Prime Day is just around the corner, and although we don’t know when Amazon’s summer sales extravaganza kicks off, it will be sometime in July — just like previous years. We are already seeing early Prime Day deals, but a majority of deals will only go live as we get closer to the sales event.
I usually highlight Prime Day deals as and when they go live, but this time, I wanted to do things a little differently; in this post, I’ll serve up recommendations on NAS servers worthy of consideration. At this point, I don’t know if the servers listed below will go on sale during Prime Day, but I’ve been covering storage products for the better part of a decade now, and I have a good inkling of the servers that tend to get discounted.
Previous sales also offer up valuable data in this regard; the DiskStation DS923+ and DS723+ were heavily discounted during Prime Day 2023, and that’s likely to be the case this time as well. With NAS servers having a longer product lifecycle than phones, it’s not that hard to gauge what goes on sale.
Prime Day is usually the best time to pick up storage servers and hard drives, and I don’t see that changing in 2024. So if you’re interested in upgrading an existing NAS server or looking to get started with this category, these are my current recommendations.
ASUSTOR AS5402T
ASUSTOR’s 2-bay AS5402T is easily one of the best home NAS servers I used over the course of the last 12 months. It has one of the best hardware packages in this segment thanks to an Intel Celeron N5105, 4GB of RAM, dual 2.5GbE ports, and three USB ports. The best part is that you get four M.2 slots in addition to the two 3.5-inch hard drive bays, so if you’re interested in adding fast SSD storage to your home server, this is the ideal choice.
ASUSTOR is also doing a lot of the right things on the software side of things, and the AS5402T has a decent interface with a ton of useful features. It isn’t the most refined UI around, but you can easily back up data and stream media via Plex without any issues. ASUSTOR needs to retune its mobile efforts as its current offerings don’t quite measure up, but on the whole, the AS5402T ticks all the right boxes if you want a full-featured Plex NAS.
The AS5402T usually retails for $369, and that’s decent in its own right, but if it’s discounted by anywhere close to the 20% mark, it becomes an instant buy.
Synology DiskStation DS223j
The DiskStation DS223j is my go-to choice for anyone looking to venture into NAS servers. The budget 2-bay NAS doesn’t have the best hardware, but it is an affordable gateway to the brand’s terrific software, and that alone is worth the asking price.
Here’s an easy way to position the DS223j; say you’re mulling the idea of getting a home server to back up photos and documents, and you also want to stream media from a centralized location. You don’t need an extensive feature-set, but want something that can handle the basics with ease. This is where the DS223j excels — the NAS makes it effortless to get started with home servers, and is a great starting point if you’re new to the ecosystem.
Synology DiskStation DS224+
If you got a NAS and want to upgrade, the DiskStation DS224+ is the way to go. This 2-bay NAS has great hardware, and gives you access to the entire suite of features available with the DiskStation Manager software. Thanks to the Intel Celeron J4125, the DS224+ is a powerhouse of a NAS when it comes to Plex media streaming.
It doesn’t quite have all the extras that you get with mid-range NAS servers — like multi-Gigabit connectivity and M.2 slots — but if you want a 2-bay NAS server that has power to spare, you should just buy the DS224+.
The NAS launched 15 months ago, and with its successor still at least the same amount of time away, the DS224+ is the default choice if you need a powerful 2-bay server.
Synology DiskStation DS923+
Need more than two drive bays? Then your search ends at the DiskStation DS923+. This NAS is powered by AMD’s Ryzen R1600 platform, has 4GB of RAM, two M.2 slots, and comes with a slot that lets you add in a 10GbE networking port should you need multi-Gigabit connectivity down the line.
Basically, the DS923+ is the best NAS you can get in the mid-range segment, and to give you an idea of the demand it commands, it was regularly out of stock several months after it launched.
TerraMaster F4-423
TerraMaster is slowly gaining momentum, and the $459 F4-423 has one of the best packages around. But the bigger deal is that the brand finally rolled out a new iteration of its UI, and it is modern and significantly easier to use. That’s a good thing, because it was the software that held the NAS back in the past.
Thankfully, there isn’t anything missing when it comes to the hardware; you get an Intel Celeron N5095, two 2.5GbE ports, 4GB of RAM, dual M.2 slots, and four drive bays that can hold a total of 80TB of storage.
NAS HDDs
Prime Day isn’t just a great time to buy a server, but also the ideal window to pick up hard drives. Most NAS-focused hard drives will be heavily discounted next month, and if you’re looking to boost storage in your existing server or get drives to slot into a new NAS, there will be plenty of deals.
I’ve always recommended Seagate’s IronWolf drives, and that’s continuing in 2024. My older 14TB IronWolf Pro drives lasted well over 50,000 hours before I switched over to a new server, and they combine 24/7 reliability with fast transfers and long-term durability — everything you need in a NAS HDD.