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Home internet router and networking equipment running on battery backup during a power outage
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Will Your Internet Work During a Power Outage? Cable, Fiber, Satellite & 5G Explained

Your home internet may keep working during a power outage, but only if your own networking equipment has backup power and your internet provider’s network is still operating.

The first part is relatively easy to solve. Put the right equipment on a UPS and your modem, router, fiber terminal, satellite equipment or cellular gateway can stay powered when the lights go out.

The second part is outside your control. Your internet connection depends on infrastructure beyond your house, and some of that infrastructure may also depend on commercial power. That is why a UPS can keep one home’s internet working perfectly during an outage while another home’s connection disappears even though all of the networking equipment inside the house is still running.

The answer also varies depending on whether you have cable, fiber, satellite or cellular internet.

Does Wi-Fi Work During a Power Outage?

Without backup power, usually not. Your Wi-Fi router needs electricity. When it shuts off, your wireless network disappears with it.

A UPS solves that part of the problem. Keep the router powered and it can continue broadcasting Wi-Fi.

But Wi-Fi and internet access are not the same thing. Wi-Fi is the network connecting devices inside your home. Unlike an old copper telephone that could receive its operating power directly from the phone line, modern internet equipment generally needs local electricity. For your devices to reach the internet, every essential piece of equipment between them and your internet provider also needs to remain powered.

In a typical home that might mean:

  • Cable internet: cable modem or gateway + Wi-Fi router
  • Fiber internet: optical network terminal (ONT) + router or gateway
  • Satellite internet: satellite dish or terminal + router or gateway
  • Cellular or 5G home internet: cellular gateway or hotspot + any separate router or Wi-Fi equipment
  • Mesh Wi-Fi: internet equipment + main mesh router + any satellite nodes you actually need
  • Larger home network: internet equipment + router/firewall + Ethernet or PoE switches + Wi-Fi access points

If one essential device loses power, the connection can stop there.

Why Old Landline Phones Often Worked During a Power Outage

If you grew up with a traditional Bell System-style copper telephone line, you may remember that the phone often continued working even when the electricity in the house went out.

That was possible because traditional analog telephone service, usually called POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service), did not normally depend on power from an outlet in your house. The telephone company supplied low-voltage DC power over the same pair of copper wires that carried the voice signal.

A traditional telephone line was typically powered at roughly 48 volts DC from equipment at the telephone company’s central office. The central office itself was designed with large battery banks and often generators, allowing telephone service to continue through utility outages.

As long as the telephone company’s network remained operating, a simple corded telephone could therefore keep working even if the rest of your house was completely dark.

There was an important exception: cordless phones still required electricity for their base station. During an outage, the phone line might still be working while the cordless phone was useless. This is one reason many households kept a basic corded telephone around for emergencies.

Modern home internet is very different. Cable modems, fiber ONTs, Wi-Fi routers, switches and VoIP phone equipment all contain powered electronics at the customer’s home. If those devices lose electricity, the service usually stops unless you provide battery backup.

In a sense, a UPS for your modem, ONT and router recreates part of what the old telephone network provided automatically: keeping the communications equipment powered even when utility electricity disappears.

Will Cable Internet Work During a Power Outage?

It can, particularly during a short outage.

If you put your cable modem and router on a UPS, they can continue operating after your house loses power. Whether they can still reach the internet depends on the cable company’s network.

Cable networks can have powered equipment outside your home, including nodes, amplifiers and network power supplies. Providers use batteries and generators to keep that infrastructure operating during outages, but backup power is finite and equipment can also be damaged by the storm or other event that caused the blackout.

That leaves several possibilities:

  • A short outage occurs and your UPS keeps the internet working without interruption.
  • Your equipment stays powered, but something in the cable network loses power and your connection stops.
  • The connection works initially and fails later when upstream backup power is exhausted.
  • The outage also damages the network itself, making backup power irrelevant.

This is why installing a whole-house generator does not necessarily guarantee working cable internet. The generator can power everything inside your house. It cannot power the cable company’s equipment down the street.

Will Fiber Internet Work During a Power Outage?

Fiber can be particularly well suited to staying online during a blackout, but your equipment at home still needs electricity.

Many fiber-to-the-home systems use a Passive Optical Network, or PON. Passive optical splitters can distribute the signal through much of the path between the provider and your house without requiring the chain of powered amplifiers found in some other broadband networks.

That does not make fiber independent of electricity. Your provider still needs its network equipment operating, and your end of the connection needs power too.

The important device in many homes is the Optical Network Terminal, or ONT. It terminates the fiber connection at your house and provides the connection used by your home network.

If the ONT loses power, your fiber internet stops even if the Wi-Fi router is still running.

So if you have fiber, find the ONT and its power supply before deciding what belongs on your UPS.

AT&, for example, says customers with an external ONT need backup power for that equipment as well as their gateway. See AT&’s battery-backup guidance.

Will Satellite Internet Work During a Power Outage?

Satellite internet can continue working during a local power outage if you can keep the equipment at your house powered and the satellite network itself remains available.

This gives satellite an interesting advantage during some emergencies. Your connection is not dependent on a cable running through the neighborhood or the same chain of terrestrial equipment used by a local cable network.

If a storm knocks out neighborhood cable infrastructure while your satellite terminal still has a clear view of the sky, satellite service may remain available.

But the equipment at your house still needs electricity.

For a system such as Starlink, that means the satellite terminal and whatever router or networking equipment you use with it. Traditional satellite systems have the same basic requirement.

This makes backup power especially important for someone who relies on satellite internet at a rural property, vacation home or other location where outages may last longer than they do in a dense urban area.

Satellite Internet Can Require More Battery Capacity

There is one important consideration when comparing satellite with cable or fiber: a satellite terminal may consume more electricity than a simple cable modem or fiber ONT.

That affects runtime.

A UPS that can keep a low-power modem and router operating for a long time may run down considerably faster when powering satellite equipment.

If satellite internet is important during a long outage, I would pay close attention to the actual wattage of the equipment and the battery capacity available. A conventional UPS may still be useful for short interruptions, while a larger battery or generator becomes more attractive when outages routinely last for hours.

Will Cellular or 5G Home Internet Work During a Power Outage?

Often, yes, provided both your cellular gateway and the carrier’s network remain operating.

If you use T-Mobile, Verizon or another fixed-wireless home internet service, your gateway still needs electricity. Put it on a UPS or another battery source and it may continue providing internet even though utility power to your house has failed.

Cellular internet can also be useful during an outage because it provides a completely different path to the internet than your cable or fiber connection.

But cell towers and the networks behind them need power too. Carriers use batteries and generators at many sites, but backup power can eventually run out and physical damage can still take equipment offline.

There is another problem during widespread outages: congestion.

If cable and fiber connections fail across a neighborhood, large numbers of people suddenly move onto cellular networks. A cellular connection that is normally fast can become much slower just when everyone needs it.

Cellular Home Internet Can Be Easy to Back Up

One advantage of cellular home internet is that the equipment can be quite simple. A 5G gateway may combine the cellular modem, router and Wi-Fi access point in a single device.

In that case, you may only need to keep one device powered.

If you use a separate router, mesh system, Ethernet switch or access point, those devices also need backup power if you want to continue using them.

Your Phone Is Already a Battery-Powered Internet Connection

A smartphone has its own battery, which makes it one of the easiest emergency internet connections available.

If the cellular network is still operating, a phone may continue working even when every piece of networking equipment in your house is off.

You can also use the phone as a hotspot for a laptop or another device.

The limitations are battery life, signal strength, data-plan restrictions and network congestion. For occasional emergencies, that may be enough. If internet access is critical, a dedicated cellular connection or automatic cellular failover system is more robust.

A Fios Backup Battery May Not Back Up Your Internet

There is another easy mistake to make: seeing a battery installed by your internet provider and assuming it keeps everything running.

That is not necessarily what it was designed to do.

Verizon’s documentation for its traditional Fios Digital Voice battery backup says that backup power is intended for voice service rather than internet or television service.

See Verizon’s Fios battery-backup documentation.

If you want internet access during an outage, verify exactly what an existing provider-installed battery powers. You may still need your own UPS for the ONT, router and other network equipment.

What Internet Equipment Should You Put on a UPS?

Start at the internet connection coming into your house and follow the path to the devices you actually need.

For a simple cable setup, that usually means:

  • cable modem or gateway
  • Wi-Fi router, if it is separate

For fiber:

  • ONT and its power supply
  • router or ISP gateway

For satellite:

  • satellite terminal or dish power supply
  • router or gateway

For cellular home internet:

  • cellular gateway
  • any separate router, switch or Wi-Fi equipment you need

A larger home network may also require:

  • Ethernet switch
  • PoE switch
  • Wi-Fi access points
  • mesh Wi-Fi nodes
  • firewall or router appliance

You probably do not need every piece of network equipment running during a blackout. Every additional device consumes battery capacity.

For a simple network, see my guide to the best UPS battery backups for routers and modems.

If your network has grown into a rack or closet full of switches, access points, cameras and storage, I have a separate guide to choosing a UPS for a network closet, NAS, PoE switches and cameras.

Do You Need to Keep Your NAS Running?

Not necessarily.

I run both networking equipment and a NAS on backup power, but their priorities are different during a long outage.

The UPS gives a NAS time to ride through a brief interruption or shut down safely. If the outage is going to last for hours, keeping storage running may consume battery capacity that would be more useful keeping the router, ONT and Wi-Fi alive.

Ideally, a larger home network can shut down nonessential equipment while leaving the low-power networking devices running. With systems like a NAS, it is best to let them shut down gracefully than to abruptly stop.

That can turn a relatively modest UPS into a surprisingly useful source of internet runtime.

How Long Can a UPS Keep Your Internet Running?

Networking equipment is a good candidate for battery backup because its power consumption can be relatively low.

A modem, router and fiber ONT may together consume only a few dozen watts. Start adding switches, multiple access points, PoE cameras, a NAS or satellite equipment and the load can rise quickly.

This is why the VA number printed on a UPS does not tell you how long your internet will run. Runtime depends heavily on the actual wattage of the devices connected to it and the battery capacity of the UPS.

A UPS that provides only a short runtime for a desktop PC may be able to run a modem and router much longer.

If runtime matters, measure or estimate the equipment you actually intend to keep running rather than sizing the UPS around everything that happens to be plugged in nearby.

A UPS Helps Even If Your Outages Are Short

There is another benefit that has nothing to do with surviving an all-day blackout.

A very short power interruption can reboot your modem, router, switches and access points. Power may return almost immediately while you spend the next several minutes waiting for the network to reconnect.

A UPS prevents that.

For homes with reasonably reliable utility service, this may be the most common benefit. The UPS quietly handles flickers and short outages without the network going down at all.

The worse the power reliability at the equipment’s location, the more runtime becomes important. A house that sees an occasional five-minute outage has very different backup-power needs from a remote property that can lose power for several hours.

What Happens During a Long Power Outage?

Eventually a conventional UPS reaches its limit.

During a long outage, several things can end your connection:

  • your UPS battery runs out
  • your ISP’s backup power runs out
  • outside network equipment fails
  • storm damage interrupts the physical connection
  • cellular networks become congested

If outages where you live are regularly measured in hours rather than minutes, the next step is larger-scale backup power.

That might mean a portable power station, whole-house battery or generator.

These systems can keep your equipment operating far longer than a normal UPS. They still cannot guarantee that your internet provider remains online, but they solve the problem of running out of power inside the house.

Using Cellular as a Backup Internet Connection

Even if cellular is not your primary internet service, it can provide a valuable second path when cable, fiber or satellite service fails.

The simplest backup is the hotspot built into your phone.

More sophisticated home networks can automatically switch to a dedicated cellular connection when the primary ISP goes down.

Some providers also sell cellular failover services. These can protect against an ISP outage as well as a power outage, provided the cellular network remains available and the backup equipment itself has power.

I would treat cellular as another layer of resilience rather than a guarantee. During a widespread outage, cellular networks can become congested as thousands of people shift traffic onto them at the same time.

How to Test Whether Your Internet Will Work During an Outage

You do not have to wait for the next storm to test half of the system.

If your network is already connected to a UPS, safely disconnect the UPS from wall power and confirm that everything required for internet access stays online.

Check the modem, ONT, satellite terminal or cellular gateway as appropriate, along with the router and any switch or access point you need.

If the internet continues working, you have verified that your equipment and UPS are configured correctly.

The next real neighborhood outage tests the other half: your provider.

If all of your equipment remains powered and the internet still works, you know the provider’s local infrastructure survived that outage.

If your network stays powered but the internet connection disappears, check the ISP’s outage information. The failure may be upstream from your house.

This is worth learning before spending thousands of dollars on larger backup-power equipment under the assumption that powering the house automatically keeps the internet online.

What I Would Do If Internet During an Outage Matters

I would build backup connectivity in layers:

  1. Put the modem, ONT, satellite terminal or cellular gateway and router on backup power.
  2. Back up any switch or Wi-Fi access point you actually need.
  3. Leave unnecessary high-draw equipment off the battery during a long outage.
  4. Measure how long your network actually runs from the UPS.
  5. See how your ISP behaves during a real local outage.
  6. Keep a phone hotspot or other cellular option available.
  7. If long outages are common, consider a larger battery system or generator.

This is particularly useful at a second home or other property you monitor remotely. Keeping the internet connection alive may also keep security cameras, leak sensors, thermostats and other connected devices reachable when the property loses utility power.

So, Will Your Internet Work When the Power Goes Out?

It may, and relatively inexpensive backup power can dramatically improve the odds during a short outage.

You need to keep every essential piece of networking equipment powered. For cable, that generally means the modem and router. For fiber, remember the ONT. Satellite users need to power the satellite equipment, while cellular users need to keep their gateway running.

After that, the provider’s network becomes the limiting factor.

If the network outside your house remains online, your own backup power may keep you connected long after everything else in the house goes dark. If the provider loses upstream infrastructure, no UPS inside your house can restore that connection.

For most homes, I would start with the inexpensive part of the problem: keep the essential networking equipment on battery backup. It prevents nuisance reboots during short outages and gives you a good chance of staying online during longer ones when your provider remains available.

To choose the right size, start with my guide to UPS battery backups for routers and modems.

Published on August 18, 2026
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Best NAS for home use in 2026 comparing Synology, UGREEN and TerraMaster NAS systems
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Best NAS for Home Use in 2026: Synology, UGREEN, TerraMaster or DIY?

Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Product links may earn a commission at no additional cost to you.

I built my own NAS. That does not mean I think you should.

My current NAS runs TrueNAS on a low-power Intel N100-based system. I like having complete control over the hardware and software, and I like knowing that if I want to change something later, I am not waiting for a NAS manufacturer to decide whether I am allowed to do it.

But building a NAS also means owning the problems. You choose the hardware. You install the operating system. You troubleshoot it. You decide how backups work. When something breaks, there is no single company responsible for the whole box.

If a friend asked me what NAS to buy for a house today, I would probably send them toward a prebuilt NAS instead. Pre-built means all you do is install hard drives.

The interesting part in 2026 is that Synology is no longer the only obvious answer. UGREEN and TerraMaster now sell boxes with considerably more aggressive hardware, faster networking and surprisingly capable processors. For a while, I owned a QNAP. Meanwhile, building your own NAS remains attractive if you actually want the flexibility rather than simply wanting somewhere safe to store your files.

Quick Answer: The Best Home NAS in 2026

NAS Best For Why I Like It My Take
Synology DS925+ Most homes 4 bays, DSM, dual 2.5GbE, expandable memory Safest recommendation
UGREEN DXP4800 Plus Best hardware value 10GbE, 2.5GbE, Intel CPU, 8GB DDR5, 2 NVMe slots Very compelling alternative to Synology
TerraMaster F4-425 Pro Power users and media Intel N350, 16GB RAM, dual 5GbE, 3 NVMe slots A lot of hardware in a 4-bay box
Synology DS225+ Simple 2-bay NAS DSM, 2.5GbE, compact and easy to manage Good first NAS
Build Your Own + TrueNAS Maximum control Choose your own CPU, RAM, networking, case and drives What I use

If I wanted the easiest recommendation for most people:

Check the Synology DS925+ diskless on Amazon

If I cared more about getting the most hardware for my money, I would look very closely at the UGREEN DXP4800 Plus.

Best NAS for Most People: Synology DS925+

Synology remains the easiest NAS company for me to recommend to someone who wants storage to behave like an appliance.

That is what I always wanted from my NAS. I enjoy building computers, but once storage is running, I want it to sit quietly in a corner and serve files.

The Synology DS925+ is a four-bay NAS built around an AMD Ryzen V1500B processor with four cores and eight threads. It comes with 4GB of ECC memory and can be expanded to 32GB.

There are two 2.5GbE Ethernet ports and two M.2 NVMe slots that can be used for caching or storage pools with compatible SSDs.

Four drive bays are also a sweet spot for a home NAS.

Two bays work, but they limit your choices. With four drives you can build an array that provides redundancy while retaining substantially more capacity. Four bays also give you room to grow without jumping into a large, expensive box.

The reason I would buy Synology, however, is DSM. DSM is Synology’s software platform.

The hardware specifications are no longer particularly exciting compared with UGREEN and TerraMaster. You are buying a mature storage platform with integrated backup, snapshots, file sharing, photo management, remote access and a large application ecosystem.

I would buy the DS925+ for: someone who wants a NAS to be reliable infrastructure rather than another hobby.

I would skip it for: someone who wants the most CPU, RAM and network bandwidth possible for the money, or someone who enjoys replacing the manufacturer’s software with their own.

Check the Synology DS925+ on Amazon

Synology Backed Away From Its Worst Hard-Drive Restriction

There is an important update if you followed the controversy around Synology’s 2025 NAS models.

Synology initially became much more restrictive about which drives could be used with its newer DiskStation Plus systems. That was a serious strike against the platform for me. A NAS is a box whose main purpose is holding hard drives. I do not want the manufacturer unnecessarily narrowing my choices.

With DSM 7.3, Synology loosened that policy.

Current 2025-model DiskStation Plus systems including the DS925+ can create storage pools using non-validated third-party 3.5-inch hard drives and 2.5-inch SATA SSDs. Synology still recommends checking its compatibility list, and restrictions remain around some features such as M.2 storage pools.

You can read Synology’s current drive compatibility policy here.

I still prefer completely open hardware, but this makes the DS925+ considerably easier to recommend.

Best Hardware for the Money: UGREEN NASync DXP4800 Plus

The UGREEN NASync DXP4800 Plus is the NAS that makes the Synology hardware look conservative.

It has:

  • Four SATA drive bays
  • Intel Pentium Gold 8505 processor with five cores and six threads
  • 8GB DDR5 RAM, expandable to 64GB
  • One 10GbE Ethernet port
  • One 2.5GbE Ethernet port
  • Two M.2 NVMe slots
  • HDMI output
  • Intel Quick Sync support for compatible hardware transcoding

That is a remarkable amount of hardware for a four-bay NAS.

The 10GbE port is especially interesting if you regularly move large files. I recently wrote about 2.5GbE versus 10GbE for a home network, and a NAS is one of the places where 10GbE can actually make sense. Large backups, video files and bulk transfers can use bandwidth that ordinary web browsing never will.

You still need the rest of the network to keep up. A 10GbE port on a NAS does not magically make a gigabit switch or a slow hard drive ten times faster.

UGREEN also officially supports third-party drives from manufacturers including Western Digital, Seagate and Toshiba.

The tradeoff is software.

UGREEN has put substantial development into UGOS Pro, but Synology has been building DSM for a long time. If I were buying a NAS primarily because I wanted the most polished turnkey storage experience, I would still lean Synology.

If I were looking at the specifications and thinking about Docker, media serving, 10GbE and other home-lab uses, the DXP4800 Plus becomes extremely appealing.

I would buy it for: a technically comfortable home user who wants stronger hardware and 10GbE without building an entire NAS.

I would skip it for: someone whose highest priority is having the longest-established NAS software ecosystem.

Check the UGREEN DXP4800 Plus on Amazon

Best Power-User 4-Bay NAS: TerraMaster F4-425 Pro

The TerraMaster F4-425 Pro may be the most interesting hardware configuration in this group.

The N350 version comes with:

  • Intel N350 eight-core processor
  • 16GB RAM
  • Four SATA drive bays
  • Three M.2 NVMe slots
  • Two 5GbE Ethernet ports
  • Hardware 4K transcoding support
  • HDMI output

Three NVMe slots in a four-bay NAS is unusually generous. So is shipping it with 16GB of memory.

The dual 5GbE ports are also an interesting compromise. Most houses do not have 10GbE everywhere, and 5GbE can provide considerably more bandwidth than 2.5GbE without pushing every component toward 10GbE.

TerraMaster runs its TOS operating system. TOS 7 has continued to add backup, security and application features, and the hardware provides enough resources for Docker and media workloads.

Again, my hesitation compared with Synology is not the box. It is whether I value the extra hardware more than Synology’s software ecosystem.

I would buy it for: someone who wants a prebuilt enclosure but thinks like a home-lab user.

I would skip it for: someone who wants the simplest possible NAS experience and does not care about 5GbE, extra RAM or multiple NVMe slots.

Check the TerraMaster F4-425 Pro on Amazon

Best Simple 2-Bay NAS: Synology DS225+

Some people do not need four drives.

If the goal is a central place for photos, documents, computer backups and a modest media collection, the Synology DS225+ is much easier to justify.

It has two drive bays, an Intel Celeron J4125 processor, 2GB of memory, one 2.5GbE port and one 1GbE port.

For a two-drive NAS, the obvious configuration is usually a mirror: two drives containing the same data. If one fails, the other remains.

The downside is capacity efficiency. Two 4TB drives mirrored together give you approximately one drive’s worth of usable capacity rather than 8TB of protected storage.

That is the price of redundancy.

If you already think you will eventually need more than one mirrored pair, I would spend the money on four bays at the beginning. Replacing the entire NAS later is usually more annoying than buying a little extra room today.

I would buy it for: backups, photos, documents and ordinary home storage where two bays are enough.

I would skip it for: anyone who is already thinking about a large Plex library, several users, surveillance storage or substantial future expansion.

Check the Synology DS225+ diskless on Amazon

Should You Buy a NAS With the Drives Already Installed?

Amazon also sells some of these systems bundled with drives.

That can be appealing. If part of the reason you are buying a Synology is that you do not want to build your own NAS, having someone else choose the drives is consistent with that goal.

But I would compare the numbers before clicking Buy, especially now with the price of hard drives having gone up in recent years.

For example, we found a DS925+ bundle with four 12TB Seagate IronWolf drives. That gives you 48TB of raw disk capacity without separately shopping for four drives.

A four-drive RAID configuration will not give you all 48TB as usable protected storage. With one drive’s capacity devoted to parity, you are looking at roughly 36TB before filesystem and formatting overhead. Using two-drive fault tolerance reduces usable capacity further.

The alternative is straightforward:

  1. Buy the DS925+ diskless.
  2. Buy four NAS hard drives yourself.
  3. Compare the combined price with the preloaded bundle.

Installing hard drives in a NAS is not much of a build. You slide the drives into the trays, install them and let the NAS initialize the array.

So I would happily buy a preloaded bundle if the premium were small. I would not pay a huge premium merely to avoid putting four drives into four trays.

There is also a DS225+ bundle with two 4TB IronWolf drives for someone who wants a smaller ready-to-go system.

Which Hard Drives Would I Buy?

I would use NAS-rated CMR hard drives for the main storage array.

Two current choices I would consider are WD Red Plus and Seagate IronWolf Pro.

WD Red Plus 12TB: My Home NAS Choice

The WD Red Plus 12TB is the drive I would start with for an ordinary home NAS.

WD Red Plus drives use CMR recording and are designed specifically for RAID-equipped NAS systems. The line carries a three-year limited warranty.

Check the WD Red Plus 12TB on Amazon

Seagate IronWolf Pro 12TB: The Step-Up Drive

The Seagate IronWolf Pro 12TB is a higher-end option.

The ST12000NE0008 is a 7200RPM NAS drive with a five-year limited warranty. Seagate also includes its Rescue Data Recovery Services with the IronWolf Pro line.

For a normal household NAS, I would compare the current price against WD Red Plus before paying extra. For heavier workloads or where the longer warranty has value, the Pro is easier to justify.

Check the IronWolf Pro 12TB on Amazon

When Four Bays Aren’t Enough

Four bays are enough for a lot of households, including mine for many years.

If you already know you need more, buy the larger enclosure now. I went with 5 bays and am now looking to expand.

UGREEN’s DXP8800 Plus provides eight SATA bays, two M.2 NVMe slots, an Intel Core i5-1235U processor and dual 10GbE Ethernet ports.

That is the one I would look at for a serious home media archive, content-creation storage or a home lab where four drives already feel restrictive.

Check the UGREEN DXP8800 Plus on Amazon

And then there are systems like the TerraMaster T12-500 Pro.

This is a 12-bay NAS with an Intel Core i7-1255U, 16GB DDR5 memory, two 10GbE ports and two M.2 NVMe slots.

It is impressive hardware. It is also far beyond what I would recommend to someone who simply wants family backups and a photo library.

If you need twelve drives, you probably already know why.

Should You Build Your Own NAS?

I did.

I have built storage servers before, used commercial NAS products and eventually returned to a homebuilt system. My current machine runs TrueNAS on low-power Intel hardware.

I like the flexibility.

If the motherboard dies, I can replace it. If I want faster networking, I can change it. If I want more RAM, a different case or another operating system, I am not limited by what a NAS vendor decided to expose.

TrueNAS also gives me ZFS, snapshots and a storage-first operating system that fits how I want the machine to behave.

I wrote about that decision in TrueNAS vs. Unraid vs. OpenMediaVault.

There is a cost to all that freedom: your time.

If you enjoy choosing motherboards, SATA controllers, cases, power supplies and software, building a NAS can be rewarding.

If your real objective is to back up your family photos and stop worrying about storage, buying a Synology makes a great deal of sense.

Build your own if:

  • You enjoy maintaining hardware
  • You want complete control over the operating system
  • You need unusual drive or networking configurations
  • You want to reuse existing hardware
  • You care about avoiding vendor lock-in

Buy a prebuilt NAS if:

  • You want one company responsible for the hardware and operating system
  • You value simple updates and administration
  • You want storage to disappear into the background
  • You have better things to do than troubleshoot a storage server on Sunday afternoon

If you want to see how I got here, start with my Building My NAS series.

How Many NAS Bays Do You Need?

This may be the most important purchasing decision.

Two Bays

Best for simple household storage, backups and smaller photo or media collections.

A mirrored two-drive configuration is easy to understand, but expansion is limited. When you need more capacity, you usually replace the drives with larger ones.

Four Bays

This is where I would start for most serious home NAS purchases.

You get much better choices around redundancy, capacity and expansion without turning the NAS into a giant machine.

The DS925+, DXP4800 Plus and F4-425 Pro all live here for a reason.

Eight Bays

An eight-bay unit makes sense if you have a large media collection, video-production files, extensive backups or already know four drives will not be enough.

The DXP8800 Plus is the step-up option in this guide.

Twelve Bays

This is specialized territory for a home user. If you can explain exactly what you are going to put on twelve hard drives, great. Otherwise, I would rather buy fewer larger drives in a smaller NAS.

RAID Is Not a Backup

This is worth repeating every time I write about storage.

A RAID array can protect you from a hard-drive failure. It does not protect you from everything else.

If you accidentally delete a folder, ransomware encrypts your files, the NAS is stolen, the house floods or something destroys the entire machine, having another copy of the data matters much more than how clever your RAID configuration was.

I use redundant backups rather than trusting the primary NAS as the only copy.

I have even experimented with refurbished enterprise hard drives for secondary backup systems. I am more comfortable taking that risk on an additional redundant copy than on the primary storage array.

For anything you genuinely care about, I would aim for multiple copies with at least one copy physically separate from the NAS.

Don’t Forget the UPS

A NAS is one of the devices I care most about shutting down cleanly.

I have experienced an unsafe shutdown during a power outage, and I have also had a UPS battery fail when I expected it to protect my equipment.

That is why I would budget for a UPS as part of the NAS purchase rather than as an optional accessory sometime later.

If the NAS lives with your router, switches, PoE cameras and other network equipment, see my guide to the best UPS for a home network closet, NAS and PoE equipment.

If you are only protecting a smaller networking configuration, I also have a guide to the best UPS for a router and modem.

What NAS Would I Buy Today?

If I were buying for a family member who wanted a NAS and did not want a new hobby, I would buy the Synology DS925+.

Four bays provide enough flexibility for most homes, DSM is mature, 2.5GbE is appropriate for a modern home network, and Synology’s decision to restore broader third-party hard-drive support removed one of my biggest objections.

Check the DS925+ diskless on Amazon

If I were buying for myself and wanted a prebuilt unit, the decision becomes harder.

The UGREEN DXP4800 Plus gives me 10GbE, more RAM and an Intel processor with Quick Sync.

The TerraMaster F4-425 Pro goes further with 16GB of memory, dual 5GbE and three NVMe slots.

Both tempt me because I like hardware.

And then I remember why I built my own NAS in the first place.

For most people, though, that last sentence is probably a warning rather than a recommendation.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best NAS for home use in 2026?

For most people, I would choose the Synology DS925+. It provides four drive bays, dual 2.5GbE networking and Synology’s mature DSM software. Buyers who prioritize hardware specifications should also consider the UGREEN DXP4800 Plus and TerraMaster F4-425 Pro.

Is a 2-bay or 4-bay NAS better?

A two-bay NAS is sufficient for basic backups and storage. A four-bay NAS gives you much more flexibility for redundancy, capacity and future expansion. If you expect your storage needs to grow, I would start with four bays.

Is Synology still worth buying?

Yes. Synology hardware is often less aggressive than competing systems from UGREEN and TerraMaster, but DSM remains a major reason to buy a Synology NAS. DSM 7.3 also restored support for creating storage pools with many non-validated third-party hard drives on 2025 DiskStation models.

Is UGREEN NAS better than Synology?

UGREEN currently offers stronger hardware specifications at several price points, particularly around processors, memory and networking. Synology’s advantage is its mature DSM software ecosystem. Which is better depends on whether you value hardware capability or a more established turnkey NAS platform.

Should I build a TrueNAS server instead of buying a NAS?

Build a TrueNAS server if you want control over the hardware and software and are comfortable maintaining it yourself. Buy a prebuilt NAS if you want a simpler appliance with one vendor responsible for the platform. Even people who are capable of building and maintaining a server may opt to let someone else handle those details.

How much storage do I need in a home NAS?

Estimate how much data you have today, include the devices you plan to back up, then leave substantial room for growth. Remember that RAID redundancy reduces usable capacity. Four 12TB drives do not normally provide 48TB of protected usable storage.

Do I need NAS-specific hard drives?

I prefer NAS-rated CMR drives for a primary NAS because they are designed for continuous operation in multi-drive enclosures. WD Red Plus and Seagate IronWolf Pro are two current examples.

Published on August 16, 2026
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The Great Migration: When Moving Day Comes Around for Your Server

In New York City, from colonial times to the mid-20th century, May 1st was “Moving Day”, when the majority of leases in the city would expire and much of the city would pick up and move.

Every few years, it is time to update my servers. While servers require regular bug fixes, every few years, it is time to clean out the cruft. Just as people move because of changes in conditions and for new opportunities, the neighborhood that is the internet has become a noisier dirtier place.

Why Your Server Needs a New Neighborhood

The world changes so much in between major upgrades. Now we have AI bots scraping the internet, hammering websites and using up resources, requiring new solutions. We didn’t need a heavy deadbolt to keep the bots out, a simple lock would do. Moving isn’t just about a new view; it’s about surviving the new climate of the web.

I could just fix things that are worn, sometimes you just need complete replacement. Even with the same specs, this ensures a clean start, and a better server.

When it comes to home servers, moves usually happen when I am upgrading the hardware. But when it comes to my VPSes, which are hosted online, I tend to build a new server, migrate to it, and then shut down the old one. It also allows me to reexamine and refresh myself on things that may have developed in the interim. Review new software options, new features, configuration settings.

So, how do you go about this.

Packing Your Digital Boxes: The Audit Before the Move

  • Inventory the services you have.  Docker containers, databases, servers. It is not just the services, but what they are used for.
  • Toss out the junk you don’t need anymore…old software that isn’t active, cron jobs that don’t need to run.

Security and Monitoring: The Modern Dilemma of Convenience vs. Control

In the modern world, security gets harder and harder for the average person. There is a reason why people are turning to companies like Cloudflare to handle it for them. Cloudflare does offer a generous free plan, but it adds a dependency not under your control, and a free plan can so easily turn into a paid trap. Even though my firewall has held for many years, it lacks more modern tools to help me manage it, as I still do everything in a text window. For the same reason that people use Cloudflare, I don’t always have the time to get down into the code, and need the ability to do quick monitoring on the go.

When a Total Rebuild is the Only Cure

This is a great time to review new operating systems, new servers, and if sticking with the same, new configurations. If you never rebuild anything, you also forget how your system works.

In the end, you will have a brand new server, ready to face new challenges and you’ll be set for a few years. And as I work on this, I will be commenting on some of those tools.

 

Published on May 6, 2026
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Portable travel router next to a laptop and phone in a hotel room, illustrating the best travel router for hotel Wi-Fi in 2026
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Best Travel Router for Hotel Wi-Fi in 2026

There are many reasons to use a travel router when on the go. For example, protecting yourself from malicious actors on hotel wifi. As I write this, I am in an extended stay at a foreign hotel. The hotel TV has built in YouTube and streaming, and on three occasions so far, the TV has been taken over by people in other rooms apparently by accident.

At minimum, a travel router isolates your devices from the other people on the hotel wifi. But it can do so much more. It can allow you to add a streaming device to the TV, as many cannot navigate the captive portal. Many can support a connected USB drive to act as a simple media server to stream to the device you connect to your TV.

Finally, your device can act as a VPN gateway for your devices, something I am doing with my travel router as we speak. Every web request is running through my VPN server in my apartment. My current preference has been the GL.iNet line of travel routers. They run a variant of an open firmware and have general been reliable. I have had several.

Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Product links may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.

Quick answer: For most travelers, I would start with the GL.iNet Beryl AX. It is small, modern, fast enough for normal hotel Wi-Fi, and usually the easiest recommendation if you are buying today. If you already own the GL.iNet Slate Plus, I would keep using it unless you need more speed. If you want the premium model and do not mind paying more, the GL.iNet Slate 7 is the one to compare.

Quick Picks: Best Travel Routers for Hotel Wi-Fi

Use case Best pick Why I’d choose it Check price
Best for most travelers GL.iNet Beryl AX Modern Wi-Fi 6, compact size, strong travel-router feature set, and better value than chasing the newest model for hotel Wi-Fi. Check price
Best proven older model GL.iNet Slate Plus The model I have used while traveling. Still a practical pick if the price is right and you do not need Wi-Fi 6. Check price
Best faster Slate option GL.iNet Slate AX A stronger Slate-series router with Wi-Fi 6 and more performance headroom. Check price
Best premium option GL.iNet Slate 7 The premium pick if you specifically want Wi-Fi 7, dual 2.5G ports, USB-C power, and the touchscreen. Check price

 

Best Travel Router for Most People: GL.iNet Beryl AX

The GL.iNet Beryl AX is the travel router I would look at first if I were buying today. It is small, modern, and more than enough for the normal travel-router jobs: isolating your devices from the rest of the hotel network, sharing a VPN connection, connecting a streaming stick, and avoiding the hassle of signing every device into a captive portal.

Buy this if: you want one compact travel router that should handle most hotel Wi-Fi, rental-house, and temporary work setups without spending for the newest premium model.

Skip it if: you specifically want the Slate line’s Ethernet layout or the premium features on the Slate 7.

Check the latest price on Amazon

Best Proven Older Model: GL.iNet Slate Plus

The GL.iNet Slate Plus is the travel router I have actually been using on the road. That counts for something. Travel routers are not only about wireless specs. They need to handle weird hotel Wi-Fi, captive portals, VPN connections, streaming devices, and temporary work setups without turning every hotel stay into a networking project.

Buy this if: you want a proven GL.iNet travel router and find it at a good price.

Skip it if: the Beryl AX is close in price. At that point, I would usually buy the newer model.

Check the latest price on Amazon

Best Faster Slate Option: GL.iNet Slate AX

The GL.iNet Slate AX is the better fit if you like the Slate line but want more performance. It gives you more headroom than the Slate Plus, which may be useful if you travel with several devices, share a VPN connection, or use the router in temporary work setups where reliability matters.

Buy this if: you want a stronger Slate-series router and do not mind paying more than the basic travel-router options.

Skip it if: your main use is occasional hotel Wi-Fi and the Beryl AX is cheaper.

Check the latest price on Amazon

Best Premium Travel Router: GL.iNet Slate 7

The GL.iNet Slate 7 is the premium option. It adds newer hardware, faster networking features, USB-C power, and a touchscreen. Those are useful upgrades, but they are not automatically necessary in a hotel room. In many hotels, the internet connection itself will be the bottleneck before the router is.

Buy this if: you specifically want the newer hardware, 2.5G ports, and the touchscreen.

Skip it if: you mainly want a simple travel router for hotel Wi-Fi. The Beryl AX or Slate Plus will usually be the better value.

Check the latest price on Amazon

Which GL.iNet Travel Router Should You Choose?

If I were buying today, I would start with the Beryl AX. It is the easiest recommendation for most people because it gives you a modern travel router without paying for premium features that many hotel Wi-Fi setups cannot really use.

  • Most travelers: Beryl AX
  • Already own a Slate Plus: keep using it unless it is limiting you
  • Want a faster Slate: Slate AX
  • Want the premium model: Slate 7

Do You Need Wi-Fi 7 or 2.5G Ethernet in a Travel Router?

Usually, no. Wi-Fi 7 and 2.5G Ethernet are useful features, but they are rarely the thing holding you back in a hotel. The hotel’s internet connection, captive portal, room location, and shared network load usually matter more than the router’s maximum theoretical speed.

That is why I would not automatically buy the most expensive travel router. For most people, reliability, VPN support, captive-portal handling, size, and power are more important than chasing the newest Wi-Fi number.

Why I Started Traveling With a Router

I started carrying a travel router because hotel Wi-Fi is often awkward in exactly the ways that matter: captive portals, streaming devices that cannot log in easily, devices exposed on the same network as other guests, and VPN setups that become annoying when every device has to be configured separately.

On my current trip, I have been using the GL.iNet Slate Plus. It still works, which is why I do not think every traveler needs to chase the newest model. But if I were buying today, I would start with the Beryl AX unless I specifically wanted the Slate 7’s newer hardware and touchscreen.

My Pick For Best Travel Router

If I were buying one travel router today, I would start with the GL.iNet Beryl AX. It is the best balance of size, features, maturity, and price for most travelers. I would only move up to the Slate 7 if I specifically wanted the screen, Wi-Fi 7, or 2.5G Ethernet ports.

Related Travel Tech

A travel router pairs well with a compact keyboard, a USB-C charger, and a small power strip. See my guide to the best travel keyboards if you are building a portable work setup.

Published on November 27, 2025
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Illustration of a person monitoring POE security cameras using Frigate NVR software on a computer, with outdoor cameras mounted on a house and detection alerts shown on screen.
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POE Cameras and Frigate NVR: Why I Switched to Local Home Surveillance

During my recent renovation, I added two additional cameras to my new space, at the two points of ingress. This was something of a departure as these were also the first Power Over Ethernet(POE) cameras I’ve had installed, as I had someone on-site available who could run the cables cleanly.

I’ve tried a variety of ecosystems for cameras, both for myself and others. Many of them push you toward subscription-based cloud services, which features like video history, motion detection, and notifications only work fully if you pay monthly. Some of them barely provide any features without paying, despite the fact you bought the device.  Even when offering local options, this is often storage with a microSD card in the camera, which is clunky, slow, and unreliable.

That is why I decided to go with a network video recorder. A server that takes the feeds from all the cameras and stores the recordings. You can buy commercial NVRs you can purchase and install in your house, including some that integrate with the specific hardware cameras you bought, but I wanted a solution that aligned with my philosophy of self-hosted, privacy first smart home tech.

So I chose Frigate.

Quick Answer: Why Use POE Cameras With Frigate?

POE cameras and Frigate make sense if you want a local home-surveillance system that does not depend on a cloud subscription. Power Over Ethernet cameras are more reliable than Wi-Fi cameras, and Frigate can record video, detect people, cars, animals, and other objects, and let you tune alerts around the parts of your property you actually care about.

Choice Why It Matters
POE cameras More reliable than Wi-Fi cameras and powered through the network cable
Frigate NVR Local recording and object detection without relying on a cloud camera plan
Detection zones Reduce false alerts from sidewalks, streets, neighbors, or passing cars
Self-hosted storage Keeps recordings under your control instead of inside a camera company’s subscription
Frigate+ Optional model improvements without turning the whole system into a traditional cloud lock-in product

Why Frigate?

Frigate is an open-source NVR designed for real-time object detection all running on local hardware. It is deeply customizable and can be tuned to only record what matters to you – people, cars, or animals, depending on what zones and filters you decide.

For example, one of my outdoor cameras flagged every pedestrian across the street, which is well outside of the zone I am concerned about. I can narrow the zone to only my property, to dramatically reduce noise in footage and alerts.

Frigate recently added:

  • facial recognition
  • license plate recognition.
  • View-only user roles for shared access

Everything is processed locally, with no cloud dependency.

Frigate+: Smarter Detection, Optional Subscription

To improve detection, you can also subscribe to Frigate+, a $50/year subscription which offers better trained models for detection. These are trained by other users of Frigate. You can participate by submitting false positives and other information voluntarily. If you cancel, you get to keep the downloaded models, you just stop getting updates.

This helps support the developers and doesn’t lock you into a traditional subscription model.

Frigate Notifications

One gap in the core Frigate setup is the lack of built-in robust multi-platform notifications. That’s where another piece of software, Frigate-Notify, comes in. It offers all of the notification options I might want.

  • Rich notifications
  • Cross-platform delivery including mobile, desktop, and messaging apps
  • Fully customizable

Next Steps For My Frigate NVR

Inspired by how well the new system is performing, I plan to replace more of my older Wi-Fi cameras with wired POE models for improved reliability. Wired cameras streaming directly to my NVR reduces lag, improves reliability, and gives me full control over recording, storage, and alerts—without the cloud.

If you’re tired of cloud lock-in and unreliable Wi-Fi cams, and you want a privacy-respecting, smarter surveillance system, Frigate + POE may be the combo you’ve been looking for.

 

Published on September 8, 2025
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Home NAS server with drive bays and network cables, illustrating TrueNAS vs Unraid vs OpenMediaVault NAS software
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Best NAS Software for Home Use in 2026: TrueNAS vs Unraid vs OpenMediaVault

I originally wrote this article in 2024 while deciding what software to use for a home-built NAS. The basic question has not changed, but the software has.

TrueNAS has consolidated its Linux-based platform under the name TrueNAS Community Edition. Unraid has added much more ZFS support and changed its licensing. OpenMediaVault has moved to Debian 13 with OpenMediaVault 8.

My own answer has not changed very much.

My current NAS runs TrueNAS on a low-power Intel N100 system. I chose it because I wanted the NAS to behave primarily like a storage appliance. I have other computers for applications, containers and general home-server work. I want the box containing my files to be boring.

But that does not mean TrueNAS is automatically the best NAS software for everyone.

If I were building a home server around a collection of mismatched hard drives and wanted Plex, Docker containers and virtual machines on the same machine, I would look very seriously at Unraid. If I wanted a lightweight, completely free NAS operating system for modest hardware, OpenMediaVault would be hard to ignore.

Here is how I would choose between them in 2026.

Quick Answer: Best NAS Software for Home Use in 2026

NAS Software Best For Biggest Advantage Main Tradeoff
TrueNAS Community Edition Storage-first NAS, ZFS, snapshots and data integrity Excellent integrated ZFS storage platform Storage layout requires more planning
Unraid Home servers, mixed drive sizes, Plex, Docker and easy expansion Very flexible storage and application platform Costs money and its classic array works differently from traditional RAID
OpenMediaVault Free lightweight NAS, older hardware and Linux users Simple Debian-based foundation with low overhead More dependent on plugins and manual configuration for advanced features

If you want my short recommendation:

  • Choose TrueNAS if protecting and managing storage is the primary purpose of the machine.
  • Choose Unraid if you want one box to be both your NAS and your home server.
  • Choose OpenMediaVault if you want a free, lighter-weight NAS platform and are comfortable doing a little more yourself.

The Most Important Question: Is This a NAS or a Home Server?

A lot of NAS software comparisons start with features.

I would start somewhere else.

Decide what job you want the computer to have.

A dedicated NAS has a relatively simple job:

  • Store files
  • Share files over the network
  • Protect those files against a drive failure
  • Create snapshots
  • Monitor drive health
  • Replicate or back up important data
  • Stay running quietly for years

A home server may also run:

  • Plex or Jellyfin
  • Home Assistant
  • Immich
  • Nextcloud
  • Docker containers
  • Virtual machines
  • Game servers
  • Download clients
  • Web services
  • Dozens of other self-hosted applications

TrueNAS, Unraid and OpenMediaVault can all stretch beyond simple file storage.

But they approach the problem from different directions.

TrueNAS feels like storage software that learned how to run applications.

Unraid feels like a home-server platform that is also very good at storing files.

OpenMediaVault feels like Debian turned into a manageable NAS appliance.

That is a more useful way to think about the choice than counting checkboxes.

TrueNAS Community Edition: Best for a Storage-First NAS

TrueNAS is still my choice for my primary home NAS.

The main reason is ZFS.

ZFS combines the filesystem and volume-management layers and provides features that are particularly attractive for storage:

  • End-to-end checksums
  • Snapshots
  • Data scrubbing
  • Replication
  • Compression
  • RAIDZ redundancy
  • Mirrored pools
  • Dataset-level management

For a box whose main job is protecting a large collection of files, those are exactly the features I want.

TrueNAS CORE vs. SCALE Is No Longer the Decision

This was one of the biggest areas of confusion when I first wrote this article.

TrueNAS used to have two major community platforms:

  • TrueNAS CORE, based on FreeBSD
  • TrueNAS SCALE, based on Linux

That is no longer the way I would approach a new installation.

TrueNAS SCALE was renamed TrueNAS Community Edition in 2025 and is now the company’s primary free community platform.

TrueNAS CORE entered sustaining engineering, and TrueNAS says 13.3-U1.2 was the final release in that train. New development is happening on Community Edition.

If I were installing TrueNAS from scratch in 2026, I would use Community Edition rather than begin a new CORE system.

At the time of this update, TrueNAS 25.10 is the current stable release family, while TrueNAS 26 is still moving through beta development. You can check the current TrueNAS software status before installing.

TrueNAS Is More Flexible to Expand Than It Used to Be

One of the longstanding criticisms of ZFS was that you needed to plan your storage layout carefully before filling the pool.

That criticism is less severe than it once was.

TrueNAS now supports RAIDZ expansion, which allows an existing RAIDZ vdev to be expanded by adding drives one at a time.

That is a significant improvement for home NAS builders who do not want to buy every drive on day one.

There are still reasons to plan carefully. The capacity of drives inside a vdev, parity level and layout all affect usable capacity and performance. Adding a drive to RAIDZ also does not make every historical block magically identical to a freshly created larger vdev.

But the old advice that a RAIDZ configuration is essentially frozen forever is outdated.

TrueNAS Hardware Requirements

TrueNAS is not particularly demanding by modern computer standards, but it is heavier than a bare-bones Linux NAS.

The current minimum recommendations include:

  • 64-bit x86 processor
  • At least 8GB of RAM
  • A dedicated boot device
  • Separate drives for the storage pool

More RAM becomes useful as storage, applications, virtual machines and client workloads increase.

My N100-based NAS is a good example of why I like building rather than automatically buying a commercial appliance. Modern low-power CPUs can provide plenty of performance for ordinary home file serving while using very little electricity.

If you would rather buy the whole box instead of building one, see our guide to the best NAS systems for home use in 2026.

You Can Run Apps on TrueNAS

TrueNAS is no longer merely a file server.

Community Edition can run applications and virtual machines, and the platform continues to expand its container capabilities.

You can absolutely use one TrueNAS machine as both your storage system and a broader home server.

I simply prefer not to.

Every extra service I put on the storage machine creates another dependency, another update and another thing that can break.

I would rather reboot a home-server machine without thinking about every computer in the house suddenly losing its file shares.

That is a preference, not a requirement.

What I Like About TrueNAS

  • Excellent ZFS integration
  • Strong snapshot and replication tools
  • Free and open source Community Edition
  • Good storage monitoring
  • RAIDZ and mirrored storage layouts
  • RAIDZ can now be expanded incrementally
  • Apps and virtual machines are available if you want them
  • Large user and documentation base

What I Don’t Like About TrueNAS

  • You should understand ZFS and vdev layout before creating the pool.
  • It is heavier than a minimal NAS operating system.
  • Mixing random drive sizes is less elegant than it is with Unraid’s classic array.
  • The number of storage options can be intimidating for a first-time builder.
  • It can tempt you to turn a storage appliance into an everything-server simply because the features are available.

Unraid: Best for Flexible Home Servers and Mixed Drives

Unraid solves a different problem extremely well.

Suppose you already own:

  • One 16TB hard drive
  • Two 12TB drives
  • An 8TB drive
  • A couple of SSDs

And you would like to turn all of that into one useful server without replacing the drives simply to make everything match.

That is exactly the kind of situation where Unraid becomes attractive.

How the Unraid Array Works

Unraid’s traditional array does not stripe every file across all of the disks in the way conventional RAID does.

Files live on individual data disks, while one or two parity disks can protect the array against drive failures.

The parity drive must be at least as large as the largest data drive, but the data disks themselves can differ in size.

That makes expansion unusually convenient.

If you need more capacity, you can often add another disk rather than rebuilding the entire storage layout around a matching set.

For a home user accumulating storage over many years, that flexibility has real value.

Unraid Also Supports ZFS

The old shorthand that “TrueNAS is ZFS and Unraid isn’t” is no longer accurate.

Modern Unraid supports ZFS storage pools in addition to its classic parity-protected array and other storage pools.

That gives you choices.

You might use:

  • The Unraid array for large-capacity media storage
  • An SSD pool for applications and fast data
  • A ZFS pool for data where you specifically want ZFS features

That combination is one of the reasons Unraid has become such an interesting all-purpose home-server platform.

Unraid Is Especially Good at Applications

This is where I think Unraid has its clearest advantage for many homelab users.

Docker containers, virtual machines and the Community Apps ecosystem are central to the experience rather than feeling like features added around a storage appliance.

If you want one machine running:

  • Plex
  • Jellyfin
  • Immich
  • Nextcloud
  • Home Assistant
  • Download applications
  • Game servers
  • Windows or Linux virtual machines

while also holding a large collection of files, Unraid makes a lot of sense.

Unraid Pricing in 2026

Unlike TrueNAS Community Edition and OpenMediaVault, Unraid is commercial software.

Current pricing is:

License Price Storage Devices Updates Included
Starter $49 Up to 6 1 year
Unleashed $109 Unlimited 1 year
Lifetime $249 Unlimited Lifetime

The licenses themselves are perpetual. Starter and Unleashed include a year of updates; you can continue using the version you have after that or pay to extend update access.

Check Unraid’s current pricing before buying in case the structure changes.

For a server that may contain thousands of dollars of drives and years of your data, I do not consider $49 or $109 an inherently unreasonable software expense.

The question is whether Unraid’s flexibility provides enough value for your particular build.

What About Unraid 8?

Unraid announced Unraid 8 in August 2026, with planned changes including a new distribution base, Docker Compose integration and integrated backup features.

That is interesting, but I would not delay a NAS build or choose a platform based primarily on unreleased software.

Buy or install the platform based on what it does today.

What I Like About Unraid

  • Excellent support for mismatched drive sizes
  • Easy incremental expansion
  • Very good Docker and application experience
  • Strong community ecosystem
  • Virtual machines are well integrated
  • ZFS pools are now available alongside the classic Unraid array
  • Works particularly well as a combined NAS and home server

What I Don’t Like About Unraid

  • It is not free.
  • The classic Unraid array is a different storage model from RAIDZ or conventional RAID and should be understood before use.
  • Running every service on one machine can make that machine increasingly important and complicated.
  • Users who only want a storage appliance may never use much of what makes Unraid attractive.

OpenMediaVault: Best Free Lightweight NAS Software

OpenMediaVault is the option I think gets overlooked most often.

OpenMediaVault 8 is based on Debian 13 and provides a web interface for managing a NAS without requiring you to configure every service manually from the command line.

It supports ordinary NAS functions including:

  • SMB/CIFS file sharing
  • FTP
  • SSH
  • rsync
  • Drive health monitoring
  • Volume management
  • Network configuration
  • Notifications
  • Plugins

The result is something much closer to a conventional Linux server than TrueNAS, but much easier to administer as a NAS than installing Debian and building everything manually.

OpenMediaVault’s Biggest Advantage Is Simplicity

OpenMediaVault does not impose as much of a storage philosophy on you.

You have Debian underneath. You have a web interface on top. You can add the services you actually need.

That makes it useful for:

  • An old PC being repurposed as a NAS
  • A low-power small computer
  • A simple two-drive or four-drive file server
  • Users who already understand Linux
  • People who want free NAS software without adopting the full TrueNAS ecosystem

OpenMediaVault also has a large plugin ecosystem that can add functionality beyond the base installation.

The Tradeoff Is Integration

TrueNAS is built around ZFS.

Unraid is built around its storage array and home-server ecosystem.

OpenMediaVault is more modular.

That flexibility is useful, but it also means that some configurations depend on plugins, additional packages or more manual decisions.

If you want a carefully integrated ZFS appliance, I would choose TrueNAS.

If you want a deeply integrated Docker-heavy home server, I would lean toward Unraid.

If you want Debian with a good NAS management interface and the freedom to shape the machine yourself, OpenMediaVault becomes very appealing.

What I Like About OpenMediaVault

  • Free and open source
  • Based on standard Debian Linux
  • Lower hardware overhead
  • Web-based administration
  • Good choice for repurposed hardware
  • Modular plugin architecture
  • Easy to understand if you already know Linux

What I Don’t Like About OpenMediaVault

  • Advanced setups can rely heavily on plugins.
  • The storage experience is less unified than TrueNAS.
  • The application ecosystem is less central to the platform than it is with Unraid.
  • You may end up doing more Linux administration yourself.

TrueNAS vs. Unraid vs. OpenMediaVault: Feature Comparison

Feature TrueNAS Unraid OpenMediaVault
Software cost Free $49-$249 Free
Best storage model ZFS pools Parity array plus storage pools Flexible Linux storage
ZFS Core feature Supported Possible with additional configuration/plugins
Mixed-size drives Possible, but planning matters and each vdev is constrained by its smallest member Excellent in classic array Depends on chosen storage configuration
Easy drive-by-drive expansion Improved with RAIDZ expansion Excellent Depends on configuration
Snapshots Excellent with ZFS Available depending on storage pool/filesystem Depends on filesystem/plugin setup
Docker/apps Yes Excellent Available through additional components/plugins
Virtual machines Yes Excellent Not a primary strength
Minimum hardware Moderate Moderate Light
Best personality Storage appliance All-in-one home server Lightweight Linux NAS

Which NAS Software Is Best for Data Integrity?

I would choose TrueNAS.

ZFS is central to the platform rather than one filesystem option among many.

Checksums, scrubs, snapshots and replication are all integrated into how TrueNAS expects storage to be managed.

You can absolutely build safe storage with the other platforms. But if storage integrity is the reason the machine exists, TrueNAS is the easiest answer for me.

Which NAS Software Is Best for Plex?

I would probably choose Unraid if I were building a combined Plex server and NAS.

The combination of flexible drive expansion, Docker applications and hardware passthrough makes it particularly well suited to a large media server.

You can run Plex on TrueNAS too.

But if Plex and other self-hosted applications are central to the server rather than secondary functions, I think Unraid’s priorities line up better with the job.

Which NAS Software Is Best for Old Hardware?

I would look first at OpenMediaVault.

It is lighter and closer to ordinary Debian Linux.

TrueNAS officially recommends at least 8GB of RAM, while a simple OpenMediaVault system can be useful on much more modest hardware.

That does not mean every old PC is a good NAS.

Power consumption matters. A free twelve-year-old tower that idles at 80 watts can cost more to own than buying newer low-power hardware.

Which NAS Software Is Best If Your Drives Are Different Sizes?

Unraid has the clearest advantage.

The classic Unraid array was designed around exactly this problem.

You can add different-capacity data drives as long as the parity drive is large enough for the largest data disk.

If you have accumulated a pile of usable drives over the years and want to turn them into one system, Unraid can save a lot of money.

Which NAS Software Is Best If You Want to Add Drives Later?

Unraid remains the easiest answer, but TrueNAS is much more competitive than it was when I first wrote this article.

RAIDZ expansion now lets TrueNAS users add drives to an existing RAIDZ vdev one at a time.

That removes one of the biggest historical advantages Unraid had over ZFS for small home systems.

Unraid is still more forgiving if your future drives are likely to be whatever capacity happens to be cheap when you need more storage.

Should You Run Your NAS Inside Proxmox?

You can.

That does not necessarily mean you should.

Proxmox is primarily a virtualization platform rather than NAS software. A common homelab design is to run TrueNAS or another NAS operating system as a virtual machine under Proxmox.

If you do this, the storage controller or physical disks should be presented to the NAS in a way that gives the storage operating system appropriate direct access.

This can be an excellent design when you understand the virtualization and storage layers.

For my primary storage, I prefer fewer layers.

I want the NAS operating system running directly on the hardware because the ability to run another virtual machine on the same box is not worth making recovery more complicated for me.

Why Not Just Install Debian or Ubuntu?

You certainly can.

That is effectively what I did with some of my older home-server systems.

Install Linux, configure Samba, configure NFS, set up SMART monitoring, create filesystems, configure snapshots, configure notifications and maintain everything yourself.

It works.

It also made me appreciate NAS software.

The point of TrueNAS, Unraid or OpenMediaVault is not that Linux cannot share a directory.

The point is that I want storage management to behave like an appliance instead of becoming another custom Linux project I have to remember how I configured three years later.

What About Synology DSM, UGREEN UGOS and TerraMaster TOS?

Those are important NAS operating systems, but they are primarily part of buying their manufacturers’ NAS hardware rather than software I would normally install on a DIY server.

If you want the simplest home NAS experience, that may actually be the better route.

I would still recommend a prebuilt NAS to many friends before recommending that they build a server and install any of the software in this article.

Our 2026 home NAS buying guide compares Synology, UGREEN, TerraMaster and building your own.

Your Network Can Become the Bottleneck

Once you build a decent NAS, storage software is often no longer the thing limiting performance.

A single hard drive can already saturate a 1Gb Ethernet connection during large sequential transfers.

Modern SSD pools can go dramatically faster.

If you are building or upgrading a NAS, consider whether your network should move to 2.5GbE or 10GbE as well.

Our guide to 2.5GbE vs. 10GbE for a home network covers that decision.

Redundancy Is Still Not a Backup

Whichever NAS software you choose, RAID, RAIDZ and parity do not replace backups.

Redundancy can protect you when a drive fails.

It does not automatically protect you from:

  • Accidentally deleting a file
  • Ransomware
  • Filesystem mistakes
  • Software bugs
  • Theft
  • Fire
  • Flood
  • A major electrical event
  • Losing the entire NAS

Snapshots help with some of those problems. Replication helps with others.

Important data should still exist somewhere other than the primary NAS.

My Choice: TrueNAS, but for a Specific Reason

I still use TrueNAS.

My current system runs on an Intel N100 platform and primarily serves files.

I could load it with applications.

I don’t.

I have other systems for that.

I want the NAS to boot, make the storage available, monitor the drives and otherwise stay out of the way.

TrueNAS fits that philosophy extremely well.

If I instead wanted to consolidate my NAS, Plex server, Docker host and assorted homelab applications into one machine, I would be much more tempted by Unraid.

If I were turning an older low-power computer into an inexpensive two-drive file server, I might use OpenMediaVault.

There is no universal winner because these three platforms are trying to solve slightly different problems.

Frequently Asked Questions About NAS Software

What is the best NAS software for home use?

For a storage-first home NAS, I prefer TrueNAS Community Edition. Unraid is an excellent choice for a combined NAS and home server, especially if you have mixed drive sizes. OpenMediaVault is a strong free option for a lightweight Linux-based NAS.

Is TrueNAS better than Unraid?

It depends on the job. TrueNAS has an advantage if you specifically want a ZFS-focused storage appliance. Unraid is generally easier to expand with mismatched drives and has an especially strong home-server and application ecosystem.

Is Unraid worth paying for?

It can be. If Unraid allows you to reuse several mismatched drives, expand the server gradually and consolidate applications onto one machine, the license cost can be small compared with the hardware savings. If you only need basic file storage, a free platform may make more sense.

Is OpenMediaVault still good in 2026?

Yes. OpenMediaVault 8 is a current Debian 13-based NAS platform. It remains particularly attractive for lighter hardware, simple file servers and users who prefer a conventional Linux foundation.

Is TrueNAS CORE still recommended?

I would not start a new TrueNAS CORE installation in 2026. TrueNAS has moved new community development to the Linux-based TrueNAS Community Edition, formerly known as SCALE. CORE is now effectively a legacy branch.

Can TrueNAS use different-size hard drives?

Yes, but ZFS pool design matters. Within a vdev, usable capacity is constrained by the smallest drive, so matching drive sizes is usually more efficient. TrueNAS now supports expanding RAIDZ vdevs one drive at a time, which makes later growth easier than it used to be.

Does Unraid support ZFS?

Yes. Modern Unraid supports ZFS storage pools in addition to the traditional Unraid parity array and other filesystem options.

Do I need 10Gb Ethernet for a NAS?

No. 1GbE is adequate for ordinary file storage, backups and media streaming. 2.5GbE is an inexpensive and useful upgrade for many homes. 10GbE becomes more attractive for large transfers, multiple fast clients and SSD-heavy storage.

Can I use an old PC as a NAS?

Yes, assuming the hardware is reliable and has suitable storage connections. But check idle power consumption before assuming an old computer is the cheapest long-term choice.

Which NAS Software Would I Choose in 2026?

If I were starting again today:

  • TrueNAS Community Edition for a serious storage appliance
  • Unraid for an all-in-one home server with flexible drives
  • OpenMediaVault for a lightweight free NAS or inexpensive repurposed system

I chose TrueNAS because I wanted my storage to be storage.

Someone building a large Plex server from a pile of mismatched disks could make an equally rational choice and end up with Unraid.

And someone who wants little more than a reliable SMB share on modest hardware may find that OpenMediaVault is all the NAS operating system they need.

The software should follow the job you want the server to do.

Published on May 31, 2024
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Monitoring with Uptime Kuma

Earlier today, the server that hosts Gadget Wisdom was down for ten minutes. This happens every so often, and the server is due for replacement one of these days as the oldest one I have. But one of the problems I have is that local monitoring is…well, local. You shouldn’t run your monitoring solely on the server you are monitoring. You need something external as well.

So, enter Uptime Kuma. Uptime Kuma came onto the scene two years ago, as a self-hosted version of something like UptimeRobot(which does offer a free tier). There are other self-hosted products as well, but I was able to get this running in a short period of time and it provides exactly what I want, and it looks like it has an active development team.

So, what features does Uptime Kuma offer?

  • Dozens of notification methods to configure….email, messaging, SMS, etc.
  • HTTP, ping, as well as server specific monitoring.
  • Useful Stats and Graphs
  • Optional Public Status Pages

So, now, I’m waiting for my next downtime, to see how exactly this works in production, but just having the ability to remotely monitor and get notifications is another tool in my monitoring arsenal.

Published on December 26, 2023
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Multiple Vulnerabilities found in Wink and Insteon Systems

Rapid 7 reported that they detected major vulnerabilities in the Wink and Insteon Smart Hub systems.

This is of particular concern to me as a Wink hub user. The Wink Android app was storing sensitive information insecurely, which has now been patched.

The other vulnerability is apparently being fixed. The Wink API does not revoke authentication tokens when you log out, and new tokens do not invalidate the use of old tokens.

I’ve long been concerned about the long term health of Wink. It’s been with two different owners and it is hard to understand where it might go. And hubs in general might go away in favor of wifi or bluetooth as a standard over things like zigbee and z-wave.

But the fact they fixed these issues at least suggests that they plan to move forward.

Published on September 28, 2017
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Mozilla-supported Let’s Encrypt goes out of Beta

Mozilla-supported Let’s Encrypt goes out of Beta (The Mozilla Blog)

In 2014, Mozilla teamed up with Akamai, Cisco, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Identrust, and the University of Michigan to found Let’s Encrypt  in order to …

Published on April 17, 2016
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Let’s Build a Server: Part 2 – Monitoring

Monit

Last time, in Part 1, we discussed setting up a firewall and an email relay so notifications from the firewall could get to us.

Now, in Part 2, we’re going to talk about more signal. Server monitoring and alerting. Our primary software for monitoring is Monit.

Monit has a single configuration file, but many distributions, including mine, set up a /etc/monit.d folder so you can divide your monit configuration into different files.

Once it is running, you can monitor its status by running
monit status
It will show the status of whatever is monitoring. There is also an optional web component, if you want to check status in a web browser.

What can you monitor?

Monit can monitor any program and restart it if it crashes.
check process nginx with pidfile /var/run/nginx.pid
start program = "/bin/systemctl start nginx.service"
stop program = "/bin/systemctl stop nginx.service"
if failed host 127.0.0.1 port 80
protocol http then restart
if 5 restarts within 5 cycles then timeout

As you can see, the simple scripting language allows you to not only restart, execute programs, but alert the user.

Not only can it make sure something is running, but it can monitor its resource usage, as well as system resource usage. It can monitor processes, network connections, programs and scripts, files, directories, etc.

An Alternative to Email Alerts

The default for an alert is to send an alert email, but for bigger emergencies, a phone push notification is also useful.

Monit provides a simple instruction on how to set it up for Pushover. There is also the alternative of PushBullet.

Pushover costs $5 per platform(Android, iOS, Desktop) to use on as many devices as you want. There is a per application limit of 7,500 messages per month. Pushbullet is, by comparison, free. The basic difference as I see it is that Pushbullet is more geared toward the consumer, and Pushover is more geared toward developers in how it was initially set up. They do have similar feature sets though.

Here is Monit’s suggested Pushover script, which can be run instead of an email alert.

/usr/bin/curl -s
-F "token=your_mmonit_or_monit_app_token"
-F "user=your_pushover_net_user_token"
-F "message=[$MONIT_HOST] $MONIT_SERVICE - $MONIT_DESCRIPTION"
https://api.pushover.net/1/messages.json

Here is an alternative version for Pushbullet

curl -u <your_access_token_here>: -X POST https://api.pushbullet.com/v2/pushes --header 'Content-Type: application/json' --data-binary '{"type": "note", "title": "$MONIT_HOST", "body": "$MONIT_SERVICE - $MONIT_DESCRIPTION"}'

Conclusion

In all cases, monit allows you to monitor your system and take action based on a change in performance. The complexity of your rules is entirely up to you. But, if you give thought to their setup, you can not only be told when there is a server emergency, but the system can take action to fix it.

Published on December 7, 2014
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