When I first started my home server, I initially went with what seemed like the responsible option: a four-bay NAS. It seemed like the perfect choice, as it was something purpose-built with polished software, and four bays seemed like a lot of space. If I filled two of them with mirrored units of sufficiently high capacityIt would be set for years. However, after purchasing one and doing the initial setup, I realized that I was asking for a lot more than this box was capable of, and a reused desk It was a much more reasonable starting point.
The four-span roof arrives quickly
I hit it before I started storing anything substantial.
Four bays sound pretty generous until you fill them up, although that’s not the wall I initially hit. Once you fill them out, the expansion looks like an external enclosure slung over an eSATA port, or just purchasing a completely new enclosure. The free space of the network is its own ceiling and has nothing to do with the unit’s shelf. Getting faster-than-gigabit speeds means buying a drive that ships with multi-gigabit or has a spare PCIe slot for a 10GbE card, and not all four bays offer that. Synology’s newest 4-bay DS925+ actually removed the 10GbE upgrade slot its predecessor had.
The good thing about starting with a standard ATX PC as a base is the expansion. You’re usually just one PCIe device away from the next big upgrade, whether that’s 10GbE networking or adding capacity for 8 additional drives with another HBA card. This wasn’t the main catalyst I switched to almost immediately, but it was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
You are at the whim of the software.
If you buy a particular type of four bay, you are trusting the manufacturer
The software on something like the Synology I bought is really great for someone who wants something plug-and-play, but it can become a hindrance very quickly. DSM is polished because it’s a closed, curated environment that you operate in but don’t really own, which has its pros and cons, but the clearest downside became apparent in 2025, when Synology decided to restrict its Plus series models to its own certified units. The reaction was strong enough that the company changed course in October and the third-party units are performing well again today.
Synology would dare attempt a radical change of that magnitude again, and while you can easily use its third-party drives today, there’s no guarantee that the firmware won’t change in a different, unpleasant way in the future. A generic x86 box running TrueNAS or Proxmox simply never puts you in a position where someone else’s business decision changes what your hardware can do.
It’s fine for files, but friction increases everywhere else
I wanted more than just a filing cabinet.
My specific hardtop ended up based on performance. Intel-based 4-bays like the DS423+ have Quick Sync and will hardware transcode into Plex and Jellyfin without complaint. The AMD model like the one I had (and the one most people use) uses a dual-core Ryzen integrated part with no integrated graphics, so transcoding goes back to straight gaming.
Transcoding is one thing, but the biggest problems I had were with everything else. These low-power embedded chips were designed to serve files, and the difference between doing so and hosting containers and virtual machines is big. A repurposed desktop CPU, even one that is many generations old, will have the core count and headroom to make a real difference in performance.
The humble four-bay NAS is not a bad product
It just wasn’t for me.
The four bay I ended up going with was just a bad buy for me because I asked for a lot more than I should have. Idle power is one of the ways my imposing home lab loses to a small NAS box. A four-bay NAS consumes between 10 and 30 watts, while a repurposed tower can idle above fifty and exceed one hundred with the drives spinning. On a machine that runs 24/7, that difference compounds quite quickly, and the energy bill may not be unaffordable at that rate of increase, it’s certainly enough to be noteworthy. The unit is also small, quiet, and content to disappear on a shelf, which is something I liked.
The desktop still wins for me due to pure performance and expansion opportunities. At the time I set it up, I only had a CPU, GPU, and 16GB of DDR4 to work with, but I had room to add an HBA card that supports 8 drives on its own, not to mention the other handful of PCIe slots that are available for multi-gig or other types of expansion. I’ll eat up physical space and energy costs for that.
This is what I would actually build
You probably already have the base there
Instead of making a huge shopping list, start with what you already have or what you can buy cheaply. A retired desktop computer is ready for use in the home laboratory. Put some storage on it, expand it with an HBA upgraded to IT mode, and load the operating system of your choice: TrueNAS if you want a storage device experience you still control, or a hypervisor like Proxmox with ZFS if you want room to run virtual machines and containers from day one.
Which one is right for you depends on what you want from a home server
Buying a four-bay NAS can be a great option if it is simply another node as part of a largest home laboratoryor if you plan to run only with light weight, rudimentary services in it. For me, I wanted a true home lab that would give me the expandability and performance I wanted, and the small box was never going to give me that.
