Synology DiskStation DS920+

From £480 (empty) FROM synology.com

3 A four-bay NAS offers scope for greater capacity and better fault-tolerant RAID levels such as RAID 5. Starting with just two disks configured as a RAID 1 mirror, this could squeeze into your budget.

Synology’s systems are widely used, and this model provides ample scope for both expansion of storage and enhancement of performance. In addition to four bays, it has two USB 3.2 Gen 1 and one eSATA port to connect more storage. Two M.2 slots let you add SSDs to accelerate caching, but there’s no 10Gb Ethernet support.

By default, this uses the Btrfs file system, which has advanced features such as automatic self-healing of files. It’s straightforward to configure, with full support for Time Machine backups over SMB. Performance is excellent, with file transfers consistently close to the maximum for 1Gb Ethernet. Support for other services is extensive, and includes virtual machines.

> VERDICT

Expansion potential Excellent performance Virtualisation

Cost