Quick Answer: The best home NAS in 2026 is the UGREEN NASync DXP4800 Plus — four bays, a 10GbE and a 2.5GbE port, two NVMe slots and Intel Quick Sync transcoding, at a lower price than Synology’s four-bay. Choose the Synology DS925+ if backups and polished software matter most (and DSM 7.3 now accepts third-party hard drives), the UGREEN DXP2800 as the best 2-bay budget pick, and the DXP4800 GT for dual 10GbE on a budget. Whatever you pick, budget for the drives first: in 2026 they cost more than the box.
The 2026 twist: the drives cost more than the NAS
Hard-drive prices climbed through 2026 as AI datacenters bought up nearline capacity — ComputerBase’s tracker measured an average rise of about 46% between September 2025 and January 2026, and prices kept moving after that. The result is a NAS market where the enclosure is now the smaller part of the bill.
| Build | NAS box | Drives | Total | Usable (RAID 5 / mirror) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| UGREEN DXP4800 Plus + 4× WD Red Plus 10 TB | $657 | $1,840 | $2,497 | 30 TB |
| Synology DS925+ + 4× WD Red Plus 10 TB | $700 | $1,840 | $2,540 | 30 TB |
| UGREEN DXP2800 + 2× WD Red Plus 6 TB | $390 | $600 | $990 | 6 TB |
List prices from late October 2026 (Starry Hope NAS pricing, Amazon US drive prices via ComputingForGeeks, October 24, 2026). Prices move weekly; check before you buy.
Two practical lessons follow. First, save on the box only if it does not cost you capability — a $100 cheaper NAS is a 4% saving on the full build. Second, plan bay count for growth, because adding drives later is far cheaper than replacing a full 2-bay mirror. Our best hard drives for NAS guide tracks current price per TB.
Our top picks at a glance
| NAS | Bays | CPU | Network | Transcoding | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UGREEN DXP4800 Plus | 4 | Pentium Gold 8505 | 10GbE + 2.5GbE | Quick Sync | Best overall |
| Synology DS925+ | 4 | Ryzen V1500B | 2× 2.5GbE | None | Best for backups |
| UGREEN DXP2800 | 2 | Intel N100 | 2.5GbE | Quick Sync | Best 2-bay budget |
| UGREEN DXP4800 GT | 4 | Ryzen R2514 | 2× 10GbE | Limited (AMD Vega) | Best 10GbE value |
| TerraMaster F4-425 Plus (N150) | 4 | Intel N150 | 2× 5GbE | Quick Sync | Best for Unraid / own OS |
1. UGREEN NASync DXP4800 Plus — Best Overall
UGREEN NASync DXP4800 Plus
- Intel Pentium Gold 8505 with Quick Sync — hardware transcoding including HDR tone mapping for Plex and Jellyfin.
- 8 GB DDR5 (up to 64 GB), two PCIe 4.0 NVMe slots for cache or fast pools.
- A 10GbE port is built in — no add-in card needed.
The DXP4800 Plus wins because it gives a homelabber everything that matters in one box: four bays for a RAID 5 or ZFS pool, a modern Intel CPU that transcodes, room for NVMe, and 10GbE to talk to a fast server like the Minisforum MS-01. Buying the drives at the same time? A free 30-day Amazon Prime trial gets a heavy box of disks to you in two days.
Caveats: UGREEN’s UGOS Pro is good but less deep than Synology DSM, Plex runs as a Docker container (and hardware transcoding needs Plex Pass), and under long heavy loads the CPU can reach 100°C with a loud fan. Many homelabbers also install TrueNAS or Unraid on it instead — the hardware allows that.
2. Synology DS925+ — Best for Backups and Software
Synology DiskStation DS925+
- DSM is still the most polished NAS software: Hyper Backup, Snapshot Replication, Active Backup for Business, Synology Photos.
- 4 GB ECC DDR4 (up to 32 GB), two 2.5GbE ports.
- DSM 7.3 accepts third-party 3.5" HDDs for storage pools — the 2025 drive lock is gone.
If your NAS exists mainly to protect family photos and back up every PC in the house, the DS925+ is the safest bet: the backup suite is excellent, ECC memory is standard, and the software just works. The big 2025 controversy — Synology requiring its own drives on the new Plus models — was reversed by DSM 7.3 on October 8, 2025, so you can fill it with WD Red Plus or IronWolf drives again. M.2 pools and caches still require Synology-listed SSDs.
The honest downsides: its Ryzen V1500B dates from 2018 and has no hardware transcoding, so 4K HEVC transcodes in Plex are a no-go; networking tops out at 2.5GbE; and it costs more than the faster UGREEN. Want DSM in two bays? The DS225+ sells near $400 with an older Celeron and 2 GB of RAM.
3. UGREEN NASync DXP2800 — Best 2-Bay Budget NAS
UGREEN NASync DXP2800
- Intel N100 with Quick Sync, 8 GB DDR5 (16 GB max), 2.5GbE.
- Two NVMe slots on top of the two drive bays.
- Idles near 7 W — cheap to leave on.
The DXP2800 is the best balance of Plex, Docker, SSD slots and networking under $400 (it listed at $389.99 in late October 2026). It is ideal as a first NAS or a dedicated backup target. Just remember the 2-bay rule: a mirror is your only redundant option, and growing it means replacing both drives.
4. UGREEN NASync DXP4800 GT — Best 10GbE Value
UGREEN NASync DXP4800 GT
- Two 10GbE ports — the fastest networking here — for less than the DXP4800 Plus.
- AMD Ryzen Embedded R2514, ECC-capable memory (stock module is non-ECC), up to 64 GB.
- NVMe slots run at PCIe 3.0 x2; OS on soldered eMMC.
If the NAS is a storage target for VMs or video editing rather than a media server, the GT’s dual 10GbE and ECC support are worth more than Quick Sync. It listed about $97 below the Plus. The catch is media: AMD Vega graphics lack reliable HDR tone mapping in Plex, so keep transcoding on another box.
5. TerraMaster F4-425 Plus (N150) — Best for Unraid or Your Own OS
TerraMaster F4-425 Plus (Intel N150)
- Intel N150 with Quick Sync, 16 GB DDR5, two 5GbE ports and three M.2 slots.
- Runs TerraMaster's TOS 7 or a third-party OS such as Unraid.
- Single memory slot, no PCIe slot, M.2 speeds just under 1,000 MB/s.
At list price the F4-425 Plus costs nearly the same as the DXP4800 Plus, which has a faster CPU and true 10GbE — so treat the TerraMaster as a sale-price buy. When it is discounted, it is a solid four-bay host for Unraid, with 5GbE that outruns 2.5GbE without the cost of 10GbE switching.
How to choose a home NAS
- Bays for growth. Four bays is the sweet spot: RAID 5 or RAIDZ1 gives you three drives of capacity with one-drive fault tolerance.
- Transcoding. If you stream to TVs and phones outside the house, an Intel CPU with Quick Sync matters more than raw speed.
- Networking. 2.5GbE is the 2026 minimum. Pay for 10GbE only if a fast server, editing workstation or NVMe pool is on the other end.
- Software vs freedom. Synology DSM is the easiest; UGREEN and TerraMaster are cheaper and let you install TrueNAS or Unraid.
- CMR drives only. Avoid SMR disks in any RAID array — see our NAS drive guide.
- Pair it with compute. A NAS is storage first. For VMs and heavier self-hosting, put a homelab server next to it.
The bottom line
The UGREEN NASync DXP4800 Plus is the best home NAS for most people in 2026: four bays, 10GbE, NVMe and Quick Sync for less than Synology’s four-bay. Choose the Synology DS925+ for the best backup software, the DXP2800 as a budget 2-bay, the DXP4800 GT for dual 10GbE, and the TerraMaster F4-425 Plus on sale for Unraid. Then spend your real money where it now goes — on the drives.