Deciding which NAS to choose from can be difficult if you are not sure what you want. Choosing the right network attached storage enclosure is important because if you decide to buy the wrong one, you might experience difficulty upgrading in the future.
2 Bay NAS VS 4 Bay NAS
First and foremost, the most important deciding factor is, what do you plan to use your NAS storage for? If you are planning to store photos and some movies, having a 2 bay network storage enclosure might be more than adequate. However, if money is not really an issue, you might want to consider buying a 4 Bay NAS for future upgradability.
Why choose 4 bay instead of 2 bay NAS?
Usually when you buy a NAS, the bare minimum you should get is 2 bay NAS. Why you might ask? It is because you will need to use 2 hard disks for data protection. You are going to need to purchase the same storage size if you decide to buy 2 bay NAS. This is because you want to set it up to run in backup mode. In the case of one hard drive fails, you have another hard disk that is set in redundancy mode to safeguard your data.
What this mode does is that if you were to install 2 8TB hard disks, you will only be able to access 8TB storage size instead of 16TB (8TB x 2). If you set it up to maximize storage and not have fail-protection, in the event of hard disk drive failure or corruption, you will definitely lose your data.
4 Slot NAS is better
So if you consider to run in redundancy mode, whereby 1 hard disk is used for mirror backup, you will probably need to consider getting a 4 bay network attached storage (NAS), even if you are going to use only 2 bays in the beginning.
This is because you might want to reserve another 2 more empty slots for further upgrades. Upgrading is going to be easier if you have the extra 2 empty slots. It is as easy as just plugging in the new hard drives and the NAS system will automatically run its magic.
What if you still want to use a 2 bay NAS and upgrade in the future?
Well, you can still do so but it is going to be a painful process. This is because you will have to replace one hard disk at a time. You will need to let the drives sync the data with the new hard drive before installing both hard disk drives together.
To sync the hard disk drives might take quite some time. Furthermore, you might even encounter data corruption if there is problem in the old hard disk drive.
4 Bay NAS can prevent the problem of data corruption because the data is always in sync and in the event of data corruption in one of the hard disk drives, the backup copy can be used to repair the error by itself.
So is 4 slot NAS better than 2 slot NAS?
Definitely. But it all depends on how you are going to use your NAS. Many people use it differently. Some people only use it to run Plex to stream TV shows and movies. While some people use it for storing CCTV surveillance camera footage. So a 2 slot NAS might be adequate since losing a few TV shows and CCTV footage in the event of hard disk drive malfunction might not be a big of a deal.
But if you are planning to store important data, images or videos that you do not want to lose, you are better off investing in at least a 4 slot NAS. You will want to consider automatically backing up your data in different hard drives in case one fails.
After all, it all depends on your needs actually. Ask yourself how are you planning to use your NAS.
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