Looking for a decent 2 bay NAS drive for home use.

I had a WD one in the past and it was rubbish.

Any recommendations for something that is reliable, good interface and with decent software?

Any Synology that meets your needs. Rock solid performance. Easy set up.

what RAID configuration are you planning? Just wondering as a 2-disk NAS would top out at about the capacity of the smallest disk in some configs.

edit: added link https://www.synology.com/en-uk/support/nas_selector

To do what?

QNAP and Synology seem to be the market leaders nowadays. QNAP is usually a little cheaper.

The software is usually the bit which lets them down although compared to Buffalo NAS, Synology is easier to play with

I’ve had a 4bay QNAP for eons and it served me well, original idea was to upgrade capacity as the drives died. Hasnt quite worked out that way as they seem to be holding on (just the one failure).

Its a bit slow now and the software isnt the easiest to use so I’ve started looking at a replacement, synology seems to be the winner, its the software that nails it.

I’m going to go for a 2bay synology and raid it with the biggest drives i can afford/find.

I’ve got a 2-bay QNAP and to be honest it is bloody baffling.
Trying to do (in my head what should be) the simplest thing on it takes ages of online research and ploughing through user guides.

If I bother replacing it at all, I would probably give Synology a try.

Mine is an entry level model too, and I would consider going for something with a bit more oomph.
It takes ages to do stuff and just runs slow all the time.

I primarily wanted it as a storage solution and thought it would be good for sharing family pictures etc. with the erm, family. I still haven’t figured out how to do that.
But all of my files are on it and the back-up is reliable. It’s also set-up to sync my phone pics immediately, so I don’t have to worry about losing a load of pics if I smash my phone or it gets nicked.

Long term synology user here. Mine’s a 4 bay which does laptop backup and hosts/streams all the media content to the TVs. It’s absolutely rock solid, and probably needs rebooting about once every 18 months.

It’s one of the few purchases I’ve made that I’d recommend without any hesitation at all.

s reliable, good interface and with decent software?

That is exactly what Synology’s are….. what they aren’t is cheap/highly spec’d vs their competition

To do what?

The question I should have asked but figured the OP might not have wanted to reveal that so leapt straight in at ‘these!’

I’ve got a 2 bay Synology somewhere that I dont use, from memory it’s a DS 215 or 218 something or other.

Worked flawlessly for file sharing etc, upgraded to a newer model that would act as a plex server and do the transcoding on the fly.

pm me if your interested, I’ll dig it out and get some proper details if you want a 2nd hand one.

Exactly the same experience as @Stumpy01. I’ve had a 4bay QNAP for ages now. It’s primarily used for streaming media storage, but the few times I’ve tried to take advantage of the various bells and whistles it came with, it has completely baffled me.

If I ever replace it, it will be with a Synology.

QNAP is superb – if I was going for another 2 Bay, I’d get the SilentNAS – HS-251+ for streaming music, films and the like.

few times I’ve tried to take advantage of the various bells and whistles
I’d be interested to know what these are… Anything I want to do, just install an app for it and away. Apart from the system management stuff, which is all gui based. What else is there?