a 4 or 6 bay NAS instead of a 2 bay NAS. An important point to note is that you do not need to fill the NAS with HDD, you can partially fill it and add more HDD in future if they are required. By the end of this step, try to have an idea of how many HDD bays you need in the NAS and how many and of what size, HDD’s you will need.

Step 2. Identify what you will be using the NAS for

A QNAP NAS can be used for many things from a media server, Plex server, file server, virtual machine host to simple backup and storage. Have a think about what you want the device to do for you, how many users will be accessing it. Generally, the cheaper the NAS, the more basic its processor and memory are. If you only want a NAS to store your photos, you don’t need to be paying for one that can stream 4K movie content. Try to have a clear idea of what you want the NAS to be able to do before you move on to the next step.

Now is probably a good time to have a look at the QNAP Live Demo to see what a QNAP NAS Interface looks like, whilst there you can have a look at the available QNAP Applications.

Step 3. Understanding the QNAP Model Numbers

There is a method and meaning to QNAP model numbers, they aren’t just random. Let’s look at an example.

TS-464-4G - The beginning number of a product code is the number of HDD slots or bays it has, in this case 4 bays, occasionally this may be a double-digit number such as TVS-h1288X-W1250-16G which is a 12 bay NAS.

TS-464-4G – The next two digits in the product code are how highly rated the device is within that category from a hardware performance point of view. The TS-464-4G is rated higher than the TS-431P3 but less than the TS-473A-8G.

Then we have the letters at the end, which can mean the following:

‘A and B’ are usually used as a version 2 and version 3 of a model. There has been a TS-251, a TS-251A and there is now a TS-251D, all rated the same performance wise within the current market, but with slightly different builds over time.

‘e’ indicates an economy version; it likely has had some features removed to reduce sell price.
‘X’ indicates the device comes with a single or multiple 10 Gigabit connection
‘U’ indicates the device is rack mounted.
‘RP’ indicates the device has a redundant Power Supply included.
‘T3’ indicates Thunderbolt 3 connection.

Step 4. Buying your QNAP NAS

Now you are hopefully equipped with the size of NAS and HDD’s you need, what the NAS needs to be able to do to meet your requirements and maybe you even narrowed down your selection to a few models. We have highlighted our most popular QNAP NAS models, with options in different sizes, these models are a good place to start.

Operating Systems

QNAP offers different operating systems to suit certain solution requirements and hardware capabilities.

Raid Types

RAID is a data storage technology that provides a mix of performance increase, data protection and hard drive failure tolerance. If a drive fails, RAID can protect your data.

FAQs

Raid Type: Single Count: 1

A single disk is used for storage.
It does not provide any disk failure protection and performance benefits.
It should be selected if only one disk is available and if a data backup plan is in place.

Disk Failure Tolerance: 0

Capacity: size of disk

Raid Type: JBOD Count: 1 or more

JBOD appends disks together in a linear fashion. QTS writes data to a disk until it is full, and then writes to the next disk.
JBOD allows all of the disks capacity to be used.
JBOD Single is not real RAID. It does not provide any disk failure protection or performance benefits.
JBOD is generally not recommended. RAID 0 should to be used instead.

Disk Failure Tolerance: 0

Capacity: combined disk capacity

Raid Type: 0 Count: 2 or more

Disk are combined together using striping.
RAID 0 offers the fastest read/write speeds and allows all disks capacity to be used.
No disk failure protection. This type should be paired with data backup plan.

Disk Failure Tolerance: 0

Capacity:combined disk capacity

Raid Type: 1 Count: 2

An identical copy of data is stored on two disks.
If either disk fails, data can still be read from the other disk.
Half of the total disk capacity is lost, in return for a high level of data protection.
Recommended for NAS devices with two disks.

Disk Failure Tolerance: 1

Capacity:disk size divided by 2

Raid Type: 5 Count: 3 or more

Data and parity information are striped across all disks.
The capacity of one disk is lost for parity. This means that if any one disk fails, it can be replaced and the data on it can be restored.
Striping means read speeds are increased with each additional disk.
Recommended for a good balance between data protection and speed.

Disk Failure Tolerance: 1

Capacity:total number of disks minus 1

Raid Type: 6 Count: 4 or more

Data and parity information are striped across all disks.
Same as RAID 5, but two disks are used for parity. This means that it protects against two disk failures, but the capacity of two disks are lost.
Recommended for business and general storage use. It provides high disk failure protection and read performance.

Disk Failure Tolerance: 2

Capacity: total number of disks minus 2

Raid Type: 10 Count: 4 or more

Every two disks are paired using RAID 1 for failure protection. Then all pairs are striped together using RAID 0.
Excellent read/write speeds and high failure protection, but half the disk capacity is lost.
Recommended for application or database storage.

Disk Failure Tolerance: 1 per pair of disks

Capacity: total number od disks divided by 2

Raid Type: 50 Count: 6 or more

Multiple small RAID 6 groups are striped to form one RAID 60 group.
Better failure protection and faster rebuild time than RAID 6. More storage capacity than RAID 10.
Better random access performance than RAID 6 if all of the disks are SSDs.
Recommended for business storage and online video editing with twelve or more disks.

Disk Failure Tolerance: 1 per disk sub-group

Capacity: total number of disks minus 1 disk per sub-group

Raid Type: 60 Count: or more

Multiple small RAID 6 groups are striped to form one RAID 60 group.
Better failure protection and faster rebuild time than RAID 6. More storage capacity than RAID 10.
Better random access performance than RAID 6 if all of the disks are SSDs.
Recommended for business storage and online video editing with twelve or more disks.

Disk Failure Tolerance: 2 per disk sub-group

Capacity: total number of disks minus 2 disks per sub-group

Surveillance

QNAP’s powerful surveillance software allows users to build a comprehensive, scalable surveillance solution on their QNAP NAS.

Backup/Sync

QNAP offers a comprehensive data backup and disaster recovery solution. Integrating backup, restoration, and synchronization functions, HBS 3 supports a wide range of local, remote server, and cloud storage services.

Security

Multimedia

Enjoy your collection of media files in your home, on your mobile device or from your laptop whenever away from home. Your QNAP NAS is your own private cloud for your movies, video, photos and files that is securely at your fingertips anywhere and anytime.

File Management

Search, sort, share and remotely access your data for multiple users in multiple locations in a safe a secure manner.

Virtualization

Gain the benefit of enterprise grade virtualisation software on cost affordable NAS solutions.