QNAP TS-433-4G NAS, 4 bays, ARM Cortex-A55, 4 GB, 2.5GbE, white

The NAS has two RJ-45 ports: one 2.5-gigabit and one gigabit. The 2.5GbE port adds noticeable speed when moving large video files and backups, provided your router, switch or computer supports it. Laptops can use QNAP's USB 3.2 Gen 1 to 5GbE adapter, and desktops can take a PCIe network card. Wake-on-LAN lets you wake the NAS over the network.

Four hot-swappable bays take 3.5-inch and 2.5-inch SATA drives and SSDs, and the trays can be locked with the included key. RAID 0, 1, 5, 6, 10 and JBOD are supported: RAID 5 tolerates one failed drive and RAID 6 two. You can add capacity by swapping drives one by one for larger ones, attaching a QNAP expansion enclosure or mounting cloud storage.

The quad-core 64-bit ARM Cortex-A55 runs at 2.0 GHz, and its built-in NPU accelerates face and object recognition in QNAP AI Core, so QuMagie sorts your photos by people and things on its own. ARM NEON technology speeds up video processing. The 4 GB of memory is the maximum for this model and is enough for files, media and light Docker containers.

Plug a flash drive or external hard drive into the front USB port, press the One-Touch Copy button and the files are copied to the NAS. Hybrid Backup Sync sends backups to the cloud, while snapshots protect against ransomware and accidental deletion. myQNAPcloud gives you access to files over the internet, QVPN supports WireGuard, and two-step verification plus QuFirewall keep outsiders out.

The chassis measures 160 × 225 × 168.5 mm and weighs 2.07 kg without drives. A single 120 mm fan provides cooling and power comes from an external 90 W adapter. According to QNAP, typical consumption is 22.5 W and 8.45 W with the drives in standby, so running the NAS around the clock barely registers on the electricity bill. The chassis has a Kensington lock slot and supports up to 200 concurrent connections.

Families who want to gather photos, films and computer backups in one place and drop monthly cloud subscriptions; home offices that share files and work remotely; and users who want RAID 5 protection across four drives and 2.5GbE speed but do not need virtual machines or expandable memory. The white chassis fits into a living room better than a server-style box.