Good afternoon,

I've been thinking about getting a NAS to serve all of our needs, here's what I've got so far for requirements:

At least 2TB, but 4TB would be better
Decent speed and responsiveness
Easy to use!!
$500 or less
Security important
Ease of use (yes I put this down twice)

I've been recommended Synology more than a few times. I currently have a NAS but we don't use it. It's incredibly slow, the hard drives spin down so there is 20-25 sec lag the first time you access it. It has a tiny fan that is super loud. We hate it.

Options:
4x2TB drives, Synology DS420j
Raid 0+1 or Raid 5

2x4TB drives, Synology DS218+
Raid 0

there's also the DS218j which is way cheaper but I'm not sure why

What are you going to use it for?

You might want to consider building your own storage server with FreeNAS or UnRAID.  The problem with NAS appliances is that if any component dies (power supply, RAID controller, NIC, etc.) all of your data becomes inaccessible until you receive a warranty replacement or source a compatible donor.

The key features of a good NAS are the network connectivity, and the ability to do redundant RAID to protect your data.

Redundancy requires at least 3 drives unless you're going to piss away half your capacity by mirroring 2 drives, and the sweet spot is really 4 or 5 drives, where you're only giving up 25% or 20% of your theoretical storage in order to get that redundancy.

I run QNAP 4-drive systems, but would also be happy to run Synology.

As mentioned, if you have a spare, old computer on which you can run FreeNAS or UnRAID, that's going to be the best bang for your buck.

Tagged.

I was looking at getting a NAS myself.  I currently just use two bays in my workstation and a RAID 1 Array, but was hoping to add fireproof/waterproof protection and just keep it in a separate box.

iosafe makes the 218 NAS which is fireproof, waterproof, and can be had (diskless) for $659.  Not sure what you gain to upgrade to the 1019+ NAS but it's triple the price.

I agree if you have an old spare comp, you can install FreeNAS.  I played with it quite a bit a few years ago, but I found that you needed a relatively fast computer to run the full complement of features. I had a first gen i7 that I was using at the time.

Also I'd get a DS918+ personally, but OP never mentioned what he is doing

Not really sure what I'm doing. I want to make sure my files are all backed up, and have a central repository for photos.
I am starting a business and will need to store some stuff on that as well. Getting it from the web would be nice when I'm at the 'office'.

As far as I know, nothing that intensive.

A DS918+ is a pretty solid choice. When considering a NAS, always gets more drives than you think you'll need. And when you start buying hard drives, get them bigger than you need. Because your data storage needs will never decrease, only grow.

Recall that Bill Gates famously said that no one would ever need for than 640KB of RAM.

When built my NAS, Western Digital Red drives were pretty expensive. And in looking on Amazon right now, they are again. However, you can just buy the Western Digital Easystore external drives. There are plenty of guides to shuck the case off of them and you're left with a Western Digital Red. Right now, Amazon has 6TB Reds for $231 and 12 TB for $344. Ouch.

But they also have Easystores for $144 for 8TB and $250 for 12 TB.

At the time, I bought seven Easystore 8TB drives and have them in a FreeNAS array. If you like playing with computers and tinkering, FreeNAS is the way to go. If you just wanna plug in the drives and follow a wizard, get a 918+ and put in some drives and you're golden.

My hardware philosophy is always buy more than you need because a hardware bottleneck pisses me off

Synology

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I also vote for a DS918+. I have one and love it. It's quiet, fast, and very useful for auto backups. I use it for photos and Plex.